Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Why It Was Banned from the Bible (PDF)
Written by Marko Marina, Ph.D.
Author | Historian
Author | Historian | BE Contributor
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Date written: August 4th, 2025
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman
Have you heard of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas? If not, it’s not your fault. It’s not something you would hear at the Sunday Mass. This captivating piece of early Christian literature was marginalized and pushed aside as the institutional Church gradually took shape.
As it turns out, in those early years of the Christian movement, most people (at least as far as we can tell from surviving sources) were focused on the big moments of Jesus’ life: his arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, and resurrection.
It shouldn’t surprise us. After all, these were the cornerstone events around which an entire religious tradition was being built.
But sooner rather than later, questions began to emerge. If Jesus was such a great figure in his adult life (divine, powerful, and wise) couldn’t it also be the case that he was extraordinary even as a child? What was he like as a boy? How did he behave before his public ministry began? Where did his powers come from and did he always use them wisely?
These questions gave rise to new stories. Stories that filled in the gaps the canonical Gospels left untouched. Stories that tried to imagine what it meant for a child to possess divine authority. And some of those stories (such as those we find in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas) went far beyond what later Christian authorities were willing to accept.
What unfolds in this text both fascinated and unsettled early readers. Here we have a young Jesus who is powerful, yes, but also unpredictable, impulsive, and even dangerous. And yet, for centuries, this gospel was copied, translated, and retold across Christian communities from Egypt to Europe.
So why haven’t you heard of it? Why was it never included in the New Testament? How does the Infancy Gospel of Thomas dating compare to other parts of the Bible? And what does this text reveal about how the early Christians understood Jesus?
To answer these questions, we’ll first need to explore the literary landscape of early Christianity, before turning to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas itself, and to the reasons the Church eventually left it behind.
But, before we delve into the world of early Christian imagination, take a moment to check out Bart D. Ehrman’s course Paul and Jesus: The Great Divide. In 8 captivating lectures, Dr. Ehrman explores the complex relationship between the two most influential figures in Christian history, highlighting both their shared convictions and profound differences.
If you enjoy our courses, don’t miss the Biblical Studies Academy, our growing platform offering not only a wealth of educational content on the Bible and early Christianity, but also a vibrant community of people passionate about the historical study of Christian origins.
A World Full of Gospels: Early Christian Literary Diversity
From its very beginnings, Christianity was never a monolith. Even during Jesus’ lifetime, people interpreted his words and actions in divergent ways.
After his death, this diversity only deepened. As the message of Jesus spread beyond its Jewish roots and into new cultural, linguistic, and intellectual settings, it was reshaped, retold, and reframed to meet the needs and expectations of different communities.
Anthony Le Donne captures this reality well when he writes:
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Within an ancient Jewish context, memories of Jesus had to be theologized, construed typologically, and interpreted in the light of religious tradition. Otherwise he would have been forgotten.
That process of remembering (shaped by theology, tradition, and imagination) meant that no single version of Jesus could claim universal dominance in those early years.
As time went on, the diversity of belief gave rise to diversity in writing. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, numerous Christian movements emerged, each claiming to possess the truest understanding of Jesus' life, teachings, and significance.
Some emphasized his divine nature; others, his humanity. Some prioritized mystical knowledge, while others stressed obedience, martyrdom, or institutional loyalty. Some would say that this was theological chaos. I like to see it as theological creativity!
Today, scholars are more attuned than ever to this richness. David M. Litwa, in his illuminating book Found Christianities, writes:
As a result, early Christianity has been redescribed as a pluralist movement, featuring several different kinds of Christians, bound together in fairly porous groups. Labeling some of these groups ‘mainstream’ and others ‘heretical,’ ‘marginal’ or otherwise ‘deviant’ is generally seen as unhelpful because it reinscribes – often in subtle ways – ancient heresiological categories.
This pluralism isn’t just an academic abstraction; it’s inscribed in the texts themselves. The earliest Christian literature is wildly diverse: Gospels that sound nothing like the ones in the New Testament, apocalypses that depict surreal heavenly journeys, acts of apostles that read more like adventure stories than theological treatises, and epistles filled with ideas that would later be declared unorthodox.
It’s under these circumstances that we must understand texts like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. They are the literary voices of those early followers of Jesus whose imaginative and theological worlds left their imprint (though not their stamp of approval) on the later shape of Christian orthodoxy.
Referring to the whole sub-genre of texts, Jens Schröter, in his study Les évangiles apocryphes: Jésus en dehors de la Bible (The Apocryphal Gospels: Jesus Outside of the Bible), explains:
The infancy gospels bear clear witness to a marked interest in stories about the birth and childhood of Jesus, his family, and that of John the Baptist. Building on the narratives found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, they paint vivid, imaginative—sometimes also charmingly naïve—portraits of the early years of Jesus’ life, of Mary and Joseph, and of the deeds of the Baptist. These writings are not concerned with transmitting historical knowledge, but with the significance of Jesus and those around him for Christian piety and spirituality. The justification of local Christian traditions, the management of existential challenges such as illness and death, and the cultivation of a spiritual relationship with figures from early Christianity are central themes in these texts.” (my translation)
In other words, these aren't the bizarre outliers of Christian history. Rather, they are witnesses to the depth and breadth of the early Jesus' movements. So, with that in mind, let's dive into the explosive contents of this particular gospel (and trust me, it gets wild!)!
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The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Summary
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas offers a striking and often unsettling portrayal of Jesus, not as a serene teacher or a suffering savior, but as a precocious, unpredictable, and at times even dangerous child.
Spanning the years between ages 5 and 12, this apocryphal gospel consists of a loosely connected series of episodes, many of which showcase Jesus’ supernatural powers. But unlike the miracles of healing and exorcism found in the canonical gospels, the miracles here often highlight a divine youngster still learning to wield his extraordinary authority.
The stories range from the wondrous to the alarming. In one of the gospel’s most iconic scenes, the 5-year-old Jesus forms 12 sparrows out of clay on the Sabbath, an act forbidden by Jewish law.
When rebuked by his father Joseph for working on the holy day, Jesus claps his hands and brings the birds to life. This story, later echoed in the Qur’an (Surah 3:49), has inspired medieval art and Christian imagination for centuries.
But the tone of the narrative quickly shifts. In a nearby episode, another boy carelessly ruins the pools Jesus has made in a stream. Jesus responds by uttering a curse, causing the child’s body to wither like a dried tree branch. Later, when a second child accidentally bumps into Jesus on the road, the “young Messiah” again curses him, this time with death. In the starkest possible terms, Jesus kills.
Did You Know?
Too Popular to Be "Canonical"? The Curious Example of St. Onuphrius.
The popularity of the manuscript tradition (see below) of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (despite its many “unorthodox” elements) reminded me of another example I encountered while attending the International Medieval Congress in Leeds this year. During one session, I heard a compelling paper on St. Onuphrius, a desert hermit from Late Antique Egypt, whose life is recorded in the Life of St. Onuphrius by Paphnutius.
What struck me most was how little deference this account pays to ecclesiastical structures. In the narrative, Onuphrius lives in complete solitude for decades, without priests, bishops, or any contact with the Church. The Eucharist isn’t administered by clergy but brought by angels, and forgiveness of sins is granted directly by divine intervention. There is no mention of sacraments, ordination, or hierarchical mediation.
And yet (despite this almost anti-institutional framing) Onuphrius quickly became one of Egypt’s popular saints. By the 6th century, papyri attest to churches dedicated in his name, and his cult soon spread across the Mediterranean, reaching as far as Italy and Spain.
Like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the figure of Onuphrius illustrates that popularity and theological “orthodoxy” didn’t always go hand in hand. Sometimes, what spoke to the spiritual imagination of early and medieval Christians thrived regardless of “official endorsement”, or lack thereof.
Episodes like these have long puzzled readers and scholars alike. Are they meant to portray Jesus as capricious and cruel? Some have dismissed the gospel as grotesque or morally troubling. But others have sought deeper interpretive frameworks.
One possibility is that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas isn’t attempting to show Jesus as less divine, but rather as fully divine even as a child, already possessing the miraculous power and divine authority he will later exercise in his adult ministry. In this reading, Jesus isn’t growing into divinity; he is the eternal Logos from the beginning, and even as a child, his word has power over life and death.
Another intriguing theory posits that the gospel originated, at least in part, as a polemical response to criticisms of Jesus. In the Greco-Roman world, anger was seen as a vice, incompatible with wisdom and divinity.
Stories of an impulsive and angry child-god could have circulated among critics of the faith, designed to discredit Christian claims about Jesus.
According to this view, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas may represent a Christian attempt to reclaim and reframe these tales: to show that Jesus’ anger, while real, was confined to his childhood, and that his power was always undergirded by divine purpose.
Whether such a defense would have been persuasive remains debatable. After all, if the goal was to rehabilitate Jesus’ image, retelling stories in which he kills his playmates may not have been the most effective strategy.
There is, however, another possibility, one that moves in a very different direction. Norwegian scholar Reidar Aasgaard has argued that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas may in fact represent the first Christian children’s story. He writes:
Thus, rather than being a product of human curiosity in general, IGT’s [Infancy Gospel of Thomas’] interest in Jesus’ early life is more readily understood with the question of audience as a starting point. With its focus on Jesus’ childhood and on central stages within this period of his life, IGT attempts to deal with matters of special concern to its main addressees: children in early Christianity.
Still, this hypothesis remains speculative. While Aasgaard’s interpretation opens important avenues for rethinking the purpose of the gospel, we lack parallel examples of Christian literature for children in the ancient world. Indeed, the genre of children’s literature, as we understand it today, barely existed in antiquity.
In the absence of comparative material, it’s difficult to determine whether this gospel was truly composed for a child audience or whether its concern with Jesus’ youth served adult interests: theological imagination, devotional piety, or even sectarian boundary-drawing.
In all its strangeness, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas offers a compelling glimpse into the creativity and diversity of early Christian thought. Its Jesus is not a simplified or softened version of the adult figure known from the canonical Gospels, but a dazzling projection of divine authority (and anger!) into the small frame of a child.
And if you’d like to read the entire text (which I would highly encourage), you can explore an accessible online translation (The Infancy Gospel of Thomas PDF) or head to your local library to consult the excellent scholarly edition by Zlatko Pleše and Bart D. Ehrman, published under the title The Other Gospels: Accounts of Jesus from Outside of New Testament.
But where did this curious text come from, and who was responsible for writing it? To better understand the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, we now turn to the questions of its authorship, date of composition, and how it has come down to us through the manuscript tradition.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Dating, Authorship, and Manuscript Tradition
With us historians, everything is always about the context: When was this written? Who wrote it? Why? What manuscripts do we have? These aren’t just academic questions, they shape how we understand a text’s function, its audience, and its historical impact.
And when it comes to the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, nearly every one of these questions is wrapped in uncertainty. Yet, despite the ambiguity, scholars have managed to sketch a compelling portrait of the gospel’s origins and transmission over time.
Let’s begin with the title. Why is this text called the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the first place? As Zlatko Pleše and Bart D. Ehrman point out, the issue of what to even call this document is far from straightforward. They note:
The textual problems posed by our manuscripts [on that: see below] affect such basic issues as what this Gospel (or these various versions of this Gospel) should even be called. Until the middle of the twentieth century it was most widely known simply as the ‘Gospel of Thomas,’ or the ‘Gospel of Thomas the Israelite.’ Since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945 (the so-called Gnostic Gospels), it has become customary to refer to it as the ‘Infancy Gospel of Thomas,’ to differentiate it from the Coptic Gospel of Thomas that is now more familiar[…] Both titles are derived from the late Greek manuscripts used by Tischendorf (none of which actually calls the book a ‘Gospel’).
In other words, the now-standard title is mostly a scholarly convention meant to avoid confusion, especially since the “other” gospel of Thomas is a very different kind of text.
And even the attribution to Thomas is shaky. As J. K. Elliott notes in The Apocryphal New Testament:
Attribution of authorship to Thomas possibly goes back to Origen who is aware of a Gospel of Thomas, but whether or not he is referring to our Infancy Gospel of Thomas is debatable. The infancy stories are attributed to Thomas in the titles of the Dresden, Sinai, and Bologna manuscripts. Authorship is attributed to James by the Athens manuscript. He is not named in the Paris fragment or in the Syriac, Georgian, or Ethiopic. The Vienna palimpsest lacks both the beginning and the end.
As we can see, there was no consensus in antiquity about who wrote this gospel, or even which apostolic figure should be attached to it.
So, did the doubting Thomas write this text? Almost certainly not. Modern scholars are in broad agreement that the attribution is pseudonymous, part of a common strategy in early Christian literature where texts were ascribed to apostolic figures to grant them authority.
The gospel’s contents, style, and theology are completely unlike the works associated with the apostolic era. What we have, instead, is a document produced later — likely by a Christian author steeped in imaginative storytelling and theological reflection, not someone from Jesus’ inner circle.
As for the date of composition, this too has been debated. Scholars have proposed a wide range (anywhere from the 1st to the 6th century C.E.). However, most favor a date in the 2nd century.
This preference is supported not only by the style and theological content of the text but also by references in other early Christian writings. One of the gospel’s best-known stories, in which the child Jesus confronts a teacher by explaining the mysteries of the alphabet, appears in works from the late 2nd and early 3rd century, including Irenaeus’ Against Heresies (1.20.1) and the Epistle of the Apostles.
While these authors don’t directly cite a “gospel of Thomas,” they do suggest they were familiar with versions of the story, and that they found it controversial enough to associate with “heretical” teaching. Such evidence points to the existence and circulation of these stories by around 180 C.E., if not earlier.
And what about the manuscript tradition? That’s another story of complexity and variation. As Jens Schröter explains:
The division of l’HistEnfJésus [Infancy Gospels] in use today goes back to Tischendorf’s edition, which divided the manuscripts into a long recension containing 19 chapters and a short recension containing 11 chapters. The original language was probably Greek, but some have also proposed an original Syriac version. The oldest manuscripts are two Syriac copies from the 5th/6th century. They likely preserve the earliest textual version of the writing. The oldest surviving Greek manuscript is the Codex Sabaiticus (named after the monastery of Mar Saba, where it was discovered) from the 11th century, though most Greek manuscripts date from the 14th to 16th centuries. Some translations are, however, older. A Latin manuscript dates from the 5th century, and two Syriac manuscripts date from the 6th century. Another Latin version is attested in three manuscripts transmitted together with the so-called ‘pseudo-Gospel according to Matthew,’ leading Konstantin von Tischendorf to believe they were initially part of the same work. Additional translations exist in Church Slavonic, Ethiopic, Arabic, Armenian, and Old Irish. (my translation)
Taken together, the title, authorship, date, and transmission history of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas remind us just how fluid and dynamic early Christian literature could be. Rather than a fixed, stable tradition descending neatly from apostolic origins, we find a living and evolving body of texts, shaped by communities with different theological interests and cultural settings.
And even texts like this one (excluded from the canon and regarded with suspicion by orthodox authorities) were copied, translated, and treasured for centuries. Speaking of canon, why did the early Church decide not to include the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the body of Sacred Scripture? Let’s find out!
Why Was the Infancy Gospel of Thomas Not in the Bible?
No, I don’t care how many times you’ve heard it: The Emperor Constantine didn’t decide what books belong in the Bible at the Council of Nicaea. That modern myth (popularized by novels like The Da Vinci Code) has no basis in actual history.
There was no dramatic vote in a candle-lit chamber where bishops accepted some gospels and burned the rest.
The formation of the New Testament canon was a long and complicated process, spanning several centuries. It involved debates, local preferences, theological disputes, and above all, the gradual recognition of texts that were widely read, doctrinally useful, and apostolically grounded.
So why didn’t the Infancy Gospel of Thomas make the cut? For one, early (“proto-orthodox”) Church leaders were uneasy with how the young Jesus is portrayed in this text. The gospel shows a divine child performing powerful miracles, but also cursing, killing, and intimidating those around him.
That sort of portrayal didn’t sit well with the image of the compassionate and sinful Jesus! A child who strikes down playmates with a word or blinds those who challenge him wasn’t something you would consider spiritual edifying.
Another problem was authorship. The gospel was never convincingly tied to an apostle, and its contents didn’t reflect the teachings or tone of the texts that would become the canonical Gospels. Church leaders favored writings that they believed came from eyewitnesses or at least close associates of the apostles.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, with its imaginative storytelling and theological oddities, simply didn’t qualify.
In the end, texts like this were sidelined not because they weren’t interesting (clearly, they were!) but because they didn’t fit the developing standards of what “proto-orthodox” Church counted as authoritative Scripture.
Conclusion
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas reminds us that early Christianity wasn’t born in theological consensus but in a swirl of competing ideas, imaginative retellings, and community-specific interpretations of Jesus.
While this particular text was eventually excluded from the New Testament, its long and widespread transmission reveals that it nonetheless spoke to the spiritual imagination of many. Who knows? Perhaps, among the parties who knew of it, there were few bishops who read it while nobody was around!
Whether as a daring theological reflection, a polemical response to critics, or even (as some have suggested) a form of sacred storytelling for children, the gospel stands as a testament to the creative ferment that marked the first several centuries of Christian thought.
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