Why do Christians reject gnostic teaching?

[Tomoz]

Hi there everybody
A lot of people around here seem to be really interested in the teaching of the gnostics. I thought it might be helpful if I post on here why it is exactly that christians don't accept the gnostic gospels. There are lots of conspiracy theories about church cover-ups and the like, but actually the reasons are much more mundane.

Firstly, the gnostic gospels were written a lot later after Jesus died than the gospels we accept (which are known as the canonical gospels). We know this through several dating techniques and clues found in the gospels themselves. Here is an example; in the Canonical gospels, the writers say that Jesus rose 'on the day after the sabbath'. This is because, when they were written, christianity was still just a jewish sect and hadn't been established as its own faith, and so the writers still considered saturday the sabbath. In the gnostic gospels however, they write that Jesus rose 'on the Lord's day'. This immediately shows that these gospels were written much later, after sunday, 'the Lord's day' had been set aside as the christian day of worship and Christianity had been established as a separate faith.

So how did the church decide which writings to include in the New Testament? Again, there is quite a logical and mundane answer to this. It was decided that, to be accepted as true, the writings had to have been written either by one of the apostles (one of the 12 that comprised Jesus' inner circle during his three years of ministry) or someone with a close association with an apostle. Why is Paul considered an apostle, if he didn't live with Jesus during his ministry? Well Peter, the main man in terms of apostledom, affirmed Paul as an apostle (you can find this in 2 Peter).
The fact that the gnostic gospels were written so much later meant that they couldn't have been written by an apostle or an apostle's disciple, so they weren't accepted as reliable.

Also, the Gnostic teachings themselves clash with Christianity, in a couple of ways you might not expect.
1) The Gnostics taught that there were actually two Gods - and evil creator God (or Demiurge) and a good redeemer God. The world was created by the demiurge, and so all matter is inherently evil. Jesus was sent by the good God to redeem us from matter.
This clashes with Jewish and Christian teaching for several reasons. Firstly, we believe there is only one God, who is the creator and the redeemer. The world that God created was good, but we messed it up. So evil comes not from God, but from rebellion against God (Christianity isn't a dualistic religion because we don't believe in an equal good and evil force - we believe that God, who is good, is infinitely more powerful than any evil).

2) The gnostic gospels tell stories of Jesus as a boy, making birds out of clay and bringing them to life, and, after losing a game that he is playing with his friends, striking them down! These silly, mythological stories go against everything we learn about how Jesus operated on Earth - if you look through the biblical gospel stories, you will see that not once did Jesus use his power to aid himself or in his own interest. His use of the miraculous was completely selfless. He was actually quite down to earth.
The gospel of Judas contains another story. As his disciples break bread and give thanks to God, Jesus laughs at them - because, according the the Gnostics, they are giving thanks to an evil demiurge, not a good God. This again goes completely against what we learn about Jesus in the canonical gospels. He took any sin or lack of understanding very, very seriously and, if they actually were lacking in understanding, he wouldn't have simply laughed at his closest followers, but would have put them straight. We know this from reading in the canonical Gospels about how Jesus operated.

Sorry its been a bit long winded - I hope that you've read some of it and found it interesting. I just thought I should explain why we don't accept the Gnostic Gospels as true. There are many other reasons of course. I hope you can see that, agree or disagree, the selection of canonical scripture was actually carried out quite logically, without any cover-ups or conspiracy.

[Skillganon]

Originally Posted by Tomoz

2) The gnostic gospels tell stories of Jesus as a boy, making birds out of clay and bringing them to life, and, after losing a game that he is playing with his friends, striking them down! .

Hello Tomoz,

Thanks for the post.

Can you provide reference to where it say's about this story. Is their a book online?

I am keen to know.

Peace

Skill.

[Tomoz]

Sure buddy, they come from the infancy gospel of thomas, which dates from about 140 C.E. at the earliest. It's online at http://www.gospels.net/translations/...anslation.html.

[Znanna]

Namaste,

If you seek a more precise translation, please see this link for the Gospel of Thomas (and other texts).

http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/index.htm


ZN
("You see what you want to see, you hear what you want to hear" - The Point by Harry Neilsson)

[satay]

Originally Posted by Tomoz

Hi there everybody
A lot of people around here seem to be really interested in the teaching of the gnostics.

namaste,
Thank you for the post.
May I ask who are these 'lot of' people? What is gnostics and why should a hindu be interested in it?

[Tomoz]

Originally Posted by satay

namaste,
Thank you for the post.
May I ask who are these 'lot of' people? What is gnostics and why should a hindu be interested in it?

Hi there Satay!
There were a few threads started in which people were saying that they thought gnostic christianity was more in line with what Jesus was really on about than christianity as it stands today.
The gnostics were a sect of christians who had beliefs that differed from mainstream christianity. Earlier this century, several gospels written by the gnostics were found, and conspiracy theories started cropping up as to why the church accepted some gospels and not others.

[Tomoz]

Originally Posted by Znanna

Namaste,

If you seek a more precise translation, please see this link for the Gospel of Thomas (and other texts).

http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/index.htm


ZN
("You see what you want to see, you hear what you want to hear" - The Point by Harry Neilsson)

Hi there Znanna
The gospel of thomas and the infancy gospel of thomas are two different documents.

[Skillganon]

Originally Posted by Tomoz

Sure buddy, they come from the infancy gospel of thomas, which dates from about 140 C.E. at the earliest. It's online at http://www.gospels.net/translations/...nslation.html.

Thanks for that.

Originally Posted by Tomoz
2) The gnostic gospels tell stories of Jesus as a boy, making birds out of clay and bringing them to life, and, after losing a game that he is playing with his friends, striking them down!

Hey Tomoz.

Note this is not for debate, I do not wan't to hijack your thread, but just thought this might be an interest to you what is "highlighted red".

"Lo! I come unto you with a sign from your Lord. Lo! I fashion for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, and I breathe into it and it is a bird, by Allah's leave. I heal him who was born blind, and the leper, and I raise the dead, by Allah's leave. And I announce unto you what ye eat and what ye store up in your houses. Lo! herein verily is a portent for you, if ye are to be believers.

And (I come) confirming that which was before me of the Torah, and to make lawful some of that which was forbidden unto you. I come unto you with a sign from your Lord, so keep your duty to Allah and obey me.

Lo! Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. That is a straight path.] (Aal `Imran 3:49-51)

and

(9) Then, the Jews who were present and heard Jesus were amazed and said, "What a strange and remarkable event. The child is only five years old and already he says such things. For we never heard anyone who speaks words like this child does."

46. "He shall speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. And he shall be (of the company) of the righteous."
[Quran 3:46]
Peace.

Skill

[Znanna]

Re: The Infancy Gospel of Thomas

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...ncythomas.html

(Fair Use Rules!)

F. F. Bruce writes (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 87):

Then there is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which purports to describe the doings of Jesus in his boyhood. Jesus proves to be an infant prodigy at school, instructing his teachers in the unsuspected mysteries of the alphabet; he astounds his family and playmates by the miracles which he performs. This is the document which tells for the first time the familiar tale of the twelve sparrows which Jesus, at the age of five, fashioned from clay on the sabbath day.

In The Other Gospels, Ron Cameron suggests that the Infancy Gospel of Thomas may have been written in eastern Syria, the location of the Thomas traditions, although Cameron states that attribution to Thomas "seems to be a secondary, late development." The original language of the document may have been either Syriac or Greek. The Greek manuscripts date from the fourteenth through the sixteenth century, while the earliest manuscript is a sixth century one in Syriac. Cameron thinks that the longer Greek recension more accurately preserves the text.

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas relates the miraculous deeds of Jesus before he turned twelve. According to Cameron, it "carries forward the aretalogical tradition of the gospels, expanding it to include an enumeration of miraculous feats performed even while Jesus was a mere infant." Cameron identifies the Sitz im Leben of the gospel to be "Christian missionary propaganda" in exalting Jesus over and against other "divine men" and "all other religious and political leaders within the Greco-Roman world." There is nothing particularly Christian about the stories attributed to Jesus; rather, the stories elaborate on the missing years of Jesus with reference to Hellenistic legend and pious imagination.

In The Complete Gospels, Harold Attridge considers whether the Infancy Gospel of Thomas contains docetic or Gnostic teachings. Attridge states: "While Gnostics may have been able to interpret stories in Infancy Thomas for their own ends, it is unlikely that they originally composed the work with the aim of propagating their theological positions."

Hippolytus and Origen refer to a Gospel of Thomas, but it is unclear whether they knew the Infancy Gospel of Thomas or the sayings Gospel of Thomas. But there is an earlier reference from Irenaeus, as Cameron notes: "In his citation, Irenaeus first quotes a non-canonical story that circulated about the childhood of Jesus and then goes directly on to quote a passage from the infancy narrative of the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:49).

Since the Infancy Gospel of Thomas records both of these stories, in relative close proximity to one another, it is possible that the apocryphal writing cited by Irenaeus is, in fact, what is now known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Because of the complexities of the manuscript tradition, however, there is no certainty as to when the stories of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas began to be written down."

Thus, while our present Infancy Gospel of Thomas may have been expanded over time, the original must have been written sometime in the middle of the second century.



ZN

[Tomoz]

Originally Posted by Skillganon

Thanks for that.



Hey Tomoz.

Note this is not for debate, I do not wan't to hijack your thread, but just thought this might be an interest to you what is "highlighted red".

"Lo! I come unto you with a sign from your Lord. Lo! I fashion for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, and I breathe into it and it is a bird, by Allah's leave. I heal him who was born blind, and the leper, and I raise the dead, by Allah's leave. And I announce unto you what ye eat and what ye store up in your houses. Lo! herein verily is a portent for you, if ye are to be believers.

And (I come) confirming that which was before me of the Torah, and to make lawful some of that which was forbidden unto you. I come unto you with a sign from your Lord, so keep your duty to Allah and obey me.

Lo! Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. That is a straight path.] (Aal `Imran 3:49-51)

and


46. "He shall speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. And he shall be (of the company) of the righteous."
[Quran 3:46]
Peace.

Skill

Hi Skill, yeah I had heard that the bird trick was in the Quran...
When Jesus begins his ministry and visits his home town of Nazareth, the locals who grew up with him are all flabbergasted and think he's full of rubbish. If acts like the transformation of sparrows actually happened, the Nazareth locals wouldn't have been surprised at Jesus coming and performing miracles:

"Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offence at him. (Mark 6:2-3)

The only out-of-the ordinary story in the Bible from Jesus' youth is when, at the age of twelve, he astounds everyone with his questions and understanding at the Temple. And at this even his parents, who went through the virgin birth, are "astonished" (Luke 2:41-52).
If he was doing all of those other miraculous things, the temple episode should have been par for the course. Its this kind of thing that affirms for us that the Gnostic texts are unreliable.