a) The problem with that theory, is that the evidence suggests that Thomas had the Gospel of Matthew with him, when he went to India. That event can be dated to 52 AD.
Thomas was a Nazarene Jew. He would never take a Christian gospel to preach about a Jesus that he did not know.
Where is the evidence to support your hypothesis that he was a Nazarene?
Thomas was one of the Apostles of Jesus. When Jesus was gone, the Apostles organized the Sect of the Nazarenes on behalf of Jesus of Nazareth. This was a Jewish sect just like any other Jewish sect of the time, whose converts were staunch defenders of the Jewish laws. (Acts 21:20) Opposite to the Christians whose founder, Paul, used to teach the Jews to abandon Moses, to give up the circumcision of their children and to renounce the Jewish customs. (Acts 21`:21)
Paul was very effective at popularising a religion. He didn’t found it. Furthermore, he popularised it, after he decided to be an adherent.
Paul tried to adhere the Sect of the Nazarenes but failed. Then, he founded Christianity in Antioch, which became his headquarters until he was arrested in Jerusalem and taken to Rome where he died. (Acts 11:26)
You’ve obviously never constructed a time line of both Paul and Jesus, and rectified them against events that can be dated by other sources.
Very good, you need a time line of both Paul and Jesus, don’t you? I’ll give you one. As I have told you before, When Jesus was gone, Paul was about 5 years old. Jesus was gone in the year 30 CE. How’s that? Any sect or religion to reach the level of a respectable religious group or organization, the logic is that it needs at least 10 years. It takes the year to 40, and Paul was 15 years old.
The Sect of the Nazarenes had reached that level at the time of Sthephen’s death by stoning. Why do I think so? Because the men in charge to stone him would use the services of a lad or young man called Paul to watch their clothes while they were at the business of stoning Stephen. We can imagine the men speaking to Paul: Hey kid watch our robes while we finish with this guy. Therefore, Paul was about a teenager. Let’s say 15 years old. The year was 40 CE. (Acts 7:58)
Another 15 years from 40 CE, we have Paul at 30 when he started his policy of persecutions of the Nazarenes. That’s the year 55 CE. After Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus, he proceeded to Damascus, where he stayed for three years. (Gal. 1:18) At 33 or 34 years of age in the year 58 CE, he decided to go up to Jerusalem with the purpose to join the Sect, but was rejected by the Apostles, who were afraid of him due to his history of persecutor of the Nazarenes. (Acts 9:26)
However, Paul had been a very close friend to Barnabas, who was a senior Nazarene, who put a good word for him so that he be given a chance. (Acts 9:27) The Apostles accepted him on a trial basis as long as Barnabas kept an eye on him. Barnabas didn’t by letting him move freely about in Jerusalem. (Acts 9:28)
Paul took advantage of Barnabas relaxing of his duty and started expressing himself quite openly about Jesus the way he had planned to. (Acts 9:28) Within 15 days only the local Jews were on an uproar to kill him because he was preaching appostasy in Jerusalem. (Acts 9:29; Gal. 1:18) He would preach that Jesus was the Messiah, son of God, and that he had resurrected. (Acts 9:20-22)
It happens that to prevent him from being killed in Jerusalem the Nazarenes saved him by taking him down to Caesarea and from there, they shipped him back to Tarsus, where he belonged. (Acts
9:30) For the next 14 years, the Sect of the Nazarenes had peace. (Acts 9:31)
For 14 years Paul kept himself away from Israel but wherever he found a Nazarene Synagogue throughout Asia Minor, he would overturn it into a Christian church, beginning with Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians, because Paul would preach that Jesus was Christ. (Acts 11:26)
Paul was about 48 years of age in the year 68 or 69 when he returned to Jerusalem, was arrested and taken to Rome where he lived the rest of his life in house arresting. He had appealed to Caesar in order not to be killed by the Jews, but he never got an audience with Caesar.
Ben:
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