Comparing Jesus In The Gospel Q And The Gospel Of Thomas

Year after year, the Bible in all its multitudinous versions remains the number one best-seller in the world. The various “Bibles” we have available today, however, contain only the books of the traditional “canon” – those that have at one point or another been approved for inclusion by church authorities. The truth remains that we do not have an original manuscript of even a single word of the Bible. The many Bibles we now have are copies, which are therefore prone to inaccuracies, oversight, or translations, which by their nature are also always interpretations that bear the telltale marks of the eras in which they were created and are not free of the theological biases of those that recorded them. But what if we did have handy a perfectly
In referring to both, the sayings gospel Q and the Gospel of Thomas as gospels of “wisdom”, Meyer suggests that both texts indicate that Jesus was the epitome of wisdom, neither confirming, nor denying his divinity (60-61). Without ever using titles associated with divinity to refer to Jesus and omitting mention of widely believed notions of his virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection, and the final judgment, the author insists that “Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas performs no physical miracles, reveals no fulfillment of prophecy, announces no apocalyptic kingdom about to disrupt the world order, and dies for no one’s sins” (61-62). Widely regarded to have been written independently of the canonical Gospels, The Gospel of Thomas, Meyer claims, postulates other dimensions of meaning (distinct from those the canonical gospels preach) in hoping that the devout will find their own responses to and interpretations of Jesus’ words. In discovering the wisdom of Jesus’s sayings as noted in the Gospel of Thomas and the Thomas tradition, the author proclaims, “insight is realized, and life is found” (73). Drawing further the significance of the “spiritual” experience is Chapter 4, “The Wisdom of Insight,” which delves into the Secret Book of John, and other texts in the Sethian tradition. Meyer provides an overview of the Sethian texts and their call for self-recognition and contemplation, and Sophia, or Wisdom, we learn, is a divine feminine figure in the Gnostic mythological scheme with an empowering message that divine wholeness can never be restored within one through misguided acts of piety dedicated to false gods, but by our own gnosis – our awareness, insight, and knowledge – of the inherent divinity we have all been bestowed with (83-115). Chapter 5, “Valentinus the Christian Mystic,” discusses the