The Gospel of St Thomas
£4.99
The Gospel of St Thomas - Every man, woman and child should have one of these as a day to day glimpse into the philosophies of Jesus. My own interpretation of Jesus message written for the people comes across loud and clear to me, in fact I think I was meant to read this book, because it echos those feelings deep in my own heart. When feeling down,for what ever reason, pick up this beautiful little book and you can only feel better. Don t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing Jesus said this ....... This book is a valuable guide to life as much in todays world as then. Jesus was a man, a Son of God,, all people in his eyes were equal ..... no matter the creed, colour, race, nation, gender or sex. Truly a man for all time. His life and death is testimony to what can actually happen to a person who tries to buck the system - or challeneg power structures ... they get crucified, this is a metaphor for torture, struggle and death dying for ones beliefs, having the courage of ones convictions against all the odds .... being true to ones heart. In this little book Jesus says we must not be afraid to be true to ourselves and that in our loneliness and solitude we will find ourselves and that God is in us all, as he did for 40 days and 40 nights. How refreshing to read such beautiful words rather than being preached to about hell and damnation.
A well ordered and carefully colated translation. - The Gospel According to Thomas is controversial. Marvin Meyer has essentially declined to enter the controversy. Rather he offers a simple translation in the order in which each of the original two scripts appeared. The Greek script is the earlier, but also the least clear and least complete. The author has paid a great deal of attention to possible errors in previous translations and, here and there, has suggested possible words for fragmentary papyrus.Altogether a sound professional work.
Most Interesting - The Gospel of Thomas was discovered in 1945 among the Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. It contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus and after reading it I would have thought that those scholars that posit the existance of the hypothetical Q document must have received a bit of a boost when it was discovered. The translation is presented alongside the original coptic text and in addition, the book contains good quality unbiased commentary. Many of the sayings are a spartan version of the familiar ones from the New Testament but others are not, this has led some silly orthodox types to declare that the familiar stuff is genuine while the rest is apocryphal. The highly cryptic and enigmatic nature of the material could provide hours of endless amusement for those who feel inclined to try to work out what it all means, whether it will lead you to the meaning of life or just leave you more baffled than when you started I m not sure. It certainly provides a fascinating window into the past and could maybe provide some insight into the origins and true meaning of Christianity.