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Gospel of Thomas

JoStories

Well-Known Member
I never said anything about necessary. I was merely listing some of the differences between the two styles of writing.


How do you know this?
Because I have studied faith and Christianity for about 2 decades and have a Master's in theology and am almost done with my PhD. I know this from scholarly study of the writings and saying of Christ through ALL things attributed to him. I would recommend several excellent books but what I often find is that most Christians don't wish to actually think outside the confines of their faith to think with an open mind. I mean no disrespect by that but I have seen it in many settings. Have you read and studied not only all the books of the NT but also the excanonical books, such as GOT and the Nag Hammadi library? I love the Gospel of Mary Magdalene as well. Also excluded. Have you really asked yourself why certain ones were included and others excluded? On what basis? What was the historical import that influenced these men? Would women have made the same choices? Why or why not? What was it about those chosen that set them apart? When you can answer these and quite a few other pertinent questions, you might be able to explain to the rest of the group.
 

roger1440

I do stuff
Because I have studied faith and Christianity for about 2 decades and have a Master's in theology and am almost done with my PhD. I know this from scholarly study of the writings and saying of Christ through ALL things attributed to him. I would recommend several excellent books but what I often find is that most Christians don't wish to actually think outside the confines of their faith to think with an open mind. I mean no disrespect by that but I have seen it in many settings. Have you read and studied not only all the books of the NT but also the excanonical books, such as GOT and the Nag Hammadi library? I love the Gospel of Mary Magdalene as well. Also excluded. Have you really asked yourself why certain ones were included and others excluded? On what basis? What was the historical import that influenced these men? Would women have made the same choices? Why or why not? What was it about those chosen that set them apart? When you can answer these and quite a few other pertinent questions, you might be able to explain to the rest of the group.

Many of the Church fathers thought they were smart dudes too. They actually thought some hot Jewish chick got knocked up by God. So much for lots of studying, LOL
 

JoStories

Well-Known Member
Many of the Church fathers thought they were smart dudes too. They actually thought some hot Jewish chick got knocked up by God. So much for lots of studying, LOL
I see. So instead of wanting to have an at least partly intelligent discussion, you wish to resort to silly remarks and instantly close off your mind to questions of scholarly import. Carry on then. But please, refrain from speaking to me as I prefer to talk with people of at least a modicum of integrity.
 

Unification

Well-Known Member
How is that gospel any more or less reliable than another? On what do you base your suppositions? All of the gospels that were included were random. Men chose what would be included and there is no evidence that God inspired them. History points and we are discussing reliable historical data here, to the fact that they wanted a book that would define a religion that they could use to contain the masses. What is your criteria for inclusion or exclusion?

The criteria was agenda, theology and academia, power and control, money, a sky daddy, all the vain outwardness, and if one didn't believe in doctrination and theology, they were murdered. Knowledge "of" and not a radical internal transformation of mind and heart within, experience. Was changed from Christ "IN" you and the kingdom "within" you to all outwardness and vanity, everything of the world.
 

Unification

Well-Known Member
The tomb of the Jesus: the solar plexus as a whale shape in the belly/naval.
 

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outhouse

Atheistically
How do you know this?

Because she knows who Jesus was, better then you might ever understand.

He was an Aramaic Galilean Jew and I don't think you understand the basics as to what a first century Jew was.

The NT was written by Hellenist far removed from any actual event, we only have a one sided slight glimpse of the man.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Yeah, any guy that has the guts to meet Churchill half naked wearing nothing but a diaper we gotta give credit too.
Once he met the viceroy wearing pretty much the same and said that the viceroy wore enough for both of them.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
How is that gospel any more or less reliable than another? On what do you base your suppositions? All of the gospels that were included were random. Men chose what would be included and there is no evidence that God inspired them. History points and we are discussing reliable historical data here, to the fact that they wanted a book that would define a religion that they could use to contain the masses. What is your criteria for inclusion or exclusion?
It was anything but random.

1. Written by a recognized prophet or apostle

This did not cover every book of the Bible; in fact there are some books for which we simply do not know who the author is. Hebrews is one book that took a long time for the church to recognize; now, don't have in mind that the church just decrees that now this is authoritative. But it did take longer on some books than others for the church to come to recognize as authoritative. The book of Hebrews took longer because who is the author? By a number of other criteria (which we will come to), it is clear that Hebrews is inspired; it belongs in the canon, but authorship caused it to be accepted late. But many of the books of the Bible are able to be accepted by the fact that they are written by a recognized prophet, by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Moses, Paul or Peter. So there are a lot of books that are pretty clear cut because of the author.

But it just so happens that Hebrews is the most textually accurate book in the NT.

2. Written by those associated with recognized prophet or apostle

These are books written by those associated with a recognized prophet or apostle who obviously learned from the apostle or prophet, and therefore the book is recognized really as under his supervision or teaching or instruction. The clearest case of this would be Luke and Acts. They comprise a lot of the New Testament in terms of total pages. That is a big volume of our New Testament that is not written by an apostle, but Luke traveled with Paul and learned from Paul. As he explains in Luke 1, he worked very hard to represent accurately from sources which he gathered what was true about Christ, his life, ministry, teaching, death and resurrection. So close proximately to an apostle or prophet was an important aspect.

3. Truthfulness (Deut. 18:20-22)

Truthfulness of the writing. If anything were found in a writing that was not true, it would be dismissed as not from God. God himself said in Deuteronomy 18:20-22 that if a prophet claims to be speaking from me, and what he said is not true, then he has not spoken from me. It is not from the Lord if that is the case. You can see why inerrantists are so insistent on the accuracy of the Bible. God himself goes on record. If it is from God, it has to be accurate.

4. Faithfulness to previously accepted canonical writings

This is where Hebrews shines, in terms of the Church's acceptance of it. Hebrews not only agrees with, but helps explain and bring to greater clarity, what has been taught in the Old Covenant (Old Testament); it is now seen anew in Christ and the New Covenant is so beautifully displayed.

5. Confirmed by Christ, prophet, apostle (e.g. Luke 24:44; 2 Pet. 3:16)

The whole Old Testament, although this was not convincing to Jewish scholars (to Judaism in the first century); the Christian Church has had no difficulty accepting the 39 books of the Old Testament because of what Jesus said in Luke 24:24-27,44. You will recall when Jesus met the two on the road to Emmaus and was talking with them. That is clearly a reference to the Old Testament that was used and accepted in the days of Jesus.

Now the New Testament becomes, as we have alluded to, a more difficult matter in some books. 2 Peter 3:16 is interesting. There is obviously an awareness in the first century, an apostolic awareness, that more Scripture was being written. Paul himself understands what he wrote was the Word of God. Peter, in 2 Peter 3:16, understands what Paul wrote as Scripture. Paul himself refers to his own writings with language like that. 1 Thess 2:13 For this reason, we also constantly thank God that when you received the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.

6. Church Usage and Recognition

Ultimately, what happened was that these letters circulated and more and more groups of Christian people were edified by these writings and came to witness together that these writings were from God. The Church used these writings and was deeply edified by them; they were believed over time that they were from God, and so the final acceptance of the recognition of the 66 books of the Bible as Scripture took place at the Senate of Carthage in A. D. 397. That is not to say that prior to that there was not wide recognition of most of the Bible (we are talking here mostly about the New Testament; the Old Testament Books were never in question because of the dominical approval in Luke 24 when Christ says the Law, the Prophets and the Writings). Some of the New Testament books took longer for them to accept, but most of them were accepted by the first century. There were some that took longer: 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Hebrews. Those took longer. But by 397, at the council of Carthage, they were accepted by the Church and have been ever since as canonical.
What criteria were used to determine the canon of Scripture? | Free online Bible classes | BiblicalTraining.org

Did you see my post where I showed the mutually exclusive claims made about the exact same primary doctrines of Christians. It is not possible that bot the NT gospels are correct and the GoT as well. They say diametrically opposed things and in emphatic ways. I do not have to show the GoT is unreliable. I only have to show it is less reliable that at least 4 other works stating things in a consistent manner. Unless the textual pedigree of GoT exceeds all four NT gospels I can reasonably reject it.
 

outhouse

Atheistically

JoStories

Well-Known Member
2. Written by those associated with recognized prophet or apostle


I mean no disrespect by this but I don't have the time or patience to read overly long posts. Therefore, I am only reading the bolded section heads.
Regarding the above, not one of the gospels contained in the Bible were written in a time frame that would indicate they were written within the lifespan of any one who knew Christ. And even if I accept your aforementioned premise, was not Thomas also associated with Christ? He was, after all, one of the 12 disciples. So does that not mean he would have been associated with him?

3. Truthfulness (Deut. 18:20-22)

How do you know what was truthful in the writings? Do you have something that other Biblical scholars don't? We have very little historical evidence to indicate what was truthful of the writings and what wasn't. Who is to say that Thomas was not truthful? It is much more in keeping with the things that Christ taught than the gospels contained in the Bible and this is particularly true of those writings attributed to Paul. Paul never met Christ and halluncinations do not count. Thomas did know Christ and taught the things that Christ taught.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Sounds good to me. Though to be honest I don't think that the existence of this new text harms nor hurts the existing scripture.
Me neither because I don't consider it authoritative on anything except from Gnosticism which I dismiss. I think it completely irrelevant to the bible.
 
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