IN THE back of our minds, Thomas is nearly all the time “doubting Thomas”. The criticism implied by that “doubting” influences our response to this Gospel. It seems to sentence him for being cautious, and to commend credulity as a substitute.
Some read it as a fictional warning to Christians to not doubt. But which means believing that John invented a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus while Thomas was absent, after which a subsequent appearance when he was present, admitted that he was incorrect, and repented of doubting. That is unlikely. It just isn’t John’s method to tell a story, then extract an ethical, and quote it as a teaching verse: “Blessed are those that haven’t seen and yet have come to consider.”
This passage has a history; for Thomas’s life did attract speculation and fabrication, in texts that were (accurately) judged to not be authentically apostolic. They never made it into the New Testament since it was obvious then (it remains to be obvious) that they weren’t real primary witnesses to the events of Jesus’s life. One of those writings is the so-called “Gospel of Thomas”: a part of a group of texts discovered in Egypt in 1946.
You might think that it’s inappropriate to be referring to such a text on this holy season of Easter. But it would reassure Christians to listen to that there is no such thing as a ancient conspiracy amongst church authorities to cover the truths of Jesus’s life, and peddle as a substitute their very own “authorised” version of that life, to be able to protect their very own powerful position and perpetuate their control.
There are still things that we will learn from writings not present in the Bible. For one thing, they show us how excited people were concerning the latest faith, and the way hungry for details about its founders, the apostles, after the resurrection. Then, as now, where information was lacking, speculation filled the gap. Most of it was not malicious or deliberately misleading: it was only a by-product of the overwhelming appetite for material — for facts about this latest way of understanding ourselves, and our place in God’s plan.
So, I used to be fascinated to learn of a fraction of anonymous commentary, probably dating to the third century, which has a more positive “take” on Thomas. It just isn’t scripture; so it just isn’t “required of any man, that it must be believed . . . or be thought requisite or crucial to salvation” (Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles). But it’s refreshingly free from the moralising approach of some readings, and from that human tendency to zoom in on negative interpretations.
The author admits that he’s describing his personal view of Thomas, but he appeals to passages of scripture to corroborate his position. That method of study is so habitual a way for us to read texts that we don’t even consider it as a method of corroborative reasoning (which it’s). Now, when Thomas refuses to consider unless he sees and feels for himself, he’s found to be “meticulous and questioning”, properly cautious slightly than sceptical or cynical. He can be, the author argues, obedient to Jesus in exercising that caution, pointing to Mark 13.6: “Many will are available in my name and say, ‘I’m he!’ and they’re going to lead many astray.”
This just isn’t the one insight into the place of Thomas which our anonymous author supplies. Unlike him, I had never given Thomas’s second name, “Didymus”, much thought. But he has noticed that only those disciples whom Jesus singles out acquire extra names: Simon becomes Peter and Cephas; James and John grow to be Boanerges (Mark 3.17). Those are the three disciples blessed by having witnessed the transfiguration. And Thomas, whose Aramaic name appears like the Aramaic word for a twin, has his name translated into Greek by John, as “Didymus”.
Only John mentions — 3 times (11.16, 20.24, 21.2) — this extra name, “Thomas, who known as the Twin”. That just isn’t the usual way of recording a double name, however the phrasing (“known as”) hints that Jesus gave him that translated name. Perhaps, our author suggests, it was because Thomas was like a twin to Jesus, following his example in the way in which that he taught.
That is unfounded speculation. But it helps to indicate how calling the apostle “doubting Thomas” might be misleading, and the way, in earlier times, his careful attitude to verification was seen as a correct virtue for the Lord’s disciples.
