/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14719458]

Woah.. it's like Christianity, except with all Hellenic nuance removed and inane rabbinical neuroses cranked up to 11.

>edited by Marvin Meyer
>introduction by Elaine Pagels
I guess i did it to myself.

[Anonymous No.14719467]

>>14719458
This is the gay translation.

[Anonymous No.14719689]

>>14719467
this is the one my Religious Studies PhD professor uses

what's the based translation?

[Anonymous No.14719740]

>>14719458

[Anonymous No.14719748]

>>14719689
The one by Robinson alone.

[Anonymous No.14719821]

>>14719458
Just got this a while back, same copy too. Any recommendations for what books/sections to read?

It’s a shame since I bought the book partly to have a hard copy of the gospel of Thomas. I noticed the Book of Thomas in the table of contents, but it’s not the same one, right? At least, it doesn’t seem to have any connection to it here (though maybe it’s just incomplete):
http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html

>>14719748
Does the Robinson translation include the full gospel of Thomas?

[Anonymous No.14719951]

>"I thought them gospels were written by they actual Disciples"

[Anonymous No.14719955]

Get the Barnstone-- poetic and has lotsa cool extras
-t. Owned multiple editions

[Anonymous No.14719984]

>>14719821
>Does the Robinson translation include the full gospel of Thomas?
Yes

[Anonymous No.14719986]

>>14719821
Tripartite Tractate, Zostrianos, the Gospel of Judas are ones that stuck with me, along with gospel Thomas as well.
And I'm not sure I understand what you're asking in regards to that gospel--the version you linked is exactly the version in the book. Same translation and everything. If that's the full version then your book should have the full version, too.

There was this guy I came across who was really knowledgable about all things gnostic and he told me the Nag Hammadi with Meyers as editor wasn't too good. He despised Pagels and Meyers and told me to avoid anything with their names on it. After looking into both of then a bit on my own, it seems like sound advice.
He gave me a whole list of who to go for when it came to gnosticism, and pic related was one of them. I'm definitely going to try and get my hands on it sometime soon. It also contains the gospel of Thomas, from the looks of it.

[Anonymous No.14720180]

Do you guys think Eric Voegelins conception of gnosticism has much to do with the historical gnostics?

[Anonymous No.14720205]

>>14719821
Gospel of Philip
Gospel of Thomas
On the Origin of the World
The Reality of the Rulers
The Paraphrase of Shem

OP is full retard, the book is actually insanely hellenic

[Anonymous No.14720211]

>>14719458
https://discord.gg/hCjX58e

[Anonymous No.14720314]

>>14719458
>>14719748
They didn't do entire translations but were responsible for the editing. The problem with the first publication of the Nag Hammadi Library was the translation of some texts had incomplete lacunae such as the First Apocalypse of James to name one.

[Anonymous No.14720371]

>>14720180
I think Culianu is best gnostic scholar myself

[Anonymous No.14721023]

>>14719986
Ah, thanks! After revisiting the table of contents I realized I skipped over it since it also included the Greek gospel of Thomas. Thanks also for recommendating Layton, I’ll check him out. It looks like the Greek gospel in my edition is from his translation, which is a good sign.

[Anonymous No.14721363]

>>14721023
The Gospel of Thomas translations by Blatz here are similar to the one by Lambdin. Also included are translations of the Greek version of those sayings which are present in the Oxyrrhynch fragments.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/index.html

Unfortunately it appears Layton's translations feature more of that questionable gender neutrality. For more on that read this article.
http://www.gospel-thomas.net/noman.htm

[Anonymous No.14721543]

>>14719458
>>14719986
Having read the first few chapters of Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels, it came off to me as appreciably unbiased and informative.

>Chapter II excerpt
As there is only one God in heaven, Ignatius declares, so there can be only one bishop in the church. "One God, one bishop"— this became the orthodox slogan. Ignatius warns "the laity" to revere, honor, and obey the bishop "as if he were God." For the bishop, standing at the pinnacle of the church hierarchy, presides "in the place of God." Who, then, stands below God? The divine council, Ignatius replies. And as God rules over that council in heaven, so the bishop on earth rules over a council of priests. The heavenly divine council, in turn, stands above the apostles; so, on earth, the priests rule over the deacons—and all three of these rule over "the laity."

Was Ignatius merely attempting to aggrandize his own position? A cynical observer might suspect him of masking power politics with religious rhetoric. But the distinction between religion and politics, so familiar to us in the twentieth century, was utterly alien to Ignatius' self-understanding. For him, as for his contemporaries, pagan and Christian alike, religious convictions necessarily involved political relationships—and vice versa. Ironically, Ignatius himself shared this view with the Roman officials who condemned him to death, judging his religious convictions as evidence for treason against Rome. For Ignatius, as for Roman pagans, politics and religion formed an inseparable unity.

[Anonymous No.14721590]

>>14719986
What's wrong with Pagels and Meyer? I was thinking of getting Meyer's "The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus." I wish it was possible to just get the Gnostic gospels without any introductions or any of that stuff that perverts the reading of the text, the way you can get regular Bibles.

[Anonymous No.14721632]

>>14720180
No. He identified some interesting characteristics, but used the wrong word, in my opinion. I think that the Nazis and Marxist-Leninists were more millenarian than gnostic. In the case of the Marxist-Leninists and their offshoots, it is even more egregious because they were explicitly metaphysical materialists. What kind of gnostic would believe Marx's material models of history/economics/etc. except maybe as a means of explaining what is going on in this material world?

[Anonymous No.14721652]

>>14719458
So this what I read to get better understanding on christianity and it lore?

I am trying to avoid the stuff that christian scholars do not take serious.

[Anonymous No.14721681]

God, don't you love it when pop-christian midwits immediately go for gnosticism because they can't handle any sort of theology that would require more than a page to explain? Gnosticism was the New Age hippie bullshit of its age. It's fucking hilarious that you guys lap it up all the same, like, imagine some schmuck in 4000 AD digging up a copy of "The Dharma Bums" by Kerouac or one of those Coleman Barks translations of Rumi and trying to use it as proof that he's above everyone else because reading those works of fart enlightened him not through any phony god's blessing, but through the sheer power of GNθSIS. Get the fuck outta here.

[Anonymous No.14721715]

>>14721590
It doesn't look like Pagels' translated anything rather all she did was provide the introductory chapter. It was rather Stephen Patterson who was involved in a Thomas translation with Marvin Meyer. But it would seem like some people have been conditioned to chimp out at any mention of a woman being involved in a publication.

The potential problems with the later editions were mentioned here >>14721363 but the advantage is that they provided completion to previously lacunose renditions.

[Anonymous No.14721730]

>>14721681
Fuck off back to /cathlicuck/

[Anonymous No.14721746]

I believe Gnostic thought to be the truth. I don't see it as some curiosity or think its "lore" or "symbolism" is only nice or interesting. I LITERALLY believe in Gnosticism. The Monad, the Demiurge, all of it. My own personal experiences pretty much reaffirm my believe in it and science is also catching up with Gnostic thought recently. Is this bad?

[Anonymous No.14721750]

>>14721652
The more esteemed of the non-cannonical writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas and then the Desert Fathers.

[Anonymous No.14721791]

>>14721730

Gnosticism is a joke. The gnostic gospels are literally fan fics. None of them can be demonstrated as authentic gospels from the apostles. The philosophy is self contradicting and absurd.

Flesh is evil but Jesus came in the flesh?

Jesus died for what exactly? Not to atone for the original sin?

How can a good substance be made evil? What does it mean for good or evil to be a substance at all? How can the immutable be turned mutable?

The demiurge is produced from the monad, so evil comes from good? You thought you solved the problem of evil but just push it back by a degree.

How do Ideas copulate to make new ones?

Why is the world evil if its modeled after the good Ideas?

The entire New Testament is a jewish conspiracy?

Gnostics took Christ and tried to model Him into a Platonic religion, and they fucked up on both counts.

[Anonymous No.14721810]

>>14721791
>The philosophy is self contradicting and absurd
Kinda like Christianity? lmao

[Anonymous No.14721815]

>>14721791
>Jesus died for what exactly? Not to atone for the original sin?
He died in the process of teaching mankind how to reach Gnosis. Original sin is a meme.
>The demiurge is produced from the monad, so evil comes from good?
Anything that isn't part of the Monad is evil in varying degrees.

[Anonymous No.14721819]

>>14721791
The demiurge was created out of the ignorance of Sophia's ego. It's not so much that the demiurge is evil but rather inadept.

[Anonymous No.14721823]

>>14721750

Thanks for helping me avoid the /x/ schizo tier stuff.

[Anonymous No.14721827]

>>14721823
Christianity was the /x/ schizo tier stuff of its day.

[Anonymous No.14721932]

>>14721791
I'm going to try to respond to this, but my English is not the best.

>None of them can be demonstrated as authentic gospels from the apostles.
Is this true of the gospels in the commonly accepted Bible of today? Every single page of the Bible is written by mortal men.
>Flesh is evil but Jesus came in the flesh?
You are misinterpreting. Material is not evil, but corrupt and imperfect in comparison to the immaterial. The flesh is corrupt, but inside is the immaterial soul. The immaterial soul is corrupted by being trapped in a material vessel.
>Jesus died for what exactly? Not to atone for the original sin?
Jesus died because jealous rabbis got a colonial administrator to get rid of him for them, which he begrudgingly obliged to prevent an escalation of conflict that would lead to more death. "Original sin" is a mythologized way of viewing the scarcity of resources in the closed material system God is trying to free us from. This scarcity causes conflict and suffering. If you want an explanation that goes better with the traditionally-accepted Genesis lore of the Jewish mythology, try Gustaf Aulen's Christus Victor theory of atonement.
>How can a good substance be made evil?
Corruption. We are corrupted by the scarcity of resources in the closed material system and by our immaterial souls being reincarnated as matter is recycled.
>What does it mean for good or evil to be a substance at all?
You are taking things too literally.
>How can the immutable be turned mutable?
Why would the immutable have to be turned mutable?
>The demiurge is produced from the monad, so evil comes from good?
God is not truly all-powerful. The demiurge is just the material world itself, recycling its matter through natural processes. Don't quote Revelation here, because that is a vision of the end times that have not yet come.
>How do Ideas copulate to make new ones?
I don't understand what you are asking.
>Why is the world evil if its modeled after the good Ideas?
Because the material world is a closed system and God got locked out. It is an imperfect reflection of the immaterial.
>The entire New Testament is a jewish conspiracy?
What do you mean? There was a conspiracy of powerful rabbis that saw Jesus murdered. The New Testament is mostly true, but it is a material text written by mortal men. It's imperfect like any other such text.

[Anonymous No.14722068]

>>14719458
I once went to a furry convention and got wolf-peter funk on the back of my fursuit