The Blind Leading the Blind (Gospel of Thomas)

Today I am covering two sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. Sayings 34 and 35. I am doing this because they are short, and they are making the same point. They are also very similar to sayings that we find in the New Testament gospels. For that reason, the difference in interpretation of these sayings really is a matter of context. 

Here are the two sayings as found in the Gospel of Thomas: Jesus said, "If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a hole." Jesus said, "One can't enter a strong person's house and take it by force without tying his hands. Then one can loot his house.”

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Transcript

Today I am covering two sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. Sayings 34 and 35. I am doing this because they are short, and they are making the same point. They are also very similar to sayings that we find in the New Testament gospels. For that reason, the difference in interpretation of these sayings really is a matter of context. 

Here are the two sayings as found in the Gospel of Thomas: Jesus said, "If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a hole." Jesus said, "One can't enter a strong person's house and take it by force without tying his hands. Then one can loot his house.”

The first one is the famous “blind leading the blind saying.” In the Gospel of Thomas there is no context. The Gospel of Thomas is simply a collection of sayings with very little, if any context. That means that Jesus could have said these sayings at any time and place.

This is similar to where the sayings are found in the Gospel of Luke. There the “blind leading the blind” saying is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, which is Luke’s version of the more famous Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew. That passage is also a collection of sayings. So again, they can refer to anyone.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the “blind leading the blind” saying is found in the context of the Pharisees and scribes arguing with Jesus. Jesus says, “Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” So the blind guides in Matthew are the scribes and Pharisees.

How are we to interpret the saying in the Gospel of Thomas? First of all, this refers to the truth we talked about last time. The Kingdom of God is hiding in plain sight for all to see. You have to be spiritually blind not to see it.  That is what Jesus is referring to. Jesus often said, ‘He who has eyes to see, let them see.” Jesus is implying that nondual Reality is obvious. If you can’t see it, you are blind, spiritually speaking. And if you are a religious leader in this condition, then you are the blind leading the blind. 

Because there is no context of this saying in Thomas, this can refer to any leaders. I think in the Gospel of Thomas it is referring to church leaders, not Jewish leaders. The Gospel of Thomas was written as a response to the message that was being preached by apostles who were not part of the original Twelve. Namely Paul and James. These two men came to dominate the early Christian movement very quickly. As a result, the original gospel of Jesus was quickly becoming lost. 

Earliest Christianity quickly turned away from the gospel of Jesus to a gospel of circumcision and good works proclaimed by James and a transactional gospel proclaimed by Paul. Neither of these are the gospel of the Kingdom of God that was proclaimed by Jesus. Thomas’ gospel focuses on the nondual Kingdom of Jesus. 

For that reason, I think that the “blind guides” referred to in this saying are Christians who have abandoned the nondual gospel of Jesus. In applying it to today I would say that the blind guides of today are the ecclesiastical leaders of traditional Christianity. Anyone who misses the gospel of the Kingdom of God and substitutes an intellectual, doctrinal, creedal, hierarchal, or sacramental message are blind guides. 

Over Columbus Day weekend our little NH town hosted an agricultural fair that drew people from all over the state. Our town of 1200 people hosted 35,000 people who visited the fair over the weekend. Every year there is a religious tent at the fair that seeks to evangelize fairgoers. They have a banner that asks: “Are you a good person?” If you take the bait (which is a free bottle of water) then you are seated down and subjected to an evangelistic spiel that seeks to convince you that you are a bad person destined for hell unless you adopt their version of the gospel. 

These evangelists are blind guides. They think they are saving people from hell, but they are leading people into a deep hole by their warped version of the Christian gospel. "If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a hole." Thomas saw James and Paul and the rest of the church leaders as blind guides. Unfortunately, these men became the dominant voice of the church, especially Paul. In time this form of Christianity banned all other gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas.

The second saying – verse 35 - is similar. Jesus said, "One can't enter a strong person's house and take it by force without tying his hands. Then one can loot his house.” Once again, this saying is similar to one found in the canonical gospels. We find this in all three synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke. In these gospels it is found in the context of Jesus healing a demon-possessed man. 

In Matthew Jesus heals the man. Then he is accused of doing it by the power of the devil. The Pharisees said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Jesus responds with the parallel to our verse in Thomas. “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.”

Exorcism is the canonical setting of the saying. In Thomas we have no setting. We do not know the original setting in which Jesus spoke these words. I tend to think that it is the same context as the previous verse. The church leaders Paul and James are the strong men.

James was the strongman of Jerusalem after the death of Jesus. He was the brother of Jesus, and because of that family connection he quickly took over the reins of the Jerusalem Christian movement, even though he was not one of the Twelve. The other strongman was the apostle Paul, who was at odds with the apostle James, as we see in the Acts of the Apostles as well as from their epistles.

Peter and John were the only other apostles with any authority in the early church. But the epistle of Paul depicts Peter as wishy-washy, just like he was during the lifetime of Jesus. He es overshadowed by both Paul and James. His only claim to fame was supposedly being the first bishop of Rome, which is how the Roman church claims its authority.

John is more nondual in his approach. But John had not written a gospel at the time that Thomas collected these sayings of Jesus. The gospel that now bears John’s name was written by someone else. It says that clearly right at the end of the book, although it also says it was based on John’s testimony.  It was not published until after John’s death and after Thomas’ death. The nondual message of John is presented alongside more traditional editorial additions by the final author and editor of the Gospel of John.

Only Thomas was penning the original words of Jesus without a narrative that determined how they were to be interpreted. The other gospels put this saying about the strongman in the context of Jesus driving our demons. Mark did that first, and the other two copied it. But what if exorcism was not the original context? I don’t think it was.

I think that in Thomas’ mind, the strong man is Paul or maybe James or both. I think that the strong man’s house is the church and the emerging religion of Christianity, which was being formed around the teachings of James and Paul. Already in the early first century, the gospel of Jesus was in danger of becoming lost. 

Thomas saw that happening. That is why he wrote his gospel. He recorded these unadorned sayings of Jesus to bind the strong men leading the church in the wrong direction. That is why the strongmen of the church eventually banned Thomas’ gospel.

The Gospel of Thomas was written to bind the strong men with the authentic words of Jesus. He knew the words of Jesus had power. He hoped that putting the words of Jesus directly into people’s hands without the interpretation provided by church leaders would be a way to bind them. "One can't enter a strong person's house and take it by force without tying his hands. Then one can loot his house.”

Thomas was the first reformer of the Church. He was seeking to rescue the church from men like James and Paul, neither of whom followed Jesus during this ministry, and neither of whom ever heard Jesus preach. 

Thomas’ plan didn’t work. Pauline Christianity became dominant. Thomas was sidelined. Perhaps that is why Thomas journeyed to India, if church tradition is to be believed. Thomas hoped that in new land he could proclaim the authentic gospel of Jesus in without interference from the strong men with church authority. 

That is how I read it. Thomas is not talking about demons and exorcism, which he has no interest in. There is no mention of demons in his gospel. He is interested only in proclaiming the authentic teachings of Jesus Christ, which proclaimed the nondual Reality that he called the Kingdom of God.