I'm Not Going To Allow Agreement Or Disagreement On Other Points Keep Me From Seeing Who Makes The Better Arguments - I'd Rather Stop Talking About This

The arguments I've read that support the contention that the Thomas Gospel is a 2nd century text convince me more than the assertion that it or, rather, a "core" of it is contemporary with if not earlier than Mark's Gospel. That the person I read who convinced me on that point is a more conservative Christian who I disagree with about much while the arguments asserting that the "core" of it is earlier is made by John Dominic Crossan, who I agree with about much, but not everything, doesn't figure into my finding the arguments credible.

I think it's pretty clear that the Coptic text translated, what most people mean when they talk about The Gospel of Thomas, was largely drawn from the early Diatesseron of Tatin or some other attempt to harmonize the four canonical Gospels and further distorted. That it managed to quote more of the Gospel canon than even the most scholarly of the earliest writers in the literature is, I think, a pretty convincing argument that it would have had to have had access to the canonical Gospels in some form that was not available to even the most important of the earliest Christian writers. Those were not likely to have been available until the mid to later 2nd or early 3rd century.

Considering the manuscript and textual problems of "The Gospel of Thomas" are even worse than those for the canonical Gospels, I'd think depending on it too hard for any argument is risky. I certainly don't find those sayings in it that the fan gals and guys for "Gnosticism" (which is a modern category, and not a very coherent one at that) like are at all convincing as religion. The one about a man eating lion and lion eating man is just stupid. The last one about women needing to be "spiritually made male" before they can enter the Kingdom of God is certainly more sexist than anything Jesus said in the authentic Gospels or Paul in his letters. The Gospel of John is the one I have the most trouble with but it's a lot more convincing than the Thomas Gospel.

From what I read the "Thomasine community" using the Thomas Gospel that Pagels and others theorize is most likely a figment of their imagination, probably never having existed. Considering the requirements of evidence regularly demanded of orthodox Christianity its opponents should be held to the same standards of evidence. Though the thing being riddled with ideological and polemical motives, that never bodes well for intellectual honesty or integrity. 

I don't think the Thomas mentioned as an apostle in Gospels had anything to do with the "Gospel of Thomas".  I think it's relatively much in the news for the same reason that bogus "Jesus married Mary Magdalene" fragment of papyrus was a few years ago - before even the scholar who promoted it had to admit it was bogus - it's an attack on Christianity.  The real Gospel is attacked because it asserts the most radically egalitarian economics ever articulated in human history.  Even the orthodox churches have obscured that glaring reality of it.   That's the real motive behind the attacks on it.  I don't find the "Thomas Gospel" to be authentic on that ground.  Saying 14, by itself, was enough to put me off of it.   Never trust someone who wants to transcend the moral requirement to give to the poorest.  Never trust them or their religion.