Nag Hamadi codices and Gnostic society. Any insight from both Christians and non-Christians please?

Question

Take a good look on these links:
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesia_Gnostica

This is the newfound scriptures written on the same period as our new testament. According to this Gnostic Society, there were many Christian tradition in 2nd - 3rd century, among them were at least two big tradition, the first was Pauline tradition which shapes our Christianity today, and the second was the Gnostic society, which believe in reincarnation, and also different paradigm of salvation.

The Gnostic society, so this website claimed, were eradicated by the Catholic church at the time, and proclaimed it as heresy.

Answer 1

The treasure of the Nag Hamadi could not have been brought into the light at a more auspicious time – as the One called Jesus told his followers when he walked this earth, “look to the man with the water pot…” He was referring to the Aquarian age, which we are blessed to be living in now, where the First Ordinance is weakening and those who enter The Door can clearly see the adversaries and their influences upon us, the seed of Light.

As with all metaphysical paths to learn and understand is a journey that is best taken alone. By that, I mean it does the seeker no good to turn to other humans on earth for divine illumination – we are designed by The Pre-Existent One (the Father Jesus spoke of in The Lord’s Prayer) to both receive and emanate Spirit – that Which Is.

To truly succeed and gain dominion (conscious union with the beloved Spirit), a person must make the Father first in their life. All else is secondary.

Since ALL thoughts (yes all of them, even the smallest nuance), are known to those in the higher worlds or emanations, and that we here on earth are so tuned in to the gloom of this place, it is so very important for the seeker to first enter The Door – that door is our Lord and Savior, the One called Jesus. He is also known as Seth and as Zoroaster. The advanced teaching discovered at Nag Hamadi will provide much information for the seeker’s intellect – and if one has asked the Savior into their heart so that they know and are known, that one is safe and is completely mentored so that understanding is made manifest and that soul is truly saved.

I urge you and all seekers of Truth to approach such teaching as the Nag Hamadi and the Dead Sea Scrolls with an open mind. And I pray for all the Beloveds who will awaken. Bless us all.

Answer 2

I looked at your sites. I've seen the same kind of pseudo-scholarship before. Gnostic Christianity is not some kind of "long lost original" Christianity, but just a heresy, and centuries younger than the original at that.

The word "Gnostic" is actually an umbrella term for many different heretical religious sects. These groups arose primarily around 400 A.D. Rather than being some kind of "long lost Christianity" or "original Christianity" which you might have read about, this is far from the truth. No Gnostic scriptures have been found older than the 5th century A.D. Gnosticism was a rebellion against traditional Christian beliefs and attempted to combine Paganism with Christianity. Some Gnostic groups had beliefs that often contradicted the beliefs of other Gnostic groups. The one thing thay all had in common was that all of these groups departed from the orthodox Christian faith. Some of the various beliefs of these groups included:

*A belief in reincarnation

* That Lucifer and Christ were brothers

* That Jesus was not the only begotten Son of God

*That Jesus was actually the Archangel Michael

*That Jesus was all divine and not man

*That Jesus and Christ were two separate beings

*That the Creator God of the Old Testament was evil

* A rejection of all the sacred books of the Old Testament

*That John the Baptist was actually the Messiah, not Jesus

*That Satan is really Christ’s father and the God of the Old Testament is the Devil

*That salvation came through good works alone, and not grace

* A belief in magic words and magic spells

*That women were inferior to men and some groups believed were incapable of salvation

* That sex between men and women was evil

*That the "villains" of the Bible (i.e., Cain, Simon Magus, the Serpent, Goliath, etc) were actually the "good guys". A sort of "Biblical character inversion".

* That The Serpent of the Garden of Eden was actually good and that God was evil

* The worship of the Greek goddess of wisdom, "Sophia"

*That homosexuality was permissible and the only sex human beings should have

*That every sin in the Bible was a virtue and held orgies as part of their rites

Answer 3

There were likely more that just two, the shades of Grey between Gnostic Christians and those of the more Orthodox faith were also very likely many. The claims are mostly true, the real message of Jesus is far too simple and beautiful to build a structured church upon in those days. I hope the time is here and now for growing Gnostic's faith.

The truth of the "Gospels of Thomas" from the first I read it made me a Gnostic Christan on the path to awakening.

-I search every day-

Answer 4

Love your neighbor as yourself, this was taught by Jesus, I have been to Miss, and NO, seen no agnostics there working their tails off for nothing. No muslims either for that matter, ask the people of Lakeshore Miss. where the worst of the storm went thru, they will tell you who comes and works, who loves unconditionally. Christians, now not every Christian is perfect, I am not, and neither is other Christians, but we do love and we do give and we do pray. There are not different traditions. Jesus is Jesus, the same yesterday and today and forever. He does not change, people change and try to invent new ways of discouraging people from becoming Christians, all these new books about the Gospels suddenly coming out now saying just the opposite of the Bible, doesn't that seem a little strange to you. It sure seems strange to me, For the love of money is the root of all evil, 1 Tim. 6:10, thats what they want, more money. Money MOney.

Answer 5

I've been reading the Gospel of Thomas recently. It's very interesting.

I don't really get into gnostic teaching, but I do think that "mainstream" Christianity was based on one particular expression among many. "Orthodoxy" insisted that everyone squeeze into the same mold if they wanted to be called Christian--which has led to an insane amount of persecution in the centuries following.

Paul invented Christianity as it is practiced today. To follow Jesus' teachings alone would result in a religion very different than what is called Christianity.

Answer 6

There's also Coptic Christianity (based in Egypt) and Ethiopian Christianity which are separate traditions to the Pauline tradition (Catholic Church / Greek Orthodoxy). Both were established before the Council of Nicea in 325AD

Answer 7

It is the Gnostic's which made it possible for me to come back to full force believe in Christ. It only made sense to me that God didn't need any kind of sacrifice to forgive people. And the woes we go through made no sense to me either. Reading the Gnostic's, I can now understand, accept and feel so much closer to God than ever before. Christ did not need to be sacrificed in order for God to forgive us, people needed Christ to be sacrificed in order to believe they are forgiven. Reincarnation was taught in the Bible, loose ends are left over. Think of the man who was blind from birth that Jesus healed. Apostles asked why this man was blind, because of something he did, or something his parents did. How else could it be something he did if her were blind from birth unless he was reincarnated? Think about it, and look for other loose ends. There's another from John the Baptist while he was locked up. Check it out.
Blessed Be

Answer 8

I think at one time probably the majority of those who called themselves Christians where actually Gnostics. It is an entirely different, and very esoteric mystery religion, much more in line with the prevailing Greek religions of the day, than with the staid and more understandable Jewish Scriptures.

Answer 9

I believe these texts offer proof of how Jesus became God. How Christianity has borrowed from paganism in an attempt to convert people manipulate them into thinking if you just believe all of glory could be yours.

The lies being preached today were preached while he was still living and he was telling them they had it all wrong (Matt. 22 and 23). He refused to adapt to their way of thinking and they murdered him for it.

I thank God for these texts...my eyes were opened and I saw good and evil....

...makes me wonder if God really was the serpent...come to save Adam and Eve from the wicked and idolatrous ways of the people who surrounded them.

Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

Daniel 12:2 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but others to disgrace and everlasting contempt

We have to be lifted from the dust...raise our level of thinking.

STOP BEING SPOON FED IN CHURCH!! READ FOR YOURSELF!!

Answer 10

To Israel He was neither more nor less than the
incarnation of the "Everlasting Father", the "Lord of
Hosts" come down "with ten thousands of saints"; to
Christendom Christ returned "in the glory of the Father";
to Shí'ah Islam the return of the Imam Husayn; to Sunni
Islam the descent of the "Spirit of God" (Jesus Christ); to
the Zoroastrians the promised Shah-Bahram; to the
Hindus the reincarnation of Krishna; to the Buddhists
the fifth Buddha

(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 234)

REINCARNATION

As to what thou hast written concerning "Reincarnation": Believing in reincarnation is one of the old tenets held by most nations and creeds, as well as by the Greek ant Roman philosophers and wise men, the old Egyptians and the chief Assyrians. But all these sayings ant superstitions are vanity in the sight of God.

The greatest argument produced by those who held to reincarnation has been this: "That it is necessary to the justice of God to give every one his due. Now everybody who is afflicted by any calamity is said to have sinned; but when a little child, which is still in the womb of its mother and hath just been formed, is found to be blind, deaf or imperfect, how could it have committed any  392  sin that we might say this imperfection is given to it as a punishment therefore -- so, though such a child hath not done outwardly any sin in the womb of its mother, yet they say it must have sinned when it was in its former body, which hath caused it to suffer this punishment."

Indeed, these people have been negligent of the fact that had the creation been carried out in a uniform fashion, how could the statement be true, that "God doeth whatever He wisheth and God doeth whatever He desireth!"

Though the fact of "Return" is mentioned in the Divine Books, by this is intended the return of the qualities, characters, perfections, truths and lights, which re-appear in every age, and not of certain persons and souls. For example: If we say this lamp is the return of that of last night, or that the last year's flower hath returned in the garden, in this sense the return of the individual, or identity, or personality is not meant; nay, rather, it is intended that the same qualities and states existing in that lamp or flower, which are now seen in this lamp or flower, have returned. That is, the same perfections and virtues and properties which existed in the past springtime have returned during this present springtime. For instance: When one says, these fruits are the same as those of last year; in this sense, he hath reference to the freshness and delicacy of the fruit, which hath returned, although there is no doubt that the identical fruit of last year hath not returned.

Have the friends of God found such enjoyments and repose during their existence on this visible earth, that they might wish to have their return renewed and repeated constantly? Ale all these calamities, injuries, trials and difficulties of the once coming not sufficient for them that they should wish a repeated life in this world? Hath this cup been of such sweetness that they should long for it successively and repeatedly? No! the friends of the Beauty of El-Baha never seek any recompense or reward except the meeting and the visit in the Kingdom of El-Baha; and they never walk but in the valley of desire to attain the Supreme Height. They only wish the immortal blessing and the eternal gift, which are sanctified above the worldly understanding.

Because, when thou lookest with the iron sight, thou wilt find  393  that all mankind is suffering in this earthly world; there is no one in such tranquillity that this state might have been a reward for his good deeds in a former life and there is no soul so happy that this might be the fruit of his past pain! Had the life of a man in his spiritual being been only confined to his life in this world, the creation would have proved useless; the divine qualities would have no result and effect; nay, all things, created beings and the world of creation would have proved abortive. I ask pardon of God for such false imaginations and for such errors!

As the usefulness and powers of the life were not seen in that dark and narrow world, but when it is brought into this vast world, all the use of its growth and development becometh manifest and obvious in it, so likewise, reward and punishment, paradise and hell, and the requital of deeds and actions done by it in the present life become manifest and evident when it is transferred to the world to come which is far from this world! Had the life and growth of the child in the womb been confined to that condition, then the existence of the child in the womb would have proved utterly abortive and unintelligible; as would the life of this world, were its deeds, actions and their results not to appear in the world to come.

Therefore, know thou that the True One possesseth invisible worlds which human meditation is unable to comprehend and the intellect of man hath no power to imagine. When thou wilt purify and clarify thy spiritual nostrils from every worldly moisture, then thou wilt inhale the holy fragrances diffusing from the merciful gardens of these worlds.

(Compilations, Baha'i World Faith, p. 391)

http://bahai-education.org/

Meg