A brief comparison between the High Christology of the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of John about Jesus as the "The Light of the World"

In the Gospel of John (8:12), Jesus says "I'm the light of the world". Such kind of claims are considered typically as expressing "Christology", that is, claims implying a divine self-understanding or self-perception of the historical Jesus. This understanding is the distinctive Christian view about Jesus.

Given the cultural influence of contemporary of atheism, secularism, scientific naturalism and religious pluralism in our society, many people are uncomfortable with the religious exclusivism implied by such kind of sayings. Such emotional and cultural discomfort produces a very strong psychological predisposition which is then rationalized by such people, making them ideologically sympathetic to and biased in favour of alternative, more palatable, non-exclusivistic interpretations of Jesus (hence the receptivity of many people to the radical revisionism of the Jesus Seminar and to non-scholarly, New Age "sources" like The Urantia Book, A Course in Miracles, The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus, etc.), a phenomenon which is characteristic of the culture of the United States of America as I've explained here (but with ramifications in all over the world, since what happens in USA tends to impact on the rest of the world). 

These alternative sources offer a Jesus who (surprise!) is extremely palatable to and "fit well with" contemporary postmodernist sensibilities about religious matters, and above all, provide emotional relief and subjective liberation from negative feelings of many Americans (mainly strong emotions fear, guilty and hatred which developed often, but not exclusively, when they were young people) connected with evangelical Christianity.

"Truth" becomes a secondary matter, "feeling good" becomes an emotional and existential priority (in fact, "feeling good" and compatibility with contemporary sensibilities become itself a kind of criterion of truth about the historical Jesus. So any view about Jesus incompatible with religious pluralism and other contemporary and culturally acceptable beliefs become suspicious and are distrusted on a priori grounds).

Many scholars (specially American scholars) have felt the same discomfort. Given the metaphysical naturalism and atheism which controls the academic world, these scholars have tried to avoid the controversial paranormal sources about Jesus (like A Course in Miracles), and have attempted to find alternative, non-exclusivistic, non-Christological sources about Jesus in historical documents, which is a more convincing and promising approach for academic purposes.

Among such documents are the second century's Apocryphal Gospels (all of which are temporally later in comparison with the first century's canonical Gospels, being the exception perhaps the Gospel of Thomas, which could contain some traditions of the first century, even though most scholars seem to be skeptics of it).

The Gospel of Thomas offers a mostly Gnostic interpretation of Jesus, a view about him which is most palatable to contemporary readers, specially the ones culturally influenced by mystical, New Age and Eastern philosophies.

But even such Thomas' Jesus contain evidence of high Christology, and hence (to that extension), confirms the traditional, Christian, divine self-perception of Jesus.

Remember that in the Gospel of John, Jesus is reported to having said "I am the light of the world".

But look what happen when we examine the Gospel of Thomas.  In Saying 77, we can read:  "Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.

Split a piece of wood; I am there.

Lift up the stone, and you will find me there"

Is Jesus claiming in Thomas something different than in John's? In both Gospels and regarding this particular point, he's claiming basically the same, namely, to be THE light which is OVER everything that exists (=the world or "all things", which is precisely what the word "world" means). Note that the property of being "above all things" is precisely what God is supposed to be: The ultimate LIGHT which is metaphysically senior and more fundamental regarding everything else.

Note very carefully that, to the extent to which we consider the traditions of the Gospel of Thomas to be independent and reliable, the saying of Jesus being "The Ultimate Light" becomes argueably an example of MULTIPLE ATTESTATION, because it is found in two independent sources, the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas. Therefore, it is likely to be historical.

Note, moreover, that in Thomas, Jesus is claiming another exclusive divine property, namely, OMNIPRESENCE. In addition to being the senior light (like in John's), Thomas' Jesus is saying that Jesus is in every place (=omnipresent). 

So, saying 77 provides multiple attestation of the view that Jesus is the "senior light", but also provide additional High-Christological features of Jesus like the divine property of being omnipresent.

With more or less similar terminology, both Gospels are attributing to Jesus divine properties. Far from supporting religious pluralism, this puts Jesus in the same exalted, exclusivistic, divine status that some scholars have tried with everything they got to avoid. What other plausible interpretation could be given to Thomas' Jesus saying "I am all; from me all came forth, and to me all attained"? What more evidence do scholars need to accept a high Christology in Thomas, and hence a confirmation of the canonical Gospels regarding such exalted divine status of Jesus?

All of this brings back the initial discomfort felt by many scholars. They were interested in Thomas precisely as a way to find a different Jesus than the divine one portrayed in the New Testament, but in close examination they got a confirmation of the divine self-understanding of Jesus already present in the canonical Gospels, the crucial aspect about Jesus that these scholars wanted to avoid in the first place!

Further discussion of the Christological aspects of the Gospel of Thomas can be found in this post. 

Most people, I'd say the overwhelming majority of them, are slaves of their emotions and desires. They don't follow the evidence wherever it leads. They select, twist and reinterpret the evidence in terms emotionally and intellectually palatable to them (sometimes this occurs unintentionally). Truth, specially spiritual truths, becomes a matter shaped by emotions and a priori convictions about how spiritual things "are supposed to be" or "must be".

In spiritual matters, I think such irrationalistic apriorism and emotionalism is the most dangerous path that one could ever take.

Many readers have asked me why I do stress so much the point that the best historical evidence supports that Jesus' actual self-perception was exalted, divine and exclusivistic, if such a thing is "clear" when reading the Gospels. Asking such a thing is equivalent to asking why some blogs (including mine) do stress so much the evidence for the paranormal, if "everybody" knows that the paranormal exists.

This question reveals the unfamiliarity of such readers regarding the scholarly world about the historical Jesus (and parapsychology, in the second example). Like in the case of parapsychology, the topic of the historical Jesus touches FUNDAMENTAL beliefs, that is, important metaphysical and theological beliefs strongly rooted in our personality and emotional structure, and hence many people with beliefs incompatible with a Jesus as portrayed in the Gospel will be tempted (even unintentionally) to dismiss, reject, twist or reinterpret the evidence to make it fit their own worldview.

This seems to be part of human nature.

Fully aware of this flawed aspect of human nature, I intentionally employ a different approach: I try to constantly actualize and adjust my worldview according to my findings and studies. If the evidence for a given claim is good, I try to incorporate it into my worldview. If it doesn't fit with my worldview, I try to change my worldview in order to make room for the evidence. This way I'm constantly developing and perfecting my own worldview.

In New Testament studies, a bunch of scholars (mainly the liberal ones) have tried hard and by all the means imaginable to deny, misrepresent, dismiss or reinterpret the evidence of Jesus' exclusivistic self-perception and teachings implying his own perception of having divinity authority (key in this approach is their misuse of the criteria of authenticity. More recently, a few of scholars have posited a new clever strategy: they claim that such criteria themselves are "worthless"!... precisely, because they realize that when you apply them correctly, the evidence supports Jesus' exclusivistic and exalted self-perception, in addition to supporting traditions related to the resurrection, like the empty tomb).

This is why I do stress this aspect in my discussions about the historical Jesus.

In future posts, I'm going to analyze critically the arguments of these "new liberal scholars" who are skeptical of the criteria of authenticity in historical Jesus studies, as a new clever way to block any inference about the historical Jesus based upon the proper application of the criteria of authenticity.