The Gospel of Thomas Association

The Gospel of Thomas Association was created on January 1, 2007 by direct authorization of the Association's Constitution. It has been authorized as a 501(c)7 non-profit organization as a social organization by the Internal Revenue Service as of the date of the organization's creation in Abilene, Texas in Taylor County, Texas.
The Constitution and Bylaws of the Organization of The Gospel of Thomas Association (The GTA) reads as follows: A group of Thomasine Christians in the West Texas proximity united in spreading the good news that Jesus taught in the Gospel of Thomas, it also has an active worldwide membership on Facebook. In 1945, The Gospel of Thomas was discovered around Nag Hammadi, Egypt.(1) It is acknowledged around the world by such notable authors as James D. Tabor and Stevan Davies in their books, that there are authentic words of Jesus in this Gospel.(2) The original title of this gospel may have been just "The Sayings of Jesus," as indicated in the prologue to the gospel's text.(3) The great majority of the text by a consensus of historical Jesus scholars date the gospel to the middle of the first century or soon after.(4) Stevan Davies in his book, The Gospel of Thomas: Translated and Annotated, Shambhala Edition, gives much credibility to this argument. It is believed that The Gospel of Thomas relies on the oral transmission of Apostolic witness and probably predates and in a more original form than the four canonical gospels.(5) Does the Gospel of Thomas have something for us today? Will it speak to you? Does the message in this early revered gospel of antiquity touch on answers that all mankind can draw from?(6) It is these very unanswered questions that have helped spur on an association that aids in the transmission of this over 2000 year old message. Just as Jesus said in Saying 33 to tell his message from the rooftops! The Gospel of Thomas Association or (The GTA) was created in the year of 2007 to help foster understanding of this sacred text and its message. The association was started by Jerry Wayne Macek as President of the organization and Juan Zamaripas Jr. as Vice-President, per the organizing charter and constitution. The Association has a very inclusive non-discrimination policy as stated in Amendment One to the Constitution. The Organization can be notified as recorded by the Association: The Gospel of Thomas Association, P.O. Box 5849, Abilene, Texas 79608 or at the Association's website that can be found at www.thegospelofthomasassociation.org.
THREE BASIC STATEMENTS OF THOMASINE BELIEF:
These statements were composed by The Gospel of Thomas Association, as an adaptation of the precepts of Divine Thought that is found in The Gospel According to Thomas. These three statements of belief are not meant as a rulebook by the organization, but as an aid in one's spiritual life. Please use accordingly.
l. The Gospel of Thomas, The Praise
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is One! I am a child of God. I come from God, and I have returned to God. I am essentially One with Jesus, in the Communion of The Father. I accept Jesus as my Personal Image, Whose Twinship is the Light of the World. I AM the Father, the Son Within, and in the Holy Spirit, Our Mother. Amen.
2. The Thomasine Oration, The Oration
I am a Divine Being on earth, because I have learned the Truth. We one by one and by our own accord, have become resurrected Spirits in the Lord. Saved by our Illumination and our Brother Jesus, we have been given knowledge of our Beginnings. Glory to the Perfect Spiritual Kingdom, The Creator and His Children on Earth and in Heaven. All praise and Glory to the Lord our God, who is the Father of us all! Praise and glory to the Father's Holy Spirit, who is the Mother of us all, Now and Forever, and Ever, Amen, and Selah!
3.The Declaration of Thomasine Belief, The Declaration
This is Our Declaration that we as Thomasine Christians do not believe in a Universal Theological Dictatorship, by Any Church, Preachers, Bishops, or Roman Catholic Popes. Instead, we rely totally on the intervention of God, who speaks to us from within, and grants us The Kingdom of Heaven, Now and Forever! Amen.
Footnotes and Resources:
*(1) Biblical Archaeology Review, July-October 2009 issue. Vol.35, NOs 4/5, page 94. "Until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945, the Gnostic view of early Christianity had largely been forgotten. The movement's teachings-vilified since the rise of Orthodox Christianity in the fourth century-had been virtually erased from history by the early church fathers, its gospels banned and even burned to make room for the view of Christian theology outlined in the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But when two peasants discovered a 13--volume library of Coptic texts hidden beneath a large boulder near the town of Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt, the world was reintroduced to this long-forgotten and much-maligned branch of early Christian thought."
*(2)Tabor D. James, The Jesus Dynasty, New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster 2007. page 255. "Although the text itself dates to the 3rd Century, scholars have shown that it preserves, despite later theological embellishments, an original Aramaic document that comes to us from the early days of the Jerusalem church. It provides us a rare glimpse into what scholars have called Jewish Christianity, that is, the earliest followers of Jesus led by James."
*(3)Meyer, Marvin, The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings. New York: Harper San Francisco, l992. page 77. "The incipit, or opening of the document, provides what is most likely the earlier version of the title. A second later title is given at the end of the document."
*(4)Davies, Stevan, The Gospel of Thomas: Translated and Annotated by Stevan Davies, Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2004. Page Xliii. "The Gospel of Thomas, it now appears, is very likely to be independent of the New Testament's canonical gospels and therefore to be a new source for the teachings of Jesus. Since it is in such a primitive form-the unstructured list-and since it shows no signs of the great themes of Christianity that developed in the early church, and since the forms of the sayings in Thomas are often less developed than they are in the canonical gospels, it stands to reason that Thomas is quite an early text. It may perhaps have been written before 62 A.D. for there is a hint of a date in that period in the Gospel of Thomas itself: Saying 12 commends Jesus' brother James to be the leader of the Christian movement after Jesus himself is no longer on earth. James died in the year 62 A.D. It follows that a saying recommending his leadership would probably not have been incorporated into Thomas after that year."
*(5)Davies, Stevan, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom, New York: Seabury Press, 1983. page X. "The Gospel of Thomas appears to be an extremely valuable source for the teachings of Jesus. At the minimum it will enable us to reconstruct more precisely the forms that some of his sayings took before evangelists altered them. Very probably it gives us access to more of his sayings, of the same types found in the canonical gospels, than we already knew. And it is far from impossible that some of the extraordinary sayings, ideas, and perspectives found in Thomas but not found in Matthew, Mark and Luke are also his."
*(6)Biblical Archaeology Review, July-October 2009 issue. Vol.35, NOs 4/5, page 96. "Also among the Nag Hammadi texts was the fully preserved Gospel of Thomas, which does not follow the Canonical Gospels in telling the story of Jesus' birth, life, crucifixion and resurrection, but rather presents the reader with a very early collection of Jesus' sayings. Although this mystical text was originally believed to be a Gnostic text, it now seems to reveal yet another strand of early Christianity."

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu