Does the Gospel of Thomas reflect the views of Jesus?
Maybe. There was once a Q gospel and a Mark gospel. These were revised and combined into a Matthew gospel and a Luke gospel. So there were four interrelated texts that testify to a single view of Jesus; that he was a man who predicted the early end of this world and its violent replacement by a future Kingdom of God. If these texts have it right, then Thomas is divergent from Jesus’ own perspectives. But there is also a John gospel testifying to the present reality of God’s Kingdom and the presence of the divine in the world. John’s gospel, like Thomas’ gospel, focuses on the actuality of the divine in the present. So one must decide for oneself whether the John/Thomas perspective reflects Jesus’ own ideas or whether Q/Mark and then subsequently the revised versions called Matthew and Luke do so.
