Considering the Infancy of Jesus Gospels

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Every once in a while, there will be news about a gospel, Bible fragment, or other ancient text that purports to provide special insight. People get all a-twitter about these things, thinking that knowledge can be gained from texts that were omitted from the Bible.

Here is an expensive word that may impress your friends if you use it: pseudepigrapha. Essentially, it is an ancient text that is falsely attributed to a famous person. There are quite of few of those things. An infancy gospel is credited to Thomas, and I doubt he would approve of it.

Apostle St. Thomas / El Greco, ca. 1612
One of my suspicions as to why people like rejected writings is that people want to feel special, and having what appears to be knowledge that others don't have may give them that imagined superiority. Indeed, that also fits with Gnosticism.

While Gnosticism does not really have one definition and has changed over the centuries, essentially it means special esoteric knowledge. Also, they tend to believe in a dualism of body and spirit. Some of the Gospel of John, and also his three epistles, are responding to early Gnosticism.

It may be fun to imagine Jesus using his divine powers in his childhood (there are legends about this over the years), but the Bible indicates that he was not performing miracles until he began his public ministry. Keep in mind that miracles are not based on whims, but are done for certain purposes. The Jesus character of the alleged writing of Thomas was, to be blunt, a jerk. People familiar with Scripture should not have any problem spotting the fraud.
A newly published fragment of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas recently made headlines, prompting people to call it “the oldest written record of Jesus’ childhood.” Given that many Christians may hear the news, it’s important to be informed about what it is, whether it really gives us information about Jesus’ childhood, and how to have conversations about it with others.

You should read the rest. It's short. It's interesting. It's found at "Do the Infancy Gospels Tell Us About Jesus’ Childhood?"