Soul Invictus

This is to Vinnie primarily, (unless there are other informed parties on the matter)

Where does the dating of Thomas fit in relative to the synoptic gospels?

What about the gospel of Barnabas? anyone know about that? is there any merit to the claim that the gospel of barnabas is a fake?
maybe i need clarifications between the gospel of barnabas vs the epistle of barnabas

Vinnie

You misunderstand. My driving force for the Thomas study was not to prove my religion true. I had long rejected "historical Christianity". I found the GThom. interesting because in my studies it is obvious that the Gospel of Thomas shakes up absolutely everything regarding Christian origins and the historical Jesus. It is a key issue that needs to be discussed by all involved.

My stratification and view of the content of the earliest Christian historically axiomatic given my stratification and view of the sources. What I find extremely difficult is reconstructing any specifics on what this figure was like.

Yes but my comments are based upon the facts that a study of Christian origens and HJ research is not going to tell us very much. Unless new sources come to light what is the purpose anymore? Scholars have argued back and forth over every detail of the study for hundreds of years and today's consensus positions (e.g. 2ST) are hardly even set in stone! I have thaT insatiable desire for knowledge and truth myself. Thats why I love the sciences and learning how the world operates and how it developed.

But biology or cosmology is more objective than historical Jesus research. In the former you have scientists using math, observations, experiements and facts while in the latter you have a bunch of scholars throwing learned and informed opinions at one another. I really don't feel like I can learn anymore about Christian origens and Jesus research. I've been reading and studying the "cutting edge" of HJ and CO scholarship in the field for a while now and found it to come up wanting.

That is certianly true but it also includes becoming good at recognizing when something has no beneficial value to yourself anymore.

I discussed the dating of Thomas on my site. See sections B through H. Thomas is independent of the synoptics and if I were betting, I would argue that Thomas predates both Matthew and Luke. It probably was written sometime near Mark (assuming two layers in Thomas). See section H. If you have other questions on Thomas just ask.

Vinnie