Banned From The Bible (History Channel)

[phrenzy]

Wow. Anybody watch this. I never knew anything about the 'Gnostic' writings - And the 'Gospel Of Mary' - It's shame this form of Gnostic Christianity didn't win out over what we ended up with. It sounds much more introspective and less hostile toward women.

Also, after hearing all of these 'excluded' gospels, how do Christians reconcile them with what ended up being included in the 'official' bible. It's so ridiculous. The bible is obviously a political document. You would think that Christians would read ALL of the gospels, not just the ones various political figures throughout history deemed convenient to include.

[BikeWriter]

1. The Bibble?

:shrug:

[cleofus1]

2. the plural

of babble

[BikeWriter]

6. Oh, okay. Thanks for the explanation.

[JVS]

3. Isn't that the alien from chapelle?

[BikeWriter]

7. I hought that was Ripple?

:shrug:

[JVS]

8. That's the shit fred sanford always drank

[BikeWriter]

10. Hee hee hee! Yep, he was one of my role models...

[China_cat]

4. Google the Gospel of the Infancy

if you want a good one. They probably left that one out. And, if you're interested, there's the Nag Hamadi Library...right around $20 in soft cover. That one has a gospel that shows Jesus still around and kibbitzing over 2 years after the supposed ascension.

[NMMNG]

5. It's all political

What got written, what got included in the "official" Bible, how it is translated, etc. That's why I wonder how people can take that book so literally.

[XemaSab]

11. They seriously took a vote on it.

:eyes:

[NMMNG]

15. I can imagine

Oooh, this is too liberal--it goes
This one says women can teach men--it goes
This one doesn't say gays are an abomination--burn it!
:eyes:

[Robeson]

12. Bingo. It was more about later imperial Rome, than anything....

...it was a book, edited by politicians and clerics, for politcal reasons.

[RebelOne]

13. My father, who was an atheist, as I am, read the bible

7 times. His theory was that it is a collection of contempory novels.

[Robeson]

14. You're correct, I should have edited my post to say it wasn't an edited...

...book, as much as a series of pamphlets written over several years, and edited and redacted. Most importantly, none of them are contemporary with the time that the supposed "Christ" lived.

[NMMNG]

16. That is essentially what it is

An anthology of novels and poetry, which many believe to be divine utterances/history.

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. You are straying from the realm of accuracy here

What got written was not political, nor are translations political - the King James Version, maybe, but not really so.

I don't know of any books that were written for political reasons - even the Old Testament history books, some of which certainly have a political bent ("God gave us the land of Canaan" is a somewhat poilitical statement), are not political - they are an attempt to put a political history into a theological context. I don't know of any New Testament book that was written for political reasons; they were writing out of faith and a need to tell the readers either who Jesus was (the gospels) or how to act and be the church (the letters).

And of course, the Book of Revelation is what is - an apocalypse, which one could claim is political because it is saying to the Christians, "Hey - hold out and endure, because God is gonna destroy the Roman Empire soon".

The determination of what of the letters and gospels circulating around the churches to make canonical was a political process somewhat, but not entirely so; it was also an act of faith, and I'm sure that most, if not all, of the people present at the many councils were good and faithful people trying as much as they could to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit.

And of course, the Book of Revelation was debated heavily at the time as to whether it should be included, and that debate continues - Luther wanted it out, as have many others over the last 1700 years.

It does a great disservice to claim that the Bible was formed purely through political motivation and process.

And it is especially ignorant to say that the writing of the books and the translations are politically motivated. They are in the sense that there is nothing that we do that is not, at some level, a political act; but one clearly cannot take the tack that it is pure politics.

If one is going to disparage (or celebrate) something, one should at least be doing so accurately and not from a seat of ignorance.

[MountainLaurel]

25. They don't know about it

Seriously. I was raised in an independent Baptist church, but had areligious parents, and I NEVER heard about the Gnostic gospels, Nag Hammadi, the Gospel of Thomas. The history of the bible was never taught in any way, shape, or form during the 12-plus years I attended churches like that. NEVER. It was only after college that I picked up a book on women's spirituality (and recovering from the emotional abuse that the Big Three religions dole out to women) that I even heard of them.

These people do not know the history behind their own faith, except a few comments about the split from the idol-worshipping Catholics over the buying of salvation (their words, not mine). To teach them about it would create the potential for the whole house of cards to fall; heaven knows that's one of the things that did it for me. But I was an anomaly: I was a woman who loved to learn and didn't "know my place," and sought information on my own. That's the only way most fundamentalists would ever hear about these facts, and those that would take such initiative are probably already pariahs in their faith for various reasons.

[bridgit]

9. i know huh, makes'ya wonder...

http://www.pseudepigrapha.com/pseudepigrapha/TheBookOfAdam.htm

[lakemonster11]

17. One of my friends in college, a Catholic religion major,

was obsessed with the apocrypha, especially the Gospel of Thomas.

I learned a lot about gnosticism and the apocryphal gospels from him. Pretty interesting stuff.

[Popol Vuh]

18. I posted a link about Gnostic's

In the Religion forum and got ridiculed from people who haven't experienced what I personally have.

Below are some links to a website where I am taking a 9 week course to improve my ability to project.

I know it sounds crazy, I don't deny that. But it doesn't matter to me what it sounds like because I know from my own experience what millions of people from all cultures all through history have also experienced. That we exist in a multiple universe occupying the same space/time much like all the different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation does. And with proper training and practice, you can project yourself to these.

I would post where I have projected, but that would probably attract un-welcomed attention. I would post what I have experienced, but most people find it too incredible to believe - so I don't bother.


I know what this makes me look like posting this. But like I said, it doesn't matter to me. Because I know what I can do, and I know what I have personally experienced.



http://www.gnosticweb.com/index.php?PageID=59

http://www.gnosticweb.com/index.php?PageID=114

http://www.gnosticweb.com/index.php?PageID=333

[Clintmax]

19. We need Greekspeak for this conversation.

He is working on his Doctorate in just this very field. He has studied, in depth, this subject. Once he gets up, I'll have him log on and shed some light on this for you because he can tell you the real reason these works are not included in the bible and everything else you want to know. :hi:

[NMMNG]

21. Now that I would love to read

I look forward to his post, which I'll have to catch when I come back tonight. :thumbsup:

[mrbill]

20. anybody every read "the essene gosphel of peace"? - MCMLXXV

mother earth, father sky stuff.

women used to play a major role in myth/religion.

then the thunder gods took over.

[William Bloode]

22. Check this site out.

This site has a lot of information on Gnostic books, as well as information on much earlier bible faux pauxs. This will give you information on how the whole 9yrds may have come to be. Information on how god is really a conglomeration of older gods, and how at one time god was even actually married. Evidence of how they have been changing the bible all along, to fit a certain view. Not just the rantings of a critic either as it's all backed theory by archeology.

Check it out. It's chock fulla info that will keep you busy for quite some time. Also has a nice reading list for further study.

www.bibleorigins.net

[greekspeak]

24. Good morning...I am here to add my two cents' worth as biblical scholar

What you say about politics and what did and did not make it in the Bible is oh so accurate. But politics with a lower case "c" until Constantine the Great, then politics with a big "C" takes over. I am in the middle of a lecture on this subject to my Intro New Testament class. In the 1st and 2nd centuries, there really was no "canon" (set body) of scripture for Christian writings. We find a canon from ca. 200 with only 22 of the 27 books in the NT, but that includes now non-canonical (outside an accepted body) writings such as the Apocalypse of Peter and Shepherd of Hermas. But as time wore on, and the dogma and doctrine of the church became more set and honed, "heresies" (a fancy name for doctrines that "lost") got weeded out. A lot of non-canonical materials in the first centuries were excluded simply because they were used by gnostics and other "heretics". By the mid 4th century, we actually do have a canon of the 27 books just as they exist in the New Testament today. This comes from Athenasius in 367. This became the model for the accepted canon of today. But still, other canons were floating around. Some were smaller--Revelation and the Epistle to the Hebrews were especially hard pills for many Christians to swallow. Others were bigger-we find key manuscripts in the 4th century that still include books like the Shepherd of Hermas.

Once Constantine took over and the Christian Church and the Roman Government began melding, ideals like a strictly set canon became very important. The government wanted to use Christianity as a tool to unite the empire. Without unity in the church, there would be no unity in the empire, it was thought. So heretics, along with pagans, became especially major enemies. Orthodoxy was the order of the day.

I am going to suggest some books that people may want to dig up on Amazon. One is a two volume work edted by Wilhelm Schneemelcher and called "New Testament Apocrypha." It is what it says it is: tons of stuff that did not make it in the canon. It includes various acts of apostles, apocalypses, gospels, teachings. There s another set of companion books called "The Lost Books of the Bible" and the "Forgotten Books of Eden." The former contains the more well-known New Testament apocryphal works not found in the Schneemelcher set, while the later contains apocryphal books not in the Hebrew Scriptures, aka the Old Testament. There is another book, edited by a chap named Charlesworth, called Old Testament Pseudepigrapha that serves as a sort of Old Testament counterpart to Schneemelcher.

Keep in mind that these are all fair sized books. Keep further in mind that they, along with books in the Christian Bible, hardly represent all "lost" works." We would have MANY volumes more had they all survived!

WHEW that was a long winded post.

[NMMNG]

27. Thank you for sharing this greekspeak

I might just go digging into these lost scriptures to see what people were so afraid of.

I've been slowly collecting Buddhist scriptures and have already noticed that their volume far surpasses that of the Christian Bible. Perhaps the Buddhists didn't have anything they felt the need to hide. ;-)

[Loonman]

26. Yeah, that was pretty cool

Very informative.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

28. www.gnosis.org

This site has the actual texts of the scriptures in question. Click "Library" to read the Gospel of Thomas, etc. It is truly enlightening stuff for those who dare question the sanctity of the "received canon."

http://www.gnosis.org/library.html