(1) According to the earliest what?
(2) The Oxyrhyncus fragments may date before 200, but probably not.
The fragments of Matthew and John analyzed by Thiede and Greenfell date two to three generations earlier than the Thomas text.
Well.. reporters didn't get things right then either, did they? Peter didn't exactly get it right most of the time then either. Have you ever played the game where you have an "event" happen and then immediately have everyone write down what they heard and saw? There are never any that say the same thing and you gets all sorts of goofy things that people swear they heard or saw. Nothing new under the sun! :) As for me, I will take the word of God, inspired by God over anyone anyday - even if they claimed they walked with Christ.
If you stop and think about it for a minute, that doesn't make much sense if he wrote down the words as Jesus spoke them. Jesus spoke a lot of words. He and his disciples carried with them a minimum of supplies - they didn't and couldn't carry around all the things to write down all his words. Scripture must agree with scripture.
John gave a "test" in the sixth chapter of his book of 1 John. The gospel of Thomas just doesn't cut that test. But people, being people, will always want to believe man over God. Just like Eve, they keeping falling for that line - oh, God didn't really mean that, did He? The gospel of Thomas - so very different and gnostic from the rest of scriptures is just another way for satan to say - Oh, come on, God didn't really mean what He said all the rest of scriptures - those people didn't write it down like I say that Thomas did...
The Oxyrhynchus Thomas fragments are dated to 130-250 B.C., not to the time of Christ. As I said, I've never heard anyone argue that Thomas was written while Christ was still alive - my understanding is that the American guys who date it to 40 put it the earliest of anybody. And even they trace it to a pre-existing oral tradition (although some believe part of it came from Q1 and Q2).