Infancy Gospel of Thomas

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (also known as the Infancy of Jesus or Childhood of Jesus, the Paidika tou Iesou or Paidika (Greek), and abbreviated as Inf. Gos. Thom. or IGT) is an apocryphal gospel about the childhood of Jesus. Together with the Gospel of James, it was one of the earliest and most influential sources detailing the activities and life of the young Jesus, although neither are included in the New Testament canon. Its creation is generally dated to the second century. The oldest extant fragmentary manuscript dates to the fourth or fifth century, and the earliest complete manuscript containing the work is the Codex Sabaiticus from the 11th century. Variants flourished that expanded the work by combining it with other stories; the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is one example that proved popular in the Latin-speaking Western Church during the Middle Ages.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas depicts a young Jesus in full possession of divine power who is already dispensing wisdom with authority, even at an early age. It includes several miracles that appear in other sources and were apparently widely-spread, such as Jesus transforming clay sparrows into live sparrows. The way Jesus wields his power can read rather shockingly to a modern reader, such as where young Jesus curses and kills those who cross him. The Jesus depicted in this gospel still performs miracles and healing as well, though.

The author of the work is not known. Some versions include a pseudepigraphal attribution to "Thomas the Israelite", which might be a reference to Thomas the Apostle, but this attribution appears to date to the late medieval period and is only in some manuscripts. The work varies greatly in style from the canonical gospels. It was possibly distributed as an addition to the Gospel of Luke or as a stand-alone work that has a dependent association to the canonical Gospel texts. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas ends with the story of Jesus in the temple at age 12, and quotes parts of the Gospel of Luke.

Most scholars suggest that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas dates to the mid-to-late second century AD. The work and the stories within it appear to have been popular, with a wide geographical spread and many translations to new languages.^[2] At least some period of oral transmission of the source material is generally believed to have occurred, either wholly or as several different stories.^[3] At some point it was transcribed, and then over time redacted and adapted. The earliest evidence of the text comes from the late second century. Two 2nd-century documents, the Epistle of the Apostles (by an unknown author) and Against Heresies (by Irenaeus), refer to a story of Jesus's tutor telling him, "Say alpha," and Jesus replying, "First tell me what is beta, and I can tell you what alpha is."^[4] Irenaeus's work is dated to around 180 CE. Irenaeus did not give a name to the book he quoted from, but he condemned it as spurious and heretical.^[5] Further, Irenaeus was probably not condemning the Epistle of the Apostles, an anti-Gnostic work.^[6] An early form of the infancy gospel circulating would make sense for the era.^{[4][7][note 1]} There are further references that seem to indicate the spread of the stories; the Syriac form of the third-century Acts of Thomas contains a possible mention.^[10] In the fourth century, Epiphanius of Salamis's Panarion quotes Jesus's childhood miracles approvingly, while John Chrysostom condemns these stories of childhood miracles as false.^[11]

The author of the gospel is unknown. The author was probably a gentile Christian, as the work displays no knowledge of Judaism.^[12][13] The author was educated and knew some rare words in an era when literacy was uncommon, but wrote in a style that was overall simple and readable. The geographic origin of the author is also unknown, leaving scholars with little more than guesses. Jan Bremmer weakly suggests Alexandria in Roman Egypt as plausible, but cautions that nothing can be said with certainty on the matter.^[14] Tony Burke suggests it was a place where the Gospel of Luke was held in high regard: perhaps Asia Minor (modern Turkey) or Antioch in Roman Syria.^[15] Others such as Sever Voicu have suggested Roman Palestine.^[16] J.R.C. Cousland cautions that the safest, if least specific, suggestion is somewhere in the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire.^[16]

The early versions of the work were anonymous. No author is indicated in the earliest surviving manuscripts (Syriac, early Latin, Georgian, Ethiopic).^[17] In later manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages, the gospel opens with a prologue where "Thomas the Israelite" introduces himself as the author, but with no further explanation. It is possible that this was meant to hint that the author was Judas Thomas, better known as Thomas the Apostle, thought by some Christians to be a brother of Jesus and thus familiar with young Jesus's activities.^{[18][19][note 2]} The Latin version closes with an epilogue where the author claims to have been an eyewitness who witnessed these events personally, another claim that seems to have been added centuries after the original story's circulation.^[19] Two other later manuscripts claim authorship by some other figure: one Latin version by John the Evangelist, and one Greek version by James, brother of Jesus.^[17]

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas was written in the Koine Greek language, but was rapidly translated to Classical Latin and Syriac.^{[20][note 3]} Translations into other languages soon followed, including Armenian and Georgian.^[22][14] It proved a popular work, with a wide geographical reach. Translations spread from the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire far and wide: to the Latin-speaking Western half of the Empire; to Armenia and Georgia in the east; to Ireland in the north; to Ethiopia to the south.^[14] Classical- and medieval-era copies exist in thirteen different languages, an astonishing spread for a non-canonical work.^[20]

The many manuscripts, translations, shortened versions, composite versions, and references have differences, making an exact reconstruction of the original text (ausgangstext) difficult.^[23][24]

With the invention of the printing press in the early modern period, it became much easier to mass-produce copies of a text. However, hand-written manuscripts differed from each other significantly for this work. Scholars classify them into recensions, groups of similar manuscripts. A recension can then eclectically select the most common or most "original" when the manuscripts within it differ, even if no one manuscript matches the most-common reading of every verse.

Peter Lambeck rediscovered the work in 1675, examining a manuscript held in Vienna.^[25] The IGT became available to a wider audience with the publication of Johann Albert Fabricius's 1703 collection of Christian apocrypha.^[26] Fabricus also divided the work into chapters and verses.^[25] Constantin von Tischendorf published three versions in his influential 1853 book Evangelia Apocrypha, which he called Greek A, Greek B, and Latin.^[27] These have remained among the most popular for scholars to examine and translate.^[28]

Greek A is the most studied and well-known form in the modern era. Tischendorf based it on at least 2 manuscripts, and it is the longest Greek form. It consists of nineteen chapters with several alternate other manuscripts with abbreviated forms.^[29] The Greek B was found by Tischendorf on a trip to Mount Sinai in 1844, which is shorter (11 chapters) and differs from the A text in several parts. Some chapters are abbreviated, other entire chapters left out, and there are a few new lines.^[30] The Latin translations have distinct forms: Old Latin and Late Latin. The Latin was notable as it was the first discovered with a prologue with stories set during the Flight into Egypt described in the Gospel of Matthew.^[31]

A Greek version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas was found in Codex Sabaiticus, a manuscript created in 1089 or 1090. Sabaiticus is a good match in its details to Irenaeus's 2nd-century quotation, and its form of the text is called Greek S. It does include new material (Chapters 1 and 10) not found in other shorter recensions.^{[32][note 4]} The scholarship of Tony Burke and Reidar Aasgaard in 2001–2010 identified this as more likely to be closer to the original form than the Greek A and Greek B manuscripts of Tischendorf, a stance that has been corroborated by other scholars of the text.^[34]

Various other pre-modern translations exist including Syriac, Slavonic, and Arabic. Parts of the Latin version were translated into Old Irish poetry, probably around 700 AD according to James Carney.^[35][36]

Rough chronology of translations and versions of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas over time. The chronology is left to right: the hypothesized Greek original is c. 2nd–3rd century; Arabic, Irish, and Armenian are c. 6th–7th century; GreekS and Pseudo-Matthew are c. 10th century.^[37]

Just as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas may have collected individual stories already in circulation in the 2nd century, the gospel was combined with other works as it spread in later eras. The work was used as a major source for the 5th- or 6th-century Arabic Infancy Gospel, which likely translated into Arabic from Syriac editions of the IGT. The Armenian Infancy Gospel from the 7th century also uses the work as a source, while adding new material and including more details.^[8]

The most influential was likely the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which combines the work with the Gospel of James and adds an introduction that claims pseudepigraphally the book was translated from a work of Matthew the Evangelist by Saint Jerome. It was popular throughout the Western church, and helped establish a number of common beliefs about the young Jesus.^[8] While early versions of Pseudo-Matthew from the 8th–10th century lack IGT material, many manuscripts from the 11th–15th century include it.^[2]

Up until 2024, the oldest manuscripts were a sixth-century Syriac recension and a Latin palimpsest from the fifth or sixth century now housed in Vienna.^[27] In 2024, a Greek papyrus fragment from the fourth or fifth century was discovered, making this the new oldest surviving manuscript of the Infancy Gospel.^[38][39] The fragment largely matches the 11th century Codex Sabaiticus version, providing support for the theory that Sabaiticus is a good guide for the content of older Greek versions.^[1]

The work was generally called just the "Gospel of Thomas" in the 19th and early 20th centuries.^[27] This was largely due to the influence of Constantin von Tischendorf's influential collection of apocrypha first published in 1853; the versions Tischendorf published include an attribution to "Thomas the Israelite". Later developments complicated use of this title. The discovery of the Coptic Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and its publication in 1956 created ambiguity, resulting in the addition of "Infancy Gospel" to the title to refer to this work specifically.^[23] Later scholars sifting through older manuscripts found that the editions of the work were more diverse than believed before, and earlier manuscripts include no such attribution to Thomas, rendering "of Thomas" something of a misnomer for them.^[22] Even the manuscripts including the Thomas attribution do not appear to have called themselves "Gospel of Thomas", rendering this a title strictly of the modern era.^[40] Additionally, the stories do not cover just the "infancy" of Jesus, resulting in scholars suggesting other names for the group of recensions as a whole that descended from the lost original version. Names include:^[22]

• Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Inf. Gos. Thom., IGT)
  • Euangelium Thomae de infantia Saluatoris (Latin)
• Childhood of Jesus (similar titles: Infancy of Jesus; Paidika)
  • παιδικὰ του̂ κυρίου ήμώυ (Paidiká toú kyríou imón) (Childhood Deeds of our Lord)
  • Τά παιδικά μεγαλεία τού δεσπότου ήμών καί σωτήρος Ίησού Χριστού (Tá paidiká megaleía toú despótou ímón kaí sotíros Íisoú Christoú) (The Great Childhood Deeds of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ)

The text describes the life of the child Jesus from the ages of five to twelve, with fanciful, and sometimes malevolent, supernatural events. He is presented as a precocious child who starts his education early. The stories cover how the young Incarnation of God matures and learns to use his powers for good and how those around him first respond in fear and later with admiration. One of the episodes involves Jesus making clay birds, which he then proceeds to bring to life, an act also attributed to Jesus in the Quran 5:110 and 3:49,^[41][42] and in a medieval Jewish work known as Toledot Yeshu, although Jesus's age at the time of the event is not specified in either account. In another episode, a child disperses water that Jesus has collected, and Jesus kills the child. Jesus, at age one curses a boy, which causes the child's body to wither into a corpse. Later, Jesus kills another child via a curse when the child either accidentally bumps, throws a stone, or punches him (depending on the translation).

When Joseph and Mary's neighbors complain, Jesus miraculously strikes them blind. Jesus starts receiving lessons, but instead he tries to teach the teacher, which upsets the teacher who suspects supernatural origins. Jesus is amused by this suspicion, which he confirms, and revokes all his earlier apparent cruelty. Subsequently, he resurrects a friend who is killed when he falls from a roof, and heals another who cuts his foot with an axe.

After various other demonstrations of supernatural ability, new teachers try to teach Jesus, but he proceeds to explain the law to them instead. Another set of miracles is mentioned, in which Jesus heals his brother, who is bitten by a snake, and two others, who have died from different causes. Finally, the text recounts the episode in Luke in which Jesus, aged 12, teaches in the temple.

Although the miracles seem quite randomly inserted into the text, three miracles are before and three are after each of the sets of lessons. The structure of the story is essentially:

• Bringing life to a dried fish (this is present only in later texts)
• (First group)
  • Three Miracles – Breathes life into birds fashioned from clay; curses a boy, who then becomes a corpse (not present in Greek B); curses a boy who falls dead and his parents become blind
  • Attempt to teach Jesus, which fails, with Jesus doing the teaching
  • Three Miracles – Reverses his earlier acts (this would include resurrecting the two boys and healing the blind parents), resurrects a friend who fell from a roof, heals a man who chopped his foot with an axe
• (Second group)
  • Three Miracles – carries water on cloth, produces a feast from a single grain, and stretches a beam of wood to help his father finish constructing a bed
  • Attempts to teach Jesus, which fail, with Jesus doing the teaching
  • Three Miracles – heals James from snake poison, resurrects a child who died of illness, and resurrects a man who died in a construction accident
• Incident in the temple paralleling Luke^{[note 5]}

A variety of "loose" stories appear in some manuscripts but not others that are not part of the core Greek / Syriac tradition most examined by scholars. A few examples include Jesus Riding the Sunbeam, Making Dead Fish Come Alive, and Jesus Playing with Lions.^[43]

Gnosticism was a variety of Christianity that flourished in the 2nd century, but attracted fierce opposition from early Catholic theologians. Before the discovery of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, it was thought that some anti-Gnostic denunciations made by early Christian writers might have referred to the infancy gospel. The third-century book Refutation of All Heresies associates a Gnostic group it calls the Naassenes with using a gospel called "According to Thomas". This evidence has since been discarded as misleading and referring to the Gnostic work, not the infancy gospel which does not appear to have been known by this title in the classical era.^[40]

There remains a possible link in that Irenaeus condemned an unnamed work that included the story of the meanings of "Alpha" and "Beta", and thus potentially an early version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. He wrote that this work used by a Gnostic group called the Marcosians, but his condemnation was seemingly on grounds of it being used for numerology and mystical secrets by them which Irenaeus found intolerable. It is possible that the creator of the story had no such intentions when writing the story, though.^[44] More generally, Gnostics cited material shared with proto-orthodox Christians in writings discovered at the Nag Hammadi library, so Gnostics using a particular work does not necessarily imply the work originated from Gnosticism. Additionally, it is possible that Irenaeus rejected any work he considered deviant by associating it with Gnosticism, rendering him a weak source on exactly how tied this story was with Gnosticism.^[7]

Still, some scholars such as Oscar Cullman have speculated that aspects of the work still seem to potentially fit within a Gnostic milieu, such as Jesus being a font of mystic wisdom from an early age. He cites the Church Slavonic's extended version of the dialogue between Jesus and his first teacher Zacchaeus as potentially representing an older and more Gnostic form of the text.^[12] Other scholars against a strong Gnostic connection have argued that stories of Jesus being superior and wise were common among all branches of early Christianity.^[20]

Early Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria condemns a gospel he calls "According to Thomas" in a homily on the Gospel of Luke, saying it is the work of heretics. Scholars in the 19th and early 20th centuries thought this might have referred to this work.^[45] However, the passages Origen quotes do not appear in the IGT, nor did the IGT of the second century probably include an attribution to Thomas. Some older scholarship hypothesized that lost original versions of the gospel might have been more explicitly Gnostic, but only orthodox revisions survived to the medieval era. However, there is no evidence of such an expurgation of Gnostic content.^[46][47][26] It is thought by current scholars that Origen was probably referring to the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, not the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.^[45]

Andries van Aarde and Sever Voicu have argued that the original version of the IGT may have come from authors who were Ebionites, a sect of Jewish Christians.^[22][48] Other scholars, including Tony Burke and J.R.C. Cousland, have been skeptical of such a connection, considering it more likely the author was a non-Jewish convert.^[17][49]

Kristi Upson-Saia argues that a lost original story might have been a Jewish anti-Christian work akin to the Toledot Yeshu, which portrayed Jesus as an intelligent yet disrespectful trickster and magician. The Toledot includes the story of Jesus and the sparrows and does not deny it; it just attributes it to magic rather than divine power. In this view, this origin was lost and revised by later Christians, who kept the unusual depiction of Jesus but revised the tone more positively.^[22][50][51]

J.R.C. Cousland has argued that the author displays a high Christology that emphasizes Jesus's divine nature over his human one, and this was consistent with stories current in Roman society that depicted gods as unpredictable and fickle, yet ultimately benevolent.^[52][22] Jesus being in full possession of divine power at a young age also places the work against adoptionist versions of early Christianity that held Jesus became the Son of God at his baptism, rather than his birth or the beginning of time.^[19]

The older forms of the work generally eschew theologically charged titles of Jesus such as "Messiah" and "Savior" after the first chapter's introduction, instead referring to him usually as "Jesus, the child" and variants.^[53]

The work is unusual in genre as the only work preserved out of antiquity that deals exclusively with the childhood of an individual. Other such works may have existed, but were not preserved if so.^[22]

Scholars disagree on the work's relationship with the Gospel of James. The two gospels were the most influential sources in early Christianity on the young Jesus, despite the Church councils not including them in the New Testament canon. Jan N. Bremmer argues the Infancy Gospel of Thomas seems to have come first (c. 150–175 CE), while the Gospel of James seems to date a little later (c. 175–185 CE).^[14]

Various other surviving literature make references to just a miracle or two originating from the IGT. For example, one version of the Acts of Andrew and Matthias, a heroic fantasy involving Christian missionaries in a city of cannibals, includes explicit references to Jesus transforming the clay sparrows and resurrecting the child Zeno from the roof incident. They are simply stated as past deeds of Jesus.^[54]

One of the most discussed matters has been parallels with gospel stories, in particular Luke. Many of the miracles can be seen as "prefiguring" future gospel miracles.

There is conflicting evidence of the gospel's status in the era of the Roman Empire. While the spread of manuscripts and casual mention of the miracles within suggest acceptance and popularity, some of the more explicit surviving references are from disapproving theologians. Due to the comparatively large number of manuscripts for a work of this type, Reidar Aasgaard argues that there likely was not any explicit ecclesiastical disapproval or active censoring of the text.^[2] He does grant that it seems some later 6th and 7th century documents attempting to codify the canon express disapproval of infancy gospels, such as the Gelasian Decree and Anastasius Sinaita's Hodegos.^[42] Stevan Davies argues that the work still seems to have been more popular with "ordinary" Christians than the educated church elite. For these Christians, legends of the active use of divine power in everyday life held great appeal. This would place the work as part of folk religion and folk literature.^[55]

While the depiction of Jesus can be seen as shocking to later readers,^[56] Tony Burke writes that this depiction fit snugly into early Christian thought. Even when it is criticized, such as by John Chrysostom, it is on grounds of it contradicting the gospel of John saying when the first miracle of Jesus was, not on grounds that the character of Jesus was incorrect.^[57] More generally, to draw too sharp a distinction between a "popular" audience and a "common" audience was to invent a distinction that did not yet exist. As literacy was quite rare, works that were written down were inherently already a matter of a rare few, even if based on oral stories.^[58]

Reidar Aasgaard suggests that the compiler, the legends, or both may have credibly been from or circulated in a rural, non-elite milieu, and could have had children as an intended audience.^[22][59]

Life of the Virgin, a story that survives only in Georgian, is said to come from 7th century Palestine in Greek there. It seems to include a condemnation of an infancy gospel called The Infancy of Christ that might have been a lost compilation including the IGT, saying that "it is alien to the order of the Church and contrary to what the holy evangelists said and an adversary of truth that was composed by some foolish men and storytellers."^[60][61]

The Byzantine historian George Syncellus mentions "the childhood deeds of our Savior" approvingly and implies that Luke the Evangelist was aware of the work and used it as a source for his account of Jesus in the temple at 12, or at least referenced it.^[62]

In general, reception in the modern era has been hostile. Christian writers in the modern era, back when it was assumed this was an expurgated descendent of a heretical Gnostic work, were especially unimpressed; Anglican Bishop Charles Ellicott wrote in the 19th century that the story contained only "pious fraud and disguised heresy" and that "The language is unusually barbarous, the style hopelessly bad, and the narrative itself unconnected and incoherent."^[26]

Oscar Cullman was unimpressed with the depiction of Jesus in the work. He writes that if the name "Jesus" had not been included, the reader would never have guessed that the capricious boy depicted in the gospel was the same as the Jesus of the canonical gospels. Cullman says that "the cruder and more startling the miracle, the greater the pleasure the compiler finds in it."^[12]

Somewhat later he [Jesus] was going through the village, and a child ran up and banged into his shoulder. Jesus was aggravated and said to him, "You will go no further on your way". Right away the child fell down and died.

One element of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas found striking both by modern audiences is its depiction of a rather petty young Jesus. Jesus curses and kills those who cross him repeatedly in the work; perhaps the most striking is the incident where a five-year old Jesus curses and kills a child for the banal reason of running into him in what was presumably an accident, a cruel overreaction. The dead child's parents beg Joseph afterward to teach his child "to bless and not to curse" since Jesus is killing their children. After Joseph scolds his son and asks him why he is making trouble for the family, Jesus responds by miraculously causing those who complained, the parents of the deceased, to be struck blind. Joseph scolds Jesus again, but seemingly ineffectually; the roles of parent and child are reversed.^[46]

The pericope (story) does have variants across manuscripts, seemingly motivated by a desire to better justify Jesus in it, rather than linguistic or translation difficulties. These revisions generally keep Jesus's behavior, but make the other child less sympathetic. For example, a version of the story in the Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew adds that the other boy is a "henchman of injustice" and that he "threw himself on Jesus's shoulder, wanting to mock him or harm him if possible".^[46] One way that medieval readers might have thought on the revised versions is that just as Jesus struggles against enemies of God as an adult in the canonical gospels, young Jesus is depicted as already contending with anti-divine forces via cursing them, even if they are also only children to match him.^[46]

When Joseph observed the mind of the child and his age, and saw that he was starting to mature, he again resolved that he [Jesus] should not be unable to read, and so took him out and gave him over to another teacher.

The story makes quite a strong emphasis on Jesus's education and his literacy, referring to it in three separate pericopes. This is distinctive in that 1st-century Christians do not seem to have emphasized a literate Jesus; there is only a single story in the Gospel of Luke where Jesus writes (Jesus and the woman taken in adultery), and none in the other three canonical gospels. It seems that the idea of a literate Jesus became more prominent in the 2nd century, when the work was likely composed. A literate Jesus might also have served as an apologetic defense against possible pagan or Jewish attacks on Christianity as a religion of the uncultured. The pagan philosopher Celsus disparagingly calls Jesus's early followers as "most uneducated" as an example of the rhetoric that some Christians might have sought to counter.^[14]

While the story considers Jesus's education important, it also makes clear he doesn't actually need it, and in truth should already be the teacher himself even at a young age.^[24] The unwise second teacher who strikes Jesus is fitting for the time period; in the classical era, a teacher striking his student would not have been uncommon. The indoors setting is somewhat unusual, though; school buildings were rare, and education often happened outside.^[14] His first and third teacher are reduced to using "flattery" on young Jesus to get him to cooperate, which would be unusual and humiliating for a teacher to stoop to, but serves to emphasize how far superior Jesus is to Zacchaeus (the first teacher) and the third teacher.^[24]

While the work is a gospel in the sense that it is about Jesus, it is of a different variety than the four gospels that are included in the canon of the New Testament.^[65] It contains few allusions or quotes to them, barring the sequence of Jesus at the Temple.^[66] Stephen Gero notes that only the Arabic Infancy Gospel version explicitly uses the word "gospel" itself within it, and suggests that the work was only intended to supplement and not supplant the canonical gospels.^[18] It might have been intended to have been read as a companion with them, notably the Gospel of Luke and possibly the Gospel of John.^[65]

Ronald Hock has argued that the work is best classified as an "ancient biography".^[67][15] Works about the childhood of Jesus have generally been called infancy gospels or infancy narratives, even when they extend to Jesus's early childhood as well beyond his birth and infancy.^[68]

One disputed matter is if the work was a compiler taking a variety of independent circulating stories and making a written collection of them, or if it was a unified narrative with a plot. In favor of the former, very similar stories are included, suggesting only the most token of editing. For example, Jesus disputes with three teachers in the gospel; this suggests the compiler possibly recording three different variants of the same story. Tobias Nicklas, conversely, argues that while the work is clearly episodic storytelling, it does have character development in showing Jesus gradually becoming the Savior depicted in the canonical gospels, as he seems to grow and use his powers more productively in the later stories.^[65][69] This differs by revision, however; Tony Burke cautions that the Syriac version omits the healing miracles in chapters 10, 17, and 18 of Greek A, which weakens the idea of an implicit narrative where Jesus firms his character with age.^[15]

Joseph receives more attention in this work than many other Christian works, especially the preserved works of later eras. Mary has a comparatively minor role in the oldest versions of the text. The medieval manuscript tradition and its evolution is complex, but in general, later compilations including the IGT tended to pair the work with others that focused more on Mary and Mariology, in particular in the Latin-speaking Western Church. These compilations cover the Holy Family as a group, draw on the IGT for tales of Joseph, and also include stories of Jesus's grandparents Joachim and Anna, his aunt Mary Cleophas, and so on. The Latin Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew appears to have begun incorporating the Infancy Gospel of Thomas stories in manuscripts in the 13th century. In contrast, the medieval Greek-speaking Byzantine Church tended to keep separate texts, each focused on one particular saint.^[70]

While Joseph's role is prominent, he is not portrayed particularly positively in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. He is not depicted as understanding his own son's divine nature, and to the extent that the message of the book is that Jesus is Lord and acknowledging this promptly is a sign of wisdom, he does not live up to this.^[24]

Both the IGT and the Gospel of James can be seen as "family gospels" where the audience could relate their own life and problems with Jesus's family. They could reassure themselves the Holy Family had just the same triumphs and troubles, if on a magnified scale.^[22][71]

St. Martin's Church in Zillis, Switzerland was rebuilt in the 12th century. Its wooden ceiling features 153 panels of Romanesque paintings, of which 98 panels depict the life and miracles of Jesus. One panel shows young Jesus transforming clay into birds. The painter was probably familiar with the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, which incorporates material from the IGT and was likely the source for the panel.^[72]

Episodes from Jesus's childhood as depicted in the Klosterneuburger Evangelienwerk, a 14th-century gospel translation:

• 
  Jesus is carrying water in his lap, after his water jar got broken; other children are watching in surprise.
• 
  Jesus hands the water in his lap over to Mary.
• 
  Jesus reassembles the water jars of the children who, in an attempt to imitate him, smashed their jars on purpose.
• 
  Jesus raises the clay birds of his playmates to life.
• 
  Jesus tells Joseph to raise a dead man.
• 
  Joseph raises the man on the stretcher from the dead.
• 
  During play, a child Zenon falls off the roof of a house; two Jews accuse Jesus of having pushed him.
• 
  Jesus raises the dead child from the dead, so he can testify that Jesus is innocent.
• 
  Together with other children, Jesus is catching fish on Sabbath.
• 
  A Jew who scolds the children dies on the spot.
• 
  The children complain about Jesus to adult Jews.
• 
  At Mary's and Joseph's request, Jesus raises the dead man.
• 
  Jesus plays with lions and guides them up to the town gates. The town people are scared.
• 
  Jesus quarrels with his teacher in front of other pupils about the nature of the letters.

Anne Rice wrote Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, a 2005 novel on Jesus's childhood. She includes material from the IGT: transforming the clay sparrows on the Sabbath as well as young Jesus killing another boy with stray words, although her version of Jesus also rapidly decides to raise the other boy from the dead afterward. In the afterword, Rice writes that she found the accounts in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of James compelling and containing a deep truth in that spoke to her, despite their non-canonical status.^[73][74] The novel was adapted as the 2016 film The Young Messiah.^[75]

The Carpenter's Son is a 2025 psychological horror and drama film covering Jesus's early life; according to directory Lotfy Nathan, it is inspired by the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.^[76]

Selected modern translations of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas into English are listed below. Translations of the Greek and Latin variants include:^[77]

• Aasgaard, Reidar (2009). The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Cascade Books. pp. 233–242. ISBN 978-1-60608-126-6.
• Burke, Tony (2010). De Infantia Iesu Evangelium Thomae Graecae. Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 17. Brepols. pp. 302–463. ISBN 9782503534190.
• Ehrman, Bart; Pleše, Zlatko (2011). The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. Oxford University Press. pp. 3–29. ISBN 978-0-19-973210-4.
• Elliott, James Keith (1993). The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford University Press. pp. 68–83. ISBN 0-19-826182-9.

Translations of other languages include:^[77]

• Burke, Tony (2017). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the Syriac Tradition. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 48. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0584-3. Includes an appendix with a translation of an Arabic version by Slavomír Čéplö. (Syriac, Arabic)
• Cielontko, David; Halama, Ota (2025). "The Old Czech Version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas". In Cielontko, David; Nicklas, Tobias; Bremmer, Jan N. (eds.). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Early Christian Apocrypha 23. Peeters. pp. 185–206. ISBN 978-90-429-5402-1. (Old Czech)
• Herbert, Máire; McNamara, Martin (2001). "A Versified Narrative of the Childhood Deeds of the Lord Jesus". Apocrypha Hiberniae: Evangelia infantiae, Volume 1. Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 13. Brepols. pp. 443–483. ISBN 9782503410005. (Old Irish)
• Rosén, Thomas (1997). The Slavonic Translation of the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. AUUSSU 39. Uppsala University. ISBN 9789155439644. (Church Slavonic)
• Shoemaker, Stephen J. (2025). "The Georgian Version of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas: Text and Translation". In Cielontko, David; Nicklas, Tobias; Bremmer, Jan N. (eds.). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Early Christian Apocrypha 23. Peeters. pp. 169–184. ISBN 978-90-429-5402-1. (Old Georgian)
• Syroyid, Dariya (2025). "The Infancy Gospel of Thomas in Ukrainian Manuscripts: Peculiarities in Interpretation". In Cielontko, David; Nicklas, Tobias; Bremmer, Jan N. (eds.). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Early Christian Apocrypha 23. Peeters. pp. 147–168. ISBN 978-90-429-5402-1. (Church Slavonic, Ukrainian versions)

Transcriptions of untranslated Greek, Latin, and Syriac versions can be found at:^[77]

• Evangelia apocrypha (1876 second edition), Tischendorf's compilation of Apocrypha including the Greek A (pages 140–157), Greek B (pp. 158–163), and Latin (pp. 164–180) versions of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
• Contributions to the apocryphal literature of the New Testament, collected and edited from Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum (1865), William Wright's transcription of a 6th century Syriac manuscript (pp. 128–121, right-to-left)

• Aasgaard, Reidar (2009). The Childhood of Jesus: Decoding the Apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Cascade Books. ISBN 978-1-60608-126-6.
• Burke, Tony (2010). De Infantia Iesu Evangelium Thomae Graecae. Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 17. Brepols. ISBN 9782503534190.
• Burke, Tony (2017). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the Syriac Tradition. Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 48. Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-4632-0584-3.
• Cielontko, David; Nicklas, Tobias; Bremmer, Jan N., eds. (2025). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Early Christian Apocrypha 23. Peeters. ISBN 978-90-429-5402-1.
• Cousland, J. R. C. (2017). Holy Terror: Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-567-66817-2.
• Davies, Stevan (2009). The Infancy Gospels of Jesus: Apocryphal Tales from the Childhoods of Mary and Jesus. SkyLight Paths Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59473-258-4.
• Davis, Stephen J. (2014). Christ Child: Cultural Memories of a Young Jesus. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-14945-6.
• Gero, Stephen (1971). "The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: A Study of the Textual and Literary Problems". Novum Testamentum. 13 (1): 46–80. doi:10.2307/1560167. JSTOR 1560167.
• Hock, Ronald (1995). The Infancy Gospels of James and Thomas. The Scholars Bible 2. Polebridge Press. ISBN 0-944344-47-X.
• Vukovic, Marijana (2022). Survival and Success of an Apocryphal Childhood of Jesus: Reception of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the Middle Ages. Studies of the Bible and Its Reception 21. De Gruyter. ISBN 9783110752786.

English Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Infancy Gospel of Thomas

• Infancy Gospel of Thomas, translations of most versions of the work by Tony Burke
• The full text of The Gospel of Thomas at Wikisource, translation and commentary by M. R. James in the 1924 book The Apocryphal New Testament
• "Infancy Gospel of Thomas", overview and bibliography by Tony Burke. NASSCAL: e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha.