The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas: Original Language and Influences

This book addresses two central questions in current research on the Gospel of Thomas : what was its original language, and which early Christian works inl uenced it? At present, theories of Thomas as a Semitic work abound. Simon Gathercole dismantles these approaches,instead that Thomas is Greek literature, and that the matter of Thomas ’s original language is connected with an even more controversial question: that of the relationship between Thomas and the canonical New Testament. Rather than arguing that Thomas is independent of Matthew, Mark and Luke (as in most Western Aramaic theories of Thomas ) or thoroughly dependent on the four Gospels (as in most Syriac approaches), Gathercole develops a newly rei ned approach to how Thomas is inl uenced by the Synoptic Gospels. Thomas can be seen to refer to Matthew as a Gospel writer, and evidence is discussed showing that Thomas incorporates phraseology distinctive to Luke, also extending that special Lukan language.