Do the Infancy Gospels Tell Us About Jesus’ Childhood?

What Is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas?

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is considered by scholars to probably have been written in the mid to late second century AD (AD 150–200). It is part of a group of writings termed the “infancy gospels” because they purport to tell stories about Jesus’ childhood. Other writings in this genre include the Protevangelium of James and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (not to be confused with the biblical Gospel).

F. F. Bruce summarizes the contents of the book as follows:

Jesus proves to be an infant prodigy at school, instructing his teachers in unsuspected mysteries of the alphabet; he astounds his family and playmates by the miracles he performs. This is the document that tells for the first time the familiar tale of the twelve sparrows which Jesus, at the age of five, fashioned from clay on the sabbath day.2

Clearly, it bears very little similarity to the accounts of Jesus’ childhood in the Gospels. While miraculous signs surrounded Jesus’ birth, the Gospels don’t record him performing any miracles until he started his ministry around age 30.

The character of Jesus in the infancy gospels is also strikingly different from the true Jesus. In the infancy gospels, Jesus is depicted as a “super boy” with a volatile temperament, who is as likely to curse a playmate to death (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 4) or kill his teachers (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 14) as he is to raise a dead playmate back to life (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 9).

Why Is This Find Important?

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas does not accurately tell us about Jesus, but it does tell us about a group that blended Christian beliefs with Greek philosophical ideas, the gnostics. The gnostics were obsessed with secret knowledge, which is prevalent in the Infancy Gospel, and they valued the spiritual over the physical. They are one of the earliest heresies, and even the apostles had to deal with early forms of gnosticism.

The infancy gospels also show that people were curious about the parts of Jesus’ life that weren’t described in the Gospels. The biblical Gospels only cover a few incidents in Jesus’ early life; the rest is dedicated to the years of Jesus’ public ministry, culminating in his death on the cross, burial, and resurrection. Even then, the Gospel of John says that there are many events that the biblical Gospels didn’t record (John 20:30), and this proved fertile ground for non-biblical traditions to spring up.

Any evidence of groups adjacent to Christianity also helps establish the presence of Christians.

Also, for a second-century heretical take on Jesus’ life to exist, there had to be a Christian community for heretics to spring from. Any evidence of groups adjacent to Christianity also helps establish the presence of Christians.

While a manuscript bears witness to the text it records, it is also valuable as a physical artifact that can tell us about the person or community that produced it. For instance, the new fragment has uneven writing, indicating that it was produced by someone who was less than proficient at writing. Also, our previous earliest witnesses were in Latin and Syriac. This is the earliest Greek version and predates our previous earliest Greek version by about 600 years.3

How Do We Know What Books Should Be in Scripture?

Occasionally, news articles will come out and suggest that ancient works like this add to our knowledge of the historical Jesus. This makes it important to know why this is false. Ancient people knew about many questionable books and soundly rejected all false gospels, including the infancy gospels.

All the ancient canon lists accept that there are four Gospels, no more. While they acknowledge the presence of many others claiming to be “gospels,” they universally reject them. The easiest way to understand why most non-biblical books were rejected is to read them! Most of them are pretty clearly the second- or third-century version of fan fiction, where Jesus becomes more like a superhero or mystical guru than the incarnate Son of God presented in the New Testament.

All the ancient canon lists accept that there are four Gospels, no more.

Also, while they are technically anonymous in that the text does not state the author’s name, the four Gospels are titled with their true authors, while the infancy gospels are pseudepigrapha—works falsely attributed to well-known figures like James, Matthew, or Thomas. This is an attempt to make them more authoritative by connecting them to biblical figures, but they were penned long after the apostolic era.

In reality, Scripture teaches that Jesus likely had a very ordinary-looking childhood with the notable exception of never sinning. The biblical Gospels do not share everything we’re curious about, but everything we need to know to “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).