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Which Gospels are the “Most Gnostic”?
In addition to writing the book The Gnostic Gospels, on the Nag Hammadi texts, Elaine Paigels wrote a book called The Gnostic Paul which looks with a critical eye at the canonical Letters of Paul, the Epistles. I read Gnostic Gospels, but has anybody read this other book of hers? Is it worthwhile?
I’ve also heard people talk about there being various books in the “official” canonical Bible which are more gnostic in spirit than others. Does anybody have a good list of which books these are? Also, in terms of the Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, which are the most gnostic and why? I know all you gnostics are just dying to answer this, so have at it. For everybody else, maybe this will put the Bible you already have into a new perspective. Essentially what I’m looking for is a sort of “Gnostic Reading Plan” for the Old & New Testament. If anybody wants to tackle this as a project, I’d love to see it. The more detailed the better.
On another note, can you actually believe I don’t own a Bible? I know, it’s weird. I’ve been meaning to get one for a while. I wonder if it’s sort of like how they say with Tarot sets though, that you’re not supposed to buy ones for yourself. You’re supposed to wait for them as a gift. All I have is this weird edited version of the Gospel of John with a snowboarder on the front that I found in a bathroom stall at the movie theatre.
- The Gnostic Seeking
- Is Gnosticism Corruptible?
- Plato’s Allegory of the Cave
- Gnostic Whatzit Tonite
- Gnostic Essays
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September 9th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
steal a bible next time yer at a hotel
pagels book adam eve & the serpent is good
gospel of john is the most gnostic in the opinion of many scholars. “the light shone but the darkness did not understand it” it goes the furthest in depicting jesus as an otherworldly being & is the most dualistic
September 9th, 2005 at 9:49 pm
Sounds like you should check out The Septuagint with the Apocrypha… cool stuff…
September 9th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
John is widely proclaimed the most gnostic of the canonical gospels, and then there are Paul’s letters, many of which contain some suspiciously gnostic elements.
I’ve got an Oxford Annotated RSV with the apocrypha. It’s a nice, readable translation. If you like “gender inclusive” language they also publish an NRSV one.
Barnstone & Meyer’s “Gnostic Bible” also has the Gospel of John. Save $15 and buy it on Amazon.
September 10th, 2005 at 2:54 am
Yep, go with John.
In the uK you can buy all the books of the bible as separate paperbacks - it is was a marketing idea by some publisher but they pad it out with essays on the text by well-known but unlikely people. I think Nick Cave wrote the preface to John and it is something of a classic.
Pagels’ ‘Origin of Satan’ is a goodie.
September 10th, 2005 at 6:28 am
Yuo dopn’t have to wait. I think that there might be a downloadable zip of the Bible at Gutenberg. It’s much easier to do a search if you have a text version.
Then again, thre’s always the Book of Mormon…..
September 10th, 2005 at 8:11 am
The Gnostic Paul is a really good read. Kind of makes you see Paul in a different light.
September 10th, 2005 at 11:18 am
Kabbalists who apply gematria to the original Hebrew will tell you there are Gnostic revelations throughout the Bible.
September 10th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
I’ll second Justin- get the Oxford Annotated NRSV. Best annotated “scholars bible” there is, though my profs at Augustana generally preferred the Harper-Collins Study Bible (which is fairly good as well, and similiarly annotated).
And yes, of the canonical gospels, John is arguably the most “gnostic” portrayal of Jesus, and is generally considered the theological gospel. (There is also some contention that the doctrines presented in John were created in opposition to the doctrines of the Gospel of Thomas. Though some scholars would say this is nonsense based on the fact that the earliest known copy of Thomas was written decades after John, one of my teachers, Dr. Richard Swanson- author of “Provoking the Gospels”- contends that looking at the gospels as documents is a seriously flawed approach, as the gospels are probably only “fossils” of oral teachings, which became steadily less biographical and more theological as time went on, and the Thomas teachings could have been contemporaries of the John teachings, regardless of whether or not they were written down at the same time.)
The earlier three Gospels are all worth study as well, as each presents a different “take” on the story, and can certainly shed some light on the evolution of gnosticism. (Also, note how Jesus becomes more and more “mystical” the later the gospel was written… also note that the doctrine of the virgin birth only appears in one (!) canonical gospel… or how, contra the Davinci Code, the Jesus of the gnostic gospels is much more of a spiritual figure than the “worldly” Jesus of the canonical gospels…)
September 10th, 2005 at 12:37 pm
I would, but I don’t spend a lot of time in hotels… I like the idea of having a stolen bible.
Yes, I regularly use online versions of the Bible.
No, I don’t like gender inclusive translations
Speaking of the Book of Mormon, I know you can have that sent to your house for free. There must be a website where you can get a free bible mailed to you…
September 10th, 2005 at 10:34 pm
I’ve read much of Pagels’ Gnostic Paul. She’s actually following Valentinus’ comentary on Paul. Valentinus claimed to have learned from his teacher (Can’t remember who just now) who claimed to have learned directly from Paul how to decipher Paul’s writing.
For example, read through Romans substituting Psychic (literal) for the term Jews and Pneumatic (spiritual) for Gentiles. After awhile, you get the idea that the first readers would have understood these distinctions. So when Paul tells the two groups to get along—that is for the Pneumatics to allow for their unenlightened, literal brethren and for the Psychics to accept that the Pneumatics know something they don’t—the whole book takes on a different character altogether. When Paul says that he became all things to all people for the sake of the message, when decoded means that he became a literal fundamentalist for some and a mystic Pneumatic for others.
If you read this book, you’ll never read Paul the same way again. But, I don’t think that Gnosticism, as it developed in the second century, was the same thing as the mysticism that Paul and the writer of John spoke of. So Paul is not doing Valentinian Gnosticism.
September 10th, 2005 at 10:37 pm
http://usa-bibles.com/?id=6764
http://www.churchfreebies.com/
Free King James Bibles. Lots of fun language. Not the most accurate of translations. Still, very pretty.Lots of fun. Tons of slaughtering infidels and heretics. Good time for all.
September 10th, 2005 at 10:48 pm
Bill beat me to it! Pagels’ Gnostic Paul is indispensible. I use it all the time. After reading it, and examining the Greek of the NT, its hard to believe the Epistles can be interpreted as anything BUT gnostic. One note: The review and back cover of Pagels’ book says that Pagels refutes the gnostic claim to Paul. That is complete BS. She very openly admits that the gnostics have a good claim to Paul in her introduction. I say the Archons are getting uppity, and doing their best to fuck our understanding. OR I’m paranoid!
Paul’s disciple, Valentine’s teacher, was Theudas, I believe.
The Gospel of John is supposedly the most gnostic, but it has the doubting Thomas parable in it, suggesting strong criticism of the gnostics. Pagels illuminates this in her book Beyond Belief. I actually like Matthew, since it is the most philosophical Gospel (see Thomas 13: “You are like a wise philosopher”). John is fun, but all like, “BELIEVE IN ME AND YOU WILL KICK ASS! KICK ASS! WOOO!” Fundies love the crap out of John. No wonder why.
As for a NT reading plan, I say read the New Testament through John and then tackle the Epistles with Pagels’ Gnostic Paul at hand. I personally like the New King James version. It reads like the King James, very pretty, but it has a great deal of translation issues corrected (like the multiple words for Hell are restored, and thus preserve their original Greek philosophical connotations - Sheol, Gehenna, Hades, etc). My professors have suggested the RSV for translation accuracy.
September 10th, 2005 at 11:20 pm
I find Ecclesiastes and The Song of Solomon to be the most Gnostic books in the OT. I second what others say about “The Gnostic Paul”, it’s good.
September 11th, 2005 at 12:41 am
Actually, I think that Doubting Thomas is a gnostic hero! Think about it. Everybody else tells him to believe something, simply because they tell him it’s so. He says no way, that he won’t believe it until he can actually experience it physically. In other words, he isn’t satisfied and wants to experience direct gnosis. And I think one of the most telling things is that Jesus is totally encouraging and lets him touch his wounds. The advocacy of direct experience seems like one of the most gnostic passages in the Bible.
Also, I explored another aspect of this story in an old piece of mine (which I ought to update and clean up), looking at divine twin myths. Typically, you have a heavenly twin with a god as his father and an earthly twin with an earthly father - both sharing the same mother of course. Castor & Pollux, Hercules and a bunch of others fit this bill. It appears the world over, and often concludes with the sacrifice of one of the twins. In any event, since Thomas means “twin” then he is likely the earthly twin and Jesus the heavenly one. As such, it only makes sense that his primary means of experience is to physically (earth element) touch Jesus
September 11th, 2005 at 9:59 am
Are there any good online commentaries to John?
September 11th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
prunesquallori - www.gnosticchristianity.com has an ebook commentary on John and Romans for like 3 bucks a piece. I have both of them, they are pretty thorough.
You know, Tim, I’d considered doubting thomas as a gnostic parable for a long time. Gnostics are interested in him for exactly the reasons you say. But considering how the person who chides Thomas is Jesus himself, the gnostic herodom falls a little flat. I wonder if there is still great wisdom here, though. Interpreted like a fundie, it means “believe with no proof.” But interpreted like a Gnostic, it might mean “have faith that you will find proof eventually.” Maybe. What do you think? I tend to think there’s a healthy median between absolute gnostic skepticism and absolute fundie belief-without-proof. Eh?
John 20:29 - Jesus said to him, “Thomas,[d] because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
September 11th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
I don’t think he’s chiding Thomas. I think he’s just saying that Thomas came to him one way, and other people come other ways. If Jesus was really pissed, he wouldn’t have let Thomas touch him, nor would he have made a special appearance for him alone. Maybe Jesus is saying that the broad path is for people who believe/have faith. And the narrow path is for people who want proof. He’s not saying: “Thomas, you dick!” He’s just simply recognizing that there are multiple modes of going about it.
September 11th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
Yeah that’s what Im trying to get at. I honestly think there is a median interpretation somewhere along the lines you mapped out. Normative interpretation however (dare I say, psychic interpretation?) points out that since the passage signifies the pure believer as “blessed,” and makes no qualitative remark about Thomas, it would seem that Thomas is being chided. This is unfortunately the interpretation you will get from most people.
But yes, I think you have hit the nail on the head, from a gnostic POV.