Hi Vulcan,
Originally posted by Vulcan
Two interesting points, how is the leaning towards spiritualism as opposed to materialism bad? And if jesus did teach towards a more spiritual/enlightened religion then this would tie in with the indian stories of him.
They also mentioned that the gospel of judas was acknowledged before the gnostics were in their 'heydey' by christian leaders. You can't write it off when the reasons give break down to one mans intrepetation of the number 4. In fact do you deny the teachings in gospel of judas are good... if not better than those in the new testament?
Just some things to chew on. To adopt Gnosticism is to absolutely break the tie between Judaism and the Christian faith. In essence Gnosticism rejects the entire OT and remakes Christianity into a Hellenistic Mystery Religion. The gnostic Jesus is not Jewish, like the Gnostics, that Jesus is opposed to the religion of the Old Testament and is attempting to replace it with a mystic Greek philosophy. It is to reject Jerusalem entirely and replace it with Athens.
The message of the Christian gospels and the New Testament on the other hand is a continuation of the message of the Old Testament. In the New Testament the Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah are fullfilled (Read Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 for instance). Jesus referred to these prophecies frequently in reference to himself. Additionally, the Apostles in their sermons used the fulfillment of OT prophecy to preach the gospel, but the substance of that preaching was utterly rejected by the Gnostics, for instance here is part of what Peter preached on Pentecost:
Acts 2:29 "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
30 "Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,
31 "he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.
32 "This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.
33 "Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.
34 "For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: 'The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand,
35 Till I make Your enemies Your footstool." '
36 "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."Peter in the above section refers both to God's promise to David that the Messiah would be one of his descendents and Psalm 110 where David refers to the Messiah as "My Lord" - hence Jesus is both human and divine. He also refers to Jesus as both Body and Soul and implies that his
sarx (flesh) did not see corruption but that he rose from the dead and then ascended bodily into heaven. All of this would have been horrible theology for the Gnostic, but is perfectly in keeping with the prophecies of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the canonical gospels.
As for the provenance of the "Gospel of Judas". The copy that was discovered in the 1970s is from the 5th century at least, the very fact that its a codex not a scroll confirms that. The first reference to a Gospel of Judas is found in the work of the second century church father Irenaeus in his book "Against Heresies" (180 AD) where it is one of many 2nd century writings produced by Gnostics and Proto-Gnostics condemned as bogus. Specifically the sect that produced it were called "the Cainites" here is the Schaff Herzog entry on the Cainite sect:
CAINITES: According to Irenaeus (Haer., i. 31), a sect of the Ophites who worshiped Cain as an instrument of the Gnostic Sophia, treated with hostility by the demiurge. They saw in Judas the one who best of all knew the truth, celebrated his treason as a mystery, and had a "Gospel of Judas." The notices of Pseudo-Tertullian (Haer., vii.), Philastrius (Hær., ii.), and Epiphanius (Haer., xxxviii.) accord with these statements. Cain was generated of higher power than Abel, and Judas was the benefactor of the human race, either because by his treason he frustrated Christ's intention to destroy truth (Philastrius), or because he compelled the archons to kill Christ, and so assisted in obtaining the salvation of the cross (Epiphanius). When Tertullian (Praescriptio hæreticorum, xxxiii.; cf. De baptismo, i.) mentions "Gaiana heresis" he probably refers to the Cainites. Cf. also Clement, Strom., vi. 108; Theodoret, Haer., i. 15; Hippolytus, Phil., viii. 20.
To introduce the Gospel of Judas as authentic would be to say that Jesus was essentially an anti-Jewish proponent of a particular Greek gnostic Mystery religion, and not the Messiah simply because we prefer our philosophy to what the NT actually teachings. It wouldn't be too terribly different from introducing a "Racist Gospel" because we happen to be members of the Aryan Nations.
As for preferring what the Gospel of Judas teaches to the NT? At one time I would have said yes, in my youth I was a big fan of any Gnostic Gospel. But you know, I never found salvation from sin in any of them, to find the solution to man's real problem, you have to look to the canonical gospels of the first century not the gnostic gospels of the second.
- SEAGOON
