"Banned from the Bible" (hell, Holy Spirit, worship, faith)
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Sorry....there really is just no reason to believe that the "gospel" of Thomas is authentic.
There is no reason to believe ANY of the Gospels are "Authentic"...and what does that mean anyway? To the atheists, no religious book is authentic...to the Muslim, the Bible is not Authentic. For me, Thomas, Phillip, Mary, Truths, Pistis Sophia, The Reality of the Rulers AND Mark, Matthew, John and Luke are authentic, in that they get me where I want to go spiritually.
The Gospel of Thomas is there to provide the believer with spritual teachings to grow on and grow closer to the lord and Liberator, Jesus Christ. Where they came from, I don't care, but I make not a leap of faith (like the fundies denying Evolution) but a hypothesis of faith...that they are the words of the Liberator and words to live by. Hence, for me as a Gnostic Christian, they are authentic...not like the old Testament stuff that only makes me laugh at The Tyrannt and his stupid rules like Leviticus 11, where I can't even get a piece of road kill off the street without sinning (if Nicene Christians believe in the old Testament, why don't they follow the laws of Leviticus anyway?)
Other times, reading the OT makes me angry at Yaldabaoth and hence, I avoid it. So for me, the OT is not authentic.
There is no reason to believe ANY of the Gospels are "Authentic"...and what does that mean anyway?
Textual, historical, and manuscript criticism make us believe that they are more authentic than any of the gnostic gospels. We've got manuscripts from around 120 AD. After Christ, the message spread around the area. When you take multiple manuscripts from different areas and compare them, they match up. It's not like there was a printing press and people could just print off 1000 copies...these things took awhile to make and spread around. Yet, the manuscripts do point to them being authentic.
The gnostic gospels appear to be written 200 years after Christ...there just isn't manuscript evidence to support the idea that the "gospel" of Thomas is anything more than a forgery.
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To the atheists, no religious book is authentic...to the Muslim, the Bible is not Authentic. For me, Thomas, Phillip, Mary, Truths, Pistis Sophia, The Reality of the Rulers AND Mark, Matthew, John and Luke are authentic, in that they get me where I want to go spiritually.
I'm sorry, but that really sounds like post-modernism. As if you can write your own truth.
Textual, historical, and manuscript criticism make us believe that they are more authentic than any of the gnostic gospels.
As I have said, the Gospel of Thomas is older than Revelations...this is a FACT. The "textual, historical" criticism you are talking about come from Nicene Christian scholars who obviously have an agenda.
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We've got manuscripts from around 120 AD. After Christ, the message spread around the area. When you take multiple manuscripts from different areas and compare them, they match up. It's not like there was a printing press and people could just print off 1000 copies...these things took awhile to make and spread around. Yet, the manuscripts do point to them being authentic.
As with what we know of the Gnostic Gospels. They have been found in fragments and they all match up, meaning that they are indeed consistent.
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The gnostic gospels appear to be written 200 years after Christ...there just isn't manuscript evidence to support the idea that the "gospel" of Thomas is anything more than a forgery.
And the canonical gospels, upon study by historians who are neutral and not coming from a Nicene point of view, were written about a hundred years after Christ. As I said, historians who are neutral when it comes to religion, all say that all the Gospels were probably not written as first hand accounts. It is fact..faith and fact are two different things. My believe that the Gnostic Gospels are the word of Christ is NOWHERE NEAR as ridiculous as the fundie who thinks evolution didn't happen...
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I'm sorry, but that really sounds like post-modernism. As if you can write your own truth.
POST MODERN??!!! How can the that date back to the days before Christ be "post MODREN"?? If anything, protestantism is "post modern" with it's belief that if you just say those magic words "I make you my lord and savior" you can go to heaven. I am not making my own truth up, but my truth is the truth of the Gospel as reveled to us by the Apostles and is a truth that other people around the world have come to (Buddha,Mani) IF the truth is so universal, than why was it only revealed to one group of people in one place at one time? 2+2=4, this is a universal truth that many people all over the world have come to, hence, it is true.
Shouldn't people all over the world have come to the same truth on the nature of God and reality?
Also, I still need to think, which is something that the "infallible" view of the NT Gospels does not give me...if they are so "infallible", than why does The Gospel of Matthew and Acts both give different accounts on how Judas died?
They have actually had this series on many times before. The problem with most of those books not being considered as part of the Bible canon as we have it today, is that they do not harmonize with the rest of the Hebrew and Greek scriptures. They do not fit the theme of the bible which is God's Kingdom which begins with Genisis 3:15 right thru Revelation. Also Jesus and his apostles do not quote from them as having any value or any worth or import. The Catholic Bibles have more books like the books of the Maccabees, but although these may even have some historic value, they do not contribute to the theme of the rest of the bible.
So if Mary Magdalene wrote a book it would be considered unworthy of inclusion? Yes! Because those men up in Rome who decided what would and wouldnt be included in The Bible were afraid of a powerful women!! Books of the Bible are only Books of the Bible because some men said they were. Not because God said so.!
So if Mary Magdalene wrote a book it would be considered unworthy of inclusion? Yes! Because those men up in Rome who decided what would and wouldnt be included in The Bible were afraid of a powerful women!! Books of the Bible are only Books of the Bible because some men said they were. Not because God said so.!
Yes, and what those men chose to include was influenced by the times in which they lived. I would like to have been a fly on the wall when they were meeting to decide what was bible and what was not.
So if Mary Magdalene wrote a book it would be considered unworthy of inclusion? Yes! Because those men up in Rome who decided what would and wouldnt be included in The Bible were afraid of a powerful women!! Books of the Bible are only Books of the Bible because some men said they were. Not because God said so.!
Exactly! The second century Gnostic bishop Marcus ORDAINED women in the his church and gave them equality, as did almost all Gnostic churches past and present. Christ himself took Mary Magdalene aside and taught her his gospel.
Nicene Christianity is not based on Christ, but in the instutitions of man.
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Originally Posted by kdbrich
Not a big fan of "new information" type shows like that. I have a hard time believing that for 2000 years people were just wrong.
I find myself watching all sorts of New Informatiomn shows on Christianity and everything to do with it, even though I am not a Christian. I want to learn and maybe understand better why people such as yourself are so intensely rivoted to their beliefs with no room for respect or understanding of others. Do you ever watch programs on the birth of the Universe or on Evolution or programs about other religions and philosophies? Do you ever allow yourself a chance to learn, to question, to gather insight or respect for others who may not believe as you do? If not...why? What are you afraid of?
I'll bet if you do watch any of those informative programs (or reading that sort of literature), which I doubt you do, you spend the whole time pooh-poohing everything and have no interest in listening or learning at all.
As I have said, the Gospel of Thomas is older than Revelations...this is a FACT. The "textual, historical" criticism you are talking about come from Nicene Christian scholars who obviously have an agenda.
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First of all, there is no "s" in Revelation.
Second of all...have you seen any manuscript evidence whatsoever to suggest that "thomas" is older? Or that it was actually written by an apostle?
As with what we know of the Gnostic Gospels. They have been found in fragments and they all match up, meaning that they are indeed consistent.
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Lol...no. They haven't. But if you've got a preconceived notion...who am I to argue?
And the canonical gospels, upon study by historians who are neutral and not coming from a Nicene point of view, were written about a hundred years after Christ. As I said, historians who are neutral when it comes to religion, all say that all the Gospels were probably not written as first hand accounts. It is fact..faith and fact are two different things. My believe that the Gnostic Gospels are the word of Christ is NOWHERE NEAR as ridiculous as the fundie who thinks evolution didn't happen...
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Different historians have different opinions about the dates of the gospels. The most logical evidence that I've seen suggests they were written prior to the temple destruction in 70 AD. I believe that Mark would have mentioned that Jesus' prediction in Mark's gospel of the temple being destroyed was fulfilled.
POST MODERN??!!! How can the that date back to the days before Christ be "post MODREN"?? If anything, protestantism is "post modern" with it's belief that if you just say those magic words "I make you my lord and savior" you can go to heaven. I am not making my own truth up, but my truth is the truth of the Gospel as reveled to us by the Apostles and is a truth that other people around the world have come to (Buddha,Mani) IF the truth is so universal, than why was it only revealed to one group of people in one place at one time? 2+2=4, this is a universal truth that many people all over the world have come to, hence, it is true.
Shouldn't people all over the world have come to the same truth on the nature of God and reality?
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I believe I said that in reference to the "it works for me" attitude of preferring the gnostics.
Also, I still need to think, which is something that the "infallible" view of the NT Gospels does not give me...if they are so "infallible", than why does The Gospel of Matthew and Acts both give different accounts on how Judas died?
Also, the first fragments of the Gospel of Thomas was found in Oxyrhynchus Egypt in 1860. They were written in Greek and match almost identically with the full copy found in Nag Hammadi in 1945.
As for the Story of Judas...
"Then he flung the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and went outside. Then he went away and hanged himself." Matthew, 27:5
" Now this man (Judas) bought a field with the money he got for his crime. Falling on his face, he burst open in the middle, and all his intestines gushed out."
Acts, 1:18
So...if he was hanging than how the heck was he suppose to have fallen over and had his guts gush out? Even CS Lewis said this was proof that the Gospels were not historically completely true.
In the end, people are going to believe what they want to believe...some fundies will never believe in evolution, others will always think the Earth is flat. At least as a Gnostic, I am not asked to suspend my belief in science for the sake of pleasing some big-mean-guy-who-lives-in-the-sky.
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