What do Christians think of the Gnostic Gospels?

I have read the Gnostic Gospels several times and am amazed by the wisdom of Jesus that is not shown in the Bible. In the old days, Bibles were written by hand and so could not include all the literature at that time (or it would be too large and expensive).

I feel that it is unfortunate that the Gnostic Gospels, which might give non-Christians an even better impression of Jesus, were not only NOT preserved by the Church but were purposefullly destroyed by the Church.

What do you Christians think?

2011-07-24T19:22:56Z

Uncle Sven:
You used the term: "theosophical new age 'zeitgeist' movement" for the Gnostic Gospels. They are as old as the Biblical Gospels. What the heck are you talking about?

2011-07-24T19:24:36Z

Lomi Lomi:
You mentioned how the Christian officials gave their opinions about getting rid of ideas they didn't like. Unfortunately, they did it by getting rid of the people who espoused those ideas - by the millions.

2011-07-24T19:28:54Z

Joseph the Gray:
All books were written by people, including the Bible. That is except for the "living book of the living" as mentioned in some of the Gnostic literature. That means the "book" of living life itself. Written books, whether sacred or not, are descriptions of our own human life experiences and an attempt to provide our wisdom to future generations. When you turn sacred books into dogma, you destroy their value.

2011-07-24T19:33:26Z

Taurus Fan:
Wow! Your ideas run contrary to all I've read. Can you provide some references for your claims (I mean this sincerely). The only reason we have the Gnostic Gospels is that some copies were buried by Gnostics and unearthed in the 1900's. One was discovered buried with a monk in his grave. They certainly were not willingly preserved by the Church.

2011-07-24T19:37:52Z

Robert C:
Have you actually read them and studied Gnosticism? The teachings are that spirit is more fundamental than physical matter. Matter is not evil but addiction to physical materialism that blinds you to the spirit is misguided. To sum this up by saying that they believed that physical matter is evil is really unfair!

Anonymous2011-07-24T20:00:13Z

Favorite Answer

I think everybody has the right to read and decide for themselves
what is true, lie or fiction
Without any "filtering" from church, government or agency
Every time anybody makes the decision what you may or may not read
your free will is being compromised

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Peace

Anonymous2011-07-24T19:27:04Z

To fully understand the Gnostic Gospels, you need to understand the source. Gnostic means knowledge; the writers of these Gospels called themselves spiritually knowledgeable folks who lived in caves near the dead Sea. They had a completely different concept of Jesus from that of the original Gospels which some call enlightened.
Gnosticism is not new; it existed during the period of the Old Testament and Masonic groups today teach some of their concepts.
Of course the Catholic Church of the Middle ages considered those teachings evil and banned the writings but then again, the Church also considered the Bible sacred and only Priests and Bishops were supposed to read it. It was not until the era of Martin Luther that the Bible was made available to laymen.

?2016-12-16T19:55:27Z

Gnostic Bibles

Taurus Fan...2011-07-24T19:15:44Z

Edit: @ Bob Klein -- In all humility, I'd happily give you references if you can point to one proto Gnostic that appears in the Bible. If you are really that smart and well read, this is your chance to prove it. If you can't, then let me be!!!

"...but were purposefully destroyed by the Church." That is not true.

Anyway, gnostism revolved around the idea that you needed a special kind of knowledge to know God, thereby making it very exclusive. The gospel of Christ was meant for everyone, not a select few. If gnosticism had won the day over traditional Christianity, the world we know today wouldn't have been the same.

The ideas of equality and freedom, which is central to Christianity would have been replaced by a class system more rigid and stern than that which we spite today, as the ones that existed in Europe, for example.

I am not saying that Christianity itself hasn't been abused, however, the abuse of Christianity by various people throughout history does not in anyway take away the message of salvation from Christianity -- a message that Gnosticism was loathe to communicate.

The very fact that we still have those "gospels" with us today should point to the fact that the church never destroyed gnostic gospels. In fact, most gnostic gospels were already out of common circulation before the Christianization of the Roman empire.

imacatholic22011-07-24T19:40:55Z

The gospel of Judas was written about 180 C.E. The gospel of Mary was written even later. They were written by a group of heretics called Gnostics who believed that Jesus was only a man and not God.

Christians of both of that time and now do not believe these gnostic "gospels" are true or inspired by God.

This is clearly shown when the Holy Spirit guided the early Christians to select which gospels and other writings should be included in the New Testament, the gnostic gospels were not included.

With love in Christ.

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