Need some help regarding the Gnostics - a discussion with a Christian

by needproof 5 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  needproof

  Hi guys

  Well recently I was watching a documentary called 'The New Atlantis' concerning America's beginnings.

  The documentary clearly has a pro-Christian agenda, and one line in particular stood out for me. The narrator claims:

  "'known for rejecting the Gospels, the Gnostics claim to be the 'real Christians', an issue the apostles argued against in the New Testament'"

  Now the issue I brought up was concerning the Gnostics rejecting the Gospels. I argued that it was the Gnostics who came first and actually influenced Christianity, not the other way round.

  The producer/script writer has replied to my question, by saying:

  "By no means did the Gnostics come first -- and certainly not the Gnostic gospels. The Gnostics simply do not exist until after the coming of Jesus Christ and the preaching of the original gospel message. Why? Because the Gnostics came out of Alexandria, Egypt and were part of the Egyptian mystery schools. Gnosticism is what happens when you combine the Pagan mysteries with Christianity. This is the same principle involved in Roman Catholicism, Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. It is simply untrue to say that the Gnostic gospels came first"

  But is he right? I may well be mistaken for the Gnostic gospels came first claim (that which I never actually said) but I am convinced that the Gnostic Christians were in operation before Christ - not so much worshiping Jesus, but someone very similar to him. This is why early Church fathers readily admitted this fact.

  Can anybody please shed some light on this for me? Your brains will be very much appreciated.
• 

  AnnOMaly

  I'm sure others will chip in with all sorts of info, but here's a pointer as to the estimated dating of various writings:

  http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
• 

  Leolaia

  The gnostic gospels by and large are dependent on the canonical gospels, or date sometime later (e.g. second and third centuries AD). They frequently have readings that reflect second century AD gospel harmonies, or reflect specific redactions characteristic of the NT evangelists. There are also some early second century AD gospels (such as the Egerton Gospel, the Gospel of Peter, P Oxy 840) that could not justifiably be categorized as "gnostic" and which may be dependent on the canonical gospels (the evidence is more ambiguous here). Mark certainly is the earliest extant gospel we have, although the present text may be later than the version used by Matthew and Luke (i.e. Ur-Markus). There are however two gnostic or proto-gnostic gospels that may be exceptions to the norm. The Apocryphon of James shows clear familiarity with the canonical synoptic gospels, but it also utilizes independent gospel traditions that may well be early (cf. the Parable of the Date Palm in ch. 7 and the analysis by Ron Cameron). The Gospel of Thomas also has independent traditions that also appear to be quite early, and literarily this sayings gospel is quite a different animal than the rest of the "gnostic" gospel genre. April DeConick has put together a pretty convincing case that the "gnostic" or "proto-gnostic" material represents late inclusions and/or redactions of originally apocalyptic material (attesting the shift from imminent to realized eschatology found elsewhere in early Christian literature).

  As far gnosticism as a whole, this is a misleading term because it was not a unified, coherent system of belief; it was rather a loose constellation of related concepts that only became systematized over time and different ways....I think of it as a developing trend that matured in a wide variety of forms in the second and third centuries (e.g. Thomasian, Cerenthian, Marcionist, Valentinian, Sethian, etc. etc.). Early proto-gnosticism runs throughout the NT and early Christian literature, where you find some ideas later integrated into mature gnosticism (e.g. the world being ruled by archons and powers of evil who were humiliated in Christ's birth or death, inclusive and reciprocal divinity between God and his "children", the role of Christ and revealing the Father, the deep things of God, and the hidden wisom from before the foundations of the world, antinomianism, the embodiment of the pleroma "fullness" in Christ, etc.) without others like a demiurgical view of creation. The mysticism and realized eschatology of John, 1 Corinthians 1:17-4:13, Colossians, 1 John, Ignatius, the Odes of Solomon, etc. have much in common with gnosticism without being strictly "gnostic". Gnosticism and orthodoxy, rather, represent streams that flow from a shared source, and while gnosticism per se is only a Christian phenomenon, it too draws on concepts found in apocalyptic Judaism from the second century BC onward (especially in Enochic, Danielic, and later Essene forms of Judaism).
• 

  needproof

  Thanks for the link Ann, i'm checking that out

  Leo, he seems to think that the Gnostic thinkers only began to surface after Jesus, and were influenced by the Egyptians...
• 

  AnnOMaly

  Hi needproof.

  According to what I've read, Gnostic religion in all its variations had roots in pre-Christian Hellenistic mystery religions - so you are right that in a sense Gnostics were there first. But in harmony with what Leolaia said, when Jesus arrived on the scene, the Gnostics incorporated him into their old traditions and as a result hybrid religions formed. Generally, they rejected the OT, Judaism and YHWH as primitive and evil, and they were very choosy about which Christian gospels/epistles could be taken as authoratitive (they often liked Paul). It appears that they saw themselves as a reformation of NT Christianity and some of them claimed they had direct revelation from the risen Christ which reinterpreted or superceded the NT record. Therefore, according to my own limited knowledge of the subject, I believe you are mistaken in thinking that the Gnostic Christians came before or were the precursor to orthodox Christianity in the very early days.
• 

  Hellrider

  He`s not right, and you`re not right...

  The question "who came first" is meaningless. The gnostic cults grew and developed during the 2nd century in the Roman and Alexandrian schools founded by Valentius, but that does not mean that these cults didn`t exist before this! There is knowledge about christianity from the 2nd century, and from the 3rd century there is tons of information, but very little is known about christianity of the first century. Unlike what most christians of today wants to believe (especially the Jehovahs Witnesses), christianity of the first century was not a group of congregations that all held to the same doctrines. There were all sorts of thoughts and doctrines, the different congregations even read different texts. So noone can speak of an "original" christianity at all (which is what would be necessary to argue that there was a clear distinction between "gnostics" and "christians" allready at this time, or that there was a united front against the gnostics). Further, gnostic thought is part of christianity today...both the Gospel of John and Revelation has gnostic elements in them. Your opponent wrote:

  Gnosticism is what happens when you combine the Pagan mysteries with Christianity.

  LoL. Well, christianity is what happens when you combine jewish religion with pagan mysteries and traditions. But of course, don`t tell him that...

  By the way, take a look at this site:

  http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

  ...you will see that the "gnostic" texts, the texts that the later "church" condemnded as heresies, are (almost) contemporary with the "christian" texts...they are dependent on the gospels, but the gospels alone is not what makes christianity what it is.