Gnostic Gospels

To me, this is the single biggest error in the DVC.

Brown's contention is that Constantine called the council of Nicaea to rubber stamp his contention that Jesus is wholly divine (i.e. not human at all). To this end he wanted the assembled Bishops to resolve to include only the four Gospels we have now (leaving out some 80 others) which four effectively establish the divinity of Christ. Brown further maintains that the final vote was very close.

This is chock full of errors:

1. Constantine did call the Council of Nicaea, but it wasn't to force a conclusion on the divinity of Christ. Rather, it was to resolve the issue of whether Jesus was a created Being, or Very God.

It was, basically, to resolve the debate between Arians who taught not that Jesus was at some point created, though not merely human, and those who would come to be known as Catholics who believed that He was somehow both God and man.

2. The Council of Nicaea has nothing to say about the New Testament Canon and doesn't establish one at all.

3. The number "80" is ridiculously high for pseudepigraphical and apocryphal Gospel accounts. There weren't anything like that many and by the time Nicaea was convened they had been pretty well marginalized.

4. If Constantine's point was to establish those Gospels which taught Jesus' divinity, why did we end up with the ones that also teach His humanity? And why did the council supposedly reject all those gnostic and false Gospels which not only portray a divine Jesus but a Jesus who isn't really human at all?

5. The final "vote" wasn't on the canon, it was on the formulation as to whether Jesus was of similar substance with the Father (homoiousion) or of the same substance with Him (homoousion).

And it wasn't even close.

The book is a load of crap, even leaving aside the nonsense about Mary Magdalene and Jesus being married and having children.

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"We will never be truly free until the last fundamentalist is strangled in the guts of the last canon lawyer." - A Paraphrase of P. B. Shelley

Amen! They are a part of early church history, and they show what the early Christians had to contend with and sort out. At least for me they are important today for apologetic purposes because many non-Christians often bring them up as real, viable alternatives to the Scriptural gospels.

A commonly asked question is, "Have you actually read them?"
I can reply yes I have - and then bring up the more fantastic or sensational aspects which offend modern sensibilities, such as the Gospel of Thomas 114:

Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females do not deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

Lamorak Des Galis

You're wrong. They were condemned as heretical hundreds of years before the setting of the scriptural canon.

In Christ,
Reader Nikolai

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For every excuse given for a so-called 'Gnostic' writing being rejected there is a Canonical writing which could have as easilly been rejected for the same reasons. Likewise, there are Gnostic writings which could easilly have been included for the same reasons that the Canonical writings were chosen to be included.

It is a fact that the Canon was selected by human beings. That is not to say that the books are not scripture, or are that they are not all beneficial for teaching people to build a relationship with God. But it is likely that there are many other spiritual writings which we don't have access to which were also beneficial and used by God to teach people to come into relationship with Him. As for those who chose the Canon, those who wrote the Creeds, and those who chose to label anyone who deviated from what they chose to collectively agree as true.... I ask you these question;

1 - Was Jesus Christ not a heretic? Was He not killed for being a deviant?

2 - Would this same Christ wish for us to sucumb to a Mob mentality to determine what is Spiritual Truth? Should we beleive what we beleive because the masses say we must, or because it has been revealed to us by the Spirit which indwells us?

3 - The Canon teaches us that we will know one another by our Fruit. What kind of fruit threatens death to deviants? Burns people alive? Nails them to stakes? Slaughters entire families? Goes to war in the name of being right? These are facts of Early Church History - not some silly conspiracy story by a popular modern fiction author. It is sad, but it was true before Dan Brown, and it will be true after Dan Brown. Denying that it happenned because we can still read many of the books and history is still aware of it is akin to denying the Holocaust happenned because there are still Jews around who remember it. Shall we choose to follow after Christ, or shall we chase after the Doctrine's of men and cling to our insecure human need to be right at all costs?

4- Why would the Bible itself reference Books that were never meant to be a part of it, unless the Bible has actaully been made incomplete by men or by the passage of time?

The Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41)
The Book of Nathan the Prophet (1 Chronicles 29:29)
The Book of Gad the Seer (1 Chronicles 29:29)
The Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2 Chronicles 9:29)
The Visions of Iddo the Seer (2 Chronicles 9:29)
The Book of Shemaiah the Prophet (2 Chronicles 12:15)
The Chronicle of Jehu, Son of Hanani (2 Chronicles 20:34)
The Wars of Jehovah (Numbers 21:14)
Book of Jashar (Joshua 10:13, 2 Samuel 1:18)
Jeroboam (1 Kings 14:19)

Just because something is true or has some truth in it, doesn't mean it's divinely inspired. There are tons and tons of writings about God and Jesus from throughout the ages including the present day that are totally true, but it doesn't mean they are divinely inspired the way the canonical Scriptures are.

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I don't see anything wrong with reading anything, whether it be the apocrypha or some writing by Dan Brown on the DaVinci code, as long as we always use the standard of inspired scripture to measure them. In fact, it's a good thing to know what they say for the sake of condemning heresy, so go ahead and weed through them. Some even have some minute historical interest. I have read the apocrypha and the pseudepigrapha and taken notes on each book. Obviously, no one should give any authority to them, but it's good to know what they say so that you can explain to someone else why they are wrong in doctrinal areas, etc. Just my thoughts on your proposal.

God Bless You,
Mark

Odd, since they were written about a century after his death.

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I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. C.S. Lewis Reflections on the Psalms

I have read the first verse of Philippe and immediately I have believed because I knew this thing with dreams.
I knew this:
one who is virgin(he doesn't create..sons) can have
the same Heaven of S.Philippe even if he hasn't it.....
This can be possible if a married can have the same
Heaven of Philippe(if he has it), this will be possible with the second Resurrection of life(malefactors)........

When Jesus kisses Magdalene then He is a malefactor...,
Jesus can make this.
A particular woman as Magdalene need it, she
will have a good..Heaven........
He can be considered a particular soldier in this epysode.....


I think christians have to understand better the malefactors........

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"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come.
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Apocalypse 22, 17

However, those who wrote them, The Gnostics, were condemned by St. Paul.

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Really?

The Canon began to be formed in 144 CE when Marcion went to Rome and began to forumalise what is now the New Testament.

Considering the Gnostic Gospels were written after the life of Jesus, where does the hundreds of years come in where they were considered heretical?

In fact Elaine Pagels, an expert on the Gnostic Gospels, writes that they some were written between 120 and 140 CE. A mere 24 - 4 years before the Canon began to be formed.

Although to be fair there is scholarly debate that says that some Gnostics were actually penned between 50 and 100 CE, actually before the Gospels currently included in the Canon.

But even so, where is the hundreds years of condemnation?