Photo Credit: Art and the Bible © 2005, artbible.info
“Doubting Thomas”
by Peter Paul Rubens, Oil on Panel
Thomas probably came from the Galilee region though not as a fisherman, but a devout Jew; how he became an apostle is unknown. His name appears in the lists of apostles in the Synoptic gospels but has a prominent role in the Gospel of John. That begins with the death of Lazarus and the apostles don’t want to go back to Judea, frightened at the prospect of violence against Jesus but Thomas wants all to so “that we may die with him.” Then at the Last Supper, when Jesus told his apostles He was going to prepare a heavenly place for them and then one day they would join him there, Thomas asks we don’t know where you are going and how can we know the way. Jesus then follows with one of his most quoted verses in the Bible: “I am the Way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Finally, despite being told of Jesus’s appearance after his death on the cross, Thomas earned his title as “Doubter” by refusing to believe it unless he could put his hands into the wounds. Jesus then appeared a second time and Thomas got it right then, saying “My Lord and My God.”
After this, the record of his evangelizing activities is unreliable. Moreover, several texts bear his name (such as the Acts of Thomas, the Apocalypse of Thomas and the Gospel of Thomas) and discuss his activities and teachings, but they were written decades to centuries after his death. They are considered New Testament Apocrypha or texts produced by other religious movements, such as Gnosticism and Manicheanism. Thus, they were outside the Biblical canon that was forming, i.e., those books that were God-breathed from those that were heretical.
Nonetheless, some truth might exist in them. For instance, the Acts of Thomas contains an account of his travels, exploits and miracles in India and most of this strain credulity, with talking asses, withered hands, and raising the dead. One story seems credible, that after the Ascension the apostles met in Jerusalem to plan the evangelical effort, the who, what, when and where. This is self-evident, that organization and structure were needed to avoid confusion and failure. Indeed, later church fathers such as Origen and Eusebius indicate the apostles cast lots for their respective countries. The Acts of Thomas says differently; he was given India, but protested and refused until Jesus himself intervened and sold him to an Indian merchant looking for a carpenter for his king. Now a slave, Thomas thus went on his Indian calling and had fantastic adventures. While the slavery aspect of this story is incredible, partitioning the world for all the apostles is logical. It had to start sometime after the Ascension, probably going to the Jews first wherever they might be and then to the Gentiles, indeed to all creation. This seems to agree that Thomas worked first in the southeast Turkey area from the late 30’s to the late 40’s before moving into India. However, tradition also holds he visited Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia and incredibly Paraguay in South America.
This text also details his death: he converted a wealthy courtier’s wife not only to Christianity but also to celibacy to the dismay of her husband. He enlisted the aid of the king who has found his own wife and son converted similarly. Threats, imprisonment, torture follow until the king finally orders his killing with spears. His followers then bury him but the story continues, that the king is finally converted after the dust from his grave cures his demon-ridden son. Tradition says that he was killed by a spear on July 3, 72AD and many of his relics then taken to Edessa, Syria and in the years that followed his relics moved around until they came to rest in Ortona, Italy. Remarkably, some eight churches he founded in India and families he converted remain after 2000 years.
Copyright © 2025 Jim Dewar
