Fun with Thomas

In a way it would seem to be no accident that Jefferson's first name was Thomas, considering how his Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, came so close to guessing the outlines of the Thomas Gospel, even if Jefferson's personal position as a "materialist" in a way prevented him from seeing the content of Jesus's teaching. In fact it is really remarkable, if you consider that what has generally been mis-labeled as "The Jefferson Bible," was completed in 1819, and the Thomas Gospel was not rediscovered till 1945, but translations did not begin to appear till well into the 1950's. The most salient feature of the Thomas Gospel is of course that it makes irrevocably clear why Jesus was not a Christian (since they had not been invented yet, and he never attended Paul's catechism classes), and Jefferson sensed in his stocking feet that Paul had distorted the teachings of Jesus, and called him names like a "dupe and impostor," and ruthlessly took out all of his writings, but also all of his theological influence (by excluding the narrative and interpretative dimensions of the canonical gospel materials).

With my own growing involvement in this topic the Thomas sightings are increasing, in a variety of forms. For one there was a time when I was in the studio audience when both Gary Renard and Micael Ledwith were on a panel discussion on New Realities TV, about spirituality and the new science, and I was aware that both Gary and Micael have recollections of past lives as Thomas. Then there's Michael Tamura, a friend of Gary's who also has past life memories of Thomas. More recently I met someone who was in India in Kerala, in the area where Thomas spent the final years of his ministry, and who experienced an appearance of Thomas while there. Further it appears as if recently there is a proliferation of people in my life with Thomas as either first or last name, and it is just kind of fun. I started writing about Thomas and he seems to be showing up around every corner.