Gospel of Judas II

So the National Geographic's episode on the Gospel of Judas was really interesting.  It starts out as a predictable 'whodunit' detective series on how the codex was discovered, bought, stolen, bought, and analyzed, with predictable re-enactments.

But what I found interesting were the questions that this discovery raises:

• What are the factors behind the canonization of the Bible -- why did the Church choose only 4 out of 50 plus gospels to include in the New Testament? Was it top down, or bottoms up?
• Was Gnosticism a cult (like Scientology today), or was it a legitimate religious movement? How did it die out -- by the lack of believers or by persecution?
• Why is this particular strand (although dominant) of Christianity right?

It's always hard for me to discuss Christianity with Christians, mainly because there is very little a priori based arguments.  Most Christians tend to rely heavily on the Bible to evangelize, but many of my issues with Christianity stems from the veracity, consistency and overall reliability of the Bible.  The strong Christian beliefs rings muted because there is not enough due diligence done on the foundation reference materials for their arguments.

I did find some interesting links regarding Gnosticism on the web.  There are even modern Gnostic churches.  Here's a Gnostic blog by a man of the cloth.

As a summary (and summaries never do these types of things justice) Gnostic scriptures describe a self-created Being begetting Sophia (wisdom) who beget many gods (one of them being the evil-prone Jehovah, whom Christians and Jews worship as the creator, see the Old Testament). This chaotic world is created by an evil God, but within each human there is a splinter of the divine (from the self-begetting Being).  Through knowledge, we can release our spiritual divine from the physical self, and Christ was one of the divine came down to help us.

On the surface, this idea of the divine has many similarities in modern Christian cults/sects like Jehovah Witnesses and the Church of Mormon and other fringe movements like Kabbalah and Scientology.  Unlike Christianity, which adheres to the proof of historical facts and the idea that faith (and works) are ways to salvation, these movements identify that the godhead is within humans... but to delve more into it is a discussion I'd like to have over some wine and pack of cigs.

I think that I like this description of Gnostics best: Catholic on the outside, Buddhist on the inside.

For all their mythologies and metaphors, Gnostics believe that wisdom can be gained by the individual -- much like enlightenment can be gained by the scientists or samsara by the Hindu or nirvana by the Zen monk.  There is that moment of 'aha!' of divine inspiration.  The religious human desire to find out, to be curious, to figure out our spiritual and physical place has parallels in the Reformation and subsequent splinters (Quakers, Unitarians, etc.) One wonders why Gnostics were persecuted by a Church that wanted to gain power by holding onto the authority of interpreting God's will.

I do think Gnosticism, if it was a fringe movement, was a way of codified thought that reflects many similar ideologies about the human self that cut across generations. It is interesting to know that human beings, historical and present, have such a large capacity for diverse beliefs, that we as a race so desperately seek to understand the ultimate question of why we're here.

I am no expert in these matters but I think it would be more accurate to say that gnosticism was a widely held philosophy of the time rather than a movement or religion. Also - a differentiation has to be made between Jesus and Christ. Christ are those things which are considered divine and cause knowing: goodness, kindness, justice, understanding, love, etc. Jesus, on the other hand, was a man who fully embodied Christ (the divine). (Very similar to Sidhartha becoming the Buddha).

There were many different philosophies within the core philosophy, too. Some were far more dualistic than others - some much more monistic. The earliest organized church chose to squash the gnosticism that bubbled up within Christianity because Christian gnostics weren't particularly afraid of dying. That kind of causes a problem.

If Christianity was to survive - people had to be encouraged to fight for their beliefs as well as to die for them. And in order to be motivated to fight, you had to encourage people to be "against" certain beliefs rather than adhere to the philosophy that all beliefs are faulty compared to inner knowing (gnosis).

Gnosis is a belief in something beyond the rational and the only way Christianity had any hope of survival was to adopt a certain amount of Greek rationalism which is making it's way through Rome at the time (and which ironically, according to Karen Armstrong, was already beginning to be dismissed by the Greeks).

Definitely a conversation to be had over a bottle of wine and some cigs!

Posted by: arulba | April 11, 2006 at 11:52 PM

By the way - very interesting blog!

Posted by: arulba | April 12, 2006 at 12:00 AM

Thanks. I agree that the Christ and Jesus bear separation, if only for discussion. The divine and the human.

I view religion a series of rites and practices which enshroud core philosophies. Were Gnostics more similar to, let's say post-post modern movement that is going on in the present? Didn't they have priests and rituals?

The concept of dualism is fascinating, especially since it is common across so many proto-monnotheistic cultures. I suppose once you have centered your beliefs on a Creator god who is the source of sources, dualism loses some of its luster – perhaps that's why Christianity and Islam is so attractive, as there is this sense of ultimate triumph over evil by good. I tend to veer away from a a categorization of reality into good and evil, however. The world is more interesting than that.

You make a great point about the adoption of rationalism by Christianity. I've never heard that before.. that the Church needed people who would fight back. All this time growing up in churches, I've only heard emphasis on the matyrs of early Christian churches.

Thanks again!

Posted by: j.fisher | April 12, 2006 at 02:41 AM

The program is probably designed to coinside with this release of this new book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1426200420/sr=8-1/qid=1144992039/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-2552240-8233724?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Posted by: kdawg | April 13, 2006 at 10:22 PM