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

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Originally Posted by weepingforloman

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

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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.

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Originally Posted by Granny5

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)

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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.

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by weepingforloman

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.

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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,

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).

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.

1. The calling a "fool" remark from the Gospels doesn't carry the proper intensity for our time period. The nearest equivalent in today's language for the original language would be "stupid b-----d" or "f------g jerk" (The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard, p.154). A bit different than calling someone foolish, don't you think?

2. You may make Jesus/God into whatever shape you like - provided that the "personal" vision of Him coincides with what scripture tells us of Him. Anything else creates a non-God - an entity of our own creation which really is simply ourselves as God.

3. The "judge not" comment is relentlessly misused; "judge" in this usage refers to judgment in terms of eternal damnation. We're allowed to judge behavior and evaluate choices/actions here on earth (provided we've removed that 2x4 before commenting on your "speck"); we're just not allowed to decide who goes to hell (a good thing! :D ).

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

1. The calling a "fool" remark from the Gospels doesn't carry the proper intensity for our time period. The nearest equivalent in today's language for the original language would be "stupid b-----d" or "f------g jerk" (The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard, p.154). A bit different than calling someone foolish, don't you think?

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Some of us are of the opinion (myself being one) that the word fool works as it should in the context in which it was written. Not everybody speaks in such profane, brutish colloquial expressions. If the scriptures were to be written in the decadent language of "Naked Lunch," for instance, it is likely they would be more widely read in certain circles and completely abandoned by most.

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

2. You may make Jesus/God into whatever shape you like - provided that the "personal" vision of Him coincides with what scripture tells us of Him. Anything else creates a non-God - an entity of our own creation which really is simply ourselves as God.

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Who says? Always ask this question, as it leads to liberation from conformity to man's will, rather than God's will. And, what scriptures are we talking about? The original topic is the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gnostic Gospels are a sub-topic. In the context of the original post, the scriptures we are talking about do not appear in the popular canon. That does not mean, however, they are not considered by some, myself included, of being less divinely inspired. To those who read them, we simply consider many, many gospels and revealed texts to have been left out by mistake and human error.

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

3. The "judge not" comment is relentlessly misused; "judge" in this usage refers to judgment in terms of eternal damnation. We're allowed to judge behavior and evaluate choices/actions here on earth (provided we've removed that 2x4 before commenting on your "speck"); we're just not allowed to decide who goes to hell (a good thing! :D ).

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It has been said that religion was invented to allow men to exercise their bigotry. Eternal damnation in regard to Gnostic theology (in keeping with the original topic) means returning to earth time and time again, because of personal attachment, a need for power,wealth, SUVs, the trophy wife, upwardly mobile social status, job promotion, whatever motivates you to remain here. Freedom is the release of the spirit to the original paradise from which the spirit came. The Gnostics generally saw humankind as being made of two parts. First, there was the body, formed by the Demiurge, Yaldabaoth. Then, the holy spirit was breathed into the body. In effect, humans are bound to the material world, a world created by a child-like god, who was not evil, but subject to temper tantrums. The objective is to be released from enslavement by Yaldabaoth's hypnotic spell, but most will not be released any time soon. A proper balance of respect to the heavenly father and the demiurge would be that life is something like a trip to Disneyland, where we would enjoy it, but would want to go home at the end of the day.

The lesson of Jesus, the Gnostic was that we are all gods. Heaven is present instantly, for those who know. Jesus never called himself "God". In fact, he often spoke in distinguishing terms of "the Father" and himself. Jesus was no more the Son of the Heavenly Father than any other mortal, and that was the important message. His sudden realization of being a holy entity, when the spirit descended like a dove, was nothing less than what was available to any other person.

The miracles and magic performances attributed to him, including the resurrection were posthumous additions to market a certain theological position. The beauty of being a Gnostic Christian is that we don't have to rely on a performance of miracles to be at one with the teachings of Christ.

Okay, magic is by far the wrong term. And we do not "depend" on Christ's miracles, only on His death. That, not the miracles, is the central point of the Gospels (the ones in the "popular" canon).

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Originally Posted by weepingforloman

Okay, magic is by far the wrong term. And we do not "depend" on Christ's miracles, only on His death. That, not the miracles, is the central point of the Gospels (the ones in the "popular" canon).

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Firstly, I'm unconvinced that a miracle is not a magical act.

Beyond that rather futile argument over semantics, I'm trying to keep to the original thread topic, which in this case is the Gospel of Thomas or Apocalyptic Teachings of Jesus as Told to Thomas Didymus, and this is a subject that I take special interest in. Keeping that in mind, and knowing something about the difference between the Gnostic Christians and the patristic variety of Christianity, the Gnostic Christians did not necessarily hold any special sacred reverence for the death of Jesus. The Gnostic Christians were not "saved" by the death of Jesus (they did not see it as a sacrifice that redeemed them of their sins). There is a whole distinction between the psychics and the pneumatics, where the former were only ready for the literal word of the scriptures, while the pneumatics had gnosis, which was the deeper meaning of Jesus' sayings. For more on this, you can try to get your hands on a copy of "The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters" by Elaine H. Pagels, which explains in great detail the two-tiered path of Christian exegesis.

The Gospel of Thomas beautifully captured the Gnostic Christian point of view in that it was the sayings of the living Jesus, his own words, his teachings that would save them, rather than the what or why of his death. Whether the Gospel of Thomas was actually a Gnostic Gospel is debated, but certainly it was among the 52 tractates of the surviving Nag Hammadi codices. Being saved, from a Gnostic perspective--the pneumatic understanding of Christ's teaching--is something that happens immediately, as heaven is a state of mind, and not something we go to if we're good.

This is a big distinction, one I can appreciate because it gives more importance to the man's life than it does to the manner in which he may have died. It also puts heaven as a state of mind contemporaneous, or parallel with life. We can slip in and out of heaven while bound by the flesh--a concept distinctly reminiscent of yoga.

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Originally Posted by earthboar

Some of us are of the opinion (myself being one) that the word fool works as it should in the context in which it was written. Not everybody speaks in such profane, brutish colloquial expressions. If the scriptures were to be written in the decadent language of "Naked Lunch," for instance, it is likely they would be more widely read in certain circles and completely abandoned by most.

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The words of Jesus have been toned down a bit throughout the centuries. For instance, when Jesus called the Pharisees a "den of vipers'" in one instance the earliest Greek translation actually read "slimy bastards". Of course even this is pretty tame compared to most of the metaphors in the Old Testament.

earthboar, I've read somewhere that the 40 days Jesus spent in desert were spent with the Essenes. (I've forgotten where, may have been while doing a research paper in college.) Do you have any thoughts on this?

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Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."



Wow. Now, what I hope this means is that since men were better than women in Jesus' time that Jesus meant he was going to make Mary better, hence "making him a man". If that's NOT it, then it's just another reason why Christianity is screwed up. I don't care if this book got canonized or not, it's still a Gospel.

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"When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the kingdom."

It is not about man being better than woman or anything of the sort. It's about making yourself more than just the body of a "man" or "woman" it's about discovering who and what you are as a being. Just discovering yourself. Call it off topic if you will but if anyone has read Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein then you've read all the arguements I want to make. I'm not a religious person, eg..I'm agnostic. Going off of the experiences I've had Quantum Physics has a lot of answers. The Universe is connected, it is all made of the same source. God is everywhere and everything. We (existence) are God. Going from that we all have the same potential to affect anything and everything. If you want something, simply pursue it. It is the pursuit that nets you the prize, not your desire. Other than that be happy. You only have one life, it can end at a whim...unless you find the world to be a carcass...

Sorry for breaking any rules if I have.

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Originally Posted by earthboar

Firstly, I'm unconvinced that a miracle is not a magical act.

Beyond that rather futile argument over semantics, I'm trying to keep to the original thread topic, which in this case is the Gospel of Thomas or Apocalyptic Teachings of Jesus as Told to Thomas Didymus, and this is a subject that I take special interest in. Keeping that in mind, and knowing something about the difference between the Gnostic Christians and the patristic variety of Christianity, the Gnostic Christians did not necessarily hold any special sacred reverence for the death of Jesus. The Gnostic Christians were not "saved" by the death of Jesus (they did not see it as a sacrifice that redeemed them of their sins). There is a whole distinction between the psychics and the pneumatics, where the former were only ready for the literal word of the scriptures, while the pneumatics had gnosis, which was the deeper meaning of Jesus' sayings. For more on this, you can try to get your hands on a copy of "The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters" by Elaine H. Pagels, which explains in great detail the two-tiered path of Christian exegesis.

The Gospel of Thomas beautifully captured the Gnostic Christian point of view in that it was the sayings of the living Jesus, his own words, his teachings that would save them, rather than the what or why of his death. Whether the Gospel of Thomas was actually a Gnostic Gospel is debated, but certainly it was among the 52 tractates of the surviving Nag Hammadi codices. Being saved, from a Gnostic perspective--the pneumatic understanding of Christ's teaching--is something that happens immediately, as heaven is a state of mind, and not something we go to if we're good.

This is a big distinction, one I can appreciate because it gives more importance to the man's life than it does to the manner in which he may have died. It also puts heaven as a state of mind contemporaneous, or parallel with life. We can slip in and out of heaven while bound by the flesh--a concept distinctly reminiscent of yoga.

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As has been repeatedly pointed out, not only by many Buddhists/Hindus/Jews/Muslims that I know or have spoken to, but also by Christians (most notably C.S. Lewis), Christ's teachings were the same as all the great moralists, from Socrates to Siddartha Gautama to Moses to Confucius to Muhammad (for the most part). To say that you are saved by the teachings of Christ rather than by anything He actually did is roughly equivalent to claiming salvation based on your personal knowledge of the Analects.
Oh, and magic is VERY different than miracle. Magic depends on the manipulation of some unknown or obscure force, miracle is simple exercise of authority over nature. God created nature, Jesus is God, hence, nature obeys Jesus.

Greetings,

To change the fighting, which is not over the GoT or any scripture in general, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Stuart Brady and I have been a Roman Catholic all my life.

I still believe the Church in principle is right. The Church is "infallible" in the sense that while the men running it, Pope all the way down to Lay Persons, will error and Sin. The Church will suffer. However the Holy Spirit/ God in action will guide it to the more righteous/ Godly path. The Church is an institution of Man prescribed by Our Lord in the form of Man Christ. Yet with an understanding of GoT ,the episode of Christ giving Peter the Keys to the Kingdom makes more sense. In all truth sense the Kingdom has arrived. It is all around us and inside of us, quite literally anything gained on Earth is gained in the Kingdom and Vice Versa.

My Understanding of GoT has risen my Spirituality from Faith to Knowledge. I know God exist because I see him at all times. When my spirit leaves this Earth, hopefully, it doesn't go to some arbitrary Heaven. It rejoins the Father where all things are possible for all time. From the beginning to the End there are Infinite possibilities in the Kingdom/ Rejoining of the Father, which of course the Father is the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Sin wrongs God because Sinful actions keep you from rejoining God/ entering the Kingdom. GoT has helped me understand why Sin is Sin. Actions such as Anger or impure thoughts always perplexed me. If I didn't act on them why were they Sins. With the understanding that Sin keeps you chained to this realm, i.e. your soul doesn't want to leave and refuses to rejoin God/ the All. Christ saying nothing Unclean may enter Heaven makes sense. God would not want anything unclean/ still holding on the the mortal plane to rejoin Him/the All.

In all Truth I hope in time the Vatican will accept GoT as Cannon. I would not classify myself as a Gnostic because it is perceived as one possessing "secret" knowledge not available to everyone. I know this to be untrue but there are the other parts that are perceived to be Gnostic, i.e. God of Earth, God of the All etc.

Until such time as the Vatican realizes that the Words of Christ, even with Gnostic redaction does not take away from the importance of the Church I will happily label myself as a Heretical Catholic.

One last point the Church should embrace the Gospel because it even adds to the significance of the Eucharist in my view. The saying of the Lion eating the man becoming Human and the man eating a Lion having the Lion become Human. ( I know I got it backwards but I am paraphrasing.) Eating the Body and Drinking the Blood of the All in human form only helps bring you to oneness with the All.


Looking forward to continuing with our journey to returning to the Light as Children of the Light,

Stu "The Heretic" Brady

woops!!! Ignore that second line you all were not fighting....

Earthboar while I like most of your points I have one major sticking point. We are not God or god's till we return to the All/ God. When we do of course we will be Son's of Man, we will be part of the Son of Man. However Christ was the All in human form. Until we return we are not.

That is just my opinion.

As a non-Practicing Roman Catholic, and maybe even to a certain degree Atheist, I found the St. Thomas Gospel quite interesting.

Coming from a family where 6 members now have their Doctorates in Theology, I spent a lot of time listening to the different discussions and arguments concerning the Teachings of the Bible, to include all the addendum's.

Being the non-conformist in the family I decided to go a step further than the rest, not that my education can compete with them at any level, I had to see what the competition had to say on the subject of Religion and God ( regardless of Name ).

In all my readings, discussions and research, they all say the same, Know Yourself, Respect Yourself and Love Yourself. Of course this is simplified to the absolute basics, mainly due to the fact that I have no desire to enter into a Theological Argument here of anyplace else on the Internet.

Personally I can see no reason why the Vatican would try or attempt to block the St. Thomas Gospel, it holds true to the teachings of Christ, One God, Love yourself, Love your Neighbor.....

Now to my Atheist points of view,
I have not attempted to pick apart each of the saying in the St. Thomas gospel, or even attempt to decipher the meanings of each quote, to be perfectly honest, when I breezed through it the first time I was getting the impression it was somebody´s idea of a bad joke. Jesus and His pals hanging out, drinking a few, talking about women, sex, and so on. Call me the victim of a Godless World.

In closing, if these statements can be attributed to St. Thomas as the words of Jesus, regardless of the backlash, they should be included in the Bible, the Bible was given to us by man, ( not by GOD, as stated in a previous post, there is no GOSPEL according to GOD ) it was written by man, and more than likely perverted and misinterpreted many times over the years and translations.

A man much wiser than me once said, `` Religion is like Lifts in your shoes, if you need it in your life to help you live a correct and peaceful life, Fine, but lets not try to nail Lifts on the Neighbors feet.´´ ( George Carlin )

In my view, we see the processing of world of information through many different colored glasses based on our positive or negative life experiences. Put on a pair of 200 AD glasses, when life was short, brutal, and barbaric. Men ruled, by force, where intellectual development was more of a curiosity in the day to day lives of people. Understand, God chose this period of time for a reason. Understand where we are now. Life is not so brutal, and intellectual pursuits have brought about the development of the modern world. Now when you read a piece of literature, any piece, remember it has been translated, and see the words for the images you feel they really represent. The easiest way is to go to a third world country, and actually witness the day to day struggles of the common people. To actually see a starving child, and his parents, who are witnessing the physical death of their child, to get a grasp of any of the words written in the period of Jesus Christ. So learn compassion, understanding, love, and become a better human being in dealing with your fellow man, thanks!

I really havn't had the chance to read any of the text on these scriptures besides whats been posted on here. as of now I have no prob. with it being the gospel of christ. It does however run with the belief of the holy spirit being alive in you and being part of jesus, but thats been argued over too. If somone would lead me to a site that i can read these scriptures im sure ill have more to say .:iamwithstupid:

Hardly canonical, full of contradictions, therefore no more relevant than the Da Vinci Code - and about as reliable.

Interesting to see that this thread is still alive a couple of years later. At this point I have no interest in a religious debate or anything of that sort, and intend to remain civil, so I just wanted to throw in a comment to recommend a book on Gnosticism as a whole which should provide a greater understanding of the subject.

Stephen A. Hoeler's Gnosticism is considered the 'standard' introduction to this subject, and it would do good for anyone interested to look into it. A lot of good information there, and of course, some theological opinions (which are irrelevant to me personally) that one can choose to agree or disagree with.

@Dark Star: Is your handle related to the stunning Grateful Dead song?

@Others--especially those defending Gnosticism: Are there really still Gnostics out there? I was under the impression that they had all died out or been absorbed into other sects by the 3rd century (and necessarily so by the time the Council of Nicea met). Was there a long-standing underground Gnostic church? Or is it a modern revival of the ancient faith?

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Originally Posted by andrewoberg

@Dark Star: Is your handle related to the stunning Grateful Dead song?

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Yes, in part. A bit off topic, but which recording are you thinking of? The one off of Live/Dead?

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@Others--especially those defending Gnosticism: Are there really still Gnostics out there? I was under the impression that they had all died out or been absorbed into other sects by the 3rd century (and necessarily so by the time the Council of Nicea met). Was there a long-standing underground Gnostic church? Or is it a modern revival of the ancient faith?

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Yes, there are Gnostics out there and the religion is growing. As for the historical issue...I've seen claims of Gnosticism going underground and surviving through the ages, but my understanding is that the modern movement is in fact a revival of the ancient faith rather than anything having direct ties to a secret group of gnostics passing down the secrets through the years, or something along those lines. You would be surprised at the current flowering of and attempt to re-construct ancient, formerly dead religions. Kemeticism, for example.

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Originally Posted by Dark Star

Yes, in part. A bit off topic, but which recording are you thinking of? The one off of Live/Dead?

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Any recording of Dark Star is stunning, imo. The one on Live/Dead is indeed breath-taking, but that one was tinkered with in the studio. For pure live recordings, I guess my favorite would be from The Complete 1973 Winterland Recordings.

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Yes, there are Gnostics out there and the religion is growing. As for the historical issue...I've seen claims of Gnosticism going underground and surviving through the ages, but my understanding is that the modern movement is in fact a revival of the ancient faith rather than anything having direct ties to a secret group of gnostics passing down the secrets through the years, or something along those lines. You would be surprised at the current flowering of and attempt to re-construct ancient, formerly dead religions. Kemeticism, for example.

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I suspected as much, but am still a bit surprised. Has mainstream Christianity really become so tasteless to the faithful? On the other hand, maybe it's been headed in that direction for some time now, thinking of all the fundamentalist groups and whatnot...

Any new cults of Mithra?:svengo:

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Originally Posted by andrewoberg

Any recording of Dark Star is stunning, imo. The one on Live/Dead is indeed breath-taking, but that one was tinkered with in the studio. For pure live recordings, I guess my favorite would be from The Complete 1973 Winterland Recordings.

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I haven't listened to Winterland in a very long time (I only have the DVD), I should go dig something up.

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Any new cults of Mithra?:svengo:

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I realize this is intended at least partly as sarcasm, but Zoroastrianism is making a comeback, most strongly in Iran.

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Originally Posted by Dark Star

I haven't listened to Winterland in a very long time (I only have the DVD), I should go dig something up.

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Let me know what you find! You could also check the Archives or one of the trader sites for other versions. I probably have a couple dozen "Dark Stars" in my collection.

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I realize this is intended at least partly as sarcasm, but Zoroastrianism is making a comeback, most strongly in Iran.

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Yes, that was fully sarcastic.:nod: Very interesting about Zoroastrianism, though. I know Persia/Iran is the ancient home of that religion, but thought that Islam had almost an exclusive hold on the faith of modern Iranians.

What do you make of the argument that Judaism's concepts of an afterlife and evil god/devil came from their contact with Zoroastrianism while in Persia?

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Originally Posted by andrewoberg

Yes, that was fully sarcastic.:nod: Very interesting about Zoroastrianism, though. I know Persia/Iran is the ancient home of that religion, but thought that Islam had almost an exclusive hold on the faith of modern Iranians.

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You would think so, but apparently both Atheism and Zoroastrianism are on the rise in Iran. People seem to be becoming disenchanted and either exploring their past or looking to have a future. Not going further into that it since it heads into political territory, though.

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What do you make of the argument that Judaism's concepts of an afterlife and evil god/devil came from their contact with Zoroastrianism while in Persia?

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It sounds like a sensible argument to me, but I have not done research on this particular subject in a couple of years so it's not something I could competently debate at this point. Too bad, a few years back I could have pointed out some books on this subject. Now I can't remember any of them.:svengo:

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Originally Posted by Dark Star

It sounds like a sensible argument to me, but I have not done research on this particular subject in a couple of years so it's not something I could competently debate at this point. Too bad, a few years back I could have pointed out some books on this subject. Now I can't remember any of them.:svengo:

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Yeah, it's funny how quickly we forget things once we stop using them. My undergraduate senior thesis was on Gnosticism, but that was over ten years ago now. I actually re-learned a lot reading this thread. Yikes!:eek:

There is so much that I would like to delve into, but I will not highjack the thread. The OP asked the following:

1) The validity of the scrolls, do you believe this to be Christ's Gospel. Yes, but I am not a sola scriptura reader, so inspired, repeated through time verbally and then copied and recopied, translated into different dialects/languages.
2) The impact this scroll has upon the structure of the Church, More specifically the following extract " Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." This is not a new concept. Look at John 1:1-5 " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." This is where the 'word incarnate' or 'the word made man' comes from.
3) Whether or not you feel this specific scripture has a place in the teaching of christianity? I think all texts have a place; however, one need be careful how one exposes it to others as well as the exegesis presented with it.

I wrote a really long explanation to the quote of Jesus (#114) and it disappeared.

I am new on here and don't know what happened to it?

Any help? I know next time I will copy it before I hit "post" that's for sure!

Thanks,
AnnaMarie

Hello and I am glad that I have found this group. I am hoping to learn more and also hopefully share some things with you from MY travels.

Pertaining to the question posed about the line:

114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."
Well, MY take on this is a problem with translation, as always is, and that we need remember "traditions" and "customs" of those times. I do believe I remember that back in Jesus' time, women were not allowed into the temples. So it appears that Jesus disagreed with this "custom" and was to disguise Mary as a man to that she could enter the temple with Christ and His disciples. (Which I also believe the translation for "Heaven" in this sense is to mean "Temple" or some place of worship where only men are allowed.) Also, some think that Jesus made Mary one of His disciples!

Also, even in our times now, in the Middle East, woman are banned to expose any of their "form" as a woman - they are to hide the fact they are women by their clothing. They cover their hair, their face, etc. Woman are banned to enter places of worship where only men may go. So these "customs" are still being honored, to a big degree, in our 21st Century.

I do NOT believe that Christ is telling all of us to get sex-change operations in order to enter Heaven! Heavy common sense is needed in translating these Scrolls in their Aramaic language.

So, there is my 1st post. Sorry, if someone already said this - I admit to NOT reading all the too numerous pages of posts regarding this issue.

I do have another question, besides wanting feedback on my idea of this line #114, that is; where can I find the full and latest translation of the entire Scrolls? I would really appreciate reading them in their entirety.

One more thing. The movie Stigmata changed my life. It came to be the final piece I needed to end my "trek" of finding myself. It was/is a very powerful movie that moved me and my son in ways I cannot even express. It exposed ideas that I have had thoughts of since childhood. It, the movie, and especially the Scrolls, brought my beliefs of God, Jesus, The Disciples, Heaven and the Church, all into a light that made sense to me, finally! I found peace with it all.

That's it for now. Hope to hear some feedback on this! Thanks for reading me.

AnnaMarie

I think the idea that woman should become men is misleading. I think the idea was more about dealing with men and dealing with women. I guess that there was quite a separation of the sex's at that time and one text would not have been accepted and a womens version doesn't exist. The premises dose though I believe.

I am joining this forum because I have always appreciated my ability to read and have developed some skill in writing. It is my intention to take part in interesting discussions as I may, with an especial interst in the Gospel of Thomas, which is the subject that originally drew me here. The written word is not only a beautiful reality, but it is also a vehicle for thought and ideas, philosophy and a means by which our loves can be expressed. I have a Ph.D. ABD (all but dissertation) and I have been looking for work for six years. If that does not inspire a need for intrinsic beauty, I do not know what would. I hope to learn from other members of this site as well as, hopefully, leave some seeds for thought for others. Let us feast on a banquet of collaborative expression. After years of working to create a new voice, I have decided to identify with my voice and use it creatively and usefully.

[QUOTE=Melancholia;119319]


Melancholia; you have to remember it was the time of male thinking and doing. Women were literally second class citizens. How many times have you heard of a male being stoned for being a gigolo? Yet a woman who spoke out , criticized or committed adultery were, and frequently. Jesus spoke to appease his closest followers (disciples) as he had a difficult task in performing his mandate to create a new way of thinking in changing the sometime very harsh Jewish mindset (beliefs). So in saying "Look, I will guide her to make her male" could have simply meant her way of thinking in the day when her thoughts should have been in line of the men, "so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males" {[resembling] is a key word here} could have simply meant once again following the precepts and politics of the day, of male dominance over all, God created Adam and from Adam woman. Also in the translation Jesus' true intention may have been lost in the interpretation while translating from Aramaic to the first language translation base on to the next and that could be a folly in itself. Just look at modern translations from English to French to German and then Japanese. Error prone? Yes! Translations from a dead language is a guess at best. If you listen to what Jesus taught to the multitudes and apply that to his private words with his disciples, he could have said; "Look, I will guide her to be one of us (a disciple) so that she may become a living spirit resembling all of you (disciples)". This would sound like Jesus speaking. Remember he spoke to the crowd preparing to stone an adulteress, saying "Let you who have not sinned cast the first stone". Jesus revered woman as the spring from which all man comes". In my mindset that is very high on the ladder of importance.

I do believe that all should hear or read the first hand words of Jesus (Gospel of Thomas), rather than centuries old translation and retranslation of we have been taught. The scrolls used to defined Catholic Bible (a political document), was designed to bring new followers in to a new faith (Christianity by mans definition), a faith to appease the old beliefs and conversion of non-Christian practices. Once accomplished and then practiced for centuries, it led Christians to polarized in their way of thinking. Now is the world of the 21st Century it is time to let the individual find meaning of their own, and let common sense prevail.

May the blessings of our Lord reign upon you.

I know this is an old thread but i hope this can be of some use to someone!

Here is the Saying in question:
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female

This saying is actually mentioned in the bible Galatians 3:28-29 which says:

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.