1. Where Is The Missing Thomas Jesus Manuscript?

Most of us don't know that there is a 'lost' gospel which I call here 'The Thomas Life Of Jesus.'

Or am I calling the ms 'The Lost Thomas Jesus Manuscript?'

As an author, not a professional scholar, I am still undecided. But I've got a significant story to tell.

I don't say I have seen this missing gospel, but maybe I do have something ...

Not that anyone has an original papyrii from the times right after Jesus? Or that I know about such? This would be absurd. How would I get such a document?

But what if such an ancient manuscript exists ...

Someone must have it, wouldn't you think?

There is a transition point in our modern times when something is unknown and then it is known.

Such a time occurred when in 1946 some Bedouins discovered The Dead Sea Scrolls. And then in 1947 other Bedouins discovered the Nag Hammadi Library that scientists have dated to the forth century, AD.

Bad as the Second World War was in that it killed millions, ending in 1945, this seems not as important an event, though so tragic, as the discovery of wisdom literature like in the Dead Sea caves. The discovery of the lost Thomas Jesus Life gospel, or whatever we are to call it, can be such an historic event.

What people live by is not war and destruction but 'the Living Word' of humanities greatest teachers.

For our world culture to develop further spiritually and not just technologically, we need the wisdom practices, the key ideas, the ideal attitudes, the great cautions, of our world's greatest wisdom teachers.

The Dead Sea Scrolls from Jesus' day were lost, and now they are found. For years their content was not released by scholars, but now it is.

Yet what if there is still a much greater ancient manuscript that has been discovered that can tell us what the real Jesus taught and lived, so that the ordinary people, like us can so much better live our lives.

You can go to the store for bread and appliances, but you must get spiritual food, right values, superior life understanding, ethical guides for living life and building character, only from wisdom books and teachers which ring true.

What if there is rediscovered then a new Thomas gospel besides his Jesus sayings gospel? Wouldn't that be just amazing? Wouldn't scholars thrust to translate its words in the over 100 languages of the educated world?

Of course they would. This has not happened.

It seems that this Jesus disciple also wrote a Life of Jesus!

It makes sense that the young Thomas would not only collect Jesus' key teachings, as in the wisdom Gospel of Thomas, but also collect written descriptions of what Jesus did? This we choose to call here The Jesus Life Gospel, or some such title?

This last discovery amazed people because in it was the first complete copy in Coptic of The Gospel of Thomas!

Ever wonder in going over The Gospel of Thomas' 115 sayings why there are just Jesus' teachings, including some key ones appearing in the official synoptic gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke?

I say, where is the missing Thomas Life of Jesus if we finally have The Thomas Sayings Gospel, my name for the partly mislabeled Gospel of Thomas?

Where is the missing Thomas Life of Jesus?

Has it not been discovered yet?

Or has this 'missing' Thomas Life of Jesus been discovered and rendered 'non-existent?'

Are there powerful forces out in our modern world that would do everything to suppress such a new Life of Jesus because this manuscript is original, as early as the other synoptic gospels, maybe earlier, but whose view of the original Jesus and why he was crucified is different from the picture we have of Jesus through first the Christian community and later Christian Church?

Was there a fight back then as to what was official gospel material about a real wisdom teacher named Jesus of Galilee?

What has happened when there was a threat to Christianity in the past?

Did you know that early in the twentieth century the Catholic Church in Rome issues an statement that they could not find in the Vatican library their collection of earliest Christian manuscripts?

Now they are tearing down the old Vatican library and building a new modern one. We don't know what is hidden by the popes of the ages from public eyes. The Catholic Archivists have always restricted outsider scholars from doing research in their library. The popes used to keep ancient manuscripts in a box in their own quarters, it is said.

The Vatican archivists stated they had to restrict use of the ancient manuscripts so that the manuscripts are protected. But I say, restrict the use of the fragile parchment and papyri but not the scholars from outside. They are building a modern library now. Maybe the archivists and the pope are trying to give better access to the public?

In this world what is so often valuable is hoarded by the few in direct possession.

Yet, What you don't own truly you hoard the more. Quis vos operor non verum usus vos recondo quantum.

Strangely, for an outside scholar to be given permission to read an ancient manuscript he or she had to request a specific manuscript ahead of time.

No browsing allowed!

What I wouldn't give to browse freely, as I can on the web ...

Frustration for someone with a curious mind and the intelligence to investigate and understand things on his own without needing a religion or a point of view to back him up, or as some would say, control him.

I cannot tell you if what I have copy machine copy of, not the original text, but a modern English translation, is authentic, is real or not? You have to judge for yourself.

Modern scholars, when they are given access, can carbon date ancient manuscript fragments and other criterion for authenticity, such as by comparing script styles according to the century it is written in. I don't do any of this.

I am strangely a professional writer and an international expert psychologist who has created innovations in his own field but done nothing of note in the field of historical Jesus investigations and analysis.

However, I have read a lot of the key books and articles that modern historical Jesus scholars have put out. Bernard Mack, for instance, has said when the findings are known and accepted, we will have a new picture of Jesus different from the Christian one.

I don't know about this.

My picture is different. I had my Jesus wisdom training from an esoteric group first in 1956 when I was only 22 years old, and after took many of their Jesus Records Seminars in my thirties, even being trained by them as one of twelve new leaders for over ten years of intensive study as part of their Guild for Psychological Studies in San Francisco, California.

So I do know my stuff about people and their religious and psychological beliefs and patterns.

I test what may well be authentic historical Jesus life and teachings with the criteria, does it make sense as a whole when put together?

I base my opinion on 'whether there was a real Jesus or not,' on the question are the attributed to Jesus teachings practical and insightful for living ones life today?

'The kingdom of God is now' is an authentic Jesus teaching because Jesus was 'The First Psychologist' in teaching the inner meaning of behavior.

Jesus also said 'The kingdom of God is within you.'

We psychologists today point out to look to your attitudes and beliefs to see what motivates you to act or not act. When a historical Jesus teaching works today in me and for me I listen and act.

Yes, I have anger. We all do. But where does this anger come from and how may I best deal with it?

The historical Jesus says, Moses has said, if you have anger in your heart, first deal with your anger and reconcile, then give your gift at the altar, which can mean, be nice man, but don't be superficial. Own your own stuff and acknowledge it to the other person. Isn't this what a lot of us are trying to do these days?

I have lived the teachings. I am 75 years old. I have taught a modern version of the teachings. Many people have changed their lives because of the insights arising in themselves using the teachings, once understood in their own context, and not as Christian teachings.

Christians can understand authentic Jesus wisdom teachings, but they add all sorts of magical stuff like flying up to heaven or that a mythical Jesus Christ saved you from your sins by being crucified.

Not true! Though grown men believe this.

We say take responsibility for your own anger and violence. Take responsibility for your own sins! Take responsibility for your own shit!

It's not just the language, it's the action that counts.

Regarding ancient sacred texts, understand a text in itself before you interpret it for a religious view. Once I taught reading sacred texts at John F. Kennedy University Consciousness Studies department in California. Fourteen out of fifteen students got the point that they could come to their own personal understanding of a wisdom text.

The fifteenth student kept to the esoteric religious view she came in with. She never changed! We could all see this in how she responded. I could see the major changes in the other students' hearts and minds by reading the final papers they wrote.

When you involve yourself in great wisdom texts that last through the ages you do change your perspective on yourself and life and become a better person, more fulfilled and satisfied about yourself.

You do develop a way of living that saves you from some reactive depression and makes you effective in finding companions who share your views and values, but without demonizing each other, or not respecting differences in view.

I guess you could say you develop your own wisdom function and respond to the world and its troubles and potentials purposefully.

When you sort out what might be the authentic teachings and life experiences of what is called 'the historical Jesus' you are yourself affected, not as a religion's belief system and dogma tries to program its followers, but just on your own terms, your inner wisdom function which needs activation and development.

I'm going to try my very best here to present a Life of Jesus that could turn out to be more authentic to the real Jesus than even the scholars have written about yet, and certainly more authentic than the belief system and dogma of the Christian Church.

I am not a church goer myself, though I had to sit every day for the service at the boarding schools I was forced to go to, starting as a child of six. I know Christianity but broke away from it as soon as I had ego enough to do so and make my own decisions.

Yet my spiritual search never stops.

I call spirituality ones individual relation to a Greater Source.

I call religion collective belief and practice about the Source or God, or whatever you choose to call 'that which is greater.'

I have many revelations from my students, living and teaching seeking people. But I also have a startling revelation about early Christianity that can impact all of us in the world today.

Yes, revelations!

How we think in the mind affects how we act in the world.

Perhaps I will have the courage to reveal it all here?

I have chosen to do so in novel form so that you can experience what it must have been like to be alive when Jesus was alive as a very smart human being on this earth and to be at least a listener at his frequent teaching meetings.

For that is what the real Jesus obviously did. He taught people who wanted to be near him everyday wisdom and practicality for handling their lives in difficult times for everybody, maybe far more difficult than most of us have living today.

You don't have much time here on planet earth, even if you are a young adult, so it becomes quickly important how you see yourself and live your life.

The real Jesus with his teachings seems to be about how you live life.

What do we do if I know about the long lost gospel, the Thomas Life of Jesus to go with the recently found, Thomas Sayings Gospel, erroneously called by the scholars and their publishers, The Gospel of Thomas?

It simply was not in my view a gospel because it did not have the life incidents of Jesus along with his sayings.

But today has this long lost Thomas Life of Jesus manuscript been found and then re-hidden at least, and hopefully not destroyed forever?

This is one of our questions.

Powerful forces are at work.

All material copyright © 2009 Strephon Kaplan-Williams - May not be used without permission.