On another blog Mr. P commented (in red):There are many more than four Gospels, all legitimate. The four that are included in the Bible were chosen for "political" reasons. For example, the Gospel of Thomas, well known when the Bible was assembled, was excluded because it contained information that the church leaders, of the time, did not want to be made known.
I responded:
I responded:
I’ disagree. Only a minority of very liberal scholars (such as Helmut Koester and James Robinson and members of the Jesus Seminar) date Gospel of Thomas earlier than the gospel of John. But the scholarly consensus is that Thomas should be dated no earlier than around 150 CE. In fact, most see Thomas relying heavily on the canonical gospels.
For example, take Saying 65 in Thomas which gives a variation on the parable of the tenants found in Mark 12:1-8. Saying 66 then follows with Jesus teaching about the “cornerstone” or “keystone”(the parallel is found in Mark 12: 10-11).
Now, in Mark 12, verse 9 connects the parable with the “cornerstone” utterance. But in Thomas, there is nothing connecting Saying 65 with 66. The most likely reason that Saying 66 follows 65 is that this is simply the sequence found in Mark 12. So, it's much more likely that Thomas copied Mark than the canonical gospels copied Thomas. There are a number of times that this happens where Thomas follows the sequence of the canonical gospels. This points to Thomas being written after the canonical gospels, and again most scholars think it's approx. 150 CE.
The reasons the canonical gospels were accepted is simple: they were written early and contained the remembrances of eyewitnesses to Jesus life. Nothing political about it.
