Richard Valantasis writes: Valantasis and other scholars argue that it is difficult to date Thomas because, as a collection of
logia without a narrative framework, individual sayings could have been added to it gradually over time. Valantasis dates Thomas to 100–110 AD, with some of the material, in his view, certainly coming from the first stratum, which he dates to 30–60 AD. J. R. Porter dates the Gospel of Thomas to 250 AD. Scholars generally fall into one of two main camps: an "early camp" favoring a date for the core "before the end of the first century," prior to or approximately contemporary with the composition of the canonical gospels; and a more common "late camp" favoring a date in the 2nd century, after composition of the canonical gospels. In August 2023, the
Egypt Exploration Society published the second century
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 5575, which includes the earliest attestion of material associated with the Gospel of Thomas.
Argument for early composition Form of the gospel Theissen and Merz argue the genre of a collection of sayings was one of the earliest forms in which material about Jesus was handed down. They assert that other collections of sayings, such as the Q source and the collection underlying
Mark 4, were absorbed into larger narratives and no longer survive as independent documents, and that no later collections in this form survive.
Marvin Meyer also asserted that the genre of a "sayings collection" is indicative of the 1st century, and that in particular the "use of parables without allegorical amplification" seems to antedate the canonical gospels.
Independence from synoptic gospels Stevan L. Davies argues that the apparent independence of the ordering of sayings in Thomas from that of their parallels in the synoptics shows that Thomas was not evidently reliant upon the canonical gospels and probably predated them. Some authors argue that Thomas was a source for Mark, usually considered the earliest of the synoptic gospels. Several authors argue that when the logia in Thomas do have parallels in the synoptics, the version in Thomas often seems closer to the source. Theissen and Merz give sayings 31 (
Rejection at Nazareth) and 65 (
Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen) as examples of this. Koester agrees, citing especially the parables contained in sayings 8, 9, 57, 63, 64 and 65. In the few instances where the version in Thomas seems to be dependent on the synoptics, Koester suggests, this may be due to the influence of the person who translated the text from Greek into Coptic. Koester also argues that the absence of narrative materials, such as those found in the canonical gospels, in Thomas makes it unlikely that the gospel is "an eclectic excerpt from the gospels of the New Testament". He also cites the absence of the
eschatological sayings considered characteristic of Q source to show the independence of Thomas from that source.
Intertextuality with the Gospel of John Another argument for an early date is what some scholars have suggested is an interplay between the
Gospel of John and the
logia of Thomas. Parallels between the two have been taken to suggest that Thomas's
logia preceded John's work, and that the latter was making a point-by-point riposte to Thomas, either in real or mock conflict. This seeming dialectic has been pointed out by several New Testament scholars, notably Gregory J. Riley,
April DeConick, and
Elaine Pagels. Though differing in approach, they argue that several verses in the Gospel of John are best understood as responses to a Thomasine community and its beliefs. Pagels, for example, says that the Gospel of John states that Jesus contains the divine light, while several of Thomas's sayings refer to the light born 'within'. The Gospel of John is the only canonical one that gives Thomas the Apostle a dramatic role and spoken part, and Thomas is the only character therein described as being (), despite the failings of virtually all the Johannine characters to live up to the author's standards of belief. With respect to the famous story of "
Doubting Thomas", it is suggested that the author of John may have been denigrating or ridiculing a rival school of thought. In another apparent contrast, John's text matter-of-factly presents a bodily resurrection as if this is a
sine qua non of the faith; in contrast, Thomas's insights about the spirit-and-body are more nuanced. For Thomas, resurrection seems more a cognitive event of spiritual attainment, one even involving a certain discipline or asceticism. Again, an apparently denigrating portrayal in the "Doubting Thomas" story may either be taken literally, or as a kind of mock "comeback" to Thomas's logia: not as an outright censuring of Thomas, but an improving gloss, as Thomas's thoughts about the spirit and body are not dissimilar from those presented elsewhere in John. John portrays Thomas as physically touching the risen Jesus, inserting fingers and hands into his body, and ending with a shout. Pagels interprets this as signifying one-upmanship by John, who is forcing Thomas to acknowledge Jesus's bodily nature. She writes that "he shows Thomas giving up his search for experiential truthhis 'unbelief'to confess what John sees as the truth". The point of these examples, as used by Riley and Pagels, is to support the argument that the text of Thomas must have existed and have gained a following at the time of the writing of the Gospel of John, and that the importance of the Thomasine logia was great enough that the author of John felt the necessity of weaving them into their own narrative. As this scholarly debate continued, theologian Christopher W. Skinner disagreed with Riley, DeConick, and Pagels over any possible John–Thomas interplay, and concluded that in the book of John, Thomas the disciple "is merely one stitch in a wider literary pattern where uncomprehending characters serve as
foils for Jesus's words and deeds."
Role of James Albert Hogeterp argues that the Gospel's saying 12, which attributes leadership of the community to
James the Just rather than to
Peter, agrees with the description of the early Jerusalem church by Paul in Galatians 2:1–14 and may reflect a tradition predating 70 AD. Meyer also lists "uncertainty about James the righteous, the brother of Jesus" as characteristic of a 1st-century origin. In later traditions (most notably in the Acts of Thomas, Book of Thomas the Contender, etc.), Thomas is regarded as the twin brother of Jesus.
Depiction of Peter and Matthew In saying 13, Peter and Matthew are depicted as unable to understand the true significance or identity of Jesus. Patterson argues that this can be interpreted as a criticism against the school of Christianity associated with the Gospel of Matthew, and that "[t]his sort of rivalry seems more at home in the first century than later", when all the apostles had become revered figures.
Parallel with Paul According to Meyer, Thomas's saying 17"I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard and no hand has touched, and what has not come into the human heart" is strikingly similar to what
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9, which was itself an allusion to Isaiah 64:4.
Argument for late composition The late camp dates Thomas some time after 100 AD, generally in the early second century. They generally believe that although the text was composed around the mid-second century, it contains earlier sayings such as those originally found in the New Testament gospels of which Thomas was in some sense dependent in addition to inauthentic and possibly authentic independent sayings not found in any other extant text. J. R. Porter dates Thomas much later, to the mid-third century.
Dependence on the New Testament Several scholars have argued that the sayings in Thomas reflect conflations and harmonisations dependent on the canonical gospels. For example, saying 10 and 16 appear to contain a redacted harmonisation of Luke 12:49, 12:51–52 and Matthew 10:34–35. In this case it has been suggested that the dependence is best explained by the author of Thomas making use of an earlier harmonised oral tradition based on Matthew and Luke. Biblical scholar
Craig A. Evans also subscribes to this view and notes that "Over half of the New Testament writings are quoted, paralleled, or alluded to in Thomas... I'm not aware of a Christian writing prior to 150 AD that references this much of the New Testament."
Mark Goodacre also argues that Thomas is dependent on the Synoptics. Another argument made for the late dating of Thomas is based upon the fact that saying 5 in the original Greek (Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 654) seems to follow the vocabulary used in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 8:17), and not the vocabulary used in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 4:22). According to this argumentwhich presupposes the rectitude of
Marcan priority in which the author of Luke is seen as having used the gospel of Mark to compose their gospelif the author of Thomas did, as saying 5 suggests, refer to a pre-existing Gospel of Luke, rather than Mark's vocabulary, then the Gospel of Thomas must have been composed after both Mark and Luke, the latter of which is dated to between 60 and 90 AD. Another saying that employs similar vocabulary to that used in Luke rather than Mark is saying 31 in the original Greek (Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1), where Luke 4:24's term () is employed rather than Mark 6:4's (). The word (in all its cases and genders) is clearly typical of Luke, since it is only employed by the author in the canonical gospels Luke 4:19, 4:24, and Acts 10:35. Thus, the argument runs, the Greek Thomas has clearly been at least influenced by Luke's characteristic vocabulary. J. R. Porter states that, because around half of the sayings in Thomas have parallels in the synoptic gospels, it is "possible that the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas were selected directly from the canonical gospels and were either reproduced more or less exactly or amended to fit the author's distinctive theological outlook." According to
John P. Meier, scholars predominantly conclude that Thomas depends on or harmonizes the Synoptics.
Syriac origin Several scholars argue that Thomas is dependent on Syriac writings, including unique versions of the canonical gospels. They contend that many sayings of the Gospel of Thomas are more similar to Syriac translations of the canonical gospels than their record in the original Greek.
Craig A. Evans states that saying 54 in Thomas, which speaks of the poor and the kingdom of heaven, is more similar to the Syriac version of Matthew 5:3 than the Greek version of that passage or the parallel in Luke 6:20.
Klyne Snodgrass notes that saying 65–66 of Thomas containing the
Parable of the Wicked Tenants appears to be dependent on the early harmonisation of Mark and Luke found in the old Syriac gospels. He concludes that, "
Thomas, rather than representing the earliest form, has been shaped by this harmonizing tendency in Syria. If the
Gospel of Thomas were the earliest, we would have to imagine that each of the evangelists or the traditions behind them expanded the parable in different directions and then that in the process of transmission the text was trimmed back to the form it has in the Syriac Gospels. It is much more likely that Thomas, which has a Syrian provenance, is dependent on the tradition of the canonical Gospels that has been abbreviated and harmonized by oral transmission."
Nicholas Perrin argues that Thomas is dependent on the
Diatessaron, which was composed shortly after 172 by
Tatian in Syria. Perrin explains the order of the sayings by attempting to demonstrate that almost all adjacent sayings are connected by Syriac catchwords, whereas in Coptic or Greek, catchwords have been found for only less than half of the pairs of adjacent sayings. Peter J. Williams analyzed Perrin's alleged Syriac catchwords and found them implausible.
Robert F. Shedinger wrote that since Perrin attempts to reconstruct an
Old Syriac version of Thomas without first establishing Thomas's reliance on the
Diatessaron, Perrin's logic seems
circular.
Lack of apocalyptic themes Bart D. Ehrman argues that the
historical Jesus was an
apocalyptic preacher, and that his apocalyptic beliefs and the views of his earliest followers are recorded in the earliest Christian documents: Mark and the authentic
Pauline epistles. The Gospel of Thomas proclaims that the Kingdom of God is already present for those who understand the secret message of Jesus (saying 113) and lacks apocalyptic themes. Because of this, Ehrman argues the Gospel of Thomas was probably composed by a Gnostic in the early 2nd century. Ehrman also argued against the authenticity of the sayings the Gospel of Thomas attributes to Jesus.
Elaine Pagels points out the Gospel of Thomas promulgates the Kingdom of God not as a final destination but a state of self-discovery. Additionally, the Gospel of Thomas conveys that Jesus ridiculed those who thought of the Kingdom of God in literal terms, as if it were a specific place. Pagels goes on to argue that, through saying 22, readers are to believe the "Kingdom" symbolizes a state of transformed consciousness.
John P. Meier has repeatedly argued against the historicity of the Gospel of Thomas, stating that it cannot be a reliable source for the
quest for the Historical Jesus and also considers it a Gnostic text. He has also argued against the authenticity of the parables found exclusively in the Gospel of Thomas.
Bentley Layton included the Gospel of Thomas into his list of Gnostic scriptures.
Craig A. Evans has argued that the Gospel of Thomas represents the theological motives of 2nd century Egyptian Christianity and is dependent on the Synoptic Gospels and the Diatesseron.
N.T. Wright, Anglican bishop and professor of New Testament history, also sees the dating of Thomas in the 2nd or 3rd century. Wright's reasoning for this dating is that the "narrative framework" of 1st-century Judaism and the New Testament is radically different from the worldview expressed in the sayings collected in the Gospel of Thomas. Thomas makes an anachronistic mistake by turning Jesus the Jewish prophet into a Hellenistic/Cynic philosopher. Wright concludes his section on the Gospel of Thomas in his book
The New Testament and the People of God in this way: ==Relation to the New Testament canon==