The Date of the Gospel of Thomas

 

"Having seen a terminus ante quem of c. 200 c.e. , we now have strong grounds on the basis of Thomas’s allusion to the temple, and ‘literary influences’, for a terminus a quo of 135c.e....We have seen that the best fit for Thomas is some time after 135 and some time before 200ce. A terminus a quo is established by the various literary influences upon Thomas and the confidence about the non-rebuilding of the temple in GTh 71. At the other end, the papyri and the mention of Thomas in Hippolytus give a fairly secure terminus ante quem of c. 200ce/ early third century. The affinities of certain elements of Thomas with other works from the second century ce is apparent, as we will see further in the course of the commentary" (Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: An Introduction and Commentary, pgs. 121, 124) 

"Against a first-century date for Thomas is also the recognition, with probably the majority of scholars today, that Thomas in its current form depends on the Synoptics. This is because Thomas has parallels to every stratum of Gospel tradition (including John and distinctively Matthean redaction) and some of its sayings follow others solely because of the sequence in the canonical Gospels.......What is more troubling for an 'early Thomas' hypothesis is that Thomas bears numerous characteristics of Syriac Christianity from the second half of the second century, more than of a Palestinian Jewish milieu well over a century earlier. Worse yet, the Gospel of Thomas sometimes follows the sequence and content of Tatian's Diatesseron (and other Syrian tradition from that period or later)." (Craig Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, pgs. 55-56)