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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

THOMAS, The Apostle

One of the 12 apostles whose name appears in all four Gospels. The name is a transliteration of an Aramaic word meaning “twin” and appears in the NT as Thomas. Among Greek Christians, there was a tendency to use his Hellenistic name, Didymus (didumos, “twin”); this name appears three times in John (Jn 11:16; 20:24; 21:2). There is ample evidence from koine papyri that the name Didymus was well known in the NT era.

Thomas appears in each synoptic list of apostles (Mt 10:3; Mk 3:18; Lk 6:15; cf. Acts 1:13) but plays no further role. His celebrated appearance in the fourth Gospel is interesting. Here Thomas expresses the despair of the final approach to Jerusalem (Jn 11:16) and presses Jesus to explain his words of departure in the upper room (14:5). In the Gospel’s closing scenes is the familiar episode in which Thomas doubts the Lord’s resurrection (20:24) and then is given compelling proof (vv 26-28), after which Thomas called Jesus “my Lord and my God.” Thomas is also named in John’s epilogue (21:2).

Two apocryphal, pseudepigraphical works bear Thomas’s name: the Gospel of Thomas (from Nag Hammadi), which records 114 “secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke” and which Thomas is said to have preserved; and the Acts of Thomas (extant in both Greek and Syriac), which says that Jesus and Thomas were twins (sharing similar appearances and destinies) and that the apostle obtained secret teachings. This apocryphal account even explains Thomas’s fate. Against his wishes, Thomas traveled to India under the command of the Lord. There he was martyred with spears by the hand of an Indian king. He was raised up and his empty tomb took on magical properties. Today in St. Thomas, India, Christians assert that they are the spiritual descendants of the apostle.