Gnostics

[Confused]

I have read many threads now that posts questions such as "If Jesus was an ordinary man, would you still follow Him?" and "Was Jesus just a great teacher?" Most responses are that He wasn't just a man or just a great teacher, etc....... But most agree that some of what he taught were some good moral values. I question the validity of this thought.

Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis which means knowledge. Gnostics are "those in the know". What they historically claimed to know was the secrets that could bring salvation. For the gnostic, a person isn't saved by having faith in Christ or doing good deeds, rather a person is saved by knowing the truth-the truth about the world we live in, the true God, but most importantly about who we ourselves are.

According to them, the Ultimate Divine Being is completely removed from this world, He is absolute spirit with no material aspects or qualities. He has many offsprings known as "aeons who are spiritual beings. During a catrasophe one of these aeons somehow fell from the divine realm leading to lesser divine beings being created. These lesser divine beings created our material world.

I could go forever about what they think and why, but their overriding point is blatant: The god who made this world, the one of the OT, is a secondary and inferior deity. We won't gain freedom to eternity by worshipping him, but instead, we will be trapped here. We can only gain true eternity through knowledge and wisdom bestowed upon us by divine beings. In Christian gnostic religions, the one who bestows this knowledge was Christ. But Christ wasn't the son of God as the church would have you believe, which is why there are so many holes in the account of His life. Instead, he was an aeon temporarily housed in Jesus to impart the knowledge one needed if they could hear. Of his 12 disciples, only Judas could hear so after Jesus imparted his knowledge, and was on the cross, the aeon left (hence the final words "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?").

Considering that gnostics actually use less elaborate miracles and supernatural events in their beliefs and rather than stifle man but forcing him to adhere to strict commandments, why is it that Christians find it so much easier to believe in Christianity and disbelieve gnosticism.

Why, if Christ was such a good teacher, did He not impart wisdom upon His flock and why did He not encourage them to seek truth and greater knowledge? Instead, he taught that one shouldn't seek outside Him. One shouldn't question why He does what He does, but just accept it and go on? This doesn't seem to be such a good teacher. Would not a great teacher encourage His students to search all avenues to find the truth.

Why do we accept Christ as the absolute truth when we know no truths associated with him as opposed to gnostics who at least attempt to seek out the truth?

[Cogitoergosum]

It was all recorded in the Gospels. Do you have a bias about that?

Yes i do. the gospels are lying, written by people with vested interest. If the gospel writers were pinocchio their noses would be out of our galaxy.

[Confused]

Easyrider:

Quote:
Thus, Gnosticism is contrary to Biblical teachings and represents a deceptive theological paradigm.

Wonder how many people died because of this central thought? Anything that contradicted the church back then was considered deceptive. The church used their position for power and wealth. You can deny it if you wish, but you know as well as does any historian that this is true.

The true church has always sought after the redemption of man, vs. seeking power and money. Others, masquerading as Christians, sought after power and money.

Yes gnostics claim the God of the OT and the God of the NT are two different Gods. So does Judaism, which predates Christianity.

No, Jesus and the New Covenant are the true fulfillments of OT Judaism. The Gospels present that with many evidences.

Yes, gnostics deny the ressurection. Not hard to do if you weren't so lucky as to see it yourself. They claim Jesus was man wanting to return to his divine realm. Is this not true?

Jesus' mission on earth was, as God incarnated, to provide eternal salvation for man, his creation (note Genesis 13:8). Once that was accomplished then and only then could he return to heaven.

The events surrounding the ressurection seem to be somewhat of a mystery. The world went dark, yet no non-religious authority recalls this....

That's not true. Thallus, Phlegon, Juius Africanus, and Tertullian all wrote about it.

the earth shook, yet no non-secular historian records this earthquake, all these prophets were resurrected to go into the city, yet no-one, even secular historians recall any testimony that these men were ever seen. Credibility is?

It was all recorded in the Gospels. Do you have a bias about that?

1) You are not so much in denial to sit here and tell me that the foundation of Christianity spread like wildfire because of the blood shed by anyone who opposed it. That the early church abused its power. They weren't masquerading as Christians. They were the direct reason for the spread of it. I won't say the ends justified the means, but don't sit back and say "I am not part of that church so my form of Christianity had nothing to do with all that blood shed done by a 'false' church". You can no more deny the ends than you can deny the means. So spare me the "they weren't really Christians speech". We have all been down that road and since no-one can prove they weren't, then deal with you own history.

2) Christianity claims that Christ and the New Covenant was the fulfillment of OT Judaism. And last I checked there apppear to be many Christians who don't even consider the OT a literal source rather than an interpretative. So tell me, how is it you know that Christ did just that? Because the Gospels say so? You can't use scripture to prove scripture. It would be the equivalent of a scientist saying this medication does this and to validate it, he duplicates the experiment himself. Biases. Bad.

3) Thallus: do we even know his true name yet? Tell me, what writings do we have of his today? Or do we only know about him because X mentioned that Y mentioned him? X= George Syncellus (9th century CE) and Y = Julius Africanus (3rd Century Christian referenced by others). Y references Thallus from the work of yet another man who wrote history. Yet we don't really know if Thallus existed or even what he says since we have none of his actual writings and the few references to his name letters are missing but scholars assume it is Thallus. Weak.
Phlegon: Once again, we have none of his major works, just references to the Chronicles and Olympiads. Once again Africanus references him. But the fact that his book On Marvels is full of stories of ghosts, pregnant men, oracles etc... I wouldn't consider any of his quotes serious anyways. His credibility is shot.
Africanus: only quotes what has been rehashed many times. Did you ever play the gossip game? You tell one person something and they spread it around and by the end of the day, when it gets back to you, it is totally unrelated to what you said?

4) Do I have a bias about the Gospels. I think I already addressed this. You can't use scripture to prove scripture. That in and of itself makes it biased, so I don't even have to assume a bias towards it. You are doing it for me.

[Confused]

It's 'evil' because the competing theology got the power, and tried to destroy it. The gnostic concepts were dangerous to the self respect and faith of the believers in the trinity. The Trinity believers got the power via Constintine, and destroyed the opposition.

Simple as that.

I think the Gnostics made more sense.. don't believe what they believed, but they made more sense.

It doesn't make sense to me. But then you prefer largely 2nd century redacted Gnostic writings to 1st century Gospels that had much better historical pedigrees. Your lack of a credible criteria on what constitutes the more legitimate Gospels continues to amaze me. It just doesn't make any sense.

Do you not find it odd that historians such as Justus of Tiberius never mentions Christ in any of his writings, especially considering he was a native of Galilee whose writings are approximated at 80 CE, the time during which Christ lived and Christianity began to flourish. Seneca (3 BCE-60's CE) was another who wrote extensively about ethics, yet never mentions Christ or his teachings. Philo (20 BCE-50CE) wrote much but nothing about Christ. Pliny wrote his 37 volume Natural History yet never refers to an earthquake, darkness, or resurrected prophets, though he was alive during the life and death of Christ and documented in great detail science and earthly/cosmic phenomena.

These are all historical pedigrees from the time of Christ, yet none mention Him. What amazes you about this?

[Jester]

...
Why, if Christ was such a good teacher, did He not impart wisdom upon His flock and why did He not encourage them to seek truth and greater knowledge? Instead, he taught that one shouldn't seek outside Him. One shouldn't question why He does what He does, but just accept it and go on? This doesn't seem to be such a good teacher. Would not a great teacher encourage His students to search all avenues to find the truth.

Why do we accept Christ as the absolute truth when we know no truths associated with him as opposed to gnostics who at least attempt to seek out the truth?

First, it feels good to read your thoughts again (much more thought provoking than the day job).
I personally find the Gnostics fascinating, and can agree with some of what they say on a personal level. As far as accepting their claims about the nature of God (of course), I’d disagree. The Gnostic gospels do not appear until after the Christian writings, leading me to suspect that they are not historical so much as re-writes.

To the more important point, I completely agree that seeking truth is good, and will argue for the remainder of my life that Christ wanted us to do so. The more I learn about the cultural context of the gospels, the more it seems that Christ is constantly asking the question “Why aren’t you people thinking?”. I completely believe that he would encourage us to seek the truth, though he clearly gave some commentary on what that truth is (I, for one, am happy for that much, but would love some more in the way of clear and undeniable facts).
One interesting point is that the Greeks constantly talked about spirituality in terms of gnosis (knowledge), the Jews in terms of sophia (wisdom), and the Christians in terms of gospel (news). The difference between the Christians and the Gnostics is, on this point, very slight but significant. The early church (St. Paul in particular) claimed that knowledge was important, but that the emphasis needed to be on outer reality, rather than inner exploration. In short, the Christians emphasized that searching was good insofar as it led to finding, but was not an end in itself.
Certainly, too many Christians want to skip the searching process altogether. They seem to be ignorant of the fact that this does not lead to “automatic finding”, but simply to denying one’s own ignorance. That is not at all what is taught in the New Testament.

[Goat]

...
Why, if Christ was such a good teacher, did He not impart wisdom upon His flock and why did He not encourage them to seek truth and greater knowledge? Instead, he taught that one shouldn't seek outside Him. One shouldn't question why He does what He does, but just accept it and go on? This doesn't seem to be such a good teacher. Would not a great teacher encourage His students to search all avenues to find the truth.

Why do we accept Christ as the absolute truth when we know no truths associated with him as opposed to gnostics who at least attempt to seek out the truth?

First, it feels good to read your thoughts again (much more thought provoking than the day job).
I personally find the Gnostics fascinating, and can agree with some of what they say on a personal level. As far as accepting their claims about the nature of God (of course), I’d disagree. The Gnostic gospels do not appear until after the Christian writings, leading me to suspect that they are not historical so much as re-writes.

To the more important point, I completely agree that seeking truth is good, and will argue for the remainder of my life that Christ wanted us to do so. The more I learn about the cultural context of the gospels, the more it seems that Christ is constantly asking the question “Why aren’t you people thinking?”. I completely believe that he would encourage us to seek the truth, though he clearly gave some commentary on what that truth is (I, for one, am happy for that much, but would love some more in the way of clear and undeniable facts).
One interesting point is that the Greeks constantly talked about spirituality in terms of gnosis (knowledge), the Jews in terms of sophia (wisdom), and the Christians in terms of gospel (news). The difference between the Christians and the Gnostics is, on this point, very slight but significant. The early church (St. Paul in particular) claimed that knowledge was important, but that the emphasis needed to be on outer reality, rather than inner exploration. In short, the Christians emphasized that searching was good insofar as it led to finding, but was not an end in itself.
Certainly, too many Christians want to skip the searching process altogether. They seem to be ignorant of the fact that this does not lead to “automatic finding”, but simply to denying one’s own ignorance. That is not at all what is taught in the New Testament.

Some of the gnostic gospels appear to have the same potential time frame as the synoptic gospels, such as the 'sophia of Jesus Christ', the 'Gospel of Thomas',and secret Mark. I think it probably was a parrell development.

[Jester]

Some of the gnostic gospels appear to have the same potential time frame as the synoptic gospels, such as the 'sophia of Jesus Christ', the 'Gospel of Thomas',and secret Mark. I think it probably was a parrell development.

With regard to the Gospel of Thomas, you make a good point, so far as I know. To that, I can only say that it is somewhat incomplete in that it records no events, but is merely a question and answer session with Jesus (some believe there to have been events recorded in this book due to its occasional confusion with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas), and is less developed than the canonized gospels, leading me to suspect that it was a later philosophy. (Basically, it is the Gnostic equivalent to "Q" and no one is arguing that it predates Q. That could imply that it was developing from this Q-like form to the later Gnostic gospels behind the development of the Catholic writings).
On the other writings, I have a stronger case. “Sophia of Jesus Christ” has only a few fragments dating to the third century (as opposed to the second century copies of the canonized books). It is possible that it is as old, but there is not as yet any evidence to support the claim, and it was clearly far less popular (circulated) once it does appear, implying that it is a reactionary development.
As for the Secret Gospel of Mathew, I would argue that it is misclassified as Gnostic. It supports the theology of canonized scripture far more than the Gnostic texts. The only theology that can be drawn from this writing that would be offensive to the average Christian is the theory that this gospel represents Jesus as homosexual. Without commenting on the issue of homosexuality, I would make the point that this is a gross misinterpretation of the scripture. It involves interpreting the word “love” in a purely modern sense (as having connotations of romance) that is clearly out of the cultural form of the ancient world.

[Confused]

Some of the gnostic gospels appear to have the same potential time frame as the synoptic gospels, such as the 'sophia of Jesus Christ', the 'Gospel of Thomas',and secret Mark. I think it probably was a parrell development.

With regard to the Gospel of Thomas, you make a good point, so far as I know. To that, I can only say that it is somewhat incomplete in that it records no events, but is merely a question and answer session with Jesus (some believe there to have been events recorded in this book due to its occasional confusion with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas), and is less developed than the canonized gospels, leading me to suspect that it was a later philosophy. (Basically, it is the Gnostic equivalent to "Q" and no one is arguing that it predates Q. That could imply that it was developing from this Q-like form to the later Gnostic gospels behind the development of the Catholic writings).
On the other writings, I have a stronger case. “Sophia of Jesus Christ” has only a few fragments dating to the third century (as opposed to the second century copies of the canonized books). It is possible that it is as old, but there is not as yet any evidence to support the claim, and it was clearly far less popular (circulated) once it does appear, implying that it is a reactionary development.
As for the Secret Gospel of Mathew, I would argue that it is misclassified as Gnostic. It supports the theology of canonized scripture far more than the Gnostic texts. The only theology that can be drawn from this writing that would be offensive to the average Christian is the theory that this gospel represents Jesus as homosexual. Without commenting on the issue of homosexuality, I would make the point that this is a gross misinterpretation of the scripture. It involves interpreting the word “love” in a purely modern sense (as having connotations of romance) that is clearly out of the cultural form of the ancient world.

Missed you Jester, where you been?

Ok, what is your take on the Gospel of Judas?

[Cogitoergosum]

I personally find the Gnostics fascinating, and can agree with some of what they say on a personal level. As far as accepting their claims about the nature of God (of course), I’d disagree. The Gnostic gospels do not appear until after the Christian writings, leading me to suspect that they are not historical so much as re-writes.

The gnostics gospels found could be a re-write of another gnostic gospel that is older, finding a copy written at that time (3rd century) does not preclude the existence of an earlier copy that was not found. Besides that a document written earlier than an another does not make this document true and the other false. This is ridiculous. All previous documents supported a flat earth, later documents say the earth is round. Are we to assume that the earlier supposition is true because it was written prior to galilee's discovery?

[bernee51]

First, it feels good to read your thoughts again (much more thought provoking than the day job).
I personally find the Gnostics fascinating, and can agree with some of what they say on a personal level. As far as accepting their claims about the nature of God (of course), I’d disagree. The Gnostic gospels do not appear until after the Christian writings, leading me to suspect that they are not historical so much as re-writes.

To the more important point, I completely agree that seeking truth is good, and will argue for the remainder of my life that Christ wanted us to do so. The more I learn about the cultural context of the gospels, the more it seems that Christ is constantly asking the question “Why aren’t you people thinking?”. I completely believe that he would encourage us to seek the truth, though he clearly gave some commentary on what that truth is (I, for one, am happy for that much, but would love some more in the way of clear and undeniable facts).
One interesting point is that the Greeks constantly talked about spirituality in terms of gnosis (knowledge), the Jews in terms of sophia (wisdom), and the Christians in terms of gospel (news). The difference between the Christians and the Gnostics is, on this point, very slight but significant. The early church (St. Paul in particular) claimed that knowledge was important, but that the emphasis needed to be on outer reality, rather than inner exploration. In short, the Christians emphasized that searching was good insofar as it led to finding, but was not an end in itself.
Certainly, too many Christians want to skip the searching process altogether. They seem to be ignorant of the fact that this does not lead to “automatic finding”, but simply to denying one’s own ignorance. That is not at all what is taught in the New Testament.

And thanks for your words jester - always thought provoking...

Certainly the gnostics sought knowledge at a personal level. if spirituality is a direct experience of the divine then it can only be found at a personal level. Paul calling for knowledge from an outer reality perhaps is not the most expedient way to gain access to spirituality.

Also interestingly...Greeks and knowledge, the Jews and wisdom, and the Christians and (good) news....the goal of spiritual seeking in vedanta is satchitananda, truth, knowledge and bliss. The 'end in itself' is spirituality - this, being a direct experience of the divine, can only be achieved by self enquiry - no outer reality can provide a direct experience.

[Confused]

Jester:

I personally find the Gnostics fascinating, and can agree with some of what they say on a personal level. As far as accepting their claims about the nature of God (of course), I’d disagree. The Gnostic gospels do not appear until after the Christian writings, leading me to suspect that they are not historical so much as re-writes.

Of course they are re-writes. That however doesn't preclude them from being transcribed such as some of the other works of Christianity to preserve there contents. As said in The Gospel Of Judas, the earliest copy we have is approx 270 AD, however, we know that a copy existed at least 100 years earlier since Erenaeus mentions it in his book of heresy. So it wouldn't be difficult to believe that one existed prior to even that period considering it would have been kept hidden because of these "Heresy Hunters" but transcribed in order to preserve it. So I can't share you suspect of them not being historical on the grounds of them appearing after Christian writings. You cannot help but wonder how many gnostic writings were destroyed by the church and these Heresy Hunters. Would Chritianity have a different picture if more had survived?