As the figure of Jesus Christ continues to attract the attention of researchers from all over the world, with one of them even challenging his very existence, one man made a surprising reveal about the family of the central figure of Christianity.
According to the Daily Express, a New Testament scholar named Dale Martin noted that the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas mentions Jesus having a twin brother named Didymus Judas Thomas.
"His ‘real’ name is Judas, and Didymus and Thomas are his nicknames – one Greek and the other Semitic or Aramaic," he said as quoted by the newspaper. "This was used as evidence by some early Christian traditions that Thomas was the twin brother of Jesus".
The scholar went on to explain that adherents of the so called Thomasine tradition of Christianity actually believe that Apostle Thomas, commonly known as Doubting Thomas, was Jesus’ brother, pointing out that "traditional Orthodox Christians" do not share this belief.
"But in Thomasine Christianity, they believe it was Thomas himself who was Jesus’ twin," Martin said. "This is particularly the case in early forms of the religion in Syria, Mesopotamia and India."
He also added that there’s apparently more than one Gospel of Thomas out there, with one of them, "the infancy Gospel of Thomas," describing "what Jesus was like as a child."
"From the remaining fragments of this text, Thomas tells the reader how Jesus played with clay pigeons. One story reveals how Jesus is told off for playing, so the child claps his hand and the clay birds fly off," Martin explained. "And another tells how when one of Jesus’ teachers criticises him, he simply turns the teacher dumb and blind."
