Gnostic, from the Greek Gnosis meaning Wisdom or Knowledge. It inplies a deeper meaning of shared knowledge/wisdom- and not just going from teacher to puple, it implies a two way sharing.
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The Gnostics were an early Christian sect who's beliefs and teachings have become very muddled and confused, they've been missrepresented down the ages.
This page isn't going to be an indepth discussion on the subject- it's more of a breif introduction to the subject and an attempt at debunking many of the myths, missunderstandings and wildly inaccurate claims made about the Gnostic Gospels in recent years.
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The most common missunderstanding about the Gnostic Gospels is that they are somehow related to the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is complete nonsense.
The Dead Sea Scrolls belonged to a Jewish sect called the Essenes (i think that's correct spelling) and are what is now considered Apocraphal Old Testement Scripture (by Christians).
The Gnostic Gospels belong to and early (and probably contempry to the Essenes) Christian sect. The Gnostics would probably have been aware of and even used many of the same scriptures. The flip side of that coin is the Essenes, if they knew of the Gnostics, wouldn't have even used their Gospels as toilet paper...
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It is commenly believed that the Gnostics had access to what is now 'hidden knowledge and secrets' and that their Gospels are a repressed 'truth' about the real Jesus , his life and mission.
This is PARTLY true.
the Gnostics were basicly a mystery religion that grew around the story of Christ.
They believed that the Crucifixion, Ressurection etc were symbolic and not literal. They believed that Christ and his story were a kind of road map to the path back to God- kind of like the Buddist belief in Enlightenment- and that every one had to find their own path.
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To make this easier I'll briefly explain what a mystery religion is;
Put simply the easiest way to describe it is like the circles in an onion. Each circle, moving inwards, represents a new, deeper, spiritual understanding.
For the Gnostics the 'outer circle' would rougthly equate to modern Christianity.
From there an initiate would have to study and learn as much as possible until they 'saw' that this was simply the beginning of a very long path...
The end of that path would be roughthly comparable to the Buddist Enlightenment. once an initiate reach this point (NOW PAY ATTENTION, THIS BIT'S IMPORTANT) they would have to 'prove' they were ready to take on and teach new initiates themselves by WRITTING A NEW GOSPEL OF JESUS that showed they had a deeper spiritual understanding of life etc...
That does not make them 'lies' in the tradditional sense, they were meant to impart a greater spiritual truth.
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I know I keep picking on this guy but he really should have done better... So when Dan Brown bangs on about the 'sacred feminine', the holy grail, the blood line of Christ, Jesus marrying Mary Magdaline etc. he's basing it on very shaky ground if he backs it up with Gnostic Gospels.
Apart from the above points many of these Gospels only exist in very fragmented form and any meaningful (or accurate) translation just isn't possible.
And you think the four Gospels that make up the modern New Testement contradict each other? Using the Gnostic Gospels as evidence I can prove that Jesus was crucified, died and was resurrected but wasn't any were near the scene of these events at the time; that he loved, married and had children with Mary Magdaline but never, once, had sex; that Jesus Christ while being a true historical figure, never existed... It just goes on.
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The best place to start on this subject are NOT with the Gnostic Gospels themselves- it's too easy to take them at face value.
I'd recomend the following books:
The Gnostic Gospels
by: Elaine Pagels
pub: Penguin
Not only explores the Gnostic movement in detail also explains a lot of the symbolism used in the Gnostic Gospels. That alone clears up many of the inaccurate claims made by certain people...
The Jesus Mysterys
by:
pub:
(I'll have to look that up- lent it out-oops). The Jesus Mysterys is a good introduction to the details of a mystery religion and probably a very good basic intro to the Gnostic movement itself- although I find their conclusions hard to credit with the evidence they present. But I'll leave that up to you.
Another thing to take into consideration with th Gnostics is that the majority of them believed the body was 'the enemy of God'. They practiced celibacy,ate bland food and generaly considered physical pleasure a thing to be avoided as it only distracted you from God. Is it realy credibal that such a group would follow a man they realy believed was married and having children?
Another thing to take into consideration is Christ collected his disiples with the words 'follow me & I will make u fishers of men'. They then had to up and leave their families (inc wives & children) to follow him. Wouldnt that make him a hypocryte (and difficult to stay loyal to) if he then went & carted his own wife & kids around with him?
