Gnostic gospels study group

[Doubting_Thomas]

Only slightly mischievously, I've been reading the Gnostic gospels. They are early Christian texts/gospels which people familiar with the modern bible may not be so familiar with. I'm no expert but I find it very curious stuff, and think it's a topic that can be interesting to modern Christians and atheists alike. Gnostic has come up a few times and I'm at danger of labouring my points on the word usage, but this is separate from all that - just rekindled my curiosity to read me some proper bible.

As an Atheist, I'm not a natural bible study leader, but I will attempt to satisfy convention by adding "amen" every now and again between paraphrases. I'll naturally concentrate on the controversial and thought provoking bits.

The Gospel of Philip

Studied in its translated form (Wesley W. Isenberg, available here http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html).Also general info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Philip

The text was found among the Nag Hammadi Library, and is I think in Coptic, but generally accepted as a transcription from the original Greek. The Coptic copy dates from about AD 300, with the Greek original said to be from around AD 150. So much older than the translations of the bible people read today.

______________________________________________

Those who sow in winter reap in summer. The winter is the world, the summer the other Aeon (eternal realm). Let us sow in the world that we may reap in the summer. Because of this, it is fitting for us not to pray in the winter.


***** Amen!!! Don't ye pray in the winter, Amen!!!****


Before Christ came, there was no bread in the world, just as Paradise, the place were Adam was, had many trees to nourish the animals but no wheat to sustain man. Man used to feed like the animals, but when Christ came, the perfect man, he brought bread from heaven in order that man might be nourished with the food of man.


*****Amen!!! Best thing before sliced bread, enabling of the sliced bread!!! No bread before AD 0!!! *****


Some said, "Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit." They are in error. They do not know what they are saying. When did a woman ever conceive by a woman? Mary is the virgin whom no power defiled. She is a great anathema to the Hebrews, who are the apostles and the apostolic men.


*****Amen!!! The holy Spirit is a chick, and although omnipotent also impotent in the bedroom*****


Those who say that the Lord died first and (then) rose up are in error, for he rose up first and (then) died. If one does not first attain the resurrection, he will not die.


*****Amen!! The key to immortality is not to be resurrected - bad news Buddha!!!******


In this world, those who put on garments are better than the garments. In the Kingdom of Heaven, the garments are better than those that put them on.


*****Praise the LORD for Prada!!!******


Do not despise the lamb, for without it, it is not possible to see the king. No one will be able to go in to the king if he is naked.


**** Amen to not 'going into the LORD'. Who's naked in this scenario? Maybe it's in reference to the Welsh tradition of going into the sheep naked?******


There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister, and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister and his mother and his companion were each a Mary.


*****Amen!!!****



Much more to follow!

[Brian37]

Ok, the earliest Christian texts, so? If I hold the first copy of Marvel Comics dipicting Superman, at least the fans willing to pay millions of dollars for those copies know that it is fiction,

Study in theolopgy is only useful in debunking it. The morons who believe it and sell it as fact are on the same par as those who sell Big Foot or the Loc Ness Monster.

[Doubting_Thomas]

Gospel of Philip continued.

The saints are served by evil powers, for they are blinded by the Holy Spirit into thinking that they are serving an (ordinary) man whenever they do so for the saints

***Amen!! Are these evil powers the Bishops? ******************


Those who have gone astray, whom the spirit begets, usually go astray also because of the Spirit.

*****Amen!! The Spirit, our LORD, causes people to go astray******************


Indeed, every act of sexual intercourse which has occurred between those unlike one another is adultery.

*****Amen!! Mixed Race marriage is adultery to you tribe**************


God is a man-eater. For this reason, men are sacrificed to him.

*****Amen to human sacrifice. Fortunately women are spared********


for Jesus came to crucify the world.

****Amen for irony************

And the companion of the [...] Mary Magdalene. [...] loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples [...]. They said to him "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her?

*****Amen to Jesus snogging Mary Magadalene***********

A bridal chamber is not for the animals, nor is it for the slaves, nor for defiled women; but it is for free men and virgins.

******No comment on this bigotry*************


The world came about through a mistake. For he who created it wanted to create it imperishable and immortal. He fell short of attaining his desire. For the world never was imperishable, nor, for that matter, was he who made the world.

****Oh LORD, your children were an accident, where thou drinking?!??***********

The priest is completely holy, down to his very body. For if he has taken the bread, he will consecrate it. Or the cup or anything else that he gets, he will consecrate. Then how will he not consecrate the body also?

****Tell that to the choir boy**************

The human being has intercourse with the human being. The horse has intercourse with the horse, the ass with the ass. Members of a race usually have associated with those of like race.

********Amen to racism and sectarianism*********

To the slaves he will give only the elementary lessons, to the children he will give the complete instruction.

*

No one can know when the husband and the wife have intercourse with one another, except the two of them. Indeed, marriage in the world is a mystery for those who have taken a wife. If there is a hidden quality to the marriage of defilement, how much more is the undefiled marriage a true mystery! It is not fleshly, but pure. It belongs not to desire, but to the will. It belongs not to the darkness or the night, but to the day and the light. If a marriage is open to the public, it has become prostitution, and the bride plays the harlot not only when she is impregnated by another man, but even if she slips out of her bedroom and is seen. Let her show herself only to her father and her mother, and to the friend of the bridegroom and the sons of the bridegroom. These are permitted to enter every day into the bridal chamber. But let the others yearn just to listen to her voice and to enjoy her ointment, and let them feed from the crumbs that fall from the table, like the dogs. Bridegrooms and brides belong to the bridal chamber. No one shall be able to see the bridegroom with the bride unless he become such a one.

*****Amen for sexism. lock the women in the bedroom lest they be seen in public and are therefore prostitutes and harlots!!!***********

When Abraham [...] that he was to see what he was to see, he circumcised the flesh of the foreskin, teaching us that it is proper to destroy the flesh.

*****Amen to Christian circumcision**************

as long as the intestines of the man are hidden, the man is alive; when his intestines are exposed and come out of him, the man will die.

****(Just wondering how they figured this one out)*****



The Gospel according to Philip.

_______________________________________

[Minimalist]

The text was found among the Nag Hammadi Library, and is I think in Coptic, but generally accepted as a transcription from the original Greek

You know I love it when xtians trot that shit out. It is as if none of the assholes seem to know that the gospels they think are so fucking special are also nothing but copies of copies of copies made from original Greek documents. The one thing which Bart Ehrman has done successfully is show that those documents are poorly rendered copies and contain a multitude of errors and deliberate alterations.

But the gnostics are a fascinating subject.

[Doubting_Thomas]

Yes. Although it is not my agenda, I would like to think that some day someone can use some of these quotes to confound some fundie. Especially as many will not be aware of these gospels or the seemingly arbitary way they did not make it into the bible. It wont change the minds of anyone but it can be ammunition against the easiest of targets. For example, next time omnipotence comes up, hit them with the gospel of philip:

The world came about through a mistake. For he who created it wanted to create it imperishable and immortal. He fell short of attaining his desire. For the world never was imperishable, nor, for that matter, was he who made the world.

[Minimalist]

Won't work. They'll just shove their heads further up their asses and swear that fucking jesus himself spoke the king's english in their stupid-assed bibles.

If these people had any reasoning skills at all they wouldn't be xtians.

[Doubting_Thomas]

A couple of curiosities from the gospel of Thomas:

14. Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits

15. Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That one is your Father."

16. Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to cast peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war. <Some people already worked that out

30. Jesus said, "Where there are three deities, they are divine. Where there are two or one, I am with that one."

34. Jesus said, "If a blind person leads a blind person, both of them will fall into a hole." <lol

42. Jesus said, "Be passersby."

44. Jesus said, "Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven." <Guess he didn't like "your mom was a virgin cos no guy wanted her" jokes

53. His disciples said to him, "Is circumcision useful or not?"
He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect." <so what about Men's nipples?

90. Jesus said, "Come to me, for my yoke is comfortable and my lordship is gentle, and you will find rest for yourselves." < <come into my car, I have sweeties

92. Jesus said, "Seek and you will find."

95. [Jesus said], "If you have money, don't lend it at interest. Rather, give [it] to someone from whom you won't get it back." < <Blessed are the mortgage lenders of America for they so-caused the great recession

104. They said to Jesus, "Come, let us pray today, and let us fast." < <see 14 above

114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life."
Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."