Talk:Gnosticism and the New Testament
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Clement of Rome
Moved this here from the main article:
- Clement of Rome, who lived at the end of the first century, and is considered by the early Christian church a saint, vigourously attacked Paul's teachings, going so far as to state that the vision Paul is alleged to have had, on the way to Damascus, originated from a demon. Clement was the 3rd/4th pope, and was strongly anti-gnostic, in his homilies even asserting his opinion that Paul is a dangerous heretic who should be expelled from the church. Other early christians, such as Justin Martyr, chose not to mention Paul at all.
Frankly, I think this paragraph is a bald-faced lie. Based on a conversation with CheeseDreams on my Talk page, this is probably based on the "Clementinian Homilies and Remembrances", documents that are generally dated to the late second or early third centuries and not genuinely authored by Clement of Rome. (See Clementine literature.) Further, they specifically tell about Peter debating Simon Magus, not Paul of Tarsus; to get them to attack Paul, one has to first figure out that "Simon" is a code word for "Paul." Wesley 06:20, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Cutting the haircut
I'm deleting the bit about Paul cutting his hair, as it seems highly unlikely that Jews were prohibited from cutting their hair outside of Jerusalem, and no background is given for this unlikely assertion.
Dispute: The oath of the Nazarite cannot so blithely be dismissed. It was of Torah (Pentetuch) derivation and makes no hard and fast rule regrading its completion. It merely says that a nazarite oath was associated with abstainence from alcohol and the cutting of hair. The oath very well could have included the place for the hair-cutting being in Jerusalem. Although we are not told, it has been suggested, considering the importance with which Paul considered the provision of alms for the Jerusalem church, that the oath was to safely deliver the money to the church in Jerusalem and only then to cut his hair.
Cutting the Lilith example
I removed the example because it appears that even pagans reject the connection between Lilith and the Isaiah passage. See http://www.lilitu.com/lilith/khephhist.html.
The word in the hebrew in the Isaiah passage is Lilitu. ~~~~ 16:01, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Merge with Paul and Gnosticism
These articles should be merged, as they both cover the same ground and duplicate a lot of material between them. Now let's see if I can do the tag right. Wesley 05:46, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Dispute: There seems to be no discussion of the timeline for this gnostic input.
As it is the actual documentary material is widely separated in time. The presumption that these were contemporaneous is bogus. Gnostic writting were only as early as the early 3rd century while the earliest actual canonical gospels are reliably dated to the early second century to perhaps as early as 90AD. Moreover, large portions of the gospels and the epistles are quoted in private letters in the early 2nd century.
The question is not then whether Paul borrowed from the Gnostics, which would be impossible, but rather whether they borrowed from him, which they admit.
Major Factual Errors
I came across this article on a POV scan... I'm not going to attempt to edit it b/c there are already people on both sides who've invested time and energy, but someone please do a fact check. For example:
- Of the four gospels, the Gospel of Mark has often been connected with Gnosticism. Thus, it may not have been intended as historical material of Jesus, reducing its value as evidence for his existence. Furthermore, the other synoptic gospels (Matthew and Luke) are believed by many scholars to have been based on Mark. The Gospel of John is not generally viewed as Gnostic.
This passage has major fact problems. Matthew and Luke are considered to be descendants of Mark (and also Q), but John is by far the most Gnostic-leaning Gospel. "In the beginning there was the Word".... "the Word was made flesh".... "I am the truth, the way, the light" etc.... are all extremely Gnostic ideas. John likely emerged from Syria, which was a Gnostic-leaning region. Feco 19:57, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Certainly, the 19th Century neo-Gnostic churches deriving from Doinel considered the Gospel of John to be the most Gnostic-leaning, and extolled its virtues, some even going so far as to call it the "Gnostic Gospel." There appears to be no such consideration given to any of the Synoptic gospels.
What are your sources?
This text has many incredible and outrageous statements. But the fact that there are no references to scholarly works at all makes it very difficult to begin to refute it. Did the information come out of a book or was it channelled by a psychic? If we knew this, it would be a lot easier to discuss it and go into the finer details. Now it just sits there. --BirgerLangkjer 21:51, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- This seems like original research/analysis. It does not read like a summary of the state of the field. There is an additional viewpoint problem. Is the subject how gnosticism viewed the New Testament, or is it how teh New Testament shows traces of Gnosticism? It seems to be leaning towards the second, which suggests that it might be merged into "History of Gnosticism".Mangoe 04:09, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
In need of clarification and perhaps some further study
Firstly Gnosticism came in several different varieties (Sethian, Valentinian, Ophite, Syrian-Egyptian etc.), not all of them Judeo-Christian, and this page could use some clarification on which group of Gnostics believed what about the Gospels.
As to the authors actual knowledge of the subject I have some qualms. Clearly the author has done quite a bit of research on the subject but apparently without an understanding of what is “Gnostic” and what is just Hellenistic/Roman period mystic speculation. ALL of the author’s comments on Galatians fall into this category.
Further the author’s understanding of Gnosticism itself is rather shaky. For instance the author says: "Gnostics also referred to the demiurge as the mediator between God..."
This is not true. The problem with it lies not in the concepts so much as a lack of nuanced understanding. The author of this sentence is referring to the enthronement of Sabaoth in which Sabaoth who (in this tradition but not in others) is the SON of the demiurge (Yaltabaoth). For further information on this particular tradition see: Fallon, Francis T., The Enthronement of Sabaoth: Jewish Elements in Gnostic Creation Myths. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978. Nag Hammadi Studies, v. 10. ISBN 9-00405-683-1
The confusion of the author is understandable as in OTHER Gnostic traditions the demiurge is referred to as Sabaoth. Unfortunately such a mistake, one of many in this article, shows that the author is not as well versed in this subject as one might wish. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.20.128.184 (talk • contribs) .
Bogus Greek
Charisma DOES NOT derive from Makar in Greek!!! It would be best if all the bogus Greek nonsense were ripped out of this article... AnonMoos 20:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
No Mention of Thomas!
How can a discussion of gnosticism be considered complete, even by the layperson, with nary a a mention of the Secret Gospel of Thomas? Honestly... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.112.40.147 (talk • contribs) .
- This article does not attempt to discuss gnosticism in general, just the relationship between gnosticism and the New Testament. The Gospel of Thomas isn't part of the New Testament, so it isn't mentioned here and shouldn't be. It is mentioned among other gnostic texts in the main Gnosticism article. Wesley 06:34, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Additional problems with this article
Over half of this page is devoted to finding short phrases in the New Testament that have some connection with Gnosticism, either because the New Testament uses a term that Gnosticism also uses, or because some later author found a similarity between some New Testament theme and some Gnostic theme.
I think this is silly. Why not have an article on themes that appear both in Shintoism and Marxism? I'm sure there are many.
I suspect that the real reason the original author wrote this page is because they cared about the following interesting subject: When there are similarities between early orthodox Christianity (including the New Testament) and Gnosticism, how is this to be explained? There are several common explanations:
- The earliest Christianity was gnostic Christianity; orthodoxy started later as a deviation.
- The earliest Christianity was orthodox Christianity; Gnosticism started later as a deviation.
- The earliest Christianity was a diverse group with parts that looked like orthodoxy and parts that looked like gnosticism; eventually they split apart.
- The earliest Christianity didn't look much like orthodoxy or gnosticism; these both developed later.
- Gnosticism was a separate movement, originally unrelated to Christianity -- other than having some thematic elements in common with each other and with many other religions. Gnostic Christianity was created when some Gnostics chose to "Christianize" some of their writings.
(Of course there are other possibilities.) The Holy Blood Holy Grail types seem to believe # 1 or # 3, even though virtually no reputable scholars would claim this. Even the Jesus Seminar folks are asserting 4, if you read them carefully, even though the back covers of their books like to suggest that they are asserting 3.
This article does not put its statements in the context of these views. I suspect that the goal of this article is to defend thesis 3, but it never says so. Therefore the article (even if it contained no errors) lacks a thesis. I'm not saying that a Wikipedia article is supposed to argue for a controversial point, but it is supposed to have a point. Without that, this article is no more interesting than a list of words that appear in both King Lear and Moby Dick.
Of course, this author sometimes adds things that are completely off-topic. For example, As for himself, in 1 Corinthians, Paul considers he is a Steward of the mysteries of God, which was also the technical term for a priest in the Egyptian version of the mystery religions where the central figure is the god Serapis. Even if this is true (and without sources, who knows?), it has nothing to do with Gnosticism (which was not an Egyptian mystery religion). Lawrence King 08:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Keep or cut?
After reading all the criticisms of the article on this page, and then looking through the article again, I have to wonder how much of this article is worth keeping at all? Should the whole thing be submitted to Votes for Deletion? Wesley 06:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
- I think that's probably a good idea. The subject of "how is Gnosticism connected to early Christianity" is one that hundreds, if not thousands, of reputable scholars have written books and articles about. If Wikipedia is to be taken seriously, an article about this subject must be a summary of the major views and trends in this scholarship.
- Sure, there is room, in the "external links" section, to link to some iconoclast who wants to argue that "Everything that the Pope and Pat Robertson and the Jesus Seminar and the New Age movement are saying is a lie, let me tell you the truth!" But when the entire article is written from one person's point of view, this isn't an encyclopedia anymore. Lawrence King 08:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Paul's View on Sexuality
"Paul also appears to many scholars to exhibit a strong distate for sexuality of any kind, supporting the principle of celibacy, which gnostics interpreted as due to the idea of the world as evil, though non-gnostics took it to be merely a rigid and strict adherence to the Old Testament."
A strong distaste for sexuality in general? No. A strong distaste for sexuality outside of the sacred confines of marriage? Yes.
Paul did advocate celibacy for those with the self-constraint to follow such a life. However, he clearly indicated that if your yearnings are too strong, you should marry so that you can satisfy your sexual appetite in a way that is not sinful. That's hardly a strong distaste for sexuality, I think.
A simple reading of Paul's epistles shows that he did not have some grudge against marriage or sex in general, on principle. Such an assertion, as made here, should really be stricken from the page all together. But from the looks of things, not much else about the article itself is right and it will be cut eventually, anyway. - Posted on 13:20 5 February 2006, by 24.30.12.237
Right on
i wholeheartedly agree with you on this. the claims that paul's texts on sexuality express hatred for sexuality stem from nothing more than the narrow, ignorant, pseudo intellectual, one-track minded, presumptuous, phobic and biased views from the traditionally prejudiced attitude against christian ideals. such asinine conclusions come from the same ilk of thought that give birth to such theories as "Paul's attitude to sexuality, his companionship with Timothy, and his statement that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak has lead some commentators, including the Foundry Methodist Church [...] to argue that Paul was a self-hating homosexual." simple minds unfortunately abound in the world, spewing conclusions such as this. these brilliant minds should not even be allowed to debate as their drivel is prejudicial to everyone and we can start with the geniuses of the Foundry Methodist Church.
Lusitano Transmontano 02:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
All Gnostics...
were Christian, as per 2nd line? News to me. Can someone cite before I change?--Mrdarcey 04:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
