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[Doug Millison]

A little research turns up quite a few informed opinions about the Gospel
of Thomas. Here's one:

"No one believes that all the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas are authentic
sayings of Jesus. As is the case with the traditions preserved in Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, the traditions preserved in Thomas combine sayings of
Jesus with the sayings of other persons that were attributed to Jesus.
There is, however, a general consensus among scholars that of all the
noncanonical Christian writings we possess, the Gospel of Thomas contains
the most authentic record of the teachings of Jesus.
... I shall first argue that in no meaningful historical sense is Thomas
"gnostic."
Whatever the Gnostics of the Apocryphon of John, the Origin of the World,
Eugnostos, Pistis Sophia, etc., were doing, the Gospel of Thomas is doing
something else. If one would like to see what a Gnostic Sayings Gospel does
look like, one should turn to the Gospel of Philip. Then I shall show that
although Thomas is by no means a systematic document, it does have a
comprehensible set of ideas, which are, for the most part, drawn from the
Jewish Wisdom and apocalyptic traditions. Finally, I shall place Thomas in
its context in the very early church. It is a collection of sayings used to
instruct newly-baptized Christians. It appears to reflect an early form of
Johannine preaching and probably came into being at about the same time as
the Q document (the sayings source from which may scholars believe Matthew
and Luke drew much of
their material). Thomas should be dated ca. ~ad 50--70.  ... "

from:
The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom
by Stevan L. Davies, Seabury Press: New York, 1983

http://www.miseri.edu/users/davies/thomas/one.htm

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