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April 15, 2006 [LINK]
Judas and the Gnostic heresies
There was a lot of commentary last week about the National Geographic special on the "Gospel according to Judas," some papyrus scrolls that were found in Egypt and recently rediscovered in someone's bank vault. The Washington Post explains the background of the writings which may be interpreted as a self-justification by the disciple who betrayed Jesus, or else, more likely, by someone else with his own theological agenda to promote. Donald Sensing took a hiatus from his hiatus to comment on this, and concludes that there's just not much there to get excited about. He explains for us lay people (he is an ordained minister) how it was that the bishops of the early Christian church decided which documents were considered valid and which were not.
There seem to be a lot of parallels between the "Gospel according to Judas," and the "Gospel according to Thomas," the apocryphal writings of the apostle who doubted the divinity of Jesus. Both Thomas and Judas are revered by the Gnostics, a little-known offshoot of Christianity that emphasizes occult knowledge as the path to salvation. It is a message that is clearly contradicts the teachings of Jesus according to the four canonical gospels. In other words, it is heretical. I was surprised to learn in graduate school that there are many adherents of gnosticism even today in parts of Latin America. I myself have seen Gnostic temples in Lima, Peru and San Jose, Costa Rica, but I couldn't tell you what they are up to.
UPDATE (Apr. 16): Thanks to Phil Faranda for linking to this post. To see a photo of the "Gnostic Institute of Anthropology" in San Jose, click on the camera icon below. You thought I was just making that up?
Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 16 Apr 2006, 1: 24 PM .
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My blog practices
My general practice is to make no more than one blog post per day on any one category. For this reason, some blog posts may address more than one specific issue, as indicated by separate headings. If something important happens during the day after I make a blog post, I may add an updated paragraph or section to it, using the word "UPDATE" and sometimes a horizontal rule to distinguish the new material from the original material. For each successive day, blog posts are listed on the central blog page (which brings together all topics) from top to bottom in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the order in which the posts were originally made:
- Wild birds (LAST)
- War
- Science & Technology *
- Politics
- Latin America
- Culture & Travel *
- Canaries ("Home birds")
- Baseball (FIRST)
* part of "Macintosh & Miscellanous" until Feb. 2007
The date of each blog post refers to when the bulk of it was written, in the Eastern Time Zone. For each blog post, the time and date of the original posting (or the last update or comment thereupon) is displayed on the individual archival blog post page that appears (just before the comments section) when you click the [LINK / comments] link next to the date. Non-trivial corrections and clarifications to original blog entries are indicated by the use of [brackets] and/or strikethroughs, as appropriate so as to accurately convey both the factual truth and my original representation of it. Nobody's perfect, but I strive for continual improvement. That is also why some of the nature photos that appear on the archive pages may differ from the (inferior) ones that were originally posted.
The current "home made" blog organization system that I created, featuring real permalinks, was instituted on November 1, 2004. Prior to that date, blog posts were handled inconsistently, and for that reason the pre-2005 archives pages are something of a mess. Furthermore, my blogging prior to June 1, 2004 was often sporadic in terms of frequency.
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