Starboy

Greetings Christians,
Just curious, how many of you have heard of the gospel of Thomas? I ask this question because, say what you will, the Bible is the basis of all Christian faith, yet it never ceases to amaze me how little Christians actually know about it. But what is most interesting about the bible is not what is in it, but what is not.

Starboy

David Mathews

Hello Starboy,

David: I have heard of the Gospel of Thomas. I have read it many times.

Have you read it? What do you think of it?

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Starboy

Hi David,

It makes Jesus out to be some sort of a cryptic mystic, not the benevolent savior of mankind the other gospels try to paint. It is interesting that it never made it into the Bible. It was part of the teachings of the Gnostics, an early Christian sect that was at odds with the followers of Paul. In any case the Catholics must have been threatened by it, since they left it out of the bible completely. The bible as it is known today is more the result of good old-fashioned human politics then it is of any spiritual message.

Starboy

wildernesse

The bible as it is known today is more the result of good old-fashioned human politics then it is of any spiritual message.

Details, please.

--tiba

David Mathews

Hello Starboy,

You are making a lot of accusations. Would you please provide some evidence supporting these accusations?

Sincerely,

David Mathews

Tercel

<strong>Just curious, how many of you have heard of the gospel of Thomas?</strong>
Yes, I've read it.

<strong>I ask this question because, say what you will, the Bible is the basis of all Christian faith, yet it never ceases to amaze me how little Christians actually know about it.</strong>
It never ceases to amaze me just how little the average Christian on the street knows about their religion in general either. That they don't know much about the Bible is just the icing on the cake.

<strong>It makes Jesus out to be some sort of a cryptic mystic, not the benevolent savior of mankind the other gospels try to paint</strong>
That is because it is a gnostic production. Though it appears there were several slightly different sects of gnostics (who generally had some quite wierd and wonderful beliefs) it is possible to do some generalisations. Gnostics held that salvation was through a special knowledge - "gnosis" (hence the name gnostic). This idea borrows heavily from the pagan mystery religions where initiates learnt the secret knowledge that admits them to paradise. Gnosticism is pretty simply the Christianised version of the mystery relgions. Hence you'll see in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus the mystical teacher who is imparting this knowledge. The Gnostics wrote quite a bit of literature, none of which is in the Bible of course, since the Gnostics were considered heretical by the Christians. The Gnostics view matter as inherently evil (while the Christians regard it as good) and hence according to the Gnostics cannot be a creation of the Good God. The creator of matter they regard as some sort of demigod, perhaps even an evil one, or they regard creation as a cosmic accident. They reject the Old Testament or ignore it completely. Generally the gnostics were anti-women because they saw women as having children - binding more pure souls in the evils of matter. You'll note that G.Thomas suggests a women need "become like a man" to be saved. It's only association with Christianity is that it thinks the death and resurrection of Christ is somehow important, though Gnostics tended to reinterpret this to the point of sometimes denying Christ's historicity (on the basis that matter was evil and he was purely Good) and treating him as a spiritual figure with all sorts of wacky allegorical stuff. Gnostic writings are almost impossible to understand often because the writers were writing allegories and metaphors for spiritual things and they had some beliefs that were just plain wacky. Basically, Gnosticism bought into Greek thought in huge amounts and is probably more pagan than Christian.

<strong>It is interesting that it never made it into the Bible.</strong>
The Gnostics were considered heretics for good reason: Because they were. I don't even consider them Christian, and I'm pretty liberal (to the point of occasionally being accused of not being a Christian myself). You don't seriously expect Christians to have Gnostic books in their Bible? Perhaps they should add Muslim books, and perhaps Hindu books while they're at it?

"Must have been threatened" has nothing to do with the price of fish. There were several books around that they were definitely not threatened by and even labelled "profitable to be read in Churches" but which were still not included in the Bible because they did not meet the criteria. The primary criterion used was that Church could trace the book's authorship to one of the apostles or a companion of one of the apostles. Secondly, there was the question of how widely a book was already being used across the Church. And thirdly there was the question of how well the book agreed with what the Church considered to be sound doctrine. In practice these things had a tendency to overlap: A book would be widely used because the Church considered it to be by an apostle and contain sound doctrine; Or it would contain sound doctrine because it was written by an apostle and the Church taught the doctrine of the apostles and hence used the book widely etc.
But the Gospel of Thomas fails on all three criteria: Other than the claim it itself makes, there is no reason to think it written by Thomas (and as far as I know, no one in the early Church thought it by Thomas), it was not used widely in the early Church, and it was Gnostic.

Of course, but there was reason in the madness. And unlike politicians, Church leaders at the time were (I would guess since they had relatively recently been widely persecuted) comparatively uncorrupt and not out for personal gain.
Do you realise that variations on the books of the Bible still exist today?

Before we go too far, perhaps you might want to explain more clearly what your purpose is here. Do you have new and stunning evidence on the origins of the Bible you wish to enlighten us with, or are you trying to do the typical athiest bible-bashing...? Are you trying to learn something, or are you trying to prove Christians know nothing? (A bad place to do the last IMO since an above average amount of the Christian posters who post here are experienced apologists. Perhaps you'd be better to try the fundy forums)

Starboy

Are you Catholic?

Starboy

<a href="http://www.netacc.net/~mafg/book/v1toc.htm" target="_blank">A History Of The Church</a>

Starboy

Greetings Tercel,

I am not here to bash the bible. It must stand on its own merits and history. I just wanted to find out if there were any Christians that had a clue as to how the whole mess got started in the first place. As far as going to a fundy forum, I would like to point out that this is an infidel forum, what are you doing here?

Starboy