The Gospel of St Thomas (Christ's own Gospel?)

[weepingforloman]

My point is that Gnosticism is incompatible with Christianity. It may make sense in their framework, but not in ours.

[Granny5]

I am a Christian but I am not Catholic so I'm not limited to what the Vatican thinks is "gospel" or not. I received the Gospel of Thomas for my birthdday last year and have read it, though not studied it. What I got from reading it one time was that we should look inside ourself for God. That God lived in us all and it was up to us to find that part of ourselves. I have no need to pick each line of this or any gospel apart like some do the Bible. I read both and learn whatever I can from them. It's my own personal interpetations that matter to me and my God.

[weepingforloman]

OK, I'm not Catholic either. But most established churches (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) reject the Gnostic Gospels.

You and "your God?" If you have a God that is only yours, then it is not a God, but rather a construct you yourself have made. God is real, God is external. God has a defined reality. You cannot make God, you can only find Him (or rather, let Him find you).

[Granny5]

OK, I'm not Catholic either. But most established churches (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) reject the Gnostic Gospels.

You and "your God?" If you have a God that is only yours, then it is not a God, but rather a construct you yourself have made. God is real, God is external. God has a defined reality. You cannot make God, you can only find Him (or rather, let Him find you).

to each his/her own. God is mine if I so choose. It's only a discussion.
May the Peace of the Lord be with you.

[weepingforloman]

The same to you of course.

But I disagree wholeheartedly with you on your first line.

[Granny5]

The same to you of course.

But I disagree wholeheartedly with you on your first line.

Thank goodness we all have free will or we'd all think alike. Wouldn't that be a bore. I am a member of the Episcopal Church and we are encouraged to keep searching and learning and growing.

[PrinceMyshkin]

OK, I'm not Catholic either. But most established churches (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant) reject the Gnostic Gospels.

You and "your God?" If you have a God that is only yours, then it is not a God, but rather a construct you yourself have made. God is real, God is external. God has a defined reality. You cannot make God, you can only find Him (or rather, let Him find you).

Your use of "established" is more apt perhaps than you think, since every established church is like every other established institution, in that it has its "mission," its vested interest, its concern to out-succeed the competition.

And I submit that you have it backwards when you write "If you have a God that is only yours, then it is not a God, but rather a construct you yourself have made." It might equally or better be said that If you have a God that is anything but yours and yours alone, then it is probably not a God, but rather a pastiche of all the God-concepts you were taught by your parents, your peers, the theologians you read.

Insofar as you are unique, it is inconceivable that your God would coincide exactly with that of anyone else, not least the necessarily generalized 'God' of every or any church.

[weepingforloman]

Let's step outside of personal prejudices and philosophies for a moment. (And I use the term prejudice for its denotation, not its connotation).

If there is a God who is like what is generally considered a God (i.e. eternal, omnipotent, the creator of the world, super-uber-duper-intelligent), that God would have very definite reality. After all, humans are real and if they have a creator, such a being would be at least as real, if not realer. Therefore, what each human imagines God to be is not what God is... Rather like the situation that would arise if I made the claim that you were a cheese connoisseur, a five hundred pound behemoth, and a teetotal based on nothing but my personal wish for you to be so.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Let's step outside of personal prejudices and philosophies for a moment. (And I use the term prejudice for its denotation, not its connotation).

If there is a God who is like what is generally considered a God (i.e. eternal, omnipotent, the creator of the world, super-uber-duper-intelligent), that God would have very definite reality. After all, humans are real and if they have a creator, such a being would be at least as real, if not realer. Therefore, what each human imagines God to be is not what God is... Rather like the situation that would arise if I made the claim that you were a cheese connoisseur, a five hundred pound behemoth, and a teetotal based on nothing but my personal wish for you to be so.

"If" is the only word in this account that has relevance. If all that follows it here has any basis in reality then indeed you are right.

By the way, I checked out the link you have been promoting. Have you looked at the article I proposed to you?

[Granny5]

Let's step outside of personal prejudices and philosophies for a moment. (And I use the term prejudice for its denotation, not its connotation).

If there is a God who is like what is generally considered a God (i.e. eternal, omnipotent, the creator of the world, super-uber-duper-intelligent), that God would have very definite reality. After all, humans are real and if they have a creator, such a being would be at least as real, if not realer. Therefore, what each human imagines God to be is not what God is... Rather like the situation that would arise if I made the claim that you were a cheese connoisseur, a five hundred pound behemoth, and a teetotal based on nothing but my personal wish for you to be so.

Are you a physic? I know a lot about cheese, have a very serious weight problem and drink only tea.

If someone knows exactly what I believe God to be, exactly what is in my heart, then that someone may say I am wrong. Otherwise, why would one automatically decide I am wrong based on two or three sentences? Doesn't the Bible say something about calling someone a fool putting one in danger of hell? (Matthew 5:22 KJV)

[PrinceMyshkin]

My point is that Gnosticism is incompatible with Christianity. It may make sense in their framework, but not in ours.

Indeed Christianity may not fit in your framework, by whatever name you call it: The Pauline Church, perhaps?

As Karl Marx said about his self-styled followers: "Moi, je ne suis pas marxist!"

The little that is known of the historical Jesus the Notzri differs substantially from the elaborations, additions, emendations, the pummeling, massaging and politically motivated compromises that his teachings have been subjected to over the years.

Believe as you wish, but judge not that you be not judged.

[weepingforloman]

Are you a physic? I know a lot about cheese, have a very serious weight problem and drink only tea.

If someone knows exactly what I believe God to be, exactly what is in my heart, then that someone may say I am wrong. Otherwise, why would one automatically decide I am wrong based on two or three sentences? Doesn't the Bible say something about calling someone a fool putting one in danger of hell? (Matthew 5:22 KJV)

I don't know what you think of God, of course. But I think, in the abstract, the use of the term "my God" is dangerous. Obviously I lack the information necessary to know whether or not I agree with your understanding of God. But I believe that both of us are doubtless missing most of what God is.

Indeed Christianity may not fit in your framework, by whatever name you call it: The Pauline Church, perhaps?

As Karl Marx said about his self-styled followers: "Moi, je ne suis pas marxist!"

The little that is known of the historical Jesus the Notzri differs substantially from the elaborations, additions, emendations, the pummeling, massaging and politically motivated compromises that his teachings have been subjected to over the years.

Believe as you wish, but judge not that you be not judged.

I believe that you may misuse that phrase. Judge not people, judge not subjectively, but objective judgments on beliefs and on specific actions must be made. I am permitted to tell you, if you commit murder, that what you have done is wrong, I am not permitted to tell you that, as a consequence of your murder, you are therefore condemned utterly, or that you are therefore the worst human being alive. I trust you see the difference, you seem quite intelligent.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I believe that you may misuse that phrase. Judge not people, judge not subjectively, but objective judgments on beliefs and on specific actions must be made. I am permitted to tell you, if you commit murder, that what you have done is wrong, I am not permitted to tell you that, as a consequence of your murder, you are therefore condemned utterly, or that you are therefore the worst human being alive. I trust you see the difference, you seem quite intelligent.

The only difference I see is that you may have an annotated copy of the scriptures while in the copy I have it says, plainly, "Judge not that ye be not judged." Of course we are free to imagine that at the foot of the mount a county fair was in progess where the annual chilli competition was being held, and Jesus was advising people not to judge any one chilli superior to another, but you'd probably agree with me that that's improbable.

Although virtually each of you elicits the personalized Jesus that best suits you, I think it behooves one to take the plain surface of the words first before we begin to see beneath or behind them. It means judge not others; judge not their hearts, their souls, their core beliefs,

[weepingforloman]

I believe that you are reading in yourself: judge not their core beliefs? Christ Himself repeatedly said "O unbelieving generation!" "O wicked generation!" He called the Pharisees a "brood of vipers." Christ was not a unitarian. Judge not their hearts/souls, that's what I said. Like I said, we do not judge people, only actions and beliefs (i.e., if I am a Christian, I must judge other faiths to be wrong-- I don't care if you disagree, that's how Christianity works).

[earthboar]

I really hate responding to posts 4 or 5 pages out, knowing nobody has the patience these days to read more than the first couple of pages. But, here goes. The best exegesis I have read on the Gospel of Thomas, written supposedly by Thomas Didymus (Thomas the Twin, Jesus' twin?) is by Elaine Pagels, in a book called "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas".

As with all her books, Pagels is unconventional and interesting. The Gospel of Thomas is exactly 114 sayings of Jesus. They are believed to be possibly the oldest, most authentic words of Jesus. The other canonical gospels are narratives told third-hand by other people (the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John probably didn't really write the books we now know by those names, nor did Thomas Didymus, in all likelihood, write the Gospel of Thomas...but, who knows? No one alive today!). The Gospel of Thomas, quite distinctly, are sayings, kind of like the sayings in the Tao Te Ching, or the proverbs of Confucius.

They are worth the read.

By the way, I notice the distinct hegemony of an "us" and "them" in some of these posts. Gnosticism is precisely what Jesus taught, being one himself. To all the Gnostics out there who also call themselves Christian, do so joyfully, for you are the lucky ones who get it.

Another book that makes the Gnostic gospels accessible in common language is Marvin Meyers' "The Secret Teachings of Jesus". That book also includes a copy of the Gospel of Thomas, and gives an understandable cosmology of creation according to the Greek-Coptic Gnostic Christians.

And, yes, Christian Gnostics were Christian. There were many forms of Gnosticism. There were Jewish Gnostics, Zoroastrian and Persian Gnostics, Manicheans, Valentianians, Sethians and some others. The roots of Gnosticism go back to the earliest biblical traditions, and even occur outside of the Judeo culture. Gnosticism did not arise after Jesus, but rather, Jesus' ministry developed under the already existing influence of Gnostic thought. So, to say that Gnosticism is somehow incompatible or mutually exclusive of being a Christian is not an honest evaluation of Christianity or Gnosticism.

Also, where this question of judgment is concerned, it is a fact there are very judgmental Christians who have a low tolerance for difference of theology, and there are Christians who accept variations in belief without judgment. It is a matter of interpretation of notoriously ambiguous scripture and doctrine--all of which were written and re-written by mere people. Someone else's judgment that I may not be a Christian is simply that person's opinion, and nothing to lose sleep over. Even where large groups of people share an opinion and become obnoxiously expressive, it is a well-known fact that whole populations can be wrong about something they perceive as "truth". If this forum were properly moderated in accordance with the rules of the opening thread, then this should not be an issue here.