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To: Enterprise
Wow - there's going to be a whole lotta shaking goin on if this debate gets started!

Not really. These doctrines were well-known to have been held by heretics from the earliest centuries of the Church.

The article above explains why The Gospel of Judas is spurious as an account of Jesus of Nazareth's teaching and activities.

While the Gospels of Mark and Matthew were incontrovertibly written within living memory of Jesus of Nazareth's ministry, this document was not - it was written more than three generations later.

It also fits a common pattern of Gnostic writers hijacking other people's religious traditions to fit their notions: Gnostics also wrote spurious narratives about Adam, Noah, Moses and David as well as ones about Zoroaster and other figures. The Gospel of Judas is a typical cookie cutter Gnostic exploitation of someone else's already-existing tradition. Literally hundreds of texts similar to this one have survived from that time period, all you need to do is change the names and places - it's pure Gnostic boilerplate.

In each reworking by the Gnostics, the teachings are rote: the betrayer or enemy of the prophet/divinity involved is secretly the prophet/divinity's best friend/brother/confidant. The prophet/divinity always claims that the physical world is evil, that the nature of the deity is incredibly numerically complex, and that the mathematic formulas and incantations needed to access the deity are secrets known only to a small group of initiates. The enemy/betrayer is always a secret initiate. All outsiders are beasts, only initiates are real or spiritual or holy. Usually, this knowledge can be purchased.

These tropes are repeated again and again in every Gnostic cult.

The Gnostic heresy (held by Simon Magus) was recognized and condemned by the first Pope for what it was in the Acts of the Apostles - a grasping and opportunistic attempt to exploit the Gospel.

The current Pope has no fear in the face of a fake story that was first debunked almost 2,000 years ago.

8 posted on 04/26/2006 1:12:12 PM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake
"Not really. These doctrines were well-known to have been held by heretics from the earliest centuries of the Church."

Well-known to church scholars perhaps, but not historically to the church goers in general. These documents and ideas obviously were and are being suppressed from most people. Of course, I don't view it heretical at all that Jesus was from the one true God.

"The current Pope has no fear in the face of a fake story that was first debunked almost 2,000 years ago."

I guess that is why these things have been suppressed all these centuries. The religious leaders had no fear of them.

10 posted on 04/26/2006 1:39:39 PM PDT by Enterprise (The MSM - Propaganda wing and news censorship division of the Democrat Party.)
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To: wideawake
"These doctrines were well-known to have been held by heretics from the earliest centuries of the Church."

Since it took a couple of centuries for a formal church to come into being, how could gnostics be heretical to a church and a doctrine that didn't exist?

52 posted on 04/30/2006 11:50:21 AM PDT by Enterprise (The MSM - Propaganda wing and news censorship division of the Democrat Party.)
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