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THE APOSTLES : M.M.NINAN<br />
Few texts identify Thomas' other twin, though in the Book of Thomas the Contender, part of the<br />
Nag Hammadi library, a Gnostic Apocrypha, it is said to be Jesus himself: "Now, since it has been<br />
said that you are my twin and true companion, examine yourself<br />
2 Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being<br />
transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the<br />
Spirit.<br />
But then the Gnostics goes at a tangent away from the center of the circle.<br />
As far as the Bethelehem story goes, Jesus was not one of the twins.<br />
If according to Gnostics,<br />
Jesus was born in the Spirit world and Thomas in the Material world we would never know.<br />
Easton's Bible Dictionary make the following reasoning :<br />
"Twin, one of the twelve (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18, etc.). He was also called Didymus which is the<br />
Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name. All we know regarding him is recorded in the fourth Gospel<br />
(John 11:15, 16; 14:4, 5; 20:24, 25, 26-29). From the circumstance that in the lists of the apostles<br />
he is always mentioned along with Matthew, who was the son of Alphaeus (Mark 3:18), and that<br />
these two are always followed by James, who was also the son of Alphaeus, it has been supposed<br />
that these three, Matthew, Thomas, and James, were brothers."<br />
But that would not define who is the other twin of Thomas.<br />
Some have seen in the Acts of Thomas (written in east Syria in the early 3rd century, or perhaps<br />
as early as the first half of the 2nd century) an identification of Saint Thomas with the apostle Judas<br />
brother of James, better known in English as Jude. However, the first sentence of the Acts follows<br />
the Gospels and the Acts of the <strong>Apostles</strong> in distinguishing the apostle Thomas and the apostle<br />
Judas son of James.<br />
++++++++++++++++++++<br />
"The Gnostics considers Thomas as the twin brother of Jesus. We have no evidence for this in the<br />
Bible.<br />
Early Church historian Eusebius in his "Ecclesiastical History" gives the story of how Edessa came<br />
to be Christian. Edessa was a small Kingdom in Syria and at time of Jesus, Abgar Ukomo was its<br />
king. Abgar wrote a letter to Jesus as folows:
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