Robin Beck

Thank you for all the comments. We shall revisit this in the future.

To add on to what I have said, GoT starts out with saying these are "secret" words of Christ. I tend to understand this as saying "the way to heaven is a narrow road, only those with ears to hear will hear. Seek and you will find, knock and the door shall be opened." This is the absolute truth of Jesus Christ. The path to God is narrow and takes faith in God alone in order to get to Heaven. I believe that we are all a part of God, for how can God be divided? We only see as individuals in this temporary, illusionary world. The individual must come to God on his own and of his own will.

I was raised in a Christian home and am quite familiar with the Bible and the beliefs held by Christians. I never saw truth in Christianity, however, for it teaches judgment and damnation through Fear. In other words, Christianity is meant to scare people into a belief system that supposedly will get one to heaven. I do not believe all Christians are wrong, however. There are many Christians out there who find a one-on-one relationship with God and understand that this world is only a passing by. They know that they are already one with God and have no fear of death. I give my testimony that I asked God to "save" me from this world, to show me the way. I found a book called The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard which basically describes the true purpose of Jesus' coming to Earth. I would suggest this book to anyone who has the "ears to hear" and the willingness to come closer to God. I would not say this book is 100% accurate or even close, but it teaches about the true God of Love and Forgiveness. The majority of the book seems to be speculation, but makes perfect sense.

I tend to believe The Gospel of Thomas as something separate from the mainstream beliefs of Christianity as well as Gnosticism. Jesus taught love and forgiveness. At times it almost seems obvious that other cultures, namely Roman and Egyptian, had great influence over the translations and interpretations of the Bible as a whole.

In the Old Testament one can recognize Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, etc. influence on the stories recorded. The story of the flood is a Mesopotamian tale written before Moses and the book of Genesis. In the New Testament one can recognize the influence of the Greeks and Romans. Both testaments have been translated into various languages.

I cannot see how a manuscript such as those within the Bible could have passed through so many hands, namely the Romans, and not have been changed. I'm sure everyone has played or at least heard of the game "telephone" in which one person whispers a word or phrase to the person beside him who then passes it on to the next person. In the end, the word or phrase ends up being something different. Basically, the way I see it is that mainstream Christianity, i.e. the belief system set up by the "holy" Roman Catholic Church, picked out what they believed, or what was most believable and acceptable, and threw out what they did not like in order to make a religion that best suited the Roman Empire.

In otherwords, the Gospel of Thomas tends to stick closer to what Jesus actually taught than the Synoptic Gospels. Beck understands that even GoT has been influenced by other cultures, primarily Egyptian and various Gnostic sects in the area. GoT seems to have more original sayings that existed before the NT Gospels. Thus, it would only make sense that what Thomas has to say is much more plaudable than any of the other Gospels.

I actually voted for Gnosticism before I voted against it.

At the risk of sounding "hokey", I've come to understand Gnosticism as a kind Robert Altman movie starring the Archons, written by Philip K. Dick.

In any case, I'd like to check out the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the Jewish Museum,

http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/DeadSeaScrolls

maybe duck out of work and chant some Gongyo and see this,

Archons are archetypes, which are our personalities and we all know, we all vibrate, right? We are a "cluster of blessings" vibrating in this game of "Go", the gaian tesselation.

If Gnosticism is the revelation of that time and place, that specific 'sand.' If you walk in it, realize it's mode of salvation might be ineffective and lead to madness, because we already know that one makes up each day is just you and I and we;re partially "evil archons." So, this is true.

Choose to win and walk, human evolution.

namaste

A couple of links you may find interesting:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl_thomas.htm

http://home.epix.net/~miser17/Thomas.html

Chris,

If we count Thomas as Gnostic, it certainly sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe the teachings of other texts about achrons and hylics and such arte not intended literally. However, there is no need to make such apologies for GoT. Maybe we could call it the Lotus Sutra of Gnostic Texts?

Obviously, people have different definitions of what is Big "G" Gnosticism; which makes most of this discussion ludicrous. I habe read some of the Gnostic material about the demi-urge, pneumatics hylics, docetism, and so on. If that is not a dualistic teaching, I have no idea what is. That is what I always thought the term Gnosticism meant.

What Stevan Davies attempts to do is to discern between that dualistic, elitist sort of teaching that most people associate with Gnosticism, from the message of Thomas, that the kingdom is here right now, It is not in the sky {intellect, reason, pure land, pie in the sky}, nor is it in the sea {monism, alaya, deep realizations, oceanic feelings]. It is right in front of out faces. There are not two lands; one of materially bound hylics / somatics and another amaterial realm where the liberated dwell.

from Stevan Davies: Is the Gospel of Thomas Gnostic? "It all depends on what you mean by Gnostic. ... if you mean by Gnostic the religion upon which the Nag Hammadi texts are based, a religion that differentiates the god of this world (who is the Jewish god) from a higher more abstract God, a religion that regards this world as the creation of a series of evil archons/ powers who wish to keep the human soul trapped in an evil physical body then no, Thomas is not Gnostic."

Thomas, if anything is anti-Gnostic, with its emphasis on the presence of the Kingdom of Heaven within the world now . . . Gnosticism emphatically insisted that the Kingdom of Heaven is to be found in the highest sphere above this world and certainly not here among the archons." ~~ Stevan Davies

Also: "If you mean by Gnostic the belief that people have a divine capacity within themselves and that they can come to understand that the Kingdom of God is already upon the earth if they can come to perceive the world that way then Thomas is Gnostic." ~~ Davies

Also: "This differentiation is very important, because some scholars reason that if Thomas is Gnostic (in the first sense) then it is Gnostic (in the second sense) and, as they believe, Gnosticism (in the second sense) is a second or third century heresy, they conclude that the
Gospel of Thomas is heretical, late in date, and without very much historical value in regard to Jesus of Nazareth." ~~ Davies

http://home.epix.net/~miser17/faq.htm

So Davies is saying we ought to be clear what we mean by Gnosticism. If I take it be a Third Century Christian Heresy; thast teaches this world is irredeemably evil, that salvation is in a higher, non-material sphere distant from here, then you saying GoT is Gnostic tells me something other than what you appear to mean. The 2nd saying, on its face, rejects a basic principle of the other-wordly brand of Gnosticism.

The Gospel of Thomas, like the Book of Enoch, and other early Christian/Jewish works, is a source that reflects religious revelations that were important enough to someone to be transcribed and passed on. The timing of the writing is not as important as the content -- except to Scholars.

Last night I listened to a distinguished Professor who originated among Ethiopian Jews, who gave a lecture on the topic of the Book of Enoch. He noted that with myth literal and historical truth and falsity isn't as important as the sustaining narrative of their culture.

If Jesus, Christians and Jews are black in Ethiopia and blond in Germany, both narratives are equally myths. Myths are re-created in the minds of believers, differently in each generation.

I asked him about Gnosticism and he agreed that there probably were many forms, but he made the further point that it is modern Western Authoritarians (in the literal sense) who insist that their vision of truth, such as, of what Gnosticism is the "real" Gnosticism. The modern Scholars "real myth" is every bit as much a myth as the Islamicist, or Christian's, or the Ethiopian Jews. Myth is literature not textbook.

Gnosticism is non-dual. In Gnosticism it is the false god which which creates duality. The way you are saying it is how mainsttream christianity views gnoticism as a heresey, not how it views itself. At least according to the reading I've done. So I can't see where the Gospel of Thomas is not from the Gnostic tradition which actuallt predates Christianity.

Jesus said: Blessed is he who was before he came into being. If you become my disciples and hear my words, these stones shall minister unto you. For you have five trees in Paradise which do not move in summer or in winter, and their leaves do not fall. He who knows them shall not taste of death.

The five trees are the five shadows.
(the five scandals)

I definitely think that being disturbed / bewildered and, at the same time; a feeling awe, wonder, or marvel describes a level of Buddhist insight. "The wise advance; the foolish retreat." Then, going from there to "ruling" over "the all." "The All" = the threefold world {the realms {dhatu} of desire {kama}, form {rupa}, and formlessness {arupa}.

Prior to that, we see the importance of persistence mentioned. Keep seeking until you solve the riddle and find the answer.

Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. 2When they find, they will be disturbed. 3When they are disturbed, they will marvel, 4 and will rule over all."

It 'sounds' to me like it is the end of the form skandha. Disturbed to see the cause and effect and at the same time marvel when he see the ten directions as an open expanse.