How Does The Infancy Gospel Of Thomas Depict Jesus

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The Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Introduction
The four books of the Gospel, namely Mathew, Mark, Luke and John are the known and most reliable accounts of the life of Jesus Christ on earth. The four books have largely captured the life of Christ right from birth, to his death resurrection and ascension. However, they have not dwelt very much on his early age as a child. This is where the infancy gospel of Thomas comes in. Thomas, who was also among the disciples of Christ and has written a spate account of the Life of Jesus concentrating very much on his early years. The account has come to be known as the infancy gospel and looks at the life of Jesus before he attained the age of 12. There has been a debate in within the church circles and among theologians as to the extent of reliability and acceptability of the infancy gospel. There almost appears to be a consensus that the infancy gospel is not acceptable and therefore cannot be included as a part of the mainstream gospel books. While some agree that pretty much of the information contained in the infancy gospel is true, the portrayal of Christ in this account remains contentious and hence the reason for excluding it. In this paper the infancy gospel of Thomas has been carefully examined. The motive is to establish exactly the reason as to why it is not accepted as mainstream.
Main Difference between the Infancy Gospel and Others
There is a number of distortions and disturbing characterization of Christ in the infancy gospel of Thomas. According to the infancy gospel, Jesus is a young man who is ill-tempered and who has no self control over his actions. This is in relation to the incident in the temple where he found people conducting businesses in the temple and turned the tables upside down. In this account, he has been described as full of spite and disrespectful. He was mainly seen to be disrespectful to the Pharisees, Scribes and the teachers of law because he attempted to correct their skewed mindset towards matters of God.
The infancy gospel appears to be written deliberately to insult the charter of Jesus Christ as compared to enlightening the life of Christ when he was young (Minucious and Octavious). The portrayal of Christ is more like a pagan and a trickster, who was out to deceive the society by using the name of God. The contents contained in the infancy gospel casts serious doubts as to whether it was actually written by Thomas. Having been purportedly written by Thomas who was a disciple of Christ, it is not possible for Thomas to have such a low and wrong perception about Jesus who he called Teacher.
Theologians have refuted claims and assertions that the infancy gospel was written by Thomas. Instead, they argue that this account was part of a bigger mission to counter the real accounts gospel. They note that it could have been written to push the agenda of propaganda against Christian missionary who at the time were traversing various parts of the world spreading the gospel of Christ. The aim of the infancy gospels was to portray Christ in such manner that would make those who heard about it, ...