In this lecture, Prof. Jiang goes beyond scripture to reconstruct the historical Jesus, revealing a forgotten spiritual system known as Gnosticism, a religion of secret knowledge, light within, and liberation from the false material world.
Also forgotten was the Jesus Seminar, a group of biblical scholars and lay associates founded in 1985 by Robert W Funk to renew the quest of the historical Jesus. Using a democratic voting method after extensive debate, the seminar analyzed sayings and deeds attributed to Jesus in early Christian texts, including the canonical Gospels and texts like the Gospel of Thomas. Its work, published in works like The Five Gospels, aimed to distinguish the historical Jesus from the “Christ of faith” and make its findings accessible to the public.
A minority of scholars, including John Dominic Crossan, Helmut Koester, and others associated with the Jesus Seminar, argue that the Gospel of Thomas is independent of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and may even preserve material as early as — or earlier than — them.
Here’s a breakdown of their reasoning:
Thomas contains 114 short sayings (logia) of Jesus, most without any narrative structure — no miracles, no passion story, no resurrection accounts, and very little apocalyptic imagery. Crossan and Koester argue that this “sayings gospel” form reflects an earlier stage of Christian tradition, before the narrative framework of the Synoptic Gospels developed.
In their view, the earliest Jesus followers circulated his teachings orally, not stories of his life and death.
The Gospel of Thomas might represent such a pre-narrative collection of sayings — a primitive layer of Jesus’ teaching tradition. Unlike Matthew and Luke, which clearly follow Mark’s narrative sequence and often reproduce his wording, Thomas shows no trace of Mark’s sequence or literary style. Similar sayings appear in different contexts or with different wording, suggesting Thomas did not copy the Synoptics. This independence points to a parallel oral tradition — one that may even predate the written Synoptics. Some sayings in Thomas appear to be more primitive or less developed than their canonical parallels. Crossan argues that Thomas preserves the earlier, simpler form, while the Synoptics expanded and theologized it later implying that Thomas draws on earlier oral material shared by Jesus’ first followers.
Thomas also shows no concern with issues central to later Christian doctrine — such as Jesus’ divinity, crucifixion, or resurrection.
Instead, its focus is on self-knowledge and enlightenment: “The Kingdom is within you and it is outside you.” Crossan sees this as evidence of a first-generation understanding of Jesus’ message before it was reshaped into the theological frameworks seen in Paul or the canonical Gospels.
The Gospel of Thomas seems to have Syrian or Egyptian roots (likely written in Greek, later preserved in Coptic at Nag Hammadi). This distance from the Palestinian and Roman contexts of the Synoptics could suggest independent preservation of early oral traditions, not derived from the canonical texts.
Crossan and Koester note strong overlap between Thomas and the hypothetical Q source (the lost “sayings source” used by Matthew and Luke). They propose that Thomas and Q may stem from the same early sayings tradition, both predating Mark. If Q is early (c. 40–50 CE), Thomas could share its first-century origin, perhaps composed independently by a community devoted to Jesus’ wisdom teachings.
Based on linguistic and thematic analysis, Crossan dates Thomas’s core to 50–70 CE, predating the canonical Gospels, with later redactions added by Gnostic scribes.
(29) Jesus said: If the flesh came into existence because of the spirit, it is a marvel. But if the spirit (came into existence) because of the body, it is a marvel of marvels. But as for me, I wonder at this, how this great wealth made its home in this poverty.
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