Gnostic Gospels Introducers Eleanor 97121256 Ivy 97121116 Introduction

Gnostic Gospels Introducers: Eleanor 97121256 Ivy 97121116

Introduction The Gnostic Gospels are gnostic collections of writings about the teachings of Jesus, written from the 2 nd - 4 th century AD. These gospels are not part of the standard Biblical canon of any major Christian denomination, and as such are part of what is called the New Testament apocrypha. Recent novels and films that refer to the gospels have spurred public interest.

History The word gnostic comes from the Greek word “gnosis”, meaning "knowledge", which is often used in Greek philosophy in a manner more consistent with the English "enlightenment”. According to the evidence, it suggests that Gnosticism was a Jewish movement which subsequently reacted to Christianity or that Gnosticism emerged directly in reaction to Christianity. The name "Christian gnostics" came to represent a segment of the Early Christian community that believed the salvation lay not in merely worshipping Christ, but in psychic or pneumatic souls learning to free themselves from the material world via the revelation. Furthermore, the gnostic path does not require the intermediation of a church for salvation. Some scholars, such as Edward Conze and Elaine Pagels, have suggested that gnosticism blends teachings like those attributed to Jesus Christ with teachings found in Eastern traditions. [

The documents which comprise the collection of gnostic gospels were not discovered at a single time, but rather as a series of finds. The Nag Hammadi Library was discovered accidentally by two farmers in December 1945 and was named for the area in Egypt where it had been hidden for centuries. Other documents included in what are now known as the gnostic gospels were found at different times and locations, such as : 1. the Gospel of Mary: It was recovered in 1896 as part of the Akhmim Code and published in 1955. 2. the Gospel of Mary Magdalene: There is only one copy that is currently known to exist.

Although the manuscripts discovered at Nag Hammadi are generally dated to the 4 th century, there are some debates regarding the original composition of the texts. A wide range and the majority of scholars date authorship of the Gnostic gospel of Nag Hammadi to the second and third century. Scholars with a focus on Christianity tend to date the gospels mentioned by Irenaeus to the 2 nd century, and the gospels mentioned solely by Jerome to the 4 th century. The traditional dating of the gospels derives primarily from this division.

Other scholars with a deeper focus on pagan and Jewish literature of the period tend to date primarily based on the type of the work, such as: 1. The Gospel of Thomas 2. The Gospel of the Lord 3. The Gospel of Truth Some gnostic gospels (for example Trimorphic Protennoia) make use of fully developed Neoplatonism and thus need to be dated after Plotinus in the 3 rd century.

Gnosticism

Gnosticism God produces gods that don‘t know God; where the earth —in fact, all the material Universe—is a big mistake Gnosticism envisaged the world as a series of emanations from the highest "One", that produced a series of emanations. The lowest emanation was an evil god (the demiurge) who created the material world as a prison for the divine sparks that dwell in human bodies. The true world is spirit, and the material realm is a snare from which we must escape.

Reawakened by knowledge, the divine element in humanity can return to its proper home in the transcendent spiritual realm. Gnostics knew nothing of the redemption of the body Gnosticism is loaded with Buddhism and other Eastern religious themes, and draws heavily on Platonism.

The Gospel of Judah the Gospel of Judas appears to interpret Judas's act not as betrayal, but rather as an act of obedience to the instructions of Jesus. ● This portrayal seems to conform to a notion current in some forms of Gnosticism, that the human form is a spiritual prison, and that Judas thus served Christ by helping to release Christ's spirit from its physical constraints. ●

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