In John 11:16, 20:24, and 21:2, the apostle Thomas is referred to as either Didymus or the Twin depending on which Bible translation you read. Didymus means twin. The Gospel of Thomas refers to the disciple as Didymos Judas Thomas. Despite the slight change in spelling, the meaning is the same. Unfortunately, neither text reveals whose twin Thomas was.
Given that the canonical Gospels generally don’t mention anyone’s physical characteristics (tall, short, fat, bearded), it seems unlikely this information about Thomas would have been included if it wasn’t significant. Some early Christian churches actually believed that Thomas was the identical twin brother of Jesus. However, muscle testing tells us this was not the case.
In reality, Thomas was Jesus’s twin in a spiritual sense. This doesn’t mean that he was the spiritual equal of Jesus. He was not. Instead, he was merely more advanced than the other disciples, at least early on in Jesus’s ministry.
The use of the word “twin” makes more sense when you understand that Aramaic, the language that Jesus and his disciples spoke, used a great deal of exaggeration in its expressions. Therefore, Thomas’s designation as Jesus’s “twin” was merely an exaggerated way of saying that he was very advanced.
But then what are we to make of John 20:24-29 which tells us that Thomas refused to believe the other disciples when they told him that Jesus had been resurrected? If Thomas was indeed more advanced than the other disciples, then how do we explain his lack of faith?
It is telling that the Gospel of John calibrates in the 600s overall, yet John 20:24-29 only calibrates at 211. Muscle testing further reveals that Thomas never doubted Jesus’s resurrection as the passage claims. It was an invention added to make an important point, that faith in the Resurrection is crucial despite not having seen the resurrected Jesus. After all, if the Resurrection did not happen, then Christianity can only be a fraud. Without faith that this event was indeed real, one cannot even be a Christian, and thus salvation is not possible (at least not within Christianity).
Employing Thomas as the one who doubts that Jesus was resurrected was a good symbolic choice in that Thomas did not view the Resurrection with quite the same level of reverence as the other disciples. The alternate Christian tradition that Thomas founded placed greater emphasis on the advanced teachings than it did the Crucifixion or the Resurrection (The Gospel of Thomas makes no mention of the latter two). To be clear, Thomas did not believe the Resurrection was insignificant or unimportant. He simply didn’t think it should be the most dominant aspect of the Christian faith.
This article calibrates at 496.
Given that the canonical Gospels generally don’t mention anyone’s physical characteristics (tall, short, fat, bearded), it seems unlikely this information about Thomas would have been included if it wasn’t significant. Some early Christian churches actually believed that Thomas was the identical twin brother of Jesus. However, muscle testing tells us this was not the case.
In reality, Thomas was Jesus’s twin in a spiritual sense. This doesn’t mean that he was the spiritual equal of Jesus. He was not. Instead, he was merely more advanced than the other disciples, at least early on in Jesus’s ministry.
The use of the word “twin” makes more sense when you understand that Aramaic, the language that Jesus and his disciples spoke, used a great deal of exaggeration in its expressions. Therefore, Thomas’s designation as Jesus’s “twin” was merely an exaggerated way of saying that he was very advanced.
But then what are we to make of John 20:24-29 which tells us that Thomas refused to believe the other disciples when they told him that Jesus had been resurrected? If Thomas was indeed more advanced than the other disciples, then how do we explain his lack of faith?
It is telling that the Gospel of John calibrates in the 600s overall, yet John 20:24-29 only calibrates at 211. Muscle testing further reveals that Thomas never doubted Jesus’s resurrection as the passage claims. It was an invention added to make an important point, that faith in the Resurrection is crucial despite not having seen the resurrected Jesus. After all, if the Resurrection did not happen, then Christianity can only be a fraud. Without faith that this event was indeed real, one cannot even be a Christian, and thus salvation is not possible (at least not within Christianity).
Employing Thomas as the one who doubts that Jesus was resurrected was a good symbolic choice in that Thomas did not view the Resurrection with quite the same level of reverence as the other disciples. The alternate Christian tradition that Thomas founded placed greater emphasis on the advanced teachings than it did the Crucifixion or the Resurrection (The Gospel of Thomas makes no mention of the latter two). To be clear, Thomas did not believe the Resurrection was insignificant or unimportant. He simply didn’t think it should be the most dominant aspect of the Christian faith.
This article calibrates at 496.