Newly documented gospel is just adding to my *religious* confusion
 

For many many years I have often wondered why my religion is based on bible books that were decided on centuries ago. There were over 30 gospels written, yet only 4 were chosen. The Gospel of people such as Thomas, Phillip, Mary and Judas (to name a few) were discounted or called heretical by the Romans.

Why am I *forced*, for lack of a better word, to trust in what Constantine decided we should read? Why is it that the Christian bible, Catholic bible and the Greek Orthodox bible dont all include the same books? The catholic and greek bibles have WAY more books than we do.

As time goes by, and more and more things come to light, the knowledge I was given in church as a child seems to be challenged all time, and Im not talking about the non believers.

I know the Davinci Code is a fiction book....but the ideas presented were not new ones, yet when I read it, it was the first time I EVER heard anything of Mary Magdalene in the way she was talked about. I was raised believing she was a sinner prostitute that Jesus protected from the crowds and that she was at the crucifixtion and resurrection.

I was raised believing that Judas was just about worse than Satan himself, because of the gosepls that were chosen to be included. Now we have an authenticated *Gospel of Judas* which paints a much different picture, and quite frankly one that I have NO problem believing.

I almost dont want to hear anymore about *great findings* related to the bible or Jesus because it adds to my confusion. I have long felt that organized religion was not much more than a group of people that, no matter how well intentioned, form their own churches based on what they WANT to believe and how they can make it conform to the ways of life they dont really want to give up. When something goes wrong in that group....it splinters off into another group and so forth.

I have always gone on faith. I have faith that if Im doing something God doesnt like, he lets me know it.....its always worked that way with me and I guess I wont know until I die if *instinct* was right or wrong, until then Im stuck because I really wonder just how much was lost as the gospel stories were diluted, rearragned, rewritten or left out completely.

*sigh*

does anyone else feel this way? Does anyone else just want to throw up their hands and say "I give up" anytime a new *biblical* discovery is made?

How much history did we lose when the ancient gospels were declared heretical? How much history did we lose when some *head of the church* decided what someone 2000 years down the road should believe?

Does anyone else feel the same frustration? If so how do you deal with it?

Whatever else one might think about the Gospel of Judas, or the canonical gospels, the GoJ is most emphatically terrible evidence of what happened historically. It was probably written around 150 CE, at least 60 years after the last book of the New Testament. I've also heard, but am less sure about this point, that scholars generally agree that the gnostics do not represent the mainstream of the church in the early centuries. So, in this case at least, there are very good reasons the church decided not to include it in the canon.

but does that make it any less true?

Luke and Mark didnt even KNOW Jesus, but yet they are included and the gospels of the people that did are considered unimportant.

And I have read that the *gnostics* were around long before *christianity*

Okay, since I'm not a "religious" person by any stretch, take this with a grain of salt.

The way I have always regarded the Bible and any outlying unincluded Gospels is similar to what you're feeling: they are accounts written by humans with personal motives, and while people with faith may feel they were only writing the word of God, I have a hard time believing that any true Word wasn't diluted by the filter of the person writing.

Thus, rather than interpreting anything literally, I take it as a collection of stories that illustrate the history we're from, the social mores and politics of the time. There are some pretty basic truths to be taken from this - love thy neighbor, do unto others etc., and those are true no matter who wrote what. Any God that I might believe in (or their children) would be someone who wants me to live that way.

So the new Gospels being found? More perspective. More history and insight. But they shouldn't change how you feel about God or how you should live your life.

I personally feel that all of these gospels are just as 'authentic' as any of the others. I've heard that St. John was written much later than any of the other ones, and his gospel is pretty much the one that defines the Catholic Church (laying down in doctrine that Jesus was the divine manifestation of God, rather than his son, or a man influenced by god). Many of the other Gospels (my favourite is Thomas which portrays an almost 'buddhist' Jesus, one who holds that heaven is within each of us and that puts a greater emphasis on self knowledge) portray a very human Jesus - which is something I'm more ready to accept. I'm sure there are elements of truth in all of them, but that Constantine decided on the 4 we are accustomed to because they fit more easily into the well defined organisation of the 'church'. Catholisism is a wonderful thing, not least because of its straight-forward rules and regimented heirarchy - something the Romans were particularly fond of, and good at too. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John best support that regime, and I would hazard a guess that the people who chose them, recognised that fact.

I was raised liberal Episcopalian (which may seem like a contradiction in terms, but in Salt Lake City, everything that's not Mormon slants left). I had the same confusions and frustrations you had--especially when I read St. Thomas Aquinas.

Ultimately, I conclueded that the "organization" of organized religions is organized to keep power in the hands of the powerful, to keep "the flock" in line, and to glom more people into the "organization". I have yet to meet an organized religion that didn't have those goals.

Now, that doesn't mean you can't hear the underlying philosophy beneath most all religions. Take one of those bibles where everything Jesus uttered is printed in red, and ignore everything that's not that, and you end up with a pretty great template for living your life. The short version is: Be good to people. I don't need priests, preachers, rabbis, or imams to tell me that.

well yeah I agree....thats how I have gotten to see things in my adult life....

Yes, yes it does. This is, as far as I know, simply how historical scholarship works. Sources closer to the events they describe are more reliable than sources at a further remove. Why? Well in this case, it's easy. Even if the authors of Luke and Mark didn't know Jesus (and I'm not sure this is the case), they knew lots of people who did know Jesus. So they were able to rely on eyewitness accounts. Even when John was written (assuming a late date in the 80s, and assuming it wasn't written by the apostle), there may well have still been eyewitnesses around.

Another point I want to make is that the council's decision to include some gospels and exclude others wasn't arbitrary. Even if Matthew, John, Paul's and Peter's letters weren't all written by the people they purport to be written by, they were generally believed to have been written by these apostles, as opposed to those excluded, and so the decision made sense.

It's been suggested that the criterion 'fits with what we already believe' is an invalid criterion. But that just doesn't make sense. If we believe some things about Jesus, we're going to favor those texts that agree with what we believe and disfavor what disagrees with what we believe. Two examples; someone here suggested that they like the Gospel of Thomas because they liked the idea of a Buddhist Jesus. But that's just the same use of the criterion as the council used when fixing the canon. Similarly, if we believe that Hannibal crossed the Alps to get to Italy, we're going to discount a source that says he landed in Naples.

Finally, I don't see how gnostics could have been around before Jesus, since gnosticism refers to a specific Christian heresy (or, if you prefer, a specific sort of 'christian' belief). It's fair to describe some pre-Christian beliefs as 'proto-gnostic', but to describe them as gnostic is simply historical error.

Luke and Mark were followers of Paul, they never met Jesus and some think Luke was actually dictated by Paul before Acts was written. From everything I've ever read John did *write* his, along with 1,2 and 3rd John and Revelation which I think was written around 96 AD, if I remember right John, the beloved was one of the youngest disciples.

I cant remember now where I read that some gnostic sects were around before jesus....I've got to do some digging

I see where I got confused, I was reading about the schools of thought that said they are thought to have their origin in Jewish mysticism and to predate Christianity

IIRC, Revelation was written by a different John entirely.

uhhhh I will argue with you on that one, all the johns were the same, he wrote Revelation after he was exiled to Patmos and he was VERY old, He is believed to have outlived the other apostles.

Just one of the many places that you can find where it says it is the same John
John is traditionally held to be the author of five books of the New Testament, including the Gospel of John.

http://www.answers.com/topic/john-the-apostle

Hunh! Guess I didn't RC. I stand corrected!

(some people do say they arent the same, but the "traditional" view is that they are)

Does anyone have a complete listing of the known gospels and basically an unabridged version of the bible?

Check out this link - lots here:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

My point wasn't so much that they knew Jesus, simply the two following points:
1. While we don't know that they knew Jesus, there isn't any evidence that they didn't know Jesus either. The Gospels mentions something like 15 or 20 followers, and we know there were many more. Luke and Mark might well have been some of these followers.
2. But even if they never met Jesus during his life, they had plenty of opportunity to speak with people who did know Jesus, as opposed to the author of the gospel of Judas, which was written well, well after all of the eyewitnesses had passed away.

I dont want to beat a dead horse on this, and Im not arguing that Mark and Luke (or paul as the case may be) didnt know people who knew people...but Mark was only a boy during Jesus’ ministry on earth, but he later traveled with the apostle Peter. Mark wrote what Peter preached about Jesus to all who would listen. Luke was a physician who became a follower of Jesus after His life on earth. He spent time with many who were close to Jesus during His earthly ministry. Jesus’ mother, Mary, gave Luke a mother’s insight into Jesus’ birth and early life.

(Im just trying to clear up that two of the *gospels* were not written by people with any personal knowledge, only stories witnesses told them, which to me is the same as the other gospels that were discarded.

Except for the fact that, according to the estimates most scholars accept, Mark was written about 30 or 40 years after the fact, and Judas was written about 120 years after the fact.

Why does any of it matter? Why take any of it literally? Seems to me that Christianity (in all its sundry forms) has decided, good or bad, what it is. A new book on the scene only add to the mosaic that is our understanding.

I'm still waiting for the Gospel of Jesus. Until then this is all second hand. No matter how you look at it no one really knew what Jesus was talking about or tryin to get across but him... everything else is just interpretation. The fact that all of these gospels explain something different is just proof of this. Even people who were followers of Jesus who supposedly wrote this stuff down or got others to write it for them got it all confused.. or focused on some parts and not others.. etc.

It all comes down to what you feel best fits you. What do YOU *want* to believe.

Look deeper, what makes you so certain that Constantine didn't hack up and rewrite any biblical texts that you see now, or even make up some new ones? Practically everything is said to have been written decades or centuries after the fact, assuming the fact existed in the first place. Can you be sure that any of these things even resemble what the original message was, if there even is a factual basis? Is it possible that much of what you have been taught has been based on lies, or are you certain that at least some of it carries the original message intact? We may be digging up new texts every few years for hundreds of years, who knows what they might say, what they might reveal about what we think we know, or what they can confirm?

Because, Mr SelfDestruct, this is the way we find out what happened historically. Unless you want to level the same complaints against people who believe that Socrates existed and was some sort of philosopher, you don't have a valid argument against people who believe that Jesus existed and was some sort of teacher. Moreover, just like Plato's writings are the best evidence we have about what Socrates taught, the canon is the best evidence we have about what Jesus taught.

Actually.... Gnostics believe they know a "hidden" truth about God, or believe in something that doesn't fit with the mainstream view of God. There are Jewish Gnostics. Therefore, predating Christianity. That there are Gnositcs that believe something totaly differnt about Jesus is just a natural progresion.

I'm sorry I am coming out of the Blue of this... But if anyone looks up the Gospel of Gnostic I think it spelled... All of his disciples(however that is spelled) you will see that Mary Magdalene was his beloved companion and apostle..disciple whatever.. The bible just loves their big and hard words... and as this topic started.. it also kills and pains me when they say "These new finds are new" when they have been here for decades...just most people have or our ignorence has prevented us knownlege of it.
Just for the info, Mary Magdalene has inspire me to search for something more truer.. .Why? I don't know.. You know kinda just make me want yell "FINNALLY A WOMAN IN BIBLICAL HISTORY WHO GOT SOMETHING TO REPRESENT" since women right were pretty much shot down in the gospels that have been commonly preasented to us.

I might as well continue my criticisms of Brandy here. Whatever you might think of the role of women in the epistles (and there is at least some argument to be made here), women are generally viewed very highly in the gospels. Even if you don't think any women were apostles, certainly there were some women (two of the Marys come to mind, as well as Martha and the woman by the well) who even by modern standards get very good treatment, treatment which in ancient Palestine must have been almost heroic.

As I mention in another thread, as far as I know, the claim that other gospels give us a truer picture simply isn't responsible as a matter of history. Of course, Brandy is entirely correct that the 'gospel' of Judas isn't anything new.

For the record, I don't care whether Jesus was married or not. It's not like being married is a sin. Given that Peter was the only apostle we know was married, and that's only because of a passing reference to his mother-in-law, it's entirely possible that other apostles or even Jesus was married. But who cares? There's no evidence for this, so why think it's true?