Endnote 10 – Why the Ugly Attacks?

Witherington asserts that “the Seminar seems to be overly optimistic not only about the antiquity of the sayings found in the Gospel of Thomas, but also about its independence from the canonical Gospels” (Jesus Quest, p. 48). He also says that “of the sayings in Thomas that have no parallels in the Synoptics, a few may be authentic” (Jesus Quest, p. 49). Witherington is even more “optimistic” in this regard than the seminar, which found no sayings unique to Thomas that it could rate red and only two that it could rate pink.