The Secret Revelation of John

[HOLMES]

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl_sbj.htm

I was looking through the gospels of thomas, and mary mageledone for gnostic gospels and i saw this there.
it was discovered in 1945 yet i am confused to why so much was made of the gospel of thomas, and nothing about the gospel of john ?
any more well read individuals then I have any theories ?

 

[Milfoil]

Because the gospel of Thomas, even though not recognised by the early church, refers to the 'words of the living Jesus' and the Apochryphon of John is supposed to be the secret teachings of Jesus given after he had gone back to the place from which he came (after death).

The gospel of Thomas is written in coptic, usual at that time. Acts states that John was illiterate yet whoever wrote the Apocryphon was well versed in Greek (however, it was common in those times for people to employ a scribe).

There is confusion as to which 'John' this is who wrote the Apocryphon, clearly it is not the same person who wrote Revelations.

I don't know much more, I have to get to work but that's just what I found in 5 mins of Google searching.

 

[HOLMES]

ah thanks

thanks milfoil very much appreciated, (when it comes to these things I frankly don't know much, like how to do scholarly research ).
I will give that some thought.

 

[Richard]

A common theory is that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were based on the earlier Gospel of Mark, augmented by material from a hypothetical source, called Q. It was thought that the Gospel of Thomas might throw additional light on the existence of early source material for the Synoptic Gospels, such as Q.

The Secret Book (Apochryphon) of John is about the mythology underlying Gnosticism, and has little, if any, relevance to the Synoptic Gospels. However, it may be the most important single source of information about Gnosticism.