The Gospel of Judas (part 1)
With the popularizing of the Gospel of Judas in typical fashion, the world of liberal academia is agog with glee that this is yet another testament showing what they’ve known all along; that Christianity—as we Bible thumping, narrow minded, bigoted fundamentalists have understood it--is probably false.
Professor of the History of Religion, Elaine Pagels of Princeton writing for the scholarly journal called the New York Times says this of the Gospel of Judas:
“Many regarded these secret gospels not as radical alternatives to the New Testament Gospels, but as advanced-level teaching for those who had already received Jesus' basic message. "
She is referring supposedly to the authorities of the early church and their assessment of this writing. In referring to another of what are called the Gnostic Gospels, Pagels writes: “Thus the Gospel of Thomas opens, ‘These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.’”
Here is what is interesting; Gnosticism was deemed a heresy—meaning rotten teaching—very early in church history; it was the role of the church to purge the early church of such distortions to the “faith once for all delivered to the Saints.” as the Bible in the book of Jude says.
You see Gnosticism posited the notion that true knowledge of God came only as a result of a spiritual experience whereby God communicated secret information to that individual. This was rejected outright from the earliest days of the church due to the obvious problem that such “truth” was totally unverifiable. How do you argue with someone who says, “This is what God told me?”
So the Gnostic gospels, based on someone’s own little experience were rejected out of hand. And yet today our beaming intellects grab hold of this document as if it were authoritative relegating centuries of traditional, verifiable and well documented gospels that contained eye witness accounts, corroborative reports etc. to the ash heap of religious myth while accepting this “Gospel.” Isn’t that strange? That a document, with a two thousand year history of scrutiny, analysis, and debate, would be thrown out for some late date gibberish of some loner contending he had some mystical experience with God is dumbfounding not to mention academically pathetic.
Don’t worry about this “Gospel.” It is just more flotsam and jetsam on the waters of Satan’s cesspool of counterfeit truth. Stay tuned for more.
Professor of the History of Religion, Elaine Pagels of Princeton writing for the scholarly journal called the New York Times says this of the Gospel of Judas:
“Many regarded these secret gospels not as radical alternatives to the New Testament Gospels, but as advanced-level teaching for those who had already received Jesus' basic message. "
She is referring supposedly to the authorities of the early church and their assessment of this writing. In referring to another of what are called the Gnostic Gospels, Pagels writes: “Thus the Gospel of Thomas opens, ‘These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote them down.’”
Here is what is interesting; Gnosticism was deemed a heresy—meaning rotten teaching—very early in church history; it was the role of the church to purge the early church of such distortions to the “faith once for all delivered to the Saints.” as the Bible in the book of Jude says.
You see Gnosticism posited the notion that true knowledge of God came only as a result of a spiritual experience whereby God communicated secret information to that individual. This was rejected outright from the earliest days of the church due to the obvious problem that such “truth” was totally unverifiable. How do you argue with someone who says, “This is what God told me?”
So the Gnostic gospels, based on someone’s own little experience were rejected out of hand. And yet today our beaming intellects grab hold of this document as if it were authoritative relegating centuries of traditional, verifiable and well documented gospels that contained eye witness accounts, corroborative reports etc. to the ash heap of religious myth while accepting this “Gospel.” Isn’t that strange? That a document, with a two thousand year history of scrutiny, analysis, and debate, would be thrown out for some late date gibberish of some loner contending he had some mystical experience with God is dumbfounding not to mention academically pathetic.
Don’t worry about this “Gospel.” It is just more flotsam and jetsam on the waters of Satan’s cesspool of counterfeit truth. Stay tuned for more.
posted by PB at 3:20 PM
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