Introduction

This is an experiment. With a background in Logic and retired from a career in IT, I've worked on the Coptic Gospel of Thomas for over 30 years. Most of my work has been posted at https://wayne.academia.edu/MichaelGrondin. Other than that, my current online presence consists of the website The Gospel of Thomas Resource Center and administration of the Facebook group Gospel of Thomas Studies. This blog is an attempt to reach out to a wider audience, as well as to provide a place where the Puzzle Theory is the main focus. Those other questions about Thomas (dating, dependence, etc) which almost universally consume commentators need to be left at the door. This is new territory.

Why do I refer to the Gospel of Thomas as a 'mystery puzzle'? Because over the years I've found significant evidence in the Coptic manuscript - exactly as inscribed - that it had a second "side" or "face" to it other than the public side/face that has so far been the sole focus of Thomas studies. This private, inwardly-directed, side/face was evidently an essential part of Thomas' reason for being. As Hippolytus wrote in the earliest testimonium to the Gospel of Thomas by name:

"They (the Naassenes) say that not only the mysteries of the Assyrians and Phrygians, but also
those of the Egyptians support their account of the blessed nature of the things which were, are,
and are yet to be, a nature which is both hidden and revealed at the same time, and which he [the
Naassene] calls the sought-for kingdom of heaven which is within man. They transmit a tradition
concerning this in the Gospel entitled According to Thomas ..." (Wendland translation, emph mine)

"Both hidden and revealed at the same time" is a perfect description of what I've found via careful content analysis of the Coptic manuscript. An unexpected level of intratextual meaning co-exists with the extratextual. In a word, the thing talks about itself as well as talking about the external world. It's an ingenious work wherein textual pieces of various sizes were evidently intended to be altered, moved about, and/or combined in various ways with the goal of bringing order and "perfection" to a chaotic and imperfect text. This intended "perfect text" thus essentially constitutes a "Secret Thomas" awaiting the finding - or rather, the putting together. Fortunately, we don't have to blindly play around with things that can be done with the text (which would be futile), because the composers of the text have included clues and confirmatory indicators of what things should be done.

Folks who've worked with Coptic Thomas think it's just a rather sloppy translation. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has anomalies to it that are in some ways similar to the jagged edges of jigsaw puzzle pieces. They were intended to be there, to hook into each other. Why? Because the "private readers" of this text - almost certainly insiders in some obscure Christian mystery sect - were apparently intended to be "builders" of a new textual "world," in part by "healing" imperfections in the existing public text. Perfecting the text via the intended transformation of its parts was evidently a mental and manual exercise intimately related to the personal transformation of the disciples/students themselves.

So much for an intro. You can find out a lot more by perusing my Academia site. I'll continue to post here from time to time and will entertain questions as long as they're reasonable and relevant to the focus of the blog.