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Talking About the Gospel of Thomas (“Thom”)

Introduction

Sometimes the character of Jesus can become a bit of a popstar, like an idol really. He taught about being one with the Father, but Toto doesn’t think Jesus had the intention of being worshiped. All too often, the teachings become trampled and crushed by fans rushing the stage. One of the things that’s cool about the Gospel of Thomas is that it’s mostly just sayings, what’s sometimes called a “dialogue gospel.” This means it’s all about the music. It’s been stripped of most of the narratives and stories, which makes it much easier to take a good listen to the teachings without all the makeup, costumes and light show. One way that we can nudge this opportunity along even more is by rewording familiar names and terms. When we read or hear the name ‘Jesus,’ we automatically project this preconceived character in our heads. We do the same thing with words like ‘Kingdom,’ ‘Heaven,’ ‘Father,’ ‘Disciples.’ So we can change all those, too. That way, the teachings aren’t lost in all the overhyped surround sound and overlaid special effects. With this in mind, we will metaphorically “spin a few tunes” from Thom’s Gospel and see how “the lyrics” move us.

Texts from the Gospel of Thomas:

Nearly ⅔ of the Gospel of Thomas has synoptic gospel parallels. Nearly ⅓ parallel John’s gospel. We’ll take a close look at these examples.

Saying 107

“Consciousness is also like a rancher who had a hundred livestock animals. When the largest of them wandered off, the rancher searched and searched until they found it. Completely exhausted, they said, ‘I absolutely love you—you’re my favorite one!’”

Saying 70

“When you bring out that which is from inside your True Self, this will sustain you. But that which you can’t bring out will be the thing that kills you.”

Saying 71

“I’m going to destroy this mental model of where we think we live. I’ll condemn it like an abandoned building, leveling it to the ground so no one can rebuild it.”

Transcript

Click here for a printable transcript (pdf file, opens in a new tab).

Shirley Paulson

Oh, hi everybody. I’m just so glad to see you. I’d like to welcome you to our November, 2024 Bible and Beyond Discussion, and I’m your host, Shirley Paulson. And our guest this evening is Toto Tay. Our topic tonight is “Talking About the Gospel of Thomas (or “Thom”).  We’re talking specifically about his book, which is Thom’s Gospel: A Contemporary Rendering of the Gospel of Thomas, tonight.

Alright, Toto, thanks so much for letting us talk with you tonight about the enigmatic and beautiful Gospel of Thomas. I can’t wait to get into this conversation.

Toto Tay

Yeah, me too. Thank you so much.

Shirley Paulson

Alright, so I think we need to ask just one question to get us all on the same page. Would you tell us maybe in about three or four sentences what this gospel is about and maybe what’s unique about it? Let’s start there.

Toto Tay

Yeah, you bet. Let’s see. So I think it could be summed up probably right at the start in Saying 2. It says, Jesus said, “whoever seeks should not stop until they find and when they find they’ll be disturbed. And when they’re disturbed, they’ll be amazed.” And so I think seeking and finding is really what its key theme is. And then probably what sets it apart. It’s not a narrative gospel, right? It’s just the Sayings. So we don’t have the extra stories or the caricature that gets in the way of what Jesus is actually teaching.

Shirley Paulson

That’s interesting. Alright, well that’s really helpful to sort of get something in a manageable place here. So then we need to go to another really basic question. Why do you think that the Gospel of Thomas really has a valuable message for the modern world when it is such an ancient, ancient text?

Toto Tay

I think the big takeaway probably for modern days is that it speaks to the quality and to unity at a really deeper level. Plus it kind of exhorts us to look for the answers within really. That it’s not somewhere outside of us. We get to know our true self. We learn how to watch out for the dangers of say, traditions or rituals that just get in the way and distract us from what Jesus is teaching.

Shirley Paulson

That’s really fascinating what you’re saying. I think I’m hearing you saying that it really is pertinent in antiquity and today because it helps us to know ourselves in a really great way. That’s a nice foundation for us here. So one of the ways you bring the ancient text into a modern context is to find another way to talk about things like sheep farming methods, or even ritual circumcision, which most of us don’t talk about all day long. So maybe you could give us an example of how you do that in your modern translation—that is all over the place in the Gospel of Thomas.

Toto Tay

Yeah, it really is. I mean, as far as sheep go, I actually call it ranching. I think we’re more familiar with that than raising sheep these days. Part of the danger of that, I think, is that there’s so much already in the gospels and everything and in the Bible that talks about sheep. And so it’s easy to kind of project those onto what we’re reading in the Gospel of Thomas. We’ve got the sacrificial lamb or the Lamb of God. It just gets a little confusing. So if we can pull back on those and use different words, maybe we can kind of hear what he’s talking about. And then for rituals, I mean that circumcision—we don’t do ritually anymore, thank God—but yeah, there’s kind of a lot, isn’t there, when you’ve got lions eating man and becoming man or five trees in paradise. It just gets too confusing really.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah. So I agree with you, it gets confusing, but what other word do you use for sheep farming then? Do you just call it something else or what do you say?

Toto Tay

Well, some of it I keep, so the analogies like fishing, we still fish. We can get that. Or planting seeds, that’s easy enough. But for stuff like the lion, I think what he’s getting at is if we could think about it as ego, then maybe we’ll talk about ego or the five trees in Paradise is really kind of just talking about being in the right season of time. So if we reframe it in that way, or like I said with sheep, why don’t we call it ranching? We can kind of say the same thing, but it makes a little more sense to us.

Shirley Paulson

And then let’s go to the circumcision ritual. How do you make that sound modern?

Toto Tay

I think with circumcision that now we all approach Thomas and scripture and everything and see what stands out to us. But looking at the original text, I think it seems to me, with circumcision, he’s really getting at stuff that, in that case, kind of what our parents passed down and the way that our family has done it or our community’s always done it. I think Jesus and Thomas tried to say, look on the inside, don’t worry about what your family did for you. That’s not as important as your direct contact with the divine.

Shirley Paulson

So you’re talking more about context than the specifics. Okay. Yeah. Alright.

Speaker 3

Absolutely. Yeah.

Shirley Paulson

So you were talking about the lion a little while ago, and not everybody knows the Gospel of Thomas as well as you do, what’s going on with the lion? What is that Saying about?

Toto Tay

So the lion, I do think it is, and probably if you were like Plato or Philo, you would’ve understood the context of this, because they had lions, and they actually use lions as analogies in their writings too, like Timaeus. But yeah, we kind of show his hand there by saying, “This is our ego. The lion is more of our false self. It’s unwieldy and wild.”

Shirley Paulson

Could you tell us then, what is the traditional reading of that saying, so we get a feel for why we are talking about a lion?

Toto Tay

So the traditional reading is really confusing. We can open it up though. Let’s see. So the regular translation—your standard word-for-word translation says, “Blessed is the lion that’s eaten by a human and then becomes human. But how awful for the human who’s eaten by a lion, the lion becomes human.”

Shirley Paulson :

Okay, that’s really hard to hear.

Toto Tay

A little tricky, but if we reframe it, I think … so in Thom’s gospel, we’ve got it worded a little differently. Have you ever noticed how the natural world operates from this deep sense of freedom? So, “Be like a hunter, out in the wild, searching for the prey and take that down. Then devouring even this very understanding down to its bones and its essence.” And so then it kind of reframes it to where we’re looking at something else, other than just a lion and a man, and becoming a man, or does a man become a man? But if we really look at it as this king of the jungle, this image of somebody that was very natural. But it operates kind of from our false self and our natural self.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s helpful. We may come back to that one again because it’s such a tricky one, but you’ve done such a nice job of making it thoughtful, but it’s still hard to just process all this because it’s a weird one. Let’s go back to some of the use of these words again. I think this will help us to get into your whole process here—like, the common words that tend to reinforce our preconceptions of what Christianity was going to become. Maybe you could give us some examples of those kinds of words.

Toto Tay

So words, especially in the Gospel of Thomas and the gospels, period, words like ‘disciple’. The image that we have of a disciple is someone who is this apostolic super-special, almost heroic, handpicked, chosen by God to start the church and spread Christianity. But when we read in the Gospel of Thomas and read his interactions, they’re really just students. It takes away from the specialness of it, because what’s in him and what’s in the students is in us as well.

Shirley Paulson

I see. So you’re talking about them. You might use the word just ‘students’ when you’re making that translation.

Toto Tay

Just students, and even with Jesus, we have this concept of this image of Jesus that we’ve created, that Thomas doesn’t really accentuate, necessarily, his being one with God and him being elevated above everyone. So I call him ‘the teacher’.

Shirley Paulson

Okay. ‘The teacher.’ Okay. And then what about words like ‘Father’? We hear that a lot in the Gospel of Thomas too. How do you deal with that?

Toto Tay

Oh, absolutely. So Father is, that’s one, too, that we think of. We project this image of an old white bearded man sitting on a throne—almost like a Zeus figure, when we think of Father-God or one of the trios there: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But I think what the Gospel of Thomas is really trying to say is, “He’s more the source,” and I substitute that out with… I talk about the One, or the Source, or even pure awareness or consciousness.

Shirley Paulson

Oh my goodness, you have to go a little farther there. That’s fascinating. So instead of the Father, you’re bringing it into the origin or the source of ideas or the being.

Toto Tay

Absolutely.

Shirley Paulson

Wow. That leads me, then, to another word. How about the word ‘Kingdom’? I know some people like to use kin-dom to remove the king element or even queendom to remove the gender element, but you go even farther. How do you translate this basileia, or ‘kingdom’ word? What do you do with that?

Toto Tay:

Well, first I love the word kin-dom. I think that has a neat relationship, and it kind of pushes the term like Jesus probably would’ve pushed, right? But I get worried that we think of the Kingdom of God as out there, and that really goes against what Jesus is teaching in the Gospel of Thomas. He doesn’t mean heaven. He doesn’t even mean … when he was teaching, he uses the word ‘kingdom,’ and a lot of people got confused that he meant he was wanting to be the King and replace Caesar! But I think if we look at that too and maybe play around with words like Ultimate Reality, or Consciousness, or even the True Self, we get a better sense of what Jesus is talking about in the gospel.

Shirley Paulson

Oh my goodness. So you just talked about this realm and ultimate reality is related to self again. So I think you should help us understand a little bit more. I know that Thomas is very much about being within, but you’re putting your identity up there too? Help me with that.

Toto Tay :

Yeah, so True Self, this concept of being connected with God, and I really think that’s where Thomas shines and probably gets in trouble. You know, we find out there’s scholarship that says that Thomas… or the Gospel of John may have even been written to debunk Thomas, because Thomas kept it so interior about ourselves. And John really shines in saying, you know, that Jesus is a light. Where Thomas would say, “Well, you’re the light too.” So this concept of our True Self, I think really comes out a little more, and it gets into the Christology and the salvation contrast that you find in Thomas versus the gospels.

Shirley Paulson :

That’s an interesting word you just used: Christology. I don’t know that everybody knows that word. Could you talk about what you mean by Christology?

Toto Tay

So, what I mean by it is how we picture Christ. So the whole concept of Jesus being God is something that we’re used to when we read the scriptures, the standard Bible, and everything. So I think when you get into Christology, we’re getting into more of his divinity, not necessarily ours. But I think what Thomas tries to do is to try and show that it is—and I think it’s there in the synoptic too—when he says that I and the Father are one, and you are one with me, and everything. It’s in there. But Thomas just kind of pushes that message a little further—that we are Christ’s—cosmic Christ.

Shirley Paulson

Okay, we’re getting to absorb a bit of what you’re talking about, I think. Maybe we’re ready to dive into a specific Saying here, with all this helpful background. You had suggested that we read (on our website, we often put up the texts that people recommend we read), and you suggested that we take a look at Saying  107. So I’m going to read what I’d consider a more typical translation in case people would like to compare it with what you’ve done. So I’m going to read it and then have you tell us what you’ve done with it. So this is a traditional translation. “Jesus said, “The kingdom can be compared to a shepherd who had a hundred sheep, the largest one strayed. He left the 99 and looked for that one until he found it. Having gone through the trouble, he said to the sheep, ‘I love you more than the 99.’” So here we have one that sounds so much like the New Testament one, but different, and we’re left hanging there with “I love you more than the 99!” Uncomfortable! So what did you do with this one?

Toto Tay

So this one I didn’t change up much. Like I said, I switched out the sheep or shepherd with rancher because, just to kind of help us separate it from the traditional parable of the lost sheep.

So, Thom’s Gospel says, “Consciousness is also like a rancher who has a hundred livestock animals. When the largest one of them wandered off, the rancher searched and searched until it was found, completely exhausted. The rancher said, ‘I absolutely love you, you’re my favorite one.’”

I think if we look at how it compares to Luke and Matthew, both the synoptic gospels say that it’s the one who strays from the flock, and the shepherd leaves the 99 to rescue it. And I think in Luke 15, it even goes so far as to say that the heavenly Father rescues the ‘repentant’ lost sheep, and angels all rejoice. And Matthew even adds that God is unwilling for any precious little ones to perish.

So yeah, we see that the Gospel of Thomas is really different—that first of all, it’s not just the precious little sheep running away or going astray, but it’s the biggest sheep, the huge fish from Saying 8, or the good seed, or the big pearl. And this is also where the Coptic really sings differently. So the original Coptic is ???? – or something like that. What it translates to is, “Did one’s heart and mind wander forth?” To me that’s beautiful, because it wasn’t just the smallest sheep or the rebellious sheep, but it was one that chose to go in a different direction than the rest. And then the parable ends by the rancher or shepherd kind of telling the most loved one that in Coptic is  ??? and it literally means “desired above the rest combined.” So it sends a different message, and a message that I think is really important today, that it’s not just the rebellious sheep that goes astray and the shepherd goes and finds it, but it literally says that you who look different from all the rest, who even love who you love, and choose to follow, not the crowd, but your own heart.

You’re beautiful for that and you’re my favorite one even.

Shirley Paulson

Wow. So in other words, he wasn’t rescuing him as much as he was honoring him.

Toto Tay

That’s how Thom’s Gospel puts this story, and I like it. I like it a lot.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah, that’s fascinating. Okay, now, some of our participants know there are some sayings in the Gospel of Thomas that parallel the parables of the Bible, as we’ve just seen here. So for example, Saying 71, in a traditional translation, goes like this: Jesus said, “I’ll destroy this house and no one will be able to build it.” We’re familiar with this. What have you done with that one?

Toto Tay

Well, this one I take a lot of liberty on. It’s like we’re playing cards and I kind of table talk what Jesus’ hand is. I think it’s important to get to the meaning of this one. In Thom’s gospel, Saying 71 is, let’s see, “I’m going to destroy this mental model that where we think we live, I’ll condemn it like an abandoned building, leveling it to the ground so no one can rebuild it.”

So for me, transposing it this way in Thom’s Gospel was pretty important to highlight. I mean, the parallel of that is Matthew 24, and I think there are also a lot of ways that standard translations interpret it. They say that—I mean, they put it in the sense that he’s prophesying the destruction of the temple. But even if you look in Matthew 23, what happens right before that? We see that Jesus is going to the temple and he’s just railing on the scribes and the Pharisees. It’s where we read all the “Woe to you for this! Woe to you for that!” And then he’s just lamenting Jerusalem after that, and kind of storms out. And then we’ve got a scene where he’s leaving. It’s like his disciples are all embarrassed, and they’re like, “Oh, but look at the temple structure! They’re beautiful and magnificent, everything that they’ve made!” And this is the point where he says that he’ll destroy the temple.

But to me, even in that part, what if he’s not talking about the temple-Temple, or the structures themselves, but that this [gesturing to his head] is what he needs to destroy—this mental model of what we’ve created, what man has made in his mind, and that really is what he set out to take down.

Shirley Paulson

Wow. Okay. So it is interesting to think about the temple as a place of thought, and that’s a place where we can either choose to worship or be cruel to people. Wow. Okay, then. How do you tie that  into Saying 70 that you had us read? Again, I’m going to read a traditional translation of that so that you can comment on this. Saying 70.  “Jesus said, ‘if you give birth to what’s within you, what you have within you will save you. If you don’t have that within you, what you don’t have within you will kill you.’” Okay. Where’d you go with that one?

Toto Tay

Right, and that’s what I was talking about. I think if we look at before 71 is 70, what he’s talking about, I still render this, in Thom’s, it’s still pretty close to what the traditional translation is, and I’ll go ahead and include 71 to see how it flows.

So that is: “When you bring out that which is from inside your true self, this will sustain you. But that which you can’t bring out will be the thing that kills you.” So it’s very similar. And then 71, “Now I’m going to destroy that mental model of where we think we live. I’ll condemn it like an abandoned building, leveling it to the ground so no one can rebuild it.’ So this bringing out in Coptic is another piece that’s really beautiful. The word is ???, and what it means is not just birthing as in conceiving, but it means fathering as in raising up and cultivating. So that what it’s saying is from this true self within, what’s connected to the source, that’s what’s going to sustain us, and cultivate us, and give us life. This is, I mean, we’re the temple, where God lives and moves from—is what he’s saying from the heart. Where we get stuck in our heads, or what we’ve created on our own, that’s not where life is. There’s no movement there. Therefore, this is what Jesus wants to decimate and the true self to cultivate.

Shirley Paulson

Oh my goodness. This again, very, very beautiful. I love the way you’re helping us to hear the Coptic language, because most of us are not reading Coptic. So this is very helpful to hear from you. Okay. Then Jesus seems to have a rather different character or identity here than what we’ve been taught through traditional Christian teachings. Would you even, I mean you’ve started to talk a little bit about how to see Jesus differently in this gospel. How would you characterize that?

Toto Tay

Yeah, I do think he’s pretty different because the canonical gospels, or even like Paul’s Jesus, Jesus is very much a messiah coming and God himself as a human. And salvation is a matter of having faith and belief in this. But for Thomas, I think it’s really more that Jesus is God and so are you and— imbued with God. That salvation is more about recognition of our connection to God and with the divine. So like we were saying, it’s not…for Thomas, it’s not Christ on the cross, as much as it is that he never reaches a cross in Thomas. But it is that cosmic Christ that is manifest in and through everyone and every thing, really.

Shirley Paulson

Well then, going back to the cross idea, do you think there’s any sacrifice going on in Thomas, or are we just all deeply at one with the being?

Toto Tay

I think it’s all about the recognition. This is all … it ends with him still being alive. We don’t have any kind of Easter story in the Gospel of Thomas. It assumes that the teachings are what he wants to get across.

Shirley Paulson

So I think we need to ask one more really important question before we turn it over here. Based on what you’re saying here, what does the Gospel of Thomas do to your understanding of the Bible or the canon?

Toto Tay

I think the Gospel of Thomas helps me… When I first got exposed to extracanonical writings, at first I was kind of skeptical because they weren’t, as I grew up thinking, it isn’t one of the 66 books of the Bible. And as we were all taught, nothing shall be added or removed from that. So it all has to be heresy. But when you read it and you go, wow, this really makes a lot of sense! Then I started having a little resentment that I’ve been duped, and why was this kept away from me? But now, just like we did with Matthew 24 and the temple that he destroyed, I think it helped me go back to Matthew, or whatever, and see it in a different light—that it pushed me to not just take the words as I’ve been told and taught. Actually what Thomas is teaching you is to see that it speaks to you, seek the answer within, where God is, seek it with your heart. I started doing that more with the Bible and there’s a lot of stuff in the Bible that I actually agree with and question the translation, or the interpretation, that I was raised on. And it’s beautiful!

Shirley Paulson

That’s so helpful to hear. I think most of us do struggle with that. If they’re different, then what do we do with that difference? And it’s really helpful to see that we can embrace it and just expand our own heart and soul with it.

Toto Tay

Oh, absolutely.

Shirley Paulson

Alright, now the time has come that I need to turn over the loudspeaker to everybody else here. So I’m going to let other people ask questions. But before I do, I want everybody to know that Toto is really accustomed to asking and answering really hard questions, and I want him to show you his T-shirt. [Shows his T-shirt showing a Bible and Beyond logo and phrase: “Always Ask the Hard Questions.”]

Shirley Paulson

Go up a little higher so we can see what’s underneath it.

Toto Tay

Always Ask the Hard Questions!

Shirley Paulson

That’s the Bible and Beyond t-shirt he has on: Ask hard questions!” We’re ready to ask Toto some hard questions here.

Toto Tay

Oh yeah. Feel free to ask some easy ones too though.

Shirley Paulson

Well, we’ll start with Sarah, who always asks hard questions. So go ahead Sarah.

Sara Barnacle :

Well, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you and start with an easy one. I didn’t quite catch the title of your book, Toto, and this is so fascinating. I’ve got to have the book.

Toto Tay

Oh, thank you so much. It’s just called Thom’s Gospel. I’m trying to keep it Well, let’s see it as casual T-H-O-M-S gospel.

Sara Barnacle

Okay. And could you spell your name please?

Toto Tay

Sure. It’s T-O-T-O T-A-Y.

Sara Barnacle

That couldn’t be any easier. Okay. Somebody else’s turn.

Toto Tay

Those are great. That’s a great question. Thanks

Shirley Paulson

Yes a great question. You can answer all of her questions without any pushback. Alright, so Joy, go ahead.

Joy Dryden

Also, where can you get the book?

Toto Tay

So the book is on Amazon, if you want to look.

Joy Dryden

Okay, good. So I want to cheat and not read the book, and I want to ask you for your interpretation of one passage that I’ve been thinking about for the last three or four days.

Toto Tay

Sure, you bet.

Joy Dryden

And this one is Saying 61 where Jesus says to Salome, “I come from the one who is equal to all.” And later he says, “When a person becomes equal, that person will be full of light.” And I’ve looked at some other translations and instead of using equal some use undivided, some use whole. So I’m curious, how do you translate that? Or also… I just want to say, it sounds like you’re a Eugene Peterson Message writer of the Bible!

Toto Tay

Oh, I love that. I love that you brought that up. The Message is such a sweet understanding that tries to really get at, to move away from just word-for-word, “What is it saying?” to really, “What is the intention that the author’s trying to say here?” And I love that. So that was a thought.

Joy Dryden

I understand that you’re doing that.

Toto Tay

Yeah, he’s a sweet soul. So Saying  61 in Thom’s Gospel says the teacher replied, “I’m from the one which makes all of us equals. This is consciousness. I mean, this is what consciousness has me doing right now. So right here and now, I’m also your student.” And it’s on the back end when he’s over at Salome’s and he’s reclining on the couch. And he just says, there are two sprawled across the couch. One will die and the other will live. And then the host says, wait, which one are you? Coming over here and stretching out on my couch, even after eating at my table? So Salome is like, “what’s going on here?” That’s kind of bold to say, but it seems to me like this is what Jesus is talking about. From the One, from consciousness, not of two minds. It’s not the duality, it’s the One which makes all of us equals. The two become one.

“And this is what Consciousness (or Source) has me doing right now. And so right here and right now, I’m also your student. So it’s because of this, I can say, ‘When one is empty, they will be filled with Light. (Yeah, you’re right. That’s beautiful.) But if one is divided, darkness fills their belly.’”

Joy Dryden :

So you’re using two different terms in the two parts of saying 61. One, you’re saying it’s all of us are equal. And then when you say it’s undivided, what was it that you were using in the second term? At the very end, when, in the traditional translation, a person becomes equal, that person will be full of light? In Saying 61.

Toto Tay

So yeah, when one is empty, in the Coptic, it could be equal or divided. The Coptic is more of an emptiness feeling.

Joy Dryden

Okay,

Toto Tay

They will be filled with Light.

Joy Dryden

Okay.

Toto Tay

But if one is divided, darkness fills their belly.

Shirley Paulson

Thank you.

Toto Tay

Yeah, thank you, Joy

Shirley Paulson

That was good. Yeah, that’s great. That’s a tough one, but it seems to talk so much about what this whole gospel is about. It’s a very good one to bring up. Alright, so you handled one hard question there. Let’s go to Helen.

Toto Tay

I love it. Thank you, Joy.

Helen Mathis

Hi Toto! I want to pick a bone with you. You rightly distinguished the Gospel of John as being Jesus-as-the light,  versus the light. And it’s a really good comparison. But just to remember that at the end of the gospel, Jesus passes the Paraclete onto the believers and they become the source of light. And that is why a lot of the early gnosis oriented communities, including the gospel of John, which is part of that, liked the Gospel of John, because of that idea that we all possess this ability. And also that whole contrast that you’re making with Joy between light and darkness sounds very much like John, chapter 3,  where he talks about those who come to the light, know the light, and those who are afraid to come to the light live in that darkness. So I think there’s actually a lot of parallels there, where Jesus passes on the spirit to his followers. He breathes on them in a way that’s very similar to the Gospel of Thomas. And I think in spirit, the Gospel of John might have more to do with the Gospel of Thomas than the synoptic gospels do for those reasons.

Toto Tay

Oh, I love that you bring that up. I do too. I think they’re so close. I think there’s 34 parallels between Thomas and the Gospel of John and the tone also. It’s very similar, isn’t it?

Helen Mathis

Yes. Yes. That’s great and good work on that book. I just think that’s a great idea that you had. What fun it must have been.

Toto Tay

It was.

Helen Mathis

Yeah.

Shirley Paulson

I want to bring out, just as you two were talking about this, that I think it’s interesting that the parables are so much like the synoptic parables and yet the meaning in the context has so much more to do with John. Thomas is such an amazing bridge between the Synoptics and John. So it’s a fascinating book to add to the mix. I’m glad you brought that up, Helen. Thank you.

Grace Duffy

Toto, when you were interpreting the parable about the sheep that went away, but he said he was very, very loved. Well, for the first time—I had never thought of this before—but could Jesus be talking of himself as a sheep that’s going astray from what their current religious clergy is teaching him? But yet God loves what he has to say. And I had never seen it that way. I had seen it like everybody else sees it. So I just want to say I appreciate that.

Toto Tay

Yeah, thank you so much. So true. That was very gracious Grace. I think it’s a great insight.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Okay, well, while the rest of you are thinking of your hard questions, I want to just ask you, Toto, to tell us a little bit about your own experience with Thomas. Let me just put it this way, in the book itself, in your book, what’s the difference between part one and part two in your book? You’ve got two major parts here.

Toto Tay

Oh, so now you’ve helped me with this one. Part 2 is what I really like. I like getting into the meat of it. So part 2 is the translation, or transposition, along with the comparison translation. In this case, Mark Mattiison has a public domain translation. It’s fantastic. I absolutely love it. But that way we can put them side by side. I know that you said you really appreciate seeing that, because originally I took that out. But I’m glad that you talked me into putting that back in. And then also to give the commentary. That explains why I chose the words I did, or sometimes where the confusion is.

But then in part 1, I also like that, because the more I studied it, the more I noticed that it was a flow. I think a lot of people think, “Oh, it’s the 114 Sayings,”—kind of like Proverbs has different sayings and they’re not related, and it’s just a list. But there really is a connection to it. So to be able to read the whole thing, it’s really kind of nice. I like the fact that you can see what it speaks to you, without getting my commentaries or something added to it.

Shirley Paulson

Okay. That’s really great. And Sarah’s back, let’s go. Sarah

Sara Barnacle

Okay. This one may be a little deeper than my first question. I first studied the Gospel of Thomas with Stephen Patterson, back in the mid 1990s ,when he had done his translation. And when he got to the end, as I recall it, he didn’t really know what to do with that final saying about “I will make you male.” But one of the most important things that’s happened in my life with the Bible and Beyond conversations was when we had the one where the woman explained about male being different from what we think it is. What did you do with that one at the end?

Toto Tay

Great question.

Shirley Paulson

And Toto, before you answer that, let’s read the traditional reading of that so that we’ll know what Sarah’s talking about.

Toto Tay

Yeah, okay, perfect. So I’ll do both.

Toto Tay :

So number 114, and there’s a lot of people that say this may not have been in the original. It may have been added later on.

Shirley Paulson

This is so weird. It’s so hard to swallow.

Toto Tay

It really is. So the traditional, or standard, translation says: “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Mary should leave us because women aren’t worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, am I to make her a man so that she may become a living spirit too? She’s equal to you men because every woman who makes herself manly will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I really think, well here, I’ll just read Thom’s translation: “A male student said, ‘We should dismiss the female students since this isn’t something for women.’ The teacher replied, ‘oh, how about this? I’ll guide her myself, as she continues to show her intelligence, courage, and self-control and honor. That way she’ll embody Oneness and be an equal because anyone who recognizes their True Self is wholly transformed by, and as Consciousness.

Sara Barnacle

Could I add a sort of a sub-question to that?

Toto Tay

A hundred percent.

Sara Barnacle

Would you like to talk about how you perceive the whole Coptic language? I mean, everything you’ve quoted from Coptic has been so much different from what we see in Greek or naturally, of course English.

Toto Tay :

It is. It’s difficult, but I think it’s a beautiful language that…and a lot of times, I think with any language, even if you go into the Greek or Hebrew, it’s a great way to look at a scripture and go, “Oh, there are other meanings! Or there are other roots that it’s connected to. And it can really expand our understanding of how—not just how we translate into English—but also how it’s presented to us through doctrine or dogma. Coptic has a way, or Hebrew has a way, of separating that. So you can look at all the possibilities.

Shirley Paulson

This is great. So those of us who’ve started dabbling in Coptic think, yeah, it’s hard. I haven’t gotten to the beauty yet myself, Toto, just because I don’t know enough yet, but I hope to get there!

Grace Duffy

I agree with you a hundred percent on that interpretation. Even my mother was the one that kind of explained that to me, and she just…you couldn’t have said it in better words. And I think being back then, when women were more or less property, and men could get the education, all of this, I think said the way Thomas wrote it, they would’ve really, really gotten it instantly! But because women of today have so many rights and privileges, and even, no matter where you are in the world, which is really a blessing, we may forget what it was like back then for women. So I just love the way you interpreted that. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Toto Tay

Oh, thank you. I think it’s fun. Yeah, I think it is fun to see that there were, especially in Thomas, and maybe that’s why I think it speaks to today, that he really does push this equality and the sense of everybody is imbued with God, which would’ve been very subversive back then.

Shirley Paulson

And Karen, you had your hand up.

Karen Hagen

Yeah, I was just wondering. . .  I was participating in the course on Mary Magdalene, and it seems there that maleness is a continuum, versus gender?

Toto Tay

Yeah.

Karen Hagen

How does that relate to what you’re saying, Toto?

Toto Tay :

Yeah, well even in that verse, what we read in 114, I tried to put it in that context of maleness being more of a behavior. And I think it seems to me like Peter probably struggled with that a bit, or at least how Thomas portrays Peter, is that he kind of struggled a lot with Mary being an equal, and that’s too bad.

Shirley Paulson

So what would you say then would be the feminine characteristics if you’re talking about characteristics,

Toto Tay :

The feminine or the masculine?

Shirley Paulson

Feminine. That didn’t deserve to live, for example.

Toto Tay

Well, yeah, as property or given to emotions, which is really striking. You look at how the disciples behave and how Mary behaved. I think it’s really kind of funny that Mary is the one who gets accused of not having self-control, especially as we saw in Mary’s gospel. Right, Karen? It’s funny that Mary’s gospel really makes her true to her ‘Tower’ name, I think, more than the other disciples.

Shirley Paulson

So that leads us then into my next question for you, now that you’ve put this book out, do you still research Thomas or have you sort of moved on to other things? Where are you?

Toto Tay

I do. I still research. I even brought a little show and tell. So I just reread this one, [The Gospel of Thomas unveiled, by Bernard Lugern], and it’s not really super important to “Oh, I have to get that book! But what it does is, what I was going to explain is Bernard Lugern… what he does is, he compares the Gospel of Thomas to Theresa of  Avila’s Interior Castle on the seven levels, which is really cool. There’s also one that compares it to Platonism; one that compares it and says it’s the first Q; one that compares it to Zen; one that compares it to a Course of Miracles, one that compares it to Islam or the Kabbalah. You can find whatever you want to compare it to. Thomas, for me, is endless as far as being able to study and say, “Oh, well how does it compare to this or that?” It’s like a universal gospel. It has these contrasting comparisons to so many spiritual paths. So I’m still into it.

Shirley Paulson

That’s fascinating. That’s really, really interesting. Thank you for your show-and-tell! That’s amazing. So going back to the beginning when you were introducing the book to us, you pointed out that Saying 2 says that we’ll search and we’ll be looking, but then we’re going to be disturbed first, before we find something amazing. So far you’ve not talked about things that are disturbing. You’re telling us how wonderful this is. Where’s the disturbance that we should expect to run into?

Toto Tay

I think, for me, it could be different things on our spiritual path. I think part of growth is questioning what we’ve been told. At least that’s what I see Thomas kind of pointing out.  Throughout his gospel, students are always asking him, what about this? What about that? And it’s always these questions of what we’ve been taught, what we’ve been told, what we believe, and he kind of turns it on its head. And I think that’s healthy, and maybe even necessary for spiritual growth, that we look at something, and we have to question it, and not just accept it. And that’s unsettling a lot of times.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah. Okay. Granted it is, but then you find that it’s beautiful where you find answers to your unsettledness.

Toto Tay

Absolutely.

Shirley Paulson

Alright, Maureen, let’s hear what your thoughts are.

Maureen Blake

Well, first of all, I knew having listened to Toto and other discussions, that he would blow my mind. And you did. Thank you, Toto! I don’t even know that I can formulate a question, but what I’m hearing is that—and I have not looked at the Sayings of Thomas much at all, just what I’ve heard from you, I haven’t so far, but they all sound like they’re leading to the same place of leaving behind a ritual, which, to me, can confine what you’re doing, or an example can confine. And it feels like it’s focusing more into this area of pure consciousness where, when you don’t bring those human definitions with you, then you are equal. Because it’s not, I’m a man, you’re a woman, I’m a farmer, you’re a whatever. You don’t lose who you are. You find who you are, because I’m a thought in the middle of infinite consciousness. The things that you said, (again, I might be on my own little soapbox), but it feels like the Sayings of Thomas unlock the truth of a lot of the perils that we’ve kind of been taught to think of a way that actually almost seems the opposite or kind of negative or keeps them as a small idea.

And that repetitoius thinking almost feels like a ritual in itself: this is what the story means. And this is Thomas, saying, what is it saying inside your heart? It actually lives inside your heart. So listen to what your heart is telling you. That’s your True Self saying, “Hey, hey, can you listen to me? Not what other people have told you. And so I can kind of see why the Gospel of Thomas wasn’t included in the canon, because they wouldn’t have been able to teach some of the things that felt so big to me when I was growing up. But they now feel smaller. They feel too small to contain pure Consciousness. So thank you for blowing my mind once again. I think that’s just marvelous.

Toto Tay

Yeah, that’s really good. And it’s not to say that there won’t be rituals that speak to us. I think a lot of rituals even,  are born out of an understanding, but then it becomes so rote. Like baptism is beautiful if you understand what baptism means. But if you’re just getting baptized because now we get baptized, then it loses its potency. And I think Thomas is a good way of saying, “Step back and see why you believe what you believe.”

Shirley Paulson

Wow, I love that. Okay, well we have three hands. Let me go to Kate and Honor, and then come back to you, Yoy. So Kate, go ahead.

Kate Oswald

Wonderful discussion. Thank you so much. I am just really grateful that the Gospel of Thomas has come to light just when we need it in this age. Because from everything you’ve shared today, and even what Maureen just said about consciousness, I think it addresses identity at every level.

That seems to be what the world is undergoing right now—is a pretty universal identity crisis at every level, every single level, from personal to national, to community, to gender, it doesn’t matter. And this addresses every one of them that I’m seeing in the Gospel of Thomas. And I’ve just so appreciated how you are bringing it into the 21st century in a way that really will speak, and I think compliment, the scriptures in such a beautiful way. So I wanted to thank you for that and for Shirley for holding these fantastic conversations because we’re truly a part of something cutting edge and good. So I just needed to thank you. I don’t really have a question. Mine was about number 114 as well.

Toto Tay :

I love that. I love that.

Kate Oswald

Thank you.

Shirley Paulson

Okay, thank you so much. It’s good to hear from you. And Honor,

Honor Haase

I had a question to start with, and the more I hear Toto speak and everybody else’s view of…, okay, my question was, “As far as the name Thomas is concerned, what does anybody know about it? From the canonical gospels? ‘Doubting Thomas!’”… it’s pejorative in that way. But what I’m hearing from the way Toto is interpreting this, it’s very, very good because apparently he’s just doubting everything that’s handed down, and part of the religious establishment, and saying, “I doubt that. Let’s look farther, let’s look farther.” So my question that I started out with was answered by everybody’s contribution. And thank you all very much.

Toto Tay

I love that. Yeah, questioning, challenging Thomas. That’s good.

Shirley Paulson

That is good. And Honor, thank you for bringing that up too. You have to remember that all the gospel writers have different relationships with each other and different directions that they’re going. So sometimes you don’t know exactly if they mean doubting Thomas or if they mean questioning Thomas, like you said. So there are all kinds of nuances that we don’t always know. But it’s good to bring up these questions and parallels. That’s a good question.

Honor Haase

Well, I just think that this is so good to what? To clear his name. I mean, he was one of the 12. Jesus chose him for some reason. And all we get on the surface is this is a guy, and “Now I’m not going to believe that unless I get to stick my hand in your side.” And that’s kind of a low way of looking at things, but understanding that if he wrote this or this was written to indicate what he was really like, it just clears his name to be someone who’s really ready to open his eyes and look and search.

Shirley Paulson

That’s just great. Yes. So Joy, we have one minute, but I’d love to hear from you. Can you say it quickly, your thoughts or questions?

Joy Dryden

Yeah, it’s back to that Saying number 2. I just really see that idea of disturbing as shaking things up, which I think from my hearing of Toto during all these other Bible and Beyond podcasts, I get the feeling you love to shake things up.

The next thing that happens in the traditional translation is that he becomes odd. So first, that person is all shaken up, but then he thinks about it, and he is odd, and then he becomes king. I think in “king,” meaning the person who cares for everyone. That’s what the king was originally doing. So it takes you to an action of how you can go with these amazing new thoughts and use them to care for others.

Toto Tay

I love that.

Shirley Paulson :

Wow. Beautiful. Oh gosh. I think you have really, really inspired us to get into this great book, Toto. We really appreciate this. We have to go just because the hour’s up, so we’re going to move along. But I sure do want to thank you and I know that I’m thanking you on behalf of everybody with us tonight.

Toto Tay

Thank you guys. That was fun.

Shirley Paulson

And right now I just want to thank Toto again for taking us into such a new view of the Gospel of Thomas. So great to have you with us tonight, Toto!