Christianity and Gnosticism

[Honza]

I have finally understood why so many New Age theories end up in the Christian section. Simply put the truth is that many of the members who post here are Christian Gnostics. If you are not sure what a Gnostic is then look it up it is very interesting.

There are ties between Gnosticism and all world religions. Gnosticism existed before Christianity and I'm sure many Gnostics follow Christ with the belief that they can become God too. There is a fundamental difference between a Christian Gnostic and a traditional follower of Christianity.

I think the two paths get confused in this section and I ask that we explore this subject and settle our differences. In a way Gnosticism deserves its own section at SF. The Gnostics also ought to understand that most Christians do not believe they are God. Neither do most Jews or Muslims.

The belief that I AM God is a minority spiritual path. Most spiritual people don't follow that path. The Gnostics ought to respect that.

[django]

Maybe gnosticism started in Judaism just before Jesus, and when the Jesus message came along they twisted it to suit gnostic philosophy.

So now they think they know 'the real Jesus' and believe that Christians have been fooled by the church.

Gnosticism is a perfect new age philosophy, palatable Christianity for those unwilling to accept a higher authority than themselves.

[django]

From one gnostic thinker:

Now we will take a look at what Primordial Gnosis tells us about this process of liberation of the Spirit.

In order to start the process, man must choose one of his selves, the strongest one, the one most similar to his Spirit. The other selves do not matter, only that one matters, the self of the Spirit. There are many selves in every man, but only one corresponds to the Spirit. The rest are selves of the soul. These latter ones encourage man to "love God" "love his neighbour", "turn the other cheek", "share everything with others", "cooperate in the work of God", etc. On the contrary, the self of the Spirit is the greatest opponent of the creator and his creation. It is essential to distinguish between the self that corresponds to the Spirit and the Unknowable God, on one hand, and the other selves, the true legions of the devils, on the other.

The Spirit in man represents the Unknowable God. The body and soul of man represent the creator god. This is what we must distinguish between: the good and the evil within man.

They associate body and soul with the demiurge, a lesser and evil god that created matter, and that has imprisoned our spirit in matter. Liberation of the spirit from its prison in matter is to attain True Salvation.

I agree that we are imprisoned, but not in our bodies, more in lower states of consciousness. Raising consciousness seems to me to be the way to the Kingdom of God within, not escaping our bodies. Jesus himself referred to his body as a temple which he would raise after being torn down, and in Corinthians this idea is extended with "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."

[Rah nam]

Originally Posted by django

Maybe gnosticism started in Judaism just before Jesus, and when the Jesus message came along they twisted it to suit gnostic philosophy.

So now they think they know 'the real Jesus' and believe that Christians have been fooled by the church.

Gnosticism is a perfect new age philosophy, palatable Christianity for those unwilling to accept a higher authority than themselves.

You make me laugh, weren't all early Christians Jews?
The Gnostics where the early Christians until Christianity cam to Rome, there is was twisted and turned into what we have today, And still controlled by the Romans today. And all who didn't adopt the washed out version of Christianity were eradicated, almost all.

[django]

From the online encyclopedia britannica

Although gnostic movements of various types flourished in the formative period of Christianity, they were likely a minority in most places. At a time when there was still no fixed Christian Bible or uniform church organization, their often elaborate creation myths and eschatologies constituted some of the earliest attempts at a systematic articulation of Christian beliefs. Fundamental features of what eventually became Christian orthodoxy were shaped through controversy over such doctrines. For example, the arguments by which orthodox Christians defended so basic a doctrine as that Jesus was the son of the same God who gave the Torah to Moses were forged amid polemic against demiurgical myths such as those found in the Nag Hammadi writings. The orthodox creed that Jesus truly suffered and yet was fully divine as well as fully human was decisively influenced by early controversies over views found in Valentinian and similar traditions, which seemed to deny any real human incarnation to the divine Saviour.

[sky]

Originally Posted by django

Maybe gnosticism started in Judaism just before Jesus, and when the Jesus message came along they twisted it to suit gnostic philosophy.

So now they think they know 'the real Jesus' and believe that Christians have been fooled by the church.

Gnosticism is a perfect new age philosophy, palatable Christianity for those unwilling to accept a higher authority than themselves.

The first Christians, as described in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, were all Jews.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Rah nam

You make me laugh, weren't all early Christians Jews?
The Gnostics where the early Christians until Christianity cam to Rome, there is was twisted and turned into what we have today, And still controlled by the Romans today. And all who didn't adopt the washed out version of Christianity were eradicated, almost all.

It amazes me how some ' Christians ' really know very little about Christianity and how it started, I am laughing with you

[django]

Originally Posted by sky123

The first Christians, as described in the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, were all Jews.

Jewish Christians were the original members of the Jewish movement that later became Christianity. In the earliest stage the community was made up of all those Jews who accepted Jesus as the Jewish messiah. As Christianity grew and developed, Jewish Christians became only one strand of the early Christian community, characterised by combining the confession of Jesus as Christ with continued adherence to Jewish traditions such as Sabbath observance, observance of the Jewish calendar, observance of Jewish laws and customs, circumcision, and synagogue attendance, and by a direct genetic relationship to the earliest Jewish Christians.

The term "Jewish Christian" appears in historical texts contrasting Christians of Jewish origin with Gentile Christians, both in discussion of the New Testament church and the second and following centuries. It is also a term used for Jews who converted to Christianity but kept their Jewish heritage and traditions.

So the first Christians were Jewish Christians, why is this an issue?

[django]

The first Christians (the disciples or students of Jesus) were essentially all ethnically Jewish or Jewish proselytes. In other words, Jesus was Jewish, preached to the Jewish people and called from them his first disciples. Jewish Christians regarded "Christianity" as an affirmation of every aspect of contemporary Judaism, with the addition of one extra belief — that Jesus was the Messiah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple_Judaism

Philosophically, how Jewish are the gnostic texts?

Jesus is recorded as saying "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus speaking the strange things in the gnostic texts is laughable when you consider he was a thoroughly observant Jew, with apocalyptic tendencies (which were common in his time).

[Honza]

Originally Posted by django

So the first Christians were Jewish Christians, why is this an issue?

It isn't an issue. The early followers of Jesus had to be Jews or some other religion because Christianity did not exist yet.