  the gospel according to thomas, commonly shortened to the gospel of thomas, is a well-preserved early christian, non-canonical sayings-gospel which many scholars believe provides insight into the oral gospel traditions. it was discovered near nag hammadi, egypt, in december 1945, in one of a group of books known as the nag hammadi library. the gospel of thomas was found among a collection of fifty-two writings that included, in addition to an excerpt from plato's republic, gospels claiming to have been written by jesus' disciple philip. scholars have speculated that the works were buried in response to a letter from bishop athanasius, who for the first time declared a strict canon of christian scripture.bound by a method now called coptic binding, the books (technically called codices) were found in an earthenware jar by a group of peasants who broke open the jar and otherwise subjected the books to careless treatment resulting in significant damage the coptic-language text, the second of seven contained in what modern-day scholars have designated as codex ii, is composed of 114 sayings attributed to jesus.modern-day scholars have numbered the sayings and even parts of the sayings, but the text contains no numbering. almost half of these sayings resemble those found in the canonical gospels, while it is speculated that the other sayings were added from gnostic tradition.lost scriptures: books that did not make it into the new testament  by bart ehrman, pp. 19-20 its place of origin may have been syria, where thomasine traditions were strong.eerdmans commentary on the bible by james d. g. dunn, john william rogerson, 2003, isbn 0-8028-3711-5 page 1574 the introduction states: "these are the hidden words that the living jesus spoke and didymos judas thomas wrote them down."the fifth gospel, patterson, robinson, bethge, 1998 didymus (greek) and thomas (aramaic) both mean "twin". some critical scholars suspect that this reference to the apostle thomas is false, and that therefore the true author is unknown.april d. deconick 2006 the original gospel of thomas in translation isbn 0-567-04382-7 page 2 it is possible that the document originated within a school of early christians, possibly proto-gnostics.layton, bentley, the gnostic scriptures, 1987, p.361. some critics further claim that even the description of thomas as a "gnostic" gospel is based upon little other than the fact that it was found along with gnostic texts at nag hammadi.davies, stevan l., the g
Apocryphal_collections_of_logia Coptic_literature Gnostic_Gospels Gnosticism Thomas_the_Apostle