Are Gnostic Gospels Authentic?

A question I was asked back in August:

Q: What is the authenticity of Gnostic Gospels? Couldn't they have been written for selfish interests?

 A: Several Gnostic works claim to record the words or acts of people mentioned in the New Testament such as the apostles Thomas and Phillip, or Mary Magdalene and Judas. If by “authentic” you mean were they written by these people, then the answer is no, they are not authentic. Most scholars believe these books were written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries or later, although the so-called Gospel of Thomas was probably written around AD 100 - 110 and has portions that seem to be traditions from the earliest days of the church.

Could they have been written for selfish interests? Of course, but they also may have been written to publicize their teachings and provide teaching materials for their followers. When these books were written Jesus was just getting famous as the latest ‘mystic master’ in the Roman Empire. Gnosticism had been a tendency of long standing in the Mediterranean world deriving from the platonic teaching that matter is evil and the liberation of one’s soul from matter was the aim in life — and afterlife.

"Christian" Gnostics appeared at the end of the 1st century attempting to link the cache of Jesus’ name with this very popular Platonic philosophic idea. After all, the actual Christian teaching of Jesus and hi apostles with its bloody crucifixion, its ridiculous idea (to Greeks and Romans) of a man returning bodily from death, and its rigorous insistence that no other gods be worshiped — including emperors — was seen as woefully unsophisticated by many.

Was Jesus a Poet?

Jesus reciting one of his most famous works, 
'Blessed are the Poor in Spirit'

Painting by Henrik Olrik

Another answer from my 'Quora ministry':


Q: Was Jesus a Poet ? If yes, how good was he ?



A: Yes, Jesus was most definitely a poet! He certainly had the eye and soul of a poet in weaving the wild flowers that God clothed so grandly and the sparrows ‘not one of [whom] will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care’ into his teaching.

But more to the point, in common with some other ancient teachers and the Israelite prophets, much of Jesus’ teaching is cast in poetic form. Scholars have found that when they reverse-translate Jesus’ sayings back to the original Aramaic (Jesus’ native tongue) they are almost all poetry. This made it easier for the crowds to remember. The scholar Henry Wansbrough says that in Matthew especially, “the rhythm of the sayings is beautifully balanced, often with a neat double opposition (‘grapes from thorns or figs from thistles’ in Matt. 7.16; ‘the harvest is rich but the laborers are few’ Matt. 9.37).” 

This statement by C. E. Schenk was made in the 1920s but is even more true today:

When one comes to the words of Jesus he discovers that in a very true sense His speech answers to the requirements for Hebrew poetry. Examples of synonymous, antithetic, synthetic and causal parallelism are the rule rather than the exception in the utterances of Jesus. For the synonymous form see Matthew 10:24; for the antithetic see Luke 6:41; for the synthetic and causal forms see Luke 9:23 and Matthew 6:7. Not alone are these forms of Hebrew poetry found in the words of Jesus, but also the more involved and sustained poetic utterances (Luke 7:31-32). 

How good was he? Well, 2000 years later people are still reciting his stuff...

Leaving Nazareth

Christ in the Synagogue

Painting by Nikolay Ge, 1868

Nobody upvoted this response, which happens on Quora sometimes. In fact, almost nobody paid attention to the question at all.  But I didn't think it was too bad for a short answer. 


Q: Why did Jesus have to leave Nazareth to get his first followers?

A: Nazareth in Christ’s time was a tiny, insignificant village of around 400 people — not much of an audience. Also, as his quoting of a popular proverb (“not without honor, except in his hometown”) indicates, they were not inclined to see this carpenter, whom they’d watched grow up, as a possible Messiah. In fact, Luke's Gospel reports they were downright hostile! Add to that the rumor that he was illegitimate — born out of wedlock.

To expose his message to as large an audience as possible — and generate followers — it would have been necessary to base his operation in a larger, slightly more cosmopolitan town like Capernaum (population 1500+) and canvas all of Galilee, as the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) describe.

In addition, John’s gospel indicates that Jesus met his earliest and most important students (Peter, Andrew, and possibly John) in the crowds that gathered around John the Baptist, south of Galilee on the Jordan river.

To sum up, Nazareth was a small and rather hostile audience, but Capernaum, the Galilee region, and particularly John the Baptist’s hangers-on provided more fertile soil for Jesus’ unique message.

A Story About John the Apostle

"Apostle John the Theologian" 

by A.N. Mironov

A new commandment I give you: love each other. Just as I have loved you, you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know you are my disciples, by your love for each other.

Gospel of John 13.34-35

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The blessed John the Evangelist lived in Ephesus until old age. His disciples could barely carry him to church and he could not muster the voice to speak many words. During individual gatherings he usually said nothing but, "Little children, love one another." 

The disciples and brothers in attendance, annoyed because they always heard the same words, finally said, "Teacher, why do you always say this?" 

He replied with a line worthy of John: "Because it is the Lord's commandment and if it alone is kept, it is sufficient."

Jerome (AD 347- 420)
Fathers of the Church, Commentary on Galatians 6.10, Andrew Cain Jerome, CUA Press, 2010

The Story

(This is a repeat of a previous post while I am at a conference.)

So what do we mean when we talk about the "revelation" Jesus brought or the "deposit of faith" or the faith "given once and for all to the saints?" What was it that the Apostles were so busily "passing down" to the members of the Christian Movement? Yes, certainly the New Testament, but read on for a minute to see where I'm coming from. Before word one of the New Testament was committed to writing, Jesus' emissaries were teaching this revelation face to face.

I'm taking this from my site's 'Prologue' up at the top of the page. The other red boxes break up and discuss what this Prologue says. It's fairly short and I'll expand on it in future articles, but I'd ask that you notice two things as you read it through: First, how bare-bones it is. Jesus left a lot of the work up to his Movement. Another topic for a future post, I think!

And second, notice... that it's a story! The revelation Jesus left us with did not consist of a list of rules or a detailed chart of how Bible prophecy works out. When the last Apostles died they left us with a story.

___________________

Personally, I like a religion that can be summed up in a short poem.

In ancient times, when someone decided to follow Jesus of Nazareth, they would first have this poem recited to them, line by line. And after each line they would be asked, "Do you believe this?" "Yes," they would respond, "I believe."

Then they would be baptized.

That poem, of course, is the Apostle's Creed, dating back to the earliest days of the movement Jesus founded. During the first ages of that movement, Christian documents were expensive, cumbersome, and prone to be confiscated and burned by the authorities. But, although you might not be able to carry the Bible with you, you could carry this poem (composed of artfully arranged quotes from Scripture) in your mind.

Today, whatever else they may squabble about, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant are united on the truth of these words. Even those groups that claim to eschew creeds will usually agree with it's teachings.

It is this poem that we present here. These are the core truths Jesus and his Apostles taught. This is what the ancient martyrs died for. This is the Authentic Light.

~~~

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.
He descended into hell.

On the third day he rose from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Grounded in History

Jesus Preaching, by Tissot

It might be held... that the ethics of Confucianism have an independent value quite apart from the story of the life of Confucius himself, just as the philosophy of Plato must be considered on its own merits, quite apart from the traditions that have come down to us about the life of Plato and the question of the extent of his indebtedness to Socrates.

But the argument can be applied to the New Testament only if we ignore the real essence of Christianity. For the Christian gospel is not primarily a code of ethics or a metaphysical system; it is first and foremost good news, and as such it was proclaimed by its earliest preachers.

True, they called Christianity 'The Way' and 'The Life'; but Christianity as a way of life depends upon the acceptance of Christianity as good news. And this good news is intimately bound up with the historical order, for it tells how for the world's redemption God entered into history, the eternal came into time, the kingdom of heaven invaded the realm of earth, in the great events of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The first recorded words of our Lord's public preaching in Galilee are: 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe the good news."

F. F. Bruce
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

Who Wrote the Gospels?

None of the gospels actually come out and say who their authors were, although the Gospel of John hints around.  Do we have a good idea of who wrote these four books? One of my favorite scholars, Ben Witherington, lays down what we know and can deduce.

The Year of Reading Scripture for the First Time

Synchroblog is a little community of Christian blogs that post on a particular subject each month. This month our topic is "New Beginnings." The bloggers who published are listed at the bottom of this post for you to peruse. Visit us all! We're an interesting and eclectic group!

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I'm back from a short New Year's break, during which I've been making plans for this blog in 2014. One thing I've become rather fascinated with, and mentioned briefly in an earlier post, is the question, "What would the Scriptures sound like if they had only been discovered last year?"

What if Christianity and Judaism were just obscure sects known only from brief mentions in a few ancient writings -- until now? (I'm doing this from a Christian perspective but, of course, this idea would never work unless the Jews were also forgotten). Now their foundational documents have been discovered hidden away in dry desert caves in a remarkable state of preservation, and translated into English for the very first time.

Two thousand years of theological and scholarly jargon do not exist, nor do the traditional renderings we are comfortable with. For the first time we must puzzle out ways to express complex theological ideas that our regular Bibles represent with words like "righteousness," "justification," "sanctification," "redemption," "godliness," "resurrection." And perhaps most difficult of all, "faith," "hope," and "love."

Easy to Read

So my resolution this year is to try to read the hoary old Book with fresh eyes. To assist me in this I'll be using a remarkable but little-known translation called the Easy-to-Read Version -- or ERV for short -- put out by the Bible League International (home of the World Bible Translation Center). The ERV will be my standard translation on this blog for the next year.  It's available on Bible Gateway if you'd like to try it too.

The ERV is translated for people who speak English at approximately a 4th grade level. (It actually got its start as a Bible specifically translated for the deaf community. That version and the ERV are separate projects now, and The English Version for the Deaf can be found here). Unlike most other Bibles for people with limited English skills, the ERV scholars don't use an artificially limited vocabulary. The Basic Bible is a good example of that, using a list of 850 words plus some "special Bible words." Instead the ERV tries to use the natural vocabulary and grammatical constructions that you'd use to convey the meaning to a 10 year old. That doesn't mean though that certain concepts are hidden because they're too "adult." Adam still "has sexual relations with his wife Eve," and "she still becomes pregnant and gives birth," for instance (Book of Genesis chapter 4 verse 1, ERV), just like us modern day folks.

I'll probably write a full review of the ERV later in the year, after I've used it more. Easy reading though it may be, I'm also finding it to be an accurate, well-done translation.

For my purposes though the main advantage of the Easy-to-Read Version is that it cuts me off from traditional religious language when I read Scripture. Perhaps it will help a few scales fall from my eyes that I didn't know were there.

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Her are the posts from this Synchroblog:

Jen Bradbury - Enough

Abbie Watters - New Beginnings

Cara Strickland - Bursting

Carol Kuniholm - Acorns, King, Beloved Community

Done With Religion – A New Year, A New Beginning

Kelly Stanley - A Blank Canvas

Glenn Hager - Overcoming The Biggest Obstacle To Reaching Your Goals

Dave Criddle - Get Some New Thinking

David Derbyshire - Changed Priorities Ahead

J A Carter - The Year of Reading Scripture for the First Time

Damon - New Beginnings: Consider These 5 Questions Before Tying The Knot

Jeffrey Kranz - Where To Start Reading The Bible

Joanna990 - On survival – my one word for 2014

K W Leslie - Atonement

Happy - my One Word 365 surprise

Michelle Moseley - Ends and Beginnings

Matthew Bryant - A New Creation

Liz Dyer – It’s a new year and time to make some new mistakes

Edwin Pastor Fedex Aldrich - Foreclosed: The beginning of a new dream

Jennifer Clark Tinker - Starting a New Year Presently

Loveday Anyim - New Year New Resolutions

Loveday Anyim - New Year Resolution Dreamers

Loveday Anyim - New Year Resolution Specialists

Loveday Anyin – New Year Resolution Planners and Achievers

Jeremy Myers - Publish Your Book with Redeeming Press

Amy Hetland - New Beginnings

Phil Lancaster – New Beginnings

Mallory Pickering – Something Old, Something New

Margaret Boelman – The Other Side of Grief

Kathy Escobar - One Image

The Logical Thing That Didn't Happen

(This is a reprint of a post I wrote in 2011.)

What If the logical thing had happened and the Christian movement was stamped out by the early AD 200's. After all, word on the street was that being a Christian was a good way to get killed. "I interrogated them to find out if they were Christians," one Roman political functionary wrote. "If they confessed, I repeated the question two more times, adding the threat of capital punishment. Then, if they persisted, I had them executed," (Pliny the Younger, Letters book 10, letter 96).

And, quite frankly, the better educated thought followers of Christ were rather dumb. "The poor wretches have convinced themselves that they are going to be immortal and live forever," Lucian, a satirist said. "If any charlatan or trickster... joins them he soon gains sudden wealth by taking advantage of these simple folk," (Lucian, The Passing of Peregrinus, section 13).

Jesus and the idealistic society he founded would fade into obscurity, known only from a few scattered references in Jewish and Roman history books mainly read by scholars.Two thousand years later "Christians" would be mentioned in passing, together with Mithraites, Druids, and Bacchae, during graduate level history classes...

Then one day a young Palestinian shepherd boy digging in the sand outside his village finds a buried cave inside of which are several Greek manuscripts dating from the mid-2nd century. Intense conservation and study by scholars the world over reveals them to be the sacred writings of the long-lost Christian sect. The discovery merits an article in National Geographic. A documentary is produced for the History Channel. Bart Ehrmans holds forth about their provenance and charming but naive teachings on The Colbert Report.

Among the newly discovered accounts of the heretofore dim figure of Jesus, nestled almost unnoticed among the vigorous ethical teachings, is a prophetic statement. Although it is found in 3 different accounts of his life, evidently written by 3 different men, each quotes it verbatim. This saying must have been very precious to the communities that preserved them, the scholars comment.

In the so-called Gospels of Matthew (chapter 24, verse 35), Mark (chapter 13, verse 31), and Luke (chapter 21, verse 33, all from the NLT), we find Jesus saying this: "Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear"
 

Later on, in the only account of the movement's early days found among the manuscripts, a Jewish rabbi known from other sources is portrayed saying this about the Christian Movement:

"Here’s my recommendation in this case: Distance yourselves from these men. Let them go! If their plan or activity is of human origin, it will end in ruin. If it originates with God, you won’t be able to stop them. Instead, you would actually find yourselves fighting God!"

(Acts of the Apostles chapter 5, verses 38-39, CEB)

"This must have been the way they saw themselves," the historians comment. "They were so optimistic their movement would succeed against all odds. But they were doomed from the start. The Romans were never going to permit a group to exist that claimed there was another king named Jesus..."

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And yet, here we are!