The Gospel of Judas

[Jnyusa]

Kushana, thanks so much for taking the trouble to post your comments over here as well!

Jn

[Kushana]

Forgive me for being so quiet: for being on such a short document, the book on the Gospel of Thomas has gone *slowly*. I will try to catch up on this thread -- and keep you posted on this new document.

-Kushana

[Pearly Di]

*wakes up from her stupor*

It's Kushana!



Great to see you.

[The Watcher]

Well, to return this thread to its original topic, since it now seems that the text IS authentic, DOES date back to around 300 A.D. give or take a few decades either way, and DOES seem to be a copy of what Bishop Iranaeus was referencing, does anyone feel that they have any comments to discuss?

I certainly am not the scholar that Kushana is, but I did reread Pagel's translated and interpreted version of the Gospels of Thomas and Mary lately, and I find it SO interesting to see that what is considered canonical and in some cases literal dogma by many Christian sects nowadays were really nothing of the sort back in the early days of the Christian religious movement. What I find most interesting is the schism between needing Jesus Christ himself as a personal savior versus the more gnostic viewpoint that the divine spark can be found within anyone and that Jesus is just showing the way, and that the role of women was completely shut down after centuries of them being some of the most prominent early church leaders.

Anyone care to discuss?

What is it about the gnostic texts in general that threatens mainstream/traditional Christianity? To my knowledge, the liberal Protestants and the more Eastern Orthodox churches do not seem to have as big an issue with some of this?

I do not want to tread on any toes here, it seems that the slightest thing sets off the "do not tread on my faith" sensibilities of many who often post here.

This is a purely discussion aimed question. Why is what was finally "smooshed" together as canonical gospel and other acceptable material the only sources deemed acceptable to so much of the Christian world? Even the four "canonical" gospels do not agree on an awful lot of things, so why is "John" for example, a more "correct" gospel than that of Thomas? Why would a Gospel of Jude be out of the question?

We all know that NONE of the apostles penned anything at all directly attributable to them, except for some repeatedly transcribed versions of letters in a few instances, and even those were subject to much interpretation and mistranslation over a few centuries.

[Cerin]

It seems to me that, speaking in a broad sense, the canonical gospels and the gnostic gospels can't both be true, for the reason you alluded to, TW. Either we need Christ as personal Savior, or we don't. We can't both need Him and not need Him. So either the gnostic train of thought was correct, or the other (unless they are regarded as merely representational vehicles, along with all other religions, for some universal truth).

[The Watcher]

It seems to me that, speaking in a broad sense, the canonical gospels and the gnostic gospels can't both be true, for the reason you alluded to, TW. Either we need Christ as personal Savior, or we don't. We can't both need Him and not need Him. So either the gnostic train of thought was correct, or the other (unless they are regarded as merely representational vehicles, along with all other religions, for some universal truth).

What IF all Jesus was trying to teach is that "he was the way" in a most literal sense - one started with Jesus, and then his teachings "showed one the way?" That the baptism and acceptance of Christ (who was not called such until way later) were merely paths to set one onto the road, so to speak?

Of ALL the gospels, I tend to agree with Pagel here, the only one that I find somewhat convincing is Mark. It does not contain all of the editorial comments, and I KNOW that the gospels were not intended to be read or interpreted as news articles, but as "good news." That being said, I find "John" in particular to be rather disturbing, since it branches rather freely off into areas that no other gospel seems to confirm, and, to my mind, remains somewhat supsect because of that. If one can accept the more "liberal" teaching of John, why does that hold more merit over "Thomas" for example?

Cerin, I know that you know in your own very vast knowledge of church history that certain things taken as dogma now were invented FAR after the fact in the Christian church origins - for starters, the celibacy of priests, the edict that women could not even be deacons, much less priests, the virgin birth, the immaculate conception of Mary, mother of Jesus, etc. If all of this could be more or less "invented," why is it so suspect that what might be "canonical" NT text is from only one particular focus? The sect that branched off with James as bishop of Jerusalem quickly fell into disfavor, since it was too "judaic" in focus. We take the words of Paul, an extremely devout Jew who denounced Christians before his conversion as somehow indicative of what Christ would want, even though Paul never ever met the living Jesus. Peter was basically chosen as "the rock" = his name, because he did not question as much as administer the early church, and even he was opposed to opening the church to gentiles until he was persuaded otherwise by such as Paul.

Why is what THESE few people did more important than what all of the others did? We cannot go back into time and witness any of it for ourselves, but to MY way of thinking, what is so WRONG about the huge amount of gnostic texts that are out there? Why would a living and benevolent GOD insist that proferring a living sacrifice in the form of his begotten son and then a sincere belief in that event alone qualifies, and nothing else, for the salvation of the human race?

To me at least, the gnostic versions seem far more likely. Why would a benevolent being NOT want us to discover the divine spark within all of ourselves? Why would only ONE being be qualified to do that for us?

If God did indeed design us, isn't something of God contained within us afterall? Would God deliberately create faulty goods just to give us free will? Wouldn't God have given us the means within ALL of us to discover what Jesus and others were sent to us to convey?

I really really do not get this from the conventional Christain viewpoint. IT seems like those in that camp are saying that God set us up to fail UNLESS we believe such and such. Why would a benevolent and loving God do such a thing to his/her own creation? Why would such a divine omnipotent creator deny the very spark of the divine within us all as being something to find for ourselves and cherish and work towards? Isn't that setting us up for failure from the get go?

[Cerin]

What IF all Jesus was trying to teach is that "he was the way" in a most literal sense - one started with Jesus, and then his teachings "showed one the way?" That the baptism and acceptance of Christ (who was not called such until way later) were merely paths to set one onto the road, so to speak?

Then I've been wrong.

I must correct you, TW. Not only do I not have a vast knowledge of church history, I have almost no knowledge of it. I accepted the Bible as true for no rational reason, therefore rational reasons to doubt its validity are of eqally little import to my faith. I simply take it on faith that the writings that God desired reach us as truth, are the ones that were put forward. So I'm not really the person to discuss these questions with.

One thing that occurs to me as I write is that the canonical gospels seem as a piece with the Old Testament (that is, the truths from the one follow seamlessly to the other), whereas I wouldn't know what to make of the Old Testament in a gnostic gospel world. How would we have come from one point to the other? How would humankind have acquired the spark of divinity from a state of unrighteousness? What is the posited means for such a transformation? (Not asking you for the answers, just wondering aloud.)

Why would a benevolent and loving God do such a thing to his/her own creation?

Because we are His creation; we cannot in ourselves be more. But through our inevitable failure, He made a way to transform us into His children.

[Jnyusa]

Cerin: One thing that occurs to me as I write is that the canonical gospels seem as a piece with the Old Testament (that is, the truths from the one follow seamlessly to the other), whereas I wouldn't know what to make of the Old Testament in a gnostic gospel world. How would we have come from one point to the other? How would humankind have acquired the spark of divinity from a state of unrighteousness? What is the posited means for such a transformation?

That may be an unanswerable question, because the Old Testament that seems 'as a piece' with the canonical gospels is the Old Testament interpreted through the lens of the canonical gospels. It's hard to say what a modern, non-Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament would look like if gnostic gospels had been adopted as canonical. I believe that they would still seem as a piece but the piece would be an entirely different color.

How would humankind have acquired the spark of divinity from a state of unrighteousness? What is the posited means for such a transformation?

This is not, for example, the way I would summarize the point of Genesis, looking, as I do, at the Old Testament through yet another lens.

The Jews at the time of the Greek occupation considered their religion singularly incompatible with Greek religion; but they felt that way about Roman religion too, and we see how readily 1st century Judaism was transformed into Roman Christianity.

It might be interesting to 'go on a hunt,' so to speak, for those elements of the Old Testament that would have been differentially emphasized if Roman Christianity had followed a gnostic path.

Watcher: I was interested that you called attention to John. That gospel has also seemed to me discordant with the other three, but it cannot be called gnostic (from the little I've recently googled about gnositism). The beginning seems an attempt to reconcile Christian belief with the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus! I'm sure I have no idea what strain of thought within Greek culture that might have represented.

Jn

[Cerin]

Good points, Jn.

[The Watcher]

Cerin: One thing that occurs to me as I write is that the canonical gospels seem as a piece with the Old Testament (that is, the truths from the one follow seamlessly to the other), whereas I wouldn't know what to make of the Old Testament in a gnostic gospel world. How would we have come from one point to the other? How would humankind have acquired the spark of divinity from a state of unrighteousness? What is the posited means for such a transformation?

That may be an unanswerable question, because the Old Testament that seems 'as a piece' with the canonical gospels is the Old Testament interpreted through the lens of the canonical gospels. It's hard to say what a modern, non-Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament would look like if gnostic gospels had been adopted as canonical. I believe that they would still seem as a piece but the piece would be an entirely different color.

How would humankind have acquired the spark of divinity from a state of unrighteousness? What is the posited means for such a transformation?

This is not, for example, the way I would summarize the point of Genesis, looking, as I do, at the Old Testament through yet another lens.

The Jews at the time of the Greek occupation considered their religion singularly incompatible with Greek religion; but they felt that way about Roman religion too, and we see how readily 1st century Judaism was transformed into Roman Christianity.

It might be interesting to 'go on a hunt,' so to speak, for those elements of the Old Testament that would have been differentially emphasized if Roman Christianity had followed a gnostic path.

Watcher: I was interested that you called attention to John. That gospel has also seemed to me discordant with the other three, but it cannot be called gnostic (from the little I've recently googled about gnositism). The beginning seems an attempt to reconcile Christian belief with the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus! I'm sure I have no idea what strain of thought within Greek culture that might have represented.

Jn

I have often thought that apart from deism, liberal Judaism might be where I tend to fit. I still cling to semi-agnosticism, since, in another post here, I basically summed up my issues with overall Judeo-Christian-Islamic beliefs, and that boils down to humancentric focus. As vast and large as the universe is, I find it incredibly vain that the universal truth out there would favor homo sapiens as the special recipients of divine intervention.

Of course, then one can make the argument that the divine only did that for us to interpret, and that the intelligent species which inhabit the Centauri systems or Denib or others have their own version of holy texts which proclaim THEM as the center of the universe, but I digress.....)

My very limited understanding of the Gospel of John is that it seems to be the last recorded of the four canonical accepted Christian gospels, and that it also seems to have been influenced by attempting to repudiate what may have been contradictory other 'gospels' circulating at the time, a good near century after Jesus himself was crucified. So, it certainly was not a contemporary account of things, even if one takes the criteria of what was written down in those eras as "truth" to begin with.

That being said, "John" certainly has many elements of Greek philosophy contained within it, and it almost seems to be a dialectic of emphasizing Christ as LOGOS, as being the alpha and the omega, the all or nothing philosophy of such as Hereclitus. But, it differs, in that "John" itself seems to be taking away the power of LOGOS in its original context of truth from observation and inner reconciliation of these phenomena and instead crediting only the belief in Jesus as the means to achieve such things. It is a blend of classical Greek philosophical arguments melded with the need for more traditional Judaic explanations which supposedly foretold the coming of the messiah, and why Jesus fit all of the criteria.

Elaine Pagel suggests that the Gospel of John might have indeed have been written to repudiate more esoteric texts such as the Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas is far more concerned with the sayings and teachings of Jesus that did not suppose a divine man/god type of intervention. The Gospel of Thomas in other words is more concerned with showing Jesus as "the way" and John is more concerned with showing Jesus as "savior."

The odd thing is that both texts as far as scholars can determine originated around the same time, so which came first is to date at best a coin toss.

How this fits in with even more controversial texts such as the Gospel of Mary, Phillip, and now Judas, time will only tell. I find all of this fascinating. While I do not discount ANY of the texts of what either made it into the NT or is considered outside the canon, I do find it rather odd as to how different mainstream Christian churches accept such things.

[Jnyusa]

... liberal Judaism might be where I tend to fit.

You should pay a visit to nerdanel's thread here on that topic. We're asking ourselves to what extent 'liberal Judaism' might be a contradiction in terms.

I do find it rather odd as to how different mainstream Christian churches accept such things.

But I find Cerin's explanation easy to accept. It seems to me that if one is going to believe in the gospels as authoritative then one has to approach it as she describes, with faith that God has allowed the correct message to be transmitted.

This answer would not work for me personally - I've had to reject the word-of-god-basis for the authority of the Torah. I find it compelling for completely different reasons, and my views would be anathema to orthodox Jews, but I understand their need to reconcile their belief in God with a sacred text that was too obviously (if I may say it) touched by the hand of man.

Jn

[Kushana]

DOES date back to around 300 A.D.

The physical copy dates to some time between 220 and 340, according to carbon dating: http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lost ... ating.html
(i.e. FOTR was published in 1954, but my copy of the book was printed in 2004.)

The work itself dates to before 180, when a work by Irenaeus mentions it by name. How much older than that is it? Well, GJudas mentions the replacement of Judas, so it may know of Acts 1:23-26 (C. 100 A.D.)

The type of Gnosticism in it, Sethianism, began as a pre-Christian Jewish baptismal sect that later became Christian, according to Dr. Turner, one of the few specialists on the subject:

.... Sethianism [started] as a non-Christian baptismal sect of the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E. ... [it] gradually Christianized in the later first century onward through an identification of the pre-existent Christ with Seth [K: this is in the Gospel of Judas] ... Sethianism ... [became] increasingly estranged from a Christianity becoming more orthodox toward the end of the second century and beyond ... Sethianism as rejected by the Great Church but meanwhile increasingly attracted to the individualistic contemplative practices of third-century Platonism; and ... increasingly fragmented into various derivative and other sectarian gnostic groups, some surviving into the Middle Ages .... So far as I can see, most of the Sethian documents ... originated in the period 100-250 C.E.

Souce and further details: http://jdt.unl.edu/lithist.html

I find it SO interesting to see that what is considered canonical and in some cases literal dogma by many Christian sects nowadays were really nothing of the sort back in the early days of the Christian religious movement.

To this day, a portion of the Orthodox service (attributed to John Chrysostom, 347-386) commands the non-baptized to leave the room. In early Christianity the creed was only fully taught after baptism and was a kind of religious mystery, each Christian group had its own creed. If memory serves, the first general creed was the Nicene Creed in 325, and the first specification of the New Testament canon was in 367 (Festal Letter of Athanasius), which _may_ have prompted the burial of the Nag Hammadi Library. (The fact that the codex that contains the Gospel of Judas, two works already known from Nag Hammadi, and a third related work was discovered without its archaeological context means we may never know whether the book was discarded reverentially, thown out, or hidden. )

What I find most interesting is the schism between needing Jesus Christ himself as a personal savior versus the more gnostic viewpoint that the divine spark can be found within anyone

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:20-21

What is it about the gnostic texts in general that threatens mainstream/traditional Christianity?

History tends to be disturbing: it isn't neat and tends not support any one way of looking at things. That said, I don't see any denominations running to open the cannon, even the most liberal ones -- nor have I found any scholars being so unethical as to propose such a thing.

(Note: The last living branch of Gnosticism, the Mandaeans, seem content to go about their own business. )

Why is what was finally "smooshed" together as canonical gospel and other acceptable material the only sources deemed acceptable to so much of the Christian world?

Not even I know why: scholars can point to factors and likelihoods, but we don't exactly have the meeting notes.

(Note: Gnostic documents were just as subject to scribal errors and mistranslations as any other document. Just yesterday in the Gospel of Judas I was delighted to discover and alarmed "sic!" the modern editors had added to mark a particularly odd hiccough in the Coptic text. )

-Kushana

[Kushana]

whereas I wouldn't know what to make of the Old Testament in a gnostic gospel world.

In many forms of Gnosticism the Old Testament was given by a false god to enslave humanity (you can see why some Gnostics *liked* Paul, see Pagels' The Gnostic Paul) and had nothing to do with the true God, whose spark was within each person (or each Gnostic -- just like other kinds of Christianity, Gnosticism had a spectrum of election--universalism. )

Gnosticism most likely started within Judaism and scholars are still trying to understand (as they are with Paul) exacly what led them to their dissatisfaction with their own deity and religion. At least one early Christian movement (also quite fond of Paul), Marcionism (c. 144 A.D. onwards), rejected the Old Testament, as well.

Remember that this early there was no Old Testament within Christanity, and no Biblical canon within Judasim (see the great variety of works found among Dead Sea Scrolls, including variants and re-workings of works now found in the Jewish Bible. ) Each Jewish or Christian group was still in the process of selecting, editing, and often writting, its own body of authoritative scriptures -- so I was not right to say "rejected the OT". Just like everyone else, Marcion selected the works he thought were the most right and edifying and had arguments why, among the great wash of other works availiable, certain others were not right or edifying. According to the primary sources, everyone was in the midst of this process. (And pointing fingers at other groups for doing it wrong: compare what Irenaeus has to say about the Gospel of Judas with what the Gospel of Judas has to say about other groups who look to one or another of the 12. )

How would humankind have acquired the spark of divinity from a state of unrighteousness?

The idea of the Fall was a Christian one, not a Jewish one. Gnostic groups did not start with that theological posit. Instead they regarded Creation as fundamentally flawed, the work of bunglers who were trying to fashion human beings after the image of the divine, and who accidentally (or were tricked into by the forces of good) incorporating the divine spark. This utterly good spark was traped in a flawed (or evil) body living in a flawed (or evil) world while hostile spiritual forces did they best to maintain its imprisonment -- and keep it from even knowing it was in jail or that God exists.

Some Gnostic groups said Christ came from the True God with the Good News of Salvation from this situation, other Christian groups would have phrased the situation and the contents of Salvation quite differently, of course.

(Not asking you for the answers, just wondering aloud.)

Sorry if that was too much information -- many types of Gnosticism, Judaism, and Christianity co-existed, competed, and had conversations -- often alongside Roman and other (*very ancient*) local religions, Greek Philosophy, and Zoroastrianism. (And, a bit further east, Buddhism. ) All were trying to promote their set of rituals, ideas, worldviews, and approaches to life (and its problems and questions) as the best while arguing with each other and borrowing from each other. It must have been a delightful and strange time to go 'church-hunting'.

-Kushana

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Too much information? Never! Thanks for sharing so much interesting stuff. The more the merrier!

[Jnyusa]

Right! It's never too much info, Kushana.

This utterly good spark was traped in a flawed (or evil) body living in a flawed (or evil) world while hostile spiritual forces did they best to maintain its imprisonment -- and keep it from even knowing it was in jail ...

That sounds almost like Scientology!

Does anyone know whether L. Ron Hubbard had a fling with Gnosticism?

Jn

[Kushana]

the Old Testament that seems 'as a piece' with the canonical gospels is the Old Testament interpreted through the lens of the canonical gospels.

Very true: within Judaism the New Testament has nothing to do with their Scriptures. (Which has the same books as the Catholic and Orthodox Old Testament, but not the modern Protestant one -- but, even so, these books are in a different order and read in their original language. (Christianity was a Greek-speaking religion and, as a movement, never read or used the Bible in Hebrew. At the time, both Jews and Christians translated, used, and drew different interpretations from the Hebrew Scriptures in Greek, although Judaism returned to Hebrew. )) Many Christian doctrines can be traced to ancient Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures (including the Fall and the Virgin Birth), even though Christian translations today base their translations on the original Hebrew. (Which makes for odd apologetical moments. )

The Jews at the time of the Greek occupation considered their religion singularly incompatible with Greek religion; but they felt that way about Roman religion too

Don't take the Dead Sea Scrolls to heart: they were written by extraordinarily conservative militant separatists. (And be careful of Josephus, he wrote some of his work on the payroll of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, whom he surrendered to during the siege of Jotapata (his compatriots died. ))

Many Jewish works of the era (including many now found in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha) were written in Greek, used Greek genres and Greek literary and philosophical ideas, and many Jews had Roman educations and were interested in assimilating into the larger culture. (They could not know about, and perhaps would not have supported, the later series of wars that led to the destruction of the Temple at Jerusualem and a recasting of Judaism that very much diminished its diversity and willingness to participate in or borrow from majority culture. This recasting led to the rejection of most Jewish works written in Greek -- with one exception: Hanukkah is not based on any Hebrew-language text. )

We really don't know how most Greco-Roman Jews negotiated a day-to-day world where meat in the butcher shop came from animals sacrificed to local deities (it is difficult to tell if it would otherwise be kosher or exactly how carefully that was kept (and defined) by this or that local community); where even minor civic offices and occasions, many civic holidays, many social obligations and clubs, military service, and most public and private entertainments (the theater, sporting events, book readings, dinner parties) involved small pagan religious observances or were dedicated to a pagan god. (Even cities and rivers had deities.) Roman law tolerated Judaism and permitted Jews to avoid what they found distateful in civic life, and Judaism was both respected as ancient and ethical -- and distrusted as rather peculiar and stay-at-home.

For instance, when Josephus adoped his patron, the emperor's, family name "Flavius" did he take on the minor gods associated with that name and family? What did he do about the genius (spirit) of the Emperor, regarded as divine? Look for the gentleman's name, here:
http://metamedia.stanford.edu/traumwerk ... ial%20Cult
(Lares are household gods. )

We don't have good 'on-the-ground' information for how most Jews of the time handled such issues, especially since Judaism was so diverse during that era: I'm very reluctant to 'read back' from Talmudic Judaism, and contemporary sources and archaeology are often unhelpful.

It might be interesting to 'go on a hunt,' so to speak, for those elements of the Old Testament that would have been differentially emphasized if Roman Christianity had followed a gnostic path.

A suppose one place to start would be to look for Old Testament quotations and references in Gnostic works: there are buckets of quotes and allusions to the Creation accounts in Genesis, but the others may be more subtle hunting.

but it cannot be called gnostic (from the little I've recently googled about gnositism[

Hm, my elaborate TORC post on why John is Gnostic has been buried in the sands of time. From memory: John has a savior who comes from God, from outside the world, to call his pre-ordained kin to return with him to that place. Everyone else is benighted and cannot recognize or hear this savior. The savior imparts knowledge to this pre-existant group (and chides non-members) in long discourses. God is Light and Wisdom (as in Gnosticism), those not affiliated with this God are of Darkness.

This is a lot like Gnosticism and isn't much like the way the savior or his message are cast in the other three gospels. (Note: I was once taught that John was refuting Gnosticism by using Gnostic language; but I cannot find where John is arguing against any particular school of Gnosticism, and Gnostic imagery and language are part and parcel of the way he writes and what he says. Yes, he dissagrees, but each Gnostic school disagreed with the others. ) Have a look at Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy by Gregory Riley, it will give something to mull.

(Hm, a quick google does unusually poor justice to the subject: the academic conference at Messina actually did produced a technical, multi-pointed definition translated into both English and German, and much of scholarship (even dissenting schoalrship) has started from it. If you wish to read it, it's in The Origins of Gnosticism edited by Dr. Bianchi. It is so technical that I don't trust myself to paraphrase it. )

The beginning seems an attempt to reconcile Christian belief with the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus!

This does not ring a bell with me, either. (Hm, I have never heard that as an origin for Gnosticism. )

-Kushana

[Kushana]

That being said, "John" certainly has many elements of Greek philosophy

His interest is Logos could also stem from Jewish mystical speculation about Wisdom (which "logos" can be a translation of.) A mysticism which also served as the basis for some forms of Gnosticism (where Wisdom is called Christ, Sophia, Achmoth, Barbelo and a host of other aliases and epithets, mostly derived from Aramaic. ) Gnosticism was also very interested in Greek philosophy (a portion of Plato's Republic was found in the Nag Hammadi Library. )

The hard work of combing out all this influences and conversations and arguments apart has only just begun -- and will require specialists in ancient philosophy and Second Temple Judaism to help.

Elaine Pagel suggests that the Gospel of John...

This idea is from the book by Riley that I mentioned, although Pagels agrees with it.

The Gospel of Thomas is far more concerned with the sayings and teachings of Jesus that did not suppose a divine man/god type of intervention.

It very much depends on what one makes of the adjective "living" in Thomas. When Jesus is described this way, does it mean "not-yet-dead" or the OT usage of "the Living God"? (A careful reading of GTh can support a not-quite-human Jesus -- fire will devour those who stone Thomas? Jesus somehow under rocks and within wood?)

The odd thing is that both texts as far as scholars can determine originated around the same time, so which came first is to date at best a coin toss.

Oh no, there is a terrible argument about the date of Thomas -- most would put it after John (if it is a very altered cobbling together of quotes from Mt/Mk/Lk), some would put it earlier (in part beause it looks so much like Q, evidently the Temple has not yet been destroyed, and Jesus' brother James is still alive and revered as a leader. )

How this fits in with even more controversial texts such as the Gospel of Mary, Phillip, and now Judas, time will only tell. I find all of this fascinating.

I agree! (With both.)

-Kushana
P.S. Voronwë and Jnyusa, glad you're enjoying this. I do not mean to bore.

[Kushana]

Does anyone know whether L. Ron Hubbard had a fling with Gnosticism?

I've never seen it documented -- it isn't impossible, thought -- althought most of the Nag Hammadi Library hadn't been published while Hubbard was formulating Dianetics/Scientology in the 50's and 60's, there were certainly earlier Gnostic sources (and popular summaries) available.

(I could note a lot of picky differences, but I'm not sure how exacting Hubbard would have been with his sources ... Xenu isn't a creator figure (indeed I can't remember how Teegeeak is created in Scientology), the thetans aren't good, the world is a prison (but not necesarilly evil) ... although there is a savior/revealer with special knowledge (Hubbard), and inimical spiritual forces deluding humanity (the implant stations. ) Some forms of ancient Gnosticims were interested in science and incorporated it, just as Scientology did some psychoanalytic theory and terminology. )

[Although it sometimes seems as thought abandoned or supressed religious ideas recur anyway, without a direct line of influence. I'm not trying to be Jungian, but I've often hit instances of "now what is *that* doing here?"]

-Kushana, who has yet to get pneumonia -- or indeed suffer any harm -- from reading several iterations of the secrets of the universe
P.S. I'm glad to be here and I love talking about religion.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And I'm glad you're here. Just because I don't have anything to say in response doesn't mean that I'm not reading every word with great interest. My knowledge in this area is virtually nil, and I think it is very fascinating.

[Jnyusa]

Indeed!

We really don't know how most Greco-Roman Jews negotiated a day-to-day world where meat in the butcher shop came from animals sacrificed to local deities (it is difficult to tell if it would otherwise be kosher or exactly how carefully that was kept (and defined) by this or that local community); where even minor civic offices and occasions, many civic holidays, many social obligations and clubs, military service, and most public and private entertainments (the theater, sporting events, book readings, dinner parties) involved small pagan religious observances or were dedicated to a pagan god. (Even cities and rivers had deities.) Roman law tolerated Judaism and permitted Jews to avoid what they found distateful in civic life, and Judaism was both respected as ancient and ethical -- and distrusted as rather peculiar and stay-at-home.

This is what would fascinate me the most about any ancient colonial period. Surely there was culture shock for all the Peoples occupied by Greece and then Rome.

Have a look at Resurrection Reconsidered: Thomas and John in Controversy by Gregory Riley, it will give something to mull.

Onto the reading list it goes, but it might be summer 2007 before I get to it. I try to immerse myself in one new topic every summer. It's usually great fun, but for professional reasons I was chained to a certain field in math last summer and I'm afraid it will be so this summer, too.

a quick google does unusually poor justice to the subject ... in The Origins of Gnosticism edited by Dr. Bianchi

To be honest, I couldn’t make heads or tails of what I found on Gnosticism via google ... but I doubt that I could read scholarly texts on this subject because I lack the background.

The beginning seems an attempt to reconcile Christian belief with the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus!

This does not ring a bell with me, either. (Hm, I have never heard that as an origin for Gnosticism. )

I intended this facitiously - because of their mutual emphasis on ‘logos.’ But it meant something different to Heraclitus than it meant to John.

... from reading several iterations of the secrets of the universe ...

I had forgotten how familiar you are with Scientology. Now I remember your posts about this on TORC.

Jn