PDA

View Full Version : Gnosticism



shaberon
9th April 2016, 02:02
It's something that's kind of touchy because it presupposes some historical facts that could be shocking or offensive to a lot of people. Namely:

The Christians were exterminated by the Church as heretics.

And further:

There was such a person as Jesus and the main difference is, that he was in no way unique--because he was another Gnostic.

There were many Gnostic groups across the area and he was influential to some of them. The whole thing became suppressed and subject to death by the Church. Almost all of the first Christians were Gnostics. The Church erased human knowledge and wrote false doctrines such as Vicarious Atonement. The Church is not the way of Christ nor does it contain his teaching.

The primary survivors are the Mandeans--who had nothing to do with Jesus. These are the followers of John the Baptist. They were harassed out of the Jerusalem area by the seditions prior to the Temple's destruction around year 70 and wound up across the mountains of Iran and the Iraqi lowlands. They are a continuous sect who has never accepted converts.

Pope Pius IX, one of the biggest control freaks ever, was perfectly aware that the Knights Templar went to Jerusalem in order to gain this knowledge of the "Johannite heresy" This is why they had to be exterminated as well. They were an anti-church vessel from the start. They could have exposed it.

Church is not scripturally based. In English the word "church" was inserted into the Bible over a hundred times. Church is the translation of kyriakos, signifying a house of a lord such as a building or institution. This was stamped in place of "ecclesia", which has to do with a self-governing body. It's a completely different kind of activity, done by people who go out in the street to help the needy.

This historical perspective would also suggest that tracking down Jesus personally or the Templars won't really affect much because--the case is this simple. The thing is, I find it pretty hard to argue against. Gnosticism as a whole telling the background of the Church, instead of comparing the details of their systems which are all slightly different.

DNA
9th April 2016, 03:05
There was such a person as Jesus and the main difference is, that he was in no way unique--because he was another Gnostic.

There were many Gnostic groups across the area and he was influential to some of them. The whole thing became suppressed and subject to death by the Church. Almost all of the first Christians were Gnostics. The Church erased human knowledge and wrote false doctrines such as Vicarious Atonement. The Church is not the way of Christ nor does it contain his teaching.

Hey Shebaron, I'm no expert. I read the Nag Humaddi back in 95.
I've persued certain avenues of info, but from what I remember, Gnosticism is a Jesus Christ oriented belief system and did not exist before Jesus. Now what most folks believe is that the Essene Brotherhood who were a shaman like group of mystic Judaic people may have absorbed the Christ teachings and became the first Gnostics. I personally think this is the case. I find the Nag Hummadi a far more genuine religious text than the present Christian bible.

And yes the present Christian religion has gone through many many revisions especially in it's infancy via the councils of nicea.

shaberon
11th April 2016, 02:10
There was Jewish Gnosticism and Gentile Gnosticism. The tribe, Mandean, means Gnostic. They were initially mistaken as "St. John Christians" whereas they actually adhere to--John Christ. They say that Jesus changed it and led away some of their people. John was neither the first in his line, nor the only branch of it. Edit: in addition to the Mandeans, pockets of surviving Gnostics, less opposed to Jesus, coalesced in the Druze who are still there today.

Essenes, Ebionites, Nazareans, Theraputae are among other groups. The Christ teaching from Greek has to do with an initiate of mysteries. Church doctrine wraps it entirely into the individual, Jesus, the only son, whereas Gnosticism has it available to all. And only one of these doctrines has benefited from the murder of the other.

Again, I am mostly using an umbrella phrase instead of referring to a particular sect. Some of the early Christians simply got a few ideas from the Gnostics--such as pre-existence of the soul. The church connived with "sempiternity"--the doctrine that claims a soul is created at birth, then spends an eternal afterlife based on those few earth years to determine its fate.

All such persons who supported traditions of being free to talk, eventually received anything from banishment to death from the increasing power of church bishops. Even though we find the church representative, St. Jerome, having to ask permission to see the original Hebrew (poss. Aramaic) version of Matthew.