The Gospel of Thomas and Women - Salvation By Sex Change?
The Gospel of Thomas is a second-century Jesus Book, it contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus, and the book as a whole sets forth its own vision of Jesus and its own version of Christianity.
In some places Gos. Thom. sounds very similar to the canonical Gospels, but in other instances, it’s super weird. And when I say “weird,” I mean weird.
The final verse of the book, saying 114, on a plain reading, teaches something like salvation by sex change for women. Just listen to Peter’s complaint about Mary Magdalene to Jesus:
114.1 Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary come out from us, because women are not worthy of life.’ 114.2 Jesus said, ‘Behold, I will draw her so that I might make her male, so that she also might be a living spirit resembling you males. 114.3 For every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Trans. S. Gathercole).
Let’s admit this is a strange verse, “women are not worthy of life” and “every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.” It’s strange and even the scholars scratch their heads about this saying in the Gospel of Thomas.
The fact is that no matter how much one attempts to imagine Thomas (the author) as an egalitarian or feminist, we have patriarchal assumptions, language, and prejudices indicative of wider Mediterranean cultures, not just in Peter’s question, but even in Jesus’s reply to Peter about Mary. Mary is discussed, but she does not appear, nor is her voice heard. Also, her femaleness is the reason for her exclusion, and salvation is associated with maleness.
So how should we understand his esoteric and seemingly misogynistic text?
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