The Infancy Gospel of Thomas: The Boy Who Killed His Playmates

At a Glance

Who wrote it: Unknown. Some copies credit Thomas the Israelite. It has nothing to do with the Gospel of Thomas of the sayings.

When: Probably the second half of the 100s AD. A bishop knew one of its stories by about AD 180.

Where it fits: My boyhood in Nazareth, from age five to twelve. It ends with the one story of my boyhood in your Bible: in the Temple at twelve.

Which Bibles keep it: None. But it was copied in Greek, Syriac, Latin, Ethiopic, Georgian, Slavonic and Arabic, and one of its stories is in the Qur’an.

Where you hear it in your Bible: Its last chapter retells Luke 2:41–52. John 2:11 calls Cana this beginning of his signs, which leaves no room for its boyhood miracles.

How close it stays to me: Close in a boy who feeds the poor of his village. Far in a child god who kills whoever crosses him.

If you only read three chapters: Infancy Gospel of Thomas 2–5, Infancy Gospel of Thomas 12 and Infancy Gospel of Thomas 14.

Words to Know

Infancy gospel — a story of my birth and childhood, written to fill in the years the four gospels leave out.

Sign — a miracle that points to who God is. John’s gospel uses this word for my miracles.

Kor — a large measure of grain, about the load of a donkey or more.

Qur’an — the holy book of Islam, which honors me as a prophet and tells some stories of my birth and childhood.

The Book in Brief

At five I am playing by a stream on the Sabbath, making pools of water and twelve sparrows out of clay. When Joseph scolds me for breaking the Sabbath, I clap my hands and the sparrows fly away. The son of Annas the scribe drains my pools with a stick, and I curse him and he withers like a tree. A boy runs into my shoulder in the street, and I say he will not go back the way he came, and he falls dead. The neighbors beg Joseph to teach me to bless, not to curse. When they complain, I strike them blind. Joseph pulls my ear.

A teacher named Zacchaeus tries to teach me my letters. I lecture him on the hidden meaning of the letter Alpha until he gives up in shame. Then I heal those I have cursed.

I raise a playmate named Zeno who fell from a roof, so he can say I did not push him. I heal a young man’s foot cut by an axe. I carry water home in my cloak. I sow one grain of wheat and harvest a hundred kors, and give it to the poor of the village. I stretch a short board for Joseph.

A second teacher hits me on the head, and I curse him and he falls down. Joseph tells my mother not to let me out of the house, because those that make him angry die. A third teacher lets me teach, and I heal the second. I heal my brother James of a viper’s bite and raise a dead baby and a dead builder.

At twelve I stay behind in the Temple in Jerusalem, questioning the teachers, and go home and obey my parents.

Of my boyhood, the four gospels give you one story, from Luke. At twelve I stayed behind in the Temple, asking the teachers questions, and my parents found me after three days. Then: Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:52). That is all.

People wanted more. If I was the Son of God as a man, what was I like as a boy? This book is one answer. It is the oldest surviving story of my childhood, and it is a story of a little boy with the power of God and no wisdom at all.

Twelve sparrows

The first scene is lovely. I am five years old, playing by a stream on the Sabbath. I make little pools and gather the water into them, and I shape twelve sparrows out of soft clay (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 2:2).

A neighbor runs to tell Joseph I am breaking the Sabbath. Joseph comes and scolds me. And Jesus clapped His hands, and cried out to the sparrows, and said to them: Off you go! And the sparrows flew, and went off crying (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 2:4).

That one story is the best-loved in the book. It has the child at play, the Sabbath argument I would have all my life, and the clay coming alive, as Adam did when God breathed into him. It traveled further than any other story of my boyhood.

Go deeperBirds of clay in the Qur’an

The sparrows of clay are the clearest story from this book that is also told in the Qur’an. The Qur’an also tells of my mother’s dedication to God and her childhood in the sanctuary, which the Protoevangelium tells too.

In two places the Qur’an tells that I, Jesus son of Mary, made from clay the shape of a bird and breathed into it, and it became a bird, by God’s permission (Qur’an 3:49; 5:110). The Qur’an tells it in a single line, as one of my signs, alongside healing the blind and the leper and raising the dead.¹

The Qur’an was revealed in Arabia in the 600s, among people who knew Christians and Jews and many of their stories. The infancy gospels had been translated into Syriac and other languages of the Christian East long before, and their stories were widely told. Muslim scholars and Western scholars explain the overlap differently. What is clear is that the story of the clay birds was known across the Near East for centuries, in more than one faith.

The Qur’an also tells that I spoke as a baby in my cradle, to defend my mother against people accusing her of adultery (Qur’an 19:27–33). That story too is found in a Christian infancy gospel, the later Arabic Infancy Gospel.¹

So these books, which no Bible kept, became part of how more than a billion people today remember me.

He is killing our children

Then the book turns, and it never really turns back.

The son of Annas the scribe takes a willow branch and lets the water out of my pools. I am angry. Behold, even now thou shalt be dried up like a tree, and thou shalt not bring forth either leaves, or root, or fruit. And straightway that boy was quite dried up (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 3:2–3).

I walk through the village, and a boy runs into me and bumps my shoulder. And Jesus was angry, and said to him: Thou shalt not go back the way thou camest. And immediately he fell down dead (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 4:1).

The dead boy’s parents come to Joseph: Since thou hast such a child, it is impossible for thee to live with us in the village; or else teach him to bless, and not to curse: for he is killing our children (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 4:2). When Joseph speaks to me about it, I say they shall bear their punishment, and the people who complained go blind (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 5:1).

Later, a teacher strikes me on the head, and the child, being in pain, cursed him; and immediately he swooned away, and fell to the ground on his face. Joseph tells my mother: Do not let him go outside of the door, because those that make him angry die (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 14:2–3).

That is the boy in this book. Every word he speaks happens, good or bad, and he speaks in anger.

Where did this man get these things?

Your gospels say it did not happen that way, in two ways.

John’s gospel tells of the water turned into wine at a wedding in Cana, when I was a grown man, and says: This beginning of his signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee (John 2:11). The beginning. No sparrows before it, no withered boys.

And when I came back to Nazareth as a man and taught in the synagogue, the people who had known me all my life were astonished. Where did this man get these things? … Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary? (Mark 6:2–3). If I had struck their children dead and raised others, and stretched boards in my father’s shop, they would not have asked where I got my power. They would have known.

I grew up as boys grow up, in a carpenter’s house in a small village. I learned my letters. I learned a trade. I increased in wisdom. That is the boy your gospels give you, and I would rather you knew him.

Go deeperThe teacher and the letter Alpha

One story in this book is older than the book. In it a teacher named Zacchaeus asks Joseph to let him teach me my letters, and I recite them all, from Alpha to Omega. I tell him that since he does not understand the hidden meaning of the first letter, Alpha, he has no business teaching me the second, Beta. Thou hypocrite! first, if thou knowest, teach the A, and then we shall believe thee about the B (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 6:4). Then I explain the mysteries hidden in the shape of the letter, and he gives up, ashamed.

Around AD 180, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, attacked a teacher named Marcus and his followers for using made-up writings. Among their stories, he says, was one in which my teacher told me to say Alpha, and I did, and when he told me to say Beta, I answered that I would only do so after he told me what Alpha meant.²

So the story of the boy who out-taught his teacher was being told in the 100s by people who believed salvation came through knowing hidden meanings. The Infancy Gospel took it and made it part of a longer tale.

The boy in this story is clever and proud, and humiliates an old man in front of everyone. That is a long way from the boy in Luke, who sat among the teachers in the Temple both listening to them, and asking them questions.

Wheat for the whole village

There is one scene in this book that I would keep, and it is short.

At eight years old I go out with Joseph at sowing time. He sows his field, and I sow one grain of wheat. And when I harvest and thresh it, it makes a hundred kors, a huge store of grain, and calling all the poor of the village to the threshing-floor, He gave them the corn (Infancy Gospel of Thomas 12:2).

For once the boy in this book does what I did as a man. He sees the hungry of the village and feeds them. It is the loaves and fishes before the loaves and fishes. And it is the only miracle in the book done for the poor.

Where the Infancy Gospel and I part

You know the problem already. The boy in this book kills his playmates for bumping into him. He blinds the neighbors for complaining. He curses his teacher for hitting him. They shall bear their punishment.

Even as a grown man, I had a temper. I drove the money changers out of the Temple. I cursed a fig tree. But I never once used God’s power to hurt a person. When two of my friends, James and John, wanted to call down fire on a village that would not welcome us, he turned and rebuked them (Luke 9:55). Some old copies add: For the Son of Man didn’t come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them (Luke 9:56).

And about children: I did not strike them down. When my friends tried to keep them away from me, I was angry, and said, Allow the little children to come to me! Don’t forbid them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these (Mark 10:14).

The parents in this book said it best: teach him to bless, and not to curse. Some people still picture God like this boy, all-powerful and quick to punish anyone who crosses him. I came to show you the opposite. Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you (Luke 6:28).

Check It Yourself

Look up: Luke 2:41–52.

You will find: the only story of my boyhood in your Bible: questions in the Temple, and growing in wisdom and stature.

Then read Infancy Gospel of Thomas 3–4, and John 2:11.

The Short Version

• The Infancy Gospel of Thomas tells of my boyhood from five to twelve. It dates from the later 100s, and its clay sparrows reached the Qur’an.
• In it I curse a boy who drains my pools, kill a boy who bumps me, and blind the neighbors. He is killing our children, they say.
• Your gospels say my first sign was at Cana, as a man, and that Nazareth was astonished at my power.
• The book’s best moment: a boy who grows one grain into a harvest and gives it all to the poor of the village.
• I never used God’s power to hurt anyone. I said let the children come.