The Gospel of Thomas: The Gnostic Wisdom of Jesus

The book starts off discussing what Gnosticism is and why the Christian church really hated the Gnostics. There's not a whole lot that remains about them or their writings (again because the Church hated them and tried to wipe them and their work out.)

The Gnostics stressed the role of knowledge in religious life. The book says they believed that our intellectual power has grown faster than our moral power. We need to become 'awakened' human beings. The spiritual emphasis has more to do with energy than with thought. (There is no need for a hierarchy of priests, etc. between us and God.)

The book discusses where what remains of their writings were found. The writings have nothing about a biography of Jesus and no miracles he performed.

For some reason the author then has a section (pages 6 through 57) which have the original text on the left and a translation on the right. The rest of the book has each translated section (thus repeating them) and a discussion of what that verse means.

The stages in gnosis are:

1. The quest.
2. Discovery.
3. Disturbance caused by the discovery.
4. Wonder.
5. The presence.
6. The hidden God within us.

James, Jesus's brother, was basically second-in-command. Physical, psychic and spiritual wholeness can be part of healing.

We need to discover our 'true' selves.

Hate is a form of darkness.

Verse 33 basically says we need to walk the talk. Verse 37 tells us to dismiss preconceived notions. All things with pass. Section 45 says 'by their fruits ye shall know them.' In other words, what a person actually does allows us to better understand the person. Verse 72 shows us that Jesus held women on an equal footing with men.

In fact there was a group of women that followed him and supported him and his movement financially. Mary Magdalene was one of these people and from what I have read it sees she really understood just what he was saying. The Gospel of Mary has a section where she was talking to the male disciples and a couple of them were very upset that Jesus seemed to have told her things he hadn't told them.

Some of the main points of the book include:

A very important tenant is that we can hope to transform the world only if we can transform ourselves.

They emphasized the integration of both our male and female selves.

The book also includes web links and a bibliography.