Talk:Thomas the Apostle

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[edit] Better title: Thomas (apostle)--case

Although there's a redirect from Thomas (apostle), I think the main article should be titled Thomas (apostle) in accordance with our naming conventions. Demi ^T/_C 18:11, 2005 Apr 13 (UTC)

Agreed. I was going round correcting all the broken redirects linking to "(apostle)" when I noticed this. I'd only done two, luckily, so if it is moved, we won't have to correct as many redirects. Billy H 18:15, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Raw edit material

I have moved the following edits here. Is any of this material not already fully covered in the article? (Wetman 14:41, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC))

It IS now doubted an existence of a Person called THomas.

APOSTLES- 12 WHO ARE THEY? Luke has One Jude instead of Thaddaues and another Cleopas. John' gospel has another Nathenel. Apologist try to say Thaddeus is same as Jude and Nathenel could be Barthalomew; for all these there is no actual scriptural support.

Thomas means Twin. As per Acta Thoma- based on which Thomas in India stories are created; Thomas was A Twin-Simultaniuos of Jesus, form same Mother' Womb.

John 7:5, has Jesus' Own Brothers didnot believe in him. James and Jude, 2 Epistles in New Testament stands are said as the Two Brothers of Jesus. This is now falsified by Johm7:5. If Thaddaues is same as Jude same as Juda Thomas; were not Apostle, before death of Jesus, and Thaddaues did not come to India

[edit] Reorganization

I reorganized the article to try to make it clearer for the reader (such as I) who is starting from scratch. Having been reorganized, parts should be re-written to remove redundancies, improve flow, etc. — but since I know nothing about the subject, I don't feel comfortable doing that. Doops 20:21, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] POV?

I've just had a fairly large edit reverted, on the grounds it was POV. In fact most of the edit I think was fairly safe, so I've put these bits back. Please be a bit more specific in what you regard as POV if you wish to revert, and try to preserve content, which I don't think the simple revert did at all.

The main goal of my edit was to make the whole story of Thomas available in the article, rather than base it on the one bit that everyone knows, and which most theologians now agree is not an accurate picture at all taken in isolation.

I'll have another think about the bit I've left out. It's theology, certainly, but I think it's fairly standard orthodox theology. I tried to identify it clearly as such to avoid POV. Perhaps I can do better, or perhaps it's not all that important. Andrewa 16:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I take your point about reverting too much. But give me a break: "In a sense he has priority over Paul on the key concept of dying with Christ..." What are you talking about? On what planet is that material NPOV? This is not an Anglican Wikipedia. --goethean ॐ 16:54, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this belief is restricted to the Anglican communion, of which I incidentally am not part. I agree it's not good NPOV phrasing; Can you do better?

I have no idea what thought you are trying to express. So no, I can't. --goethean ॐ 18:13, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

OK. Both Thomas and Paul talk of dying with Christ. This is a key concept in the theology of Paul. Thomas says it first. With me so far? Andrewa 21:15, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

14. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.

15. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.

16. Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.

~~It sounds to me like Thomas is saying: '...that we may die with [Lazarus].'~~

I guess by the strikeout that you have second thoughts about this, but I can't see what you were hoping to prove anyway. IMO yours is the most probable reading, and then "we" would include Jesus. Alternatively, the wider context gives a less likely but possible reading that Thomas means "die with Jesus" (see verse 8), and then "we" would just mean the disciples. But these two different structural readings are identical in meaning.

You're welcome to make whatever out of this passage, just don't force the article to embrace your view. --goethean ॐ 21:32, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that's fair at all. My "view" as you call it was intended to be a simple report of what the texts say, which is easily verified and does not appear to be in dispute. Your objections appear to be based on a particular view of what the texts in question mean, based on your own theological background and your inaccurate guesses as to mine. While my wording was not perfect, your reversion was at least as POV as what I wrote, and recklessly indifferent to the loss of good content into the bargain. You continue to belittle my attempts at NPOV. I suggest you examine your own POV assumptions, and also the Wikipedia guideline on good faith.

Here is part of your original edit:

In each of these, Thomas is the means of expressing key Christological statements.

This is POV. Secular scholars do not believe that the gospels were written in order to express theological statements.

In a sense he has priority over Paul on the key concept of dying with Christ (see Colossians 2:20),

As written, this is POV. Perhaps by "priority", you meant "chronological priority", but your wrote "priority", which usually refers to qualitative priority.

and he is the first follower of Jesus to articulate the key belief that Christ is in a sense God himself.

I'd like this to be backed up with a citation before I include it. It only applies to canonical books anyways.

That these accounts do not appear in the synoptic gospels is explained by the fact that these writers did not appreciate their significance. That understanding came later.

This is POV. It assumes the theological importance of your observations, which secular scholars do not accept. --goethean ॐ 22:15, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I have added a sentence on the subject. --goethean ॐ 21:51, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I have some reservations about your wording too, but at this stage I might leave this to other editors. The important thing is, the content identifying and describing the other relevant passages in John is back, along with the specific references to the apostle lists in the synoptics. I'm sorry you were flabbergasted. I'm afraid I think it was at least as much your fault as mine. But thanks for a challenging discussion, and for your interest in this article. Andrewa 22:03, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Update: I've now read Colossians 2:20-23 and I'm even more flabbergasted by your edit. --goethean ॐ 17:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm. Here Paul is of course writing well after the events described in John's Gospel. He's writing before the Gospel was written, but after the events it describes, including the speeches by Thomas. Andrewa 18:02, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gospel of Thomas

There is no real reference to the Gospel of Thomas in this article, is there a reason for so little information on it?

[edit] Name and Identity

I have a problem with this line:

Essentially, the logical inference is that the mainstream Christian tradition, as early as the beginning of the second century, has divided the person of Jude the Twin and rendered the one man as two, both Saint Jude and Saint Thomas.

This is not the "logical inference", at least from the information given. St. Jude the apostle and Jude, brother of Jesus are not always considered the same, just as some scholars distinguish between St. James the Less and James the Just. It is just as logical to consider St. Thomas and the brother of Jesus as one person, and St. Jude the Apostle as another. Or to consider the Apostle and the brother the same, but not Thomas. Or to consider them all separate.

I know that's confusing, but what are you gonna do. My point is, it's not really "logical" to assume a bunch of guys are actually the same person because they all have the same or similar names.--Cuchullain 03:10, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thomas in India

Regarding the history of st Thomas christians your oppinion is not perfect. Though the portugese forced the lattin littergy on st Thomas christians it was not true that after the arrival of them that St Thomas christians first contact with holy sea of rome began. Before the arrival of them caldian(eastern Syriac_persian)bishops where in charge of malabar and they where in communion with the sea of rome.After the arrival of portugese and only after the Diamper synod the oriental orthodox church comes in to the picture After the synod a fraction of St.thomas christians ended the communion with rome(in prottest of portugese attrocities and death of a nattive bishop send in from rome in the hands of the portugese) elected a bishop by "Blessing of 12 priests which was not canonical. Latter they wrote to the then pattriarch of syriac orthodox church of Antioch and his holines eventualy send bishops to bless the elected bisop.The major fraction of St.thomas christians were still in communion with the holy sea of rome since early centuries. A fra ction of the split away grou.p re enterd in to communion with rome in early 20th centuary.The rest Were further divided to form various malankara churchus.please refer syro malabar church,coonan cross oath (Anonymous) .

Can we get a source for the following text and present it as a report not as an essay, make it more accurate and keep it relevant to the subject Thomas (apostle)?

"However there are those who believe that St. Thomas never visited Kerala. This story comes from the fact that when Portuguese Christian missionaries arrived in southern India they found a sect who worshipped a god named “Thomas” and whose religion was nearly identical to Christianity. The missionaries created elaborate stories to explain the presence of the “St. Thomas Christians,” claiming that the apostles Thomas and/or Bartholomew had at some point traveled to India and preached and died there (there are two tombs for St. Thomas in India. The apostle also has a tomb in Edessa). There is no secular evidence for this story (not mentioned in any texts written between the first century and the fifteenth century in India). The object of adoration in this sect was actually Tamus or Tammuz or Salivahana (avatar of Krishna), the sacrificed savior-god. This Indian Tamus sect evidently had a gospel written in ancient Chaldee. Chaldee is proto-Hebrew/Syrian. These Syrian (Syria means Suria (Sun)) “Christians” were Indian Nazarene-Carmelites. They are also called Knanaya Yehudeya-Nasranis (Knanaya is Kanna or Krishna or Christ-na). The Abrahamic religions have their origins in India (Abraham is Ab-Brahma (father Brahma). His wife is Sarah (Brahmas wife is Saras-wathi). The stories of Khrist-na are identical to the stories of Christ (Anacalypsis by Sir Godfrey Higgins, Suns of God by Acharya S, and The Pagan Christ by Rev. Tom Harpur)."

Thanks. --Wetman 23:21, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I have some doubts as to whether Thomas made it to India. This above passage seems like a bizarre take on the modern Thomasite Churches, though. I find the "Abraham was a Hindu-ripoff" theory extremely unlikely. It seems more likely that the Syriac liturgy points to missionary activity from Edessa which is probable considering the veneration of Thomas in this city and the parallel missionary activities by Edessene Christians in Armenia and Ethiopia. The word etymologies (Krishna - Christ ... This is not possible.) and the use of "Chaldee" and "proto-Hebrew/Syrian" (why not just call it Syriac or Aramaic) make these references even more sketchy to me. Christian Askeland 16:44, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Also check out http://hamsa.org/ about thomas being in india. No real proof it seems sadly

[edit] John & Thomas - Just a thought:

You can't find something within yourself (Thomas) unless you know what you are looking for (John).

[edit] most scholars

I think the following is not as accurate as it could be:

"the Gospel of Thomas, a noncanonical work which many scholars believe may actually predate the writing of the Biblical gospels themselves."

The dilemma here is the "many". It could equally be said that many do not affirm this statement. Indeed, many secular scholars in North America do believe Thomas to be earlier. British and Continental scholars would date it later. How about one of the following possibilities:

"the Gospel of Thomas, a noncanonical work which *many North American scholars* believe may actually predate the writing of the Biblical gospels themselves."

"the Gospel of Thomas, a noncanonical work which *some scholars* believe may actually predate the writing of the Biblical gospels themselves."

Also, "Biblical" should be lowercase. Christian Askeland 15:53, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The theology of Thomas and of John are unalterably opposed.

This is POV, and maybe a little ambiguous. Here are my issues:

1 - If this stays it should read: "The theologies of the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas are utterly opposed."

2 - Pagel's views, while very popular, are disputed.

3 - Origen's quote needs to go for sure:

"Thomas is like the synoptic gospels in speaking of Jesus as human, as Origen noticed: "none of them clearly spoke of his divinity, as John does" (Commentary on John 1.6)"

Origen's quote does not substantiate a synoptic rejection or ignorance of Jesus' divinity. Check ComMatth XII 6 : http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen-matthew.html

Clearly Origen DID believe that the synoptics taught Christ's divinity.

4 - John's gospel was accepted "not without reserve on the part of some Christian communities" ??

From the point of a papyrologist, John's gospel is the earliest and most frequently attested thing we have. Who did not like John's Gospel? The two smaller epistles and the Apocalypse were contested, but were finally accepted based on their apostleship and relationship to the gospel. Is this something that Pagels posited from internal evidence in the gospels of John and Thomas?

I am open to correction here. Especially on this last point. I suggest, however, that this section should probably be replaced with a link to the Gospel of Thomas page where multiple points of view can be laid out on the Gospel of Thomas.Christian Askeland 16:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Here is the section, as taken from the article.

[edit] Thomas and John

The theology of Thomas and of John are unalterably opposed. The Gospel of John was accepted in the canon, though not without reserve on the part of some Christian communities, and the roughly contemporary Gospel of Thomas was preserved only by being hidden in the sands at Nag Hammadi. Elaine Pagels' widely-read Beyond Belief (2003) devotes a chapter to these "Gospels in Conflict": "Thomas' gospel encourages the hearer not so much to believe in Jesus, as John requires, as to seek to know God, through one's own, divinely given capacity" (Pagels 2003 p 34). Thomas is like the synoptic gospels in speaking of Jesus as human, as Origen noticed: "none of them clearly spoke of his divinity, as John does" (Commentary on John 1.6). Thomas and John give similar accounts of what Jesus taught privately, but Thomas is not embedded in a narrative: John interrupts the narrative to give five chapters of Jesus' private discourse in John 13 - 18. Both gospels characterize Jesus as God's own light in human shape.

The conclusions drawn in the two gospels are diametrically opposed: John claims that the divine light is embodied only in Jesus, while Thomas' Jesus urges the apostles to find it within each of them.

In addition to the above objections, the use of Origen's quote implies that Origen was speaking of the Gospel of Thomas as well, when in fact he was only speaking of the canonical four gospels. It also chops off the sentence without so much as an elipsis to indicate the missing text. The full sentence reads, For none of these [synoptic gospels] plainly declared His Godhead, as John does when he makes Him say, "I am the light of the world," "I am the way and the truth and the life," "I am the resurrection, "I am the door," "I am the good shepherd;" and in the Apocalypse, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." Though some of this text is worth keeping, all the same ideas are already found in the Gospel of Thomas article; there's no need for this section here. Wesley 17:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

That is not to say that the text is irrelevant here, it should be added. Many articles in Wikipedia overlap. Perhaps User:Wesley would have the grace to begin by returning whatever of this text he personally finds "worth keeping" from his point-of-view, and we may proceed from there. Surely a comparison is permitted between Thomas and John, or must the article only report what Gospel of John has to say of Thomas? What is in the suppressed text that is genuinely outside the broad mainstream? --Wetman 03:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Wetman: Thanks. I am guessing that Wesley would not disagree with your statement: "Surely a comparison is permitted between Thomas and John". I assume you mean GThomas and GJohn. The problem is that this section assumes that GJohn and GThomas were written by the apostles John and Thomas. People dispute these claims (on both accounts). Valantasis has, for instance, a different take on GJohn and GThomas in his commentary than Pagels. This post posited as fact the views of one scholar on a subject which are not universally accepted.

Another problem is that the Gospel of Thomas has very little to say about Thomas as a historic individual versus GJohn in which Thomas is a key character. It seems there are two possibilities for this section:

1. Compare the historical individual Thomas as he is portrayed in all early literature... the canonical and non-canonical texts. I have not read them all. GThomas will not feature in a big way here. Other than John and the Acts of Thomas I am not sure what would be appropriate here.

2. Compare the theology of GThomas versus that of the canonical gospels (no reason to restrict to John.)

The second is very difficult because GThomas can be interpreted in so many ways (I thought S Davies did a good job covering this in his Thomas book.) The problem is sophisticated to the degree that I say leave it to the GThomas wiki. Christian Askeland 15:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes from the far side

I can write anything on wikipedia I want regardless of whether it is true or not! I have never seen as many lies on one website, perhaps if you believe the wikipediates everyone is gay! Good thing this lunacy is reserved for non-scholars that really believe this crap! Neutrality is for those who cannot tell the truth ever. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 217.207.103.252 (talk • contribs).

[edit] Merge w/ Jude Thomas

It had been suggested that this article be merged with Jude Thomas. It doesn't seem appropriate to me. Can someone else take a look and see if this article should have a reference to that one, however. I'm uncertain. GRBerry 02:47, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I found that this reference is already here. Not all that visible, but good enough. GRBerry 02:50, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV Tag

I have added the POV tag so someone can deal with the section on Shakespeare. This is written from the first person and seems to be one person's ramblings. If speculation that Jesus and Thomas were twins has some scholarly currency, or if it is a major part of the public perception of Thomas, it should be included, but certainly not in a section which quotes The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail as a source. --rustcellar 01:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the history, I see that this is historic vandalism and as before I have simply removed it.--rustcellar 01:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thomas the Twin

The article says something along the lines of, "No text, whether canonical or non-canonical, says who Thomas' other twin was", but doesn't the Book of Thomas the Contender state that Thomas was Jesus' twin? I'm sure that there are other references aside from that one epistle, but maybe some of them should be discussed in the article? You see, it's not just the Da Vinci Coders that are interested in these other works. Dan Brown just ruined it for all the rest of us.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.123.220.201 (talk • contribs).

Good call: in the Book of Thomas the Contender is the line "Now, since it has been said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself." Why not cautiously amend the text? --Wetman 10:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, good work. I added a reference to the Book of Thomas; please review.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:46, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

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