“Finding” the Gospel of Thomas in Edessa

Abstract

It has long been supposed that the Gospel of Thomas originated in Edessa. Recent scholarship, however, has troubled this consensus, occasioning a reflection on the emergence and notable durability of the idea. In this article, I analyze the development of the Edessene hypothesis and its role in contemporary conversations on Gos. Thom. I argue that the hypothesis is most comprehensible in the context of certain sets of assumptions inherited from two scholarly currents converging in the mid-twentieth century: Euro-American “Orientalism” and the “mystocentrism” of the Eranos circle.

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