- (Gilles) “Quispel, and his collaborators, who first published the Gospel of Thomas suggested a date of 140 for the original…But recently Professor Helmut Koester of Harvard University has suggested that the collection of sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, although compiled c.140, may include some traditions older than the gospels of the New Testament, ‘possibly as early as the second half of the first century’ (50-100)–as early or earlier than Mark, Matthew, Luke and John.” (Pagels, “The Gnostic Gospels”). Similar views are expressed even more recently by April Deconick, who speaks of a core, or kernel Thomas, an early layer of the work, with later additions to it. James M. Robinson considers Thomas in relation to Q (the collection of sayings embedded in Matthew and Luke), in “The Gospel of Jesus”, finding a layered structure in both. As to “reliability”, that’s not something that can be known. The authors of Thomas are anonymous.
- https://youtu.be/11NiLEydjjg