They were written in Coptic and belonged to a library in a monastery. A few Gnostic scholars have gone so far as to assert that these recently discovered writings are the authentic history of Jesus instead of the New Testament. But does their faith in these documents square with the historical evidence? The Gnostic gospels are attributed to a group known as big surprise here the Gnostics. Perhaps they did it to keep recruitment numbers up and make Jesus a poster child for their cause.
Are they the real history of Jesus? Was There a Da Vinci Conspiracy?
Are the Gospels True? Was Jesus the Messiah? Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? Before long the apple rots and becomes a smelly mess. Repeat the experiment with a piece of iron.
Gnostic Gospels
Over time the iron rusts, corrodes, and eventually disintegrates. Try the experiment with a twenty-year-old.
At twenty, a person is fit and trim; they feel and look well. Fast-forward fifty years and the same person is now old and tired; their once-firm body sags and hurts most of the time. Before long, they have died and their corpses have decomposed. Graphic, yes, but it proves a point: Everything we can see and touch in this material world suffers the same fate.
Nag Hammadi library
It corrodes, decays, and eventually disappears. The Gnostics considered this material world inferior and evil because corruption was constantly at work in it—as anyone could observe.
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Since this world is so corrupt and transitory, Gnostics reasoned that the Supreme God—whom they considered to be utterly transcendent and unknowable—could not have made the present world. So they posited that creation was the work of a lower, inferior god called the Demiurge. The God recorded in the biblical book of Genesis, therefore, was not the Most High God but an inferior, second-class god.
According to Gnosticism, human beings are good spirits trapped inside of evil material bodies. The good spirit originated in the sublime spiritual realm above. The problem for all people is that in the journey from heaven to earth, people forgot their true origin and nature. The Supreme God answers by sending a Redeemer from the heavenly realm to the world below in order to reveal the truth to those who have fallen into a forgetful sleep.
Salvation, then, depends on receiving that knowledge and being awakened from slumber. It means that when people die, their spirits escape the bonds of this material world and ascend to the heavens to be reunited with the One above. According to Gnostic thinking, the Redeemer had to come to earth in order to reveal the truth to humans, but could not be truly incarnate—that is, enfleshed—because flesh is evil. So Christ just appeared to be human during his earthly sojourn; he was in fact only divine. This is a departure from tradition Christian belief, which states that Jesus was fully human and fully divine.
To one degree or another, the Gnostic Gospels reflect these teachings. Often they appear to rewrite familiar stories with a twist. In some cases they may contain early, independently attested traditions e.
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Here is a partial list of the Gnostic Gospels, along with an approximate date during which each was composed:. Scholars debate whether they tell us anything true about the Jesus. Where all agree, however, is that they tell us a great deal about the Christian communities who used them. Copy the following code and paste it into your website's code to display this article on your site. Find out more here. Does science point to the existence of a creator? John Burke examines the scientific evidence that suggests we are the product of intelligent design.
Is the Bible a guide for life? What do others think about the Bible? We asked what others around the world think about Jesus. Don't have an account?
The Gnostic Gospels: Are they the real history of Jesus? - tandjfoods.com
Forgot Password Reset Check your email for a link to change password. Haven't linked your account? What Is a Gospel? Gnostic Discoveries In a chance discovery yielded a treasure trove of ancient documents in Upper Egypt at a place called Nag Hammadi.