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Originally Posted by Scholarly Tarot
Lorelyen,
Yer a Gospel of Thomas reader too?! I honestly think the Gnostics get too bad of a rap sometimes. Pagels "Beyond Belief" is one of the singular coolest books I have ever read where she compares and contrasts Thomas with one of the Gospels in the NT, can't remember which one, it's been a while since I read her. I ended up going Gnostic crazy and buying up as much as I could even getting the Pistis Sophia and the Books of Jeu, and all the writings on Mary Magdalene as I could. I think as a foil (maybe) for the canonical stuff, the Gnostics are quite a cool balancer. I have a book by ole whatshisname.....um, Klimkeit, I think, on the Gnostics from Manichaeanism that is absolutely over the top amazing with the texts out of ancient Iraq/Iran instead of the Egyptian ones they found in 1945.
Hey, we are gonna have fun talkin Thomas. I shall have to begin re-reading it however, it's been awhile. I think the most analysis of the Gnostics was Thomas. LeLoup has many cool translations of many texts and several on the Gospel of Magdalene, a very fascinating look into a canonical character. I think the Gnostic materials fill in so much for us, even though they aren't Orthodox, thank God! LOL!
Hey, after all, when, I ask you humbly, when has Orthodoxy EVER gotten it right... right?!
Be good, and so nice talking with you, looking forward to a lot more, a whole lot more, this is great.
EDIT: 15 minutes later:
OK, I went down into my library and found Pagels "Beyond Belief." It was the Gospel of John! How on this loving earth could I forget THAT?! LOL What a dork I am. Interestingly she contends John was written as a protest against Gospel of Thomas! I had forgotten that too. Wowsah....hey! She wrote this in 2003?!? That is ILLEGAL! How on earth could it already be 18 years later??? I remember acting like a kid in a candy store when I went and got it from the bookstore the moment it showed up. That can't have been 18 YEARS ago........good grief. Well hey, on a positive note we can all now say we are 18 years wiser. NOT older.......lets get wiser....LOL.
Also the book by Klimkeit, it is Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, "Gnosis on the Silk Road" and he wrote that in 1993??? I also remember getting this one thrilled outta my gourd! I swear this was just yesterday. It's just not fair I say, time has no respect, it won't slow down. I swear it's not my fault. I refuse to be held responsible. Just like a man isn't it, don't take responsibility for anything? LOL! It's a very good book with lots of text from Mazda as well as Hymns to the Father of Light various parables, and a huge section on Jesus the Splendour. Some fascinating junk, as I have time I shall share some of it.
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Well, you certainly hit on a few good books. I have Pagels' the Gnostic Gospels somewhere. I haven't looked for the Klimkeit and never tried with the Pistis more for want of time - but you're right, how time flies!
The question of Mary intrigues me. I refuse to go along with a lot of New Age rubbish rewriting her story, inventing her past and supposing over her future.
Please excuse a mini-rant!
What’s galls me is when I see romantic authors, pseudo-gurus and miscreants taking advantage of a too-gullible public in the “Spiritual” market place with their populist tripe, often using a famous name as a platform for their own spoutings! It exploded after Brown and the Da Vinci code.
That’s happened with Mary Magdala. A decade ago there was just a couple of books about her. Now, there are dozens, these authoresses (mostly) rewriting what’s there to fit their own agenda. “Mary the Queen” “Mary the feminist here to teach us a way out of today’s human problems.” Forget the Jesus thing. It’s Mary who walks with us and guides us through the challenges of everyday life, the pain, the suffering…! Do leave off….
Never let facts stand in the way of a good story!
Phew, that's better.
I just accept the wisdoms that are there. Not difficult but these days, I suppose, people want their explanations, maybe don't enquire further about gnosticism and the earliest "Christianity"!
The intro to Jean-Yves Leloup (The Gospel of Mary Magdalene) rings true about the esoteric:
The immensity of Christianity takes its interior meaning as a sign of the immensity within the self of every human being. As a path of inner awakening, as a path of self-knowledge (that is to say ‘gnosis’) it invites and supports the inner struggle to attend to, to ‘hear and obey’ one’s own self, God in oneself. As the author suggests this is the intimate meaning of Anthropos, to be fully human oneself, the incarnation of God.
This is an unknown teaching – not in the philosophical or theological sense nor in the sense that it has never been said before, but in the sense that our ordinary thoughts and feelings can never really penetrate it. And it is unknown in the sense that we live our lives on the surface of ourselves, not knowing the one thing about our own being that is necessary for us to know and that would bring us every good that we could wish for.
We are speaking of an unknown part of ourselves, which is at the same time an essential part of ourselves: the teacher within, our genuine identity.
Which, I suppose, is what you said in your opening post!
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