Reidar Aasgaard is Project Leader in the Norwegian Bible Society and has earned a doctorate in New Testament/Early Christianity. He is the author of My Beloved Brothers and Sisters (2004) and has published a study edition of the New Testament as well as Norwegian translations of Augustine.

The mid-second-century apocryphal infancy gospel, the Gospel of Thomas, which deals with the childhood of Jesus from age five to age twelve, has attained only limited interest from scholars. Much research into the story has also been seriously misguided - especially study of the story's origin, character, and setting. This book gives a fresh interpretation of the infancy gospel, not least by applying a variety of new approaches, including orality studies, narrative studies, gender studies, and social-scientific approaches. The book comes to a number of radically new conclusions: The Gospel of Thomas is dependent on oral storytelling and has far more narrative qualities than has been previously assumed. The narrative world depicted in the gospel is that of middle-class Christianity, with the social and cultural ideas and values characteristic of such a milieu. The gospel's theology is not heretical - as has often been claimed - but mirrors mainstream thinking rooted in biblical tradition, particularly in the Johannine and Lukan traditions. Jesus is portrayed as a divine figure but also as a true-to-life child of late antiquity. The audience for the Gospel of Thomas is likely to have come from the rural population of early Christianity, a milieu that has received little attention. A main audience for the story was children among early Christians, making this - at least within Christianity - the oldest-known children's tale. The book provides a Greek text and a translation, andseveral appendixes on the story, along with other early Christian infancy material.

The mid-second-century apocryphal infancy gospel, the Gospel of Thomas, which deals with the childhood of Jesus from age five to age twelve, has attained only limited interest from scholars. Much research into the story has also been seriously misguided - especially study of the story's origin, character, and setting. This book gives a fresh interpretation of the infancy gospel, not least by applying a variety of new approaches, including orality studies, narrative studies, gender studies, and social-scientific approaches. The book comes to a number of radically new conclusions: The Gospel of Thomas is dependent on oral storytelling and has far more narrative qualities than has been previously assumed. The narrative world depicted in the gospel is that of middle-class Christianity, with the social and cultural ideas and values characteristic of such a milieu. The gospel's theology is not heretical - as has often been claimed - but mirrors mainstream thinking rooted in biblical tradition, particularly in the Johannine and Lukan traditions. Jesus is portrayed as a divine figure but also as a true-to-life child of late antiquity. The audience for the Gospel of Thomas is likely to have come from the rural population of early Christianity, a milieu that has received little attention. A main audience for the story was children among early Christians, making this - at least within Christianity - the oldest-known children's tale. The book provides a Greek text and a translation, andseveral appendixes on the story, along with other early Christian infancy material.

Preface; Abbreviations; The History of Research; Oral/Written Tradition; Narrative and Literary Features; Daily Life and Social Relations; Cultural Concepts and Values; Jesus as a Child; Jesus from Boy to Man; Intertextuality - Reflections of the Bible; Strange Sayings; Main Theological Issues; A Popular Tale from Early Rural Christianity; Christianity's First Children's Story; Conclusions; Appendixes; Greek Text; English Translation; The Structure of Ga/Gb/Gd /; Designations of Individual Episodes; Survey of Greek Variants and the Versions; Survey of IGT Evidence by Century; Survey of Early Christian Infancy Stories; Bibliography; Index of Biblical Writings; Index of Infancy Gospel of Thomas; Index of Ancient Authors and Writings.

This book gives a fresh interpretation of the infancy gospel, not least by applying a variety of new approaches, including orality studies, narrative studies, gender studies, and social-scientific approaches.