Here is yet another comic from a blog that I subscribe to. This one, like the last blog about this artist drew my attention. I must profess that I am not a student of church history (All though I would love to be. Rabbi Bill tells me I will be very disappointed). Here are some of the questions that come to mind and maybe we could start a discussion about my questions or some that might be conjured up by this comic.Who was apart of the canonization of the Bible?
Why do we have the books that we do?
Why are the books that we (Christians) have considered infallible?
Why do we as Christians consider the Bible and not the Apocrypha as practicing Catholics do?
Why is this even a discussion to include the Gospel of Thomas? What TRUTHS does this book have to offer?
Other questions about myself and this subject...
Does this scare me to think that other Gospels got it right also?
What is the real reason that this has caught my attention?
What do you all think? Does this provoke anything in you that just doesn't seem to make sense?
Let me know what you think...
4 comments:
So, The 4 gospels that we have are most widely recognized my many people smarter than me to have been written somewhere between 50AD and 70AD. The Gospel of Thomas comes from a completely different source (the Gnostics) and the earliest it was most likely written was about 150 AD. Obviously we are not talking then about Thomas being the actual author. We are talking about folks who thought that all things material...body, earth, etc. were all evil and needed to be suppressed. Physical pleasure, Creation, food that tasted good...all evil. The soul was the only true part of ourselves that we should focus on. Spirit over Body. I believe...and perhaps Padre Guillermo can confirm or deny this, but that the Gnostics believed that Jesus did not actually have a physical body.
These Gnostic themes are woven into The Gospel of Thomas. It's a good read, but I beleive that the folks who canonized the Bible in 300something AD did right by not including it.
It is also worth noting that for the most part, the council responsible for the canon canonized a collection of books that were already being used as Scripture widely by the church. It's not like people were in there lobbying for books that weren't already in circulation.
My question is: Are there writings that were considered Scripture by a large portion of people that were not used that perhaps were God-breathed, or was God instrumental in using these folks to get the job done.
And that is my Main Question...are there other sources that were respected and looked to ritual readings at synagogues during the first century.
Today we use sources like Josephus to fill in the blanks, what other sources could there be.
???
when i was in one of my bible classes i learned that some books weren't put into the final text because it was too short of a book. umm...Jude or 2 & 3 John ring a bell? that class spun my faith around in circles and i haven't been the same since. :)
i enjoy learning about this stuff too but enough of it never sticks in my brain. i want to take another class. and another, and another....
Hmm...I think the Gospel of Thomas is 71 chapters long or longer, a book I am reading now called "Jesus and Empire" by Richard Horsley has used Thomas as a 1 century text to pull cultural data from it but now as a biblical supplication. You should read that book Micah...it is hard but good.
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