I believe the Gospel of Thomas contains this statement: [Peter said], "Let Mary go away from us because women are not worthy of life." Jesus is reported as saying, "Lo, I shall lead her in order to make her a male, so that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter into the kingdom of heaven."
It also contains a statement attributed to Jesus: "Split wood; I am there. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there."
I believe these statements were considered nonsensical and so contrary to the other sayings of Jesus and to the worldview of Judaism as to render it highly unlikely that they were actually statements of Jesus.
Really? I find them very intimately connected to early Judaism and first century Christianity. The concept in the second passage is the omnipresence of God, which is certainly found in Judaism. For example: "Where can I go from your Spirit, or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold you are there" (Psalm 139:7-8), "Am I a God who is near, and not a God far off? Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?" (Jeremiah 23:23-24). There is parallel in Matthew 18:20: "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them". The Greek text of Thomas, in fact, combines logion 77 with 30, which is a version of the same saying: "Where there are three, they are with God, and where there is only one, I say, I am with that one. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there. Split a piece of wood, and I am there" (POxy 1.23-30). On the omnipresence of the Son and the divine indwelling: "All things have been created through him and for him, he is before all things, and in him all things hold together ... for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him" (Colossians 1:15-18). The focus on wood and stone obviously reflects the OT polemic against idols (e.g. Habakkuk 2:18-20), and the pairing of lifting stones and splitting wood is found in Ecclesiastes 10:9. So the author is one who is apparently steeped in these OT traditions.
As for the statement about Mary, this reflects the negative proto-gnostic view on marriage and childbirth, and as well as a polemic against Petrine (i.e. proto-orthodox) Christianity, by putting in Peter's mouth very sexist and hostile statements about Mary and women in general; in proto-orthodoxy women were increasingly excluded from teaching and positions of authority (evident clearly in the Pastoral letters which directly challenged proto-gnostics), whereas in much of gnosticism they had equal status because the division of the sexes is something based on the flesh not the spirit. In the ANE women were valued mainly in terms of their participation in marriage and procreation, and the gnostic view rejected this as perpetuating evil; "making herself male" for Mary would involve a rejection of traditional gender roles centered on procreation and adopting ministerial roles that for Peter would be reserved for men. Although Judaism was very traditional in terms of marriage and procreation, there was an impulse in early Christianity towards a higher calling eschewing marriage and procreation. A striking parallel to Thomas, logion 114 can be found in Matthew 19:10-22, in which Jesus likens celebacy to those who "make themselves eunuchs". This is essentially the same concept: Mary makes herself male, men make themselves eunuchs; in both cases the reference is to a personal rejection of marriage. It is also noteworthy that this canonical passage in Matthew also strikingly differs from the attitude in early Judaism, which viewed eunuchs as an abomination. A close parallel is also found in Thomas, logion 22: "When you make the two into one, when you make the inner like the outer, and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female female ... then you will enter the Kingdom". There is an excellent parallel to this in Paul: "There is neither male nor female ... for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:38). The concept is that there are no gender or other social distinctions in the spirit, only in the flesh. That this is held out to be the future destiny in the resurrection is implied in Matthew 22:30: "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven". Proto-gnostics, and the book of Thomas in particular, had progressed from apocalyptic to realized eschatology (a similar theological development can be seen in John in comparison to the synoptic gospels), so what was once expected to be the future reality of Christians was now practiced in the here-and-now in the proto-gnostic Christian community (referenced in the polemic in 1 Timothy 4:3). So the concept in Thomas is a development further beyond what is found in the proto-orthodox canon, but it is intimately connected with ideas found in the NT itself.
