Extra-Biblical Books? Part 3C: The Gnostic Gospels

Extra-Biblical Books? Part 3C: The Gnostic Gospels
Monday, June 22, 2026 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Contemporary issues / Scripture discussion / Spiritual deception / The church / Thought for Today

What does the “Jesus” of “The Gospel of Thomas” teach? What does he proclaim? Will we find this “Jesus” teaching the same things as the biblical Jesus? All quotes are taken from: Dart, John and Ray Riegert. “The Gospel of Thomas: Unearthing the Lost Words of Jesus.” Berkeley: Seastone, 2000.

The gospel starts (page 14): “These are the secret words that the living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down.” One sees the Gnostic bent from the start: the book reveals secret wisdom known only to Gnostic teachers and their initiates.

There are roughly 70 sayings that parallel what Jesus said in the actual New Testament Gospels. Here is one (page 34): “If a blind man leads a blind man, both of them will fall into a ditch.”

That so many sayings parallel the New Testament Gospels helps “Thomas” have an appearance of legitimacy. It is therefore potentially easier to fool those who aren’t familiar with or reject portions of the New Testament Gospels.

There are many sayings unique to “Thomas.” For example (page 28):

“Jesus saw some infants being nursed and said to his disciples, ‘These children are like those who enter the kingdom.’ They said to him, ‘If we are children shall we enter the kingdom?’ Jesus said to them, ‘When you make the two one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male is not male and the female not female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, and an image in place of an image, then you shall enter the kingdom.’"

According to Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 8:1, prior to being split into separate male and female beings, Adam was an androgynous whole. We tend to think that the sexual identity issues our culture currently face are somehow new. Yet here in “Thomas,” with this saying, we see a blurring of male and female, with the male not being male and the female not being female. What does this “one” look like? The text doesn’t answer that question, leaving it open.

Page 55: “When you bring forth what is in you, what you have will save you. That which you do not have in you will kill you if you do not know it within you.”

What does this saying tell us? Salvation is something that we must possess and bring forth from within. It is not found outside of ourself. There is no biblical Jesus who died on the cross for our sins.

Here is another cryptic saying (page 63): “Adam came into existence from great power and great wealth yet was not worthy of you. For had he been worthy, he would not have tasted death.”

Adam is lost, not worthy of being redeemed. One can infer that since he wasn’t enlightened, he is forever lost.

The most controversial saying of all (page 114): “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary leave us, because women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I shall lead her so that I can make her male in order that she also may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’”

On one level, women will understandably find this saying extremely offensive. Yet on a different level, what the saying states has largely happened in our culture, with women in essence seeking to become like men (the reverse is arguably also true with the feminization of men).

One would think that “The Gospel of Thomas” would be rejected based on this last quote (the final saying in “Thomas”). But no, its denial of Jesus Christ is more important. Its move towards non-binary identity is arguably another key. Just as people do with the real Bible and a passage they don’t like, that last saying can be ignored.

Are any of these other sayings even remotely biblical? No. It is easy to understand why Gnostic writings like “The Gospel of Thomas,” along with the others we’ve briefly looked at, not to mention all the others, were excluded from Scripture. They are not biblical, go directly against what the genuine gospels teach, and are not from God. Rather, they are from a different spiritual source. They declare other gospels, gospels that are false, gospels that Scripture, particularly the book of Galatians, warn against and condemn.

In the next post, we will begin looking at the various books of Enoch.

Share This Blog: