Gospel of Thomas

[Abogado del Diablo]

Originally Posted by Quahom1

Welcome back...

Thanks. I've been very busy with issues related to autism and haven't had the time to keep up very well. I've been checking back every now and then, though.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

Thanks. I've been very busy with issues related to autism and haven't had the time to keep up very well. I've been checking back every now and then, though.

Of course...

[heaven_id]

Maybe we should 'revise' the title, not Gospel of Thomas but Teaching of Jesus Christ by Thomas.

My thought.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by heaven_id

Maybe we should 'revise' the title, not Gospel of Thomas but Teaching of Jesus Christ by Thomas.

My thought.

Interesting prospect...

[Abogado del Diablo]

Originally Posted by heaven_id

Maybe we should 'revise' the title, not Gospel of Thomas but Teaching of Jesus Christ by Thomas.

My thought.

That's already what it means, I think. We refer to the "Gospel of John" for example, but it's usually regarded as short hand for "The Gospel According to John." It's the gospel according to a writer or group of writers more likely to whom the name "John" has been attached.

The term "gospel" itself means "good news" or "God's word" (it's derived either from "Good Spell" or "God's Spell," depending on whom you ask). In popular Christianity it has come to be associated with a story of Jesus's life, teachings, passion and ressurection because the four "gospels" in the canonical NT are of that sort. But I don't think it's inappropriate to call a collection of teachings attributed to Jesus without an account of the life, passion or ressurection a "gospel."

[Thomas]

Hi all - interesting points raised - and here's some thoughts:

Is not the notion of 'Q' that there is a prototypical gospel? There are four witnesses to an event, and they each give a different story, according to their own experience, and based on this, someone suggests that there was one record, from which the four have drawn their account. Have I got that right? Sounds very unlikely to me ...

Whilst there are many debates as to its provenance, the linguistic style of Thomas dates it to the 4th century - however that does not mean it is not a 4th century record of an older oral tradition...

... the problem then is that none of the commentators reference that tradition, so that Thomas was never around to be included as canonical.

Contrary to Pagel's opinion, many scholars refute the notion of Thomas as a gnostic gospel, because it does not share those doctrines that were common to the broad spread of gnosticism.

On the gnosticism of the 2nd century - Christians were not the only opponents. Many Platonic and Stoic philosophers also vilified gnostic teachings as being 'bad' or 'mob philosophy' it is a populist philosophy - all very attractive with a rich symbolism robbed from every philosophical tradition going, but in the end there are so many barriers between man and God - and the gnostic gods themselves act in the manner of totally vainglorious humans - motivated by ignorance, envy, greed, etc., that the comdemnation of Plato speaking of the Olympic pantheon applies equally in this case - if they are gods, then they ought to act so, and not display the worst facets of human nature.

On the Apostle:
Two things we know of Thomas:

One - when Christ yold his disciples he was going to Jerusalem, they were dumbstruck. It was Thomas who stated the obvious - let us all go, and die with him - Thomas, in symbolist terms the voice of the reason (Peter is the will, John the Baptist the human intellect, John the Theologian the spiritualised intellect) knew the outcome of such a decision - but like all the disciples, he had no foreknowledge of God's plan for mans' salvation.

Two - when Christ appeared to the disciples after the resurrection, Thomas was not there. Did Christ not know that one of the number was missing? Of course not - Thomas was absent because he had yet his part to play in the mission.

Also - where was he? The others were in hiding, behind locked doors, fearful of the mob. Not Thomas. He was out, again reason in action, he went up to Jerusalem to die with his Master, and would continue doing what he thought best until that time should come...

Lastly - Thomas was the first to acclaim Jesus as Divine - Peter had done so on the descent from Tabor, but only referring to Jesus as 'the Christ' - the saviour. John, in his gospel, notes that when he and Peter ran to the empty tomb, even when they looked inside they still did not believe, they still did not understand.

Thomas' "My Lord and my God!" was the first human acknowledgement of Christ as God - but only after Jesus 'proved' his resurrection - only after Thomas placed his hands in the wounds to prove to himself this was a risen body, and not an apparition. Again, as Jesus rebuked him, blessed are those who believe and have not seen (faith) above those who have seen (reason).

Thomas

[FriendRob]

Originally Posted by wil

Namaste, I am interpretting you to mean that their are passages in the other texts that are missing from Thomas therefor Thomas is not Q. Q is currently conjecture that fits a mold of understanding, the foremost theory for sure, but still not validated as Q hasn't been found or identified. sounding an awful lot like you have a copy of Q to compare to Thomas. Looking always for education, my understanding is that it is possible that Thomas and another text could be what is thought to be Q. And whatever Q was, it wasn't used in its entirety but selected information was used to salt the information which created our other gospels. So I'm still confused as to how Thomas can currently be said to have sayings which are defiinitely not in Q...please enlighten me.

Q as defined by scholars is the hypothetical document from which Matthew and Luke drew many of their sayings and stories that did not come from Mark. Kloppenborg (The Formation of Q) thinks that the Q we can reconstruct is essentially complete. Even if he is wrong about this (and unless someone finds a copy we will never know), we can be pretty darn sure that Q isn't Thomas for several reasons. One, the Q sayings are not identical word-for-word with the Thomas sayings that are parallel. It would be extremely unlikely for Matt and Lk to have changed the Thomas sayings in just the same way. Two, there is no trace in Q of the more mystical/gnostic sayings in Thomas.

Originally Posted by Quahom1

Your opinion is based on?...I'd really like to know.

I'm not sure which part of my post this question refers to. For Q, I'm following Kloppenborg, Koester, Crossan, and numerous other scholars. For development of the canon, see Metzger and McDonald.

[aged hippy]

Hello Thomas,
You said:

and the gnostic gods themselves act in the manner of totally vainglorious humans - motivated by ignorance, envy, greed, etc.,

— with all due respect, it's my impression that only one Entity - in Gnostic thought - behaves in this fashion, and that's Samael/Yaltabaoth. He is the Chief (Primary) Archon of "The Apocryphon of John".

To be fair, His Angels also behave in the same fashion, it is them who cause strife in this world - via our selves.

[Thomas]

"Sophia longed to comprehend the first cause of her being, and conceived a Plan to do so, but was restrained ... She aborted her plan, and fell into a torment ... from her tormented and confused passions arose the Demiurge ... (Ialdabaôth, from the Hebrew El-Dibahoth, "God of Slanders"), who existed outside the Plêrôma. From this abortion arose Achamôth (who) threatened to upset the balance of the Plêrôma. Bythos exiled her into the world of the Demiurge ... excluded from the Plêrôma and thrust into the darkness without benefit of form or intelligence, Achamôth became violently agitated. Christos projected himself through Stauros and provided her with form, but she was still without intelligence. Christos immediately withdrew back into the Plêrôma, and Achamôth attempted to follow him. She pressed herself against Stauros, which restrained her. In her agony, she uttered the mystic name IAO, and her Passions produced the material world (Hylê). From her Grief sprang Air, from her Fear came Water, from her Confusion came Earth, and from all three together arose Fire..."

All the stuff of a good soap opera! Especially when Sophia (Wisdom) seems to be the cause of it all! It makes you wonde just how 'wise' she was - and this is my point, if Sophia is Wisdom itself, then she could not fail to comprehend the outcome of her actions - but according to this account we must acknowledge then that Wisdom is severely limited.

I do not dispute an often genuine attempt at understanding, but as the 'doctrine' developed it became increasingly more involved, complex, and metaphysically 'creaky' - it has a glamour all of its own, to be sure, and to which I was personally enamoured for a number of years, but the underlying metaphysic is ill-conceived and just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

And it is so complex! Thirty Aeons! Level upon level has to be surmounted. And three human races (the pneumatic, psychic and hylic), whereas in Christianity, and to some degree in Platonic Theurgy (original and the later forms which were themselves 'informed' by Christianity), there is a beauty and a simplicity that speaks for itself.

Thomas

[aged hippy]

There are, to be fair, some very complex heirarchies in some schools of Gnostic Christianity, but - as with much of the additional accretions to conventional Christian thought (long lists of 'begats', etc.) - these only serve to further muddy the waters. It seems to me that the Gnostic Christian world-view is simple, but has been made unnecessarily complicated by lists of names of entities, æons, and metaphysical concepts, etc., and this makes it daunting to those who don't have the time or resources to make sense of all the relationships and unravel the knots.


You said: "All the stuff of a good soap opera! Especially when Sophia (Wisdom) seems to be the cause of it all! It makes you wonde just how 'wise' she was - and this is my point, if Sophia is Wisdom itself, then she could not fail to comprehend the outcome of her actions - but according to this account we must acknowledge then that Wisdom is severely limited." — No, i don't acknowledge this point, Sophia didn't forsee the outcome of her actions because she acted of her own volition (without her Masculine aspect - the Christ), and moreover - there was no precedent, and so she could not have known. She was an æon, but not prescient.

Concerning the soap opera - yes, i certainly agree with that, it seems typical of the Abrahamic religions - murder, mayhem and complicated relationships.


You also said: "And three human races (the pneumatic, psychic and hylic)," — this is - with respect - a misunderstanding, these are three types of human spirituality, it's explained clearly here:

The Doctrine of the Three Natures

The Valentinian Christian understood that the Christian message as received by the elect (the pneumatic) differed from the message as received and comprehended by the "called," or the psychic, according to the individual's level or degree of spiritual unfoldment. The "hylic" or purely material man could not receive the message as he or she was incapable of understanding it and had not even the soul- awareness that the psychic had. The Christian doctrines as promulgated by the schools of Basilides and Valentinus attracted the "pneumatic"— those who were searching for a higher revelation of the Christian message, who were apparently initiated into the "mythos" of the Valentinian School. The "psychic" Christian, on the other hand, had no desire to probe the inner mystery of Christianity. He was concerned primarily with belief in Jesus as an historical Saviour and with salvation through good works and ethical living as opposed to salvation by Gnosis or infused knowledge and revelation. The psychic receives the message of Christ through faith; the pneumatic through Gnosis or insight. The psychic worships the "image" of God in the person of the Demiurge, the Creator of the lower worlds; the pneumatic worships the Father in Spirit and Truth. The psychic Christian experiences salvation as the result of a free will choice to either accept or reject Christ; the pneumatic "elect" experience salvation as a gift from God, the Father, through no choice of their own, as Jesus declared to his disciples, "You have not chosen me, I have chosen you." This is not to say that the pneumatic have never made a choice in the past, but in the present they experience salvation as an election bestowed u pon them by virtue of the pneumatic "seed" or light- spark deposited in them from the Pleroma or Divine Fullness, which is dominant in their lives.

http://essenes.net/TheGreatSchoolsOf...ianGnosis.html

And while the Gnostic classification of souls into pneumatic, psychic, and hylic ones can be traced back to Plato (see Joël, l.c. p. 132), Paul was not the first (or only one) to adopt it in his system (see H.ag. 14b;-Cant. R. i. 3, quoted by Joël, compare Gen. R. xiv., where the five names for the soul are dwelt upon).

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/vi...search=qabbala





We do seem to be leading the thread (Gospel of Thomas) off-topic somewhat, would you like to continue the discussion of these concepts in another thread? If so, i'll follow you there.



p.s. Would you give a reference/web address for your above quote please, i can't track it down anywhere.

[aged hippy]

Hello sara[h]ng,
You said:

Quote:
22. Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father's) kingdom." They said to him, "Then shall we enter the (Father's) kingdom as babies?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

My yoga instructor told me just tonight that yoga means 'union' and that it refers to union of the body and spirit. Two into one? It also reminds me of certain brain waves. If I remember correctly, delta waves are produced only by someone in deep sleep, infants, and the insane. When dreaming, when a 'nursing baby', and when different enough from society that we call them insane, has this union been attained?

"My yoga instructor told me just tonight that yoga means 'union' and that it refers to union of the body and spirit."
"and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female" — seems - to me - to mean that when we reconcile (unite?) our Masculine (Physical) aspect to our Feminine (Spiritual) aspect, is when we will become one with the Father/enter the Kingdom/attain Enlightenment/your description here.

True Union.