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The Gospels, all of them, were written by second and third hand accounts and people FINALLY writing down the oral traditions. Scholarls and non-literalist Christians understand that the Gospels are not written by the apostles but rather by their students, while fundamentalist believe tooth and nail that the gospels in the bible, and only the gospels in the mainstream Nicene bible, were the word of the Apostles themselves.
Thank you. I know that already. The question was for K-Rich. Thanks for mentioning that anyway.
First of all, the first gospel, the Gospel of Peter, has been lost with no copy found as of yet, and it was written ten years after the "death" of Christ.
Matthew was written at the end of the first century, Mark in the Early second century, and Luke at around 85-90 AD, and Mark at around 90-100 AD. None were written by the Apostles, but were the recordings of oral traditions about the Apostles. Revelation on the other hand...it has nothing to do with the Bible and was just the ramblings of someone who had a beef with Nero, which might have something to do with him feeding Christians to the lions.
Thomas, on the other hand, is much older and much closer to authentic than Revelations, and yet, no "bible Christians" will even look at it.
Any idea why none of the gospels record the destruction of the temple in 70 AD? Seems to me that if they were written after such an event that they'd at least have mentioned it in passing.
As for your review of Revelation? I disagree. It's an amazing piece of work if you do an in-depth study on it. Thomas, on the other hand, is a short collection of sayings that doesn't come anywhere close to fitting in with the rest of the Bible.
Also Jesus and his apostles do not quote from them as having any value or any worth or import.
Jesus and his apostles didn't / couldn't quote from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John either because they were not written, of course, as those books are about them.
The gnostic gospels, of which the gospel of Mary and the gospel of Thomas are two, seem to have some correlation with present-day theories of quantum physics. They are fascinating, astonishing even, to read in themselves.
Any idea why none of the gospels record the destruction of the temple in 70 AD? Seems to me that if they were written after such an event that they'd at least have mentioned it in passing.
That's because, as I said, the Gospels were records of oral traditions that pre-dated the destruction of the second temple. Hence, they did not include the mention of the destruction of the temple. I didn't say the NT gospels were made-up, just that they were written down from oral traditions long after they happened, which most scholars agree
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As for your review of Revelation? I disagree. It's an amazing piece of work if you do an in-depth study on it. Thomas, on the other hand, is a short collection of sayings that doesn't come anywhere close to fitting in with the rest of the Bible.
Yes, I have looked at it, and it is obviously an attack on Nero by someone in the near east named John. That is what happend when you break down the "number of the Beast" into numbers small enough to have numeric value correlating with the latin alphabet, you spell out the name of Nero (hence, the "human number" of the beast) It has nothing to do with the rest of the New Testament and was put in because some bishop enjoyed reading it.
As for the Gospel of Thomas, it is a collection of sayings of Christ which were meant to make people think...which is something that allot of mainstream Nicene Churches don't want people to do. The only reason they "don't fit in" with the rest of the Bible is because people are looking at it in a narrow, literalist manner and all the other Gnostic Gospels are also kept out, like the Gospel's of Phillip, Mary and Judas.
Jesus and his apostles didn't / couldn't quote from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John either because they were not written, of course, as those books are about them.
The gnostic gospels, of which the gospel of Mary and the gospel of Thomas are two, seem to have some correlation with present-day theories of quantum physics. They are fascinating, astonishing even, to read in themselves.
EXACTLY!
The Gnostic Gospels teach that the true world, heaven, where the true God lives is more real and EXCEEDINGLY larger than ours...and the Brane world Theory of quantam physics also says that the higher dimensional planes are much bigger and "more real" than ours, and that is were gravity originates from and hence, that is why gravity is such a weak for in this dimension via the theory of super gravity.
The Cannon is closed it does not matter how interesting any book is. I just aint going to get in there.
I like the book of Enoch myself. I find it an interesting read. It is even quoted in a few places in the rest of the NT. But regardless it was never Cannonized and never will be.
The Cannon is closed it does not matter how interesting any book is. I just aint going to get in there.
I like the book of Enoch myself. I find it an interesting read. It is even quoted in a few places in the rest of the NT. But regardless it was never Cannonized and never will be.
Who determined what should be canonized? God or men with biases?
Honestly....the gospel of thomas has nothing on Revelation. I don't know how you can begin to compare them. Thomas is a wierd collection of sayings about a page in lenght...Revelation is 22 chapters.
Revelation is much much more than an anti-Nero document.
Honestly....the gospel of thomas has nothing on Revelation. I don't know how you can begin to compare them. Thomas is a wierd collection of sayings about a page in lenght...Revelation is 22 chapters.
Revelation is much much more than an anti-Nero document.
That "weird collection of sayings" is, as our lord and Liberator Christ has said,
"I tell my cryptic parables to those worthy to hear them."
And "If you have hears to hear, listen and pay attention"
They are meant to be sayings, like the Zen Buddhist Konas, intended to make the believer think, listen and understand and through understanding, become more Christ like...Revelation, on the other hands, is just some old Testament style "DO AS THE MASTER SAYS OR BURN!!!!!!!!" Stuff that was clearly written to scare early Christians away from giving alms to the genius/juno of the Emperor, hence the statues of the anti-Christ, which is the same thing Caligula did...and the oldest known opy of Revelation has the number of the beast not as 666, but as 616, which spells out, you guessed it, Caligula.
I prefer a deity that wants me to learn and understand and change so that I no loner have any desire to sin over one that doesn't care about how I feel but wants to scare me into following his laws with stories of fire and brimstone. If one does not sin for no reason other than fear of divine retribution, than what's the point? Why not give the person something to think on and change his/her sinful nature, like the Gospel of Thomas so she/he has no desire to sin in the first place?
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