Its Date, and Whether It Is 'Gnostic'

Two questions dominate discussion. The first is date: proposals range from as early as the mid-first century, which would make parts of it as old as, or older than, the canonical gospels, and an independent witness to the words of Jesus, to the mid-second century, with many scholars settling on a composite text with an early core and later additions. The second is classification: Thomas is routinely labelled "Gnostic," but a number of specialists (Elaine Pagels among those who have written most influentially on it) argue that this is imprecise, since the text lacks the developed Gnostic myth of a fallen creator-god and reads more as early Christian wisdom and mysticism with an ascetic, inward cast. Both questions matter because they bear on how far the surviving canon reflects a narrowing of a once far more varied early Christianity, the larger theme that the Nag Hammadi discovery forced onto the study of Christian origins.