Monday, June 12, 2006

Since I started blogging about a year and a half ago I have limited my entries, for the most part to, the latest happenings, personal pop culture interests, a little bit of armchair psychology and general ramblings about this or that. I have said very little about politics, religion, and some of my other intellectual interests because I talk about such matters on various discussion groups over at yahoogroups.com. After some recent reflection I think I will begin adding a few of my thoughts about religion, politics, philosophy, etc. because it is an important part of who I have become. If this aspect of my blogging interests you I would encourage you to leave a comment from time to time or visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pomoxian which is my home base where I discuss most of my thoughts on such matters. The folks over at Pomoxian have played a critically important role in my on going spiritual/intellectual development and they are just good folks to interact and hang out with...thanks Dave, Julie, the other Dave's, Rick, Kal, Chris, and all the other
folks who have participated and contributed to the ongoing discussions over the years....So, without further ado, here is something I posted over at Pomoxian recently about the subject of Gnosticism.

For most of my life I knew nothing about Gnosticsm. Gnostics were
heretics and that meant one need not learn anything more about
them....but....gradually I learned a little bit here and a little bit
there as I read a few books and watched a number of television shows
on the Gnostics. Recently the mysterious veil of Gnosticsm has been
lifted due to the discovery of their texts earlier in this century and
the popularity of Dan Brown's novel the Da Vinci Code. Brown's book in
particular has stimulated a plethora of books and television shows on
the Gnostics and therefore alot more is now known about this group of
people and their teachings that remained in the shadows, out of sight
and out of mind, for a very long time. Following are some of the
things I found interesting about thier teachings and history that I
hadn't known before. Personally, I have no particular interest in
becoming a Gnostic any time soon but I do find thierhistory
sociologically relevant, especially, for those who find themselves on
the outside looking in, and, I do think many of their ideas/teachings
are important and relevant for discussions about Christianity. Bear in
mind, the Gnostics were as varied as many denominational groups are
today so the following comments/quotes are intended to be general
statements which may not apply to all Gnostic groups or individuals.....

While the Gnostic texts that were discovered at Nag Hammadi in the
1940's have been dated to around the years 350 to 400, the original
texts themselves apparently are much older. We know this because the
early church fathers mention their writings as early as 120-150 A.D.,
and the Gospel of Thomas may be much older. "Some" believe it may be
as old, or older than the four Gospels.

We don't have very many copies of Gnostic writings, apparently,
because after Constantine's conversion in the fourth century,
"possession of heretical books was made a criminal offense and the
books were banned and burned"

The discovery of the 52 Gnostic texts at Nag Hammadi is important
because "we may have to recognize and now admit that early
Christianity is far more diverse than anyone expected"

Before the discovery in Nag Hammadi we only knew about the Gnostics
from the writings of some of the early church fathers. Some of the
early church fathers wrote volumnes upon volumnes attacking the
Gnostics and other heretics which suggests they were influential and a
serious threat to be taken seriously.

Some scholars, such as Professor R.M. Grant, has "suggested that
gnosticism emerged as a reaction to the shattering of traditional
religious views--Jewish and Christian--after the Romans destroyed
Jerusalem in 70 A.D."....and.....others now speculate that after the
destruction of Jerusalem, "many people felt profoundly aliented from
the world in which they lived, and longed for a miraculous salvation
as an escape from the constraints of political and social
existence."...which may help to explain thier "pessimistic world view"
and their attempts at "self-transendence"

Gnostics reject a literal interpretation of the resurrection and they
"interpret resurrection in various ways. Some say the person who
experiences the resurrection does not meet Jesus raised physically
back to life; rather, he encounters Christ on a spiritual level. This
may occur in dreams, in escatic trance, in visions, or in moments of
spiritual illumination"....If I understand this correctly, the
gnostics didn't deny the resurrection, but rather they believe the
recorded reports of Jesus found in the four gospels were the results
of visions, trances, and dreams. It is critically important to
remember that Gnostics and other ancient peoples did not "look down"
on such experiences as many modern folks do today. These experiences
were real and important in a way that is seldom acknowledged
today....and...the resurrection "symbolized how Christ's presence
could be experienced in the present. What mattered was not literal
seeing, but spiritual vision"...and..."what interested Gnostics far
more than past events attributed to the historical Jesus was the
possibility of enountering the risen Christ in the present"

Some historians now suggest that the battles between the Gnostics and
their orthodox counterparts involved some critically important social
and political issues. The orthodox emphasis on " I am God, and their
is no other beside me" and the belief in the Trinity help establish
and support the development of the Church heirarchy which included an
allegiance to ranking Bishops and the Pope. "One God, one bishop,
became the the orthodox slogan".Ignatius warns the laity to revere,
honor, and obey the bishop, as if he were God"...and...the development
of bishops, priests, and deacons, was established to mirror the
doctrine of the Trinity. The gnostic emphasis on inner knowlege and
self revelation was particularly threatening because it threatened the
authority and stucture that had evolved in the early church. No wonder
they didn't get along!.....

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I love the picture to go with your post.

This is a really helpful overview of gnosticism. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if gnosticism hadn't been deemed heretical and had grown up with "orthodoxy" (wheat and tares) until the end of the age. What might the postmodern age have done with gnostics? How might the tradition have evolved and morphed to fit more recent times?

I like the idea that ignorance and knowledge have a lot to do with the frame of reference for spirituality.

Thanks for this Bill! I look forward to more of your reflections theological. :)

Julie

kc bob said...

Hmmm ...

Gnostics reject a literal interpretation of the resurrection

... wonder why all of those eyewitneses died for their faith?

Bilbo said...

Hi Kansas Bob,

May I suggest that people are willing to die for all kinds of reasons? Polycarp who was a disciple of John and later declared a Saint was willing to die because he believed that "through suffering for one hour one can purchase eternal life"...and...Tertullian, an early church father desired to suffer, "that he might obtain from God complete forgiveness, by giving in exchange for his blood." No mention of dying for a literal interpretation of the resurrection. Not implying that some of the followers of Jesus did not experience "something" profound and real regarding Jesus after he was crucified but am suggesting that whatever happened might be different than what some Christians assume or assert...and...Martyrdom is not unique to Christianity. People have been killing themselves and sacrificing their lives for centuries for other religious and political beliefs. For me, martyrdom doesn't prove anything.

Bilbo said...

Hi Julie,

I do try when it comes to coordinating my pictures with my blog entries. It's a pride, perhaps even obssession with me....I don't want to take any credit for the "theological reflections"....I got all my ideas from Elaine Pagels excellent book "The Gnostic Gospels"...The whole recent Da Vinci Code phenonemon sent me back to the take a closer look at what Pagels and others have to say about Gnosticism. I read about it years ago but kind of glided past alot of stuff that I now find particularly revelant for those of us on the outside looking in...and...I don't like the way the Gnostics have been simply dismissed and caricaturized by their past and present opponents. It's an underdog thing for me, I confess, but I do think it is critically important to place people in the proper context of their times and that is what I am trying to accomplish ,in part, with these entries....

kc bob said...

Agree that the way the apostles (eyewitnesses of the resurrection) died doesn't prove anything ... but it is an intresting piece of the puzzle.

So, how do gnostic's handle Jesus' own words that he would raise His own body from the dead? He even told Thomas to stick his finger in His hands and into His side... He still had the wounds... It was his body, the same one.

Bilbo said...

Hi Bob,

As far as I can tell the Gnostics didn't accept the accounts or the interpretation of their orthodox rivals as many Christians do today. The "encounters" of Jesus were explained in terms of visions, dreams, or what we today might describe as paranormal or psychosamtic. I find it interesting that the Bible itself also seems to describe some of the enounters in this way. Check out Saul's conversion in Acts 9:1-7. Neither Paul or his companions actually saw the risen Jesus, but only heard a voice and saw a "light from heaven", whatever that actually means. I also find it interesting that many of the gospel encounters seem a bit odd as well. Mary doesn't recognize Jesus, John 20:11-15, Jesus apparently walking through walls, John 20:26, and other phantom like manifestations of Jesus you find in other encounters which don't sound like the kind of things flesh and blood people do. Personally, it is not crystal clear to me what the "nature" of the enounters may have actually been and I am not making any assertions...and.... I think it is also important to remember that the Gospels that we have are not eyewitness accounts that were written down by the apostles. All the Gospels are written in the third person and our attributed to anoymous writers. Not asserting that oral tradition didn't pass down the actual words or deeds of Jesus but am suggesting that alot could have happened along the way from oral tradition to someone writing down an account many years later...and...the Gnostic texts, particularly the Gospel of Thomas seem to imply that others saw or heard things differently...

kc bob said...

I guess gnostics and I differ on the reliability and historicity of the gospels. Apparently gnostics do not accept that Jesus' said that he would raise His own body from the dead and told Thomas to stick his finger in His hands and into His side.

Here is something that I read concerning the gospel of John:

"the earliest piece of Scripture surviving is a fragment of a papyrus codex containing John 18:31-33 and 37. It is called the Rylands Papyrus (P52) and dates from 130 A.D., having been found in Egypt. The Rylands Papyrus has forced the critics to place the fourth gospel back into the first century, abandoning their earlier assertion that it could not have been written then by the Apostle John."

Don't want to volley back and forth on this but do you hae something similar for the Gospel of Thomas?