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The Gnostic Gospels Feb 06 2009
"You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you." - Deuteronomy 4:2
The Gnostic gospels received widespread attention after they were referred to in the novel and movie, The Da Vinci Code. These works triggered great interest and thrust the Gnostic writings into pop culture. This has caused a lot of conflict and confusion as people wonder why these "lost gospels" were not included within our Bible.
Let's look at the answer to that. The gospels in the Bible were all written within twenty to sixty years after of the life of Jesus - soon enough so that the actual witnesses to Jesus' words and deeds were available as a primary source. The Gnostics, however, were written in the second century, long after Jesus' contemporaries had died. To give credibility to their stories, the Gnostics falsely attached the names of people who had long been dead, such as Thomas, Mary, and Phillip. So, not only was The Gospel of Thomas not written by Thomas, it wasn't even written by someone who had ever met Thomas!
Also, here's something I find interesting. The Gnostics are sometimes referred to as the "secret gospels." (Now there is an oxymoron!) If God is going to inspire a gospel, He most certainly isn't going to allow it to be kept secret! Also, because most were discovered in 1945, they have been called the "lost gospels." Again, why would God inspire something only to allow it to be lost? Think about it.
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14 Comments
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Yes, report it NevermindIf gnostic means knowing a secret then agnostic means not knowing a secret, huh? Well, I know a secret that everyone has heard. Jesus is LORD.
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Yes, report it NevermindThese Gospels are a joke. They don't even make sense.
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Yes, report it NevermindThe popularity of lost gospel stories shows how hungry people are for answers.
The answers are in the gospel books but you cannot understand them if you start reading with the book of Matthew. You have to start with Genesis.
It's not different than any other story. If you start in the middle it doesn't make sense.
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Yes, report it NevermindMaybe God wanted them to be found in 1945. Maybe He thought our hearts would only be ready to hear them then.
from the Thomas Gospel:
17. Jesus said, "I will give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart."
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Yes, report it Nevermindgnosticism is defined as a pre-Christian and early Christian religious movement teaching that salvation comes by learning esoteric spiritual truths that free humanity from the material world, believed in this movement to be evil. This is scripturally unsound. Also, Jesus had a human body and there was no evil in him.
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Yes, report it NevermindVery true, jag thanks. Erik prayed for you last night. :-) God bless
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Yes, report it NevermindErik, are you admitting that God and Jesus do in fact exsist?
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Yes, report it NevermindEarl, I think that it's just his brand of sarcasm. I could be wrong, hopefully so. :-)
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Yes, report it NevermindChrist Follower, I think that is Earl's brand of sarcasm in response. I could be wrong, too.
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Yes, report it NevermindGot it :-)
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Yes, report it NevermindI liked this devotion, but I must say that your last point doesn't hold much water. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found around the same time (I don't remember the year), and they are very accurate in the Bible (although they weren't completely new texts, they were more, older copies of what we already had). God could have wanted for them to be discovered then. I agree with everything else in this devotion, and I definitally don't think that the Gnostic books are meant to be part of the Bible, but I just wanted to point that out.
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Yes, report it NevermindNothing Erik says makes sense. Just trying to clarify.
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Yes, report it NevermindLiz, The Dead Sea scrolls neither added to nor took away from the Bible. They showed that the Bible was truly authenitc. I think the point that Bryant was making was that if something adds to or takes away from the Bible, then it is not authentic.
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Yes, report it NevermindThe Gospels themselves are older than what is portrayed on this website. The Gnostic Gospels were written after the first 60 years of Jesus. Ifind it funny that everyone blindly follows the teachings of Man and not God which is what mainstream Christianity itself is. The protestants edited out Books that were originally in the accepted Canon of Scripture, and the tyrannical Pauline Sect of Christianity hunted down and killed everyone who did not agree. The Gospel of Thomas for instance survived from the time it was brought forth to present day. Gnostic Christianity has never been compleatly destroyed. Its one of the oldest traditions of Christianity we have. It has nothing to do with secret Knowledge, it has to do with hidden knowledge. God hides and reveals. The Father Himself is hidden and unkowable to the individual. This is one of the reasons Jesus came, to reveal the Father. When all of these Gospels including the cannonical Gospel were wrote there was only the Septuagint of the Old Testament, there was no bible, and no one had a compilation of christian scripture. This diddnt happen untill the 3rd century. The early churches taught from one or two gospels and epistles, and each church taught from a different one. The ego and power craze of man is what drives the truth underground. What you all have to also remember is that Jesus was half man half God, which means he put on a body of corruption, the bible itself says that flesh is corruption, and Jesus did have evil in him, because he was part man, he just chose not to let it be His master, he chose to follow the good, which is what every human being has the ability to do. Choose. God also tells us he can create a family for himself from rocks, he does things in His way not the way of man. Saying God wouldnt do that is limiting Gods power, and my God is all-powerfull. Repent and seperate your sinfull egos from the situation, and ASK God to show you the truth. This requires seeking. God is everywhere, you dont just seek him in the Bible, you seek him in life.