Post by theoccultchrist on Mar 29, 2007 5:22:46 GMT -5
Okay a Fundie Christian tried to use verse 114 in Gnostic Gospel of Thomas to try and say that the Gnostics were sexist against women.
Fundie:the Gnostic Gospels are so chevanistic. In one of the gospels they state that a women must become a man to be saved. The four gospels of Matthew, Mark,Luke and John say that WHOEVER wants to be saved can be saved.(John 3:16) Also, the Gnostic Gospels hardly ever has any other witnesses. The gospels of Matthew,Mark,Luke and John have from 2 to 500 witness. 500 seeing Jesus die on the cross and raise from the dead.
Which caused me to have to come up with this long response:
Okay I busted out my Book Copy of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas:
(LeLoup, The Gospel of Thomas Gnostic Wisdom of Jesus ( Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2005)
The Passage in question that you claim shows how sexist the Gnostics are:
Logion 114:
" Simon Peter said to him: Mary should leave us, for women are not worthy of the Life. Yeshua Answered: This is how I will guide her so that she becomes Man. She, too, will become a living breath like you Men. Anywomen who makes herself a Man will enter into the Kingdom of God."
*See Also in the Canonised Bible Matthew 19:11-12*
Authors Commentary:
It is instructive to the contrast of this logion with the following long passage from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. *28* (http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm) In that Gospel we again find Peter the representative of a repressive, patriarchal attitude towards women. We also find there the theme of a "Perfected" Human Being, but in a different expression: as those who have integrated the masculine and the feminine in themselves, whatever their biological sex happens to be.
*Long excerpt from the Gospel of Mary go to the gnosis.org site to read that sites translation ..of if you got the time to order it order LeLoups Gospel of Mary because he is referencing that here in his commentary on his Translations of Thomas*
Mary goes on to describe how Christ appeared to her in a vision, telling her "You are blessed, for the sight of me does not disturb you"; and "There where is the nous, lies the treasure." then the Savior Instructs her in the art of visionary gnosis, which is neither sensory perception of the psyche or intellect, but rather a state of opening that mystics call the nous, or the fine point where the highest region of the soul merges with the Spirit. In this openness that reaches to the depths of being, the uncreated in humanity is One with the uncrerated in God (See Meister Eckhart). Mary Finishes with her long: "Henceforth I Travel toward repose, where time rests in the Eternity of Time; I go now into silence."
*Some more commentary that is beyond the scope of this post*
Thus, both these gospels show evidence of Peter's difficulty in acknowledging the rightful place of a woman - which is not unrelated to the more general difficulty of acknowledging the rightful place of gnosis. Levi invites the disciples to take the path of the "Anthropos" or fully realized human being (not andros, meaning "male". No Matter what their gender happens to be, if they let themselves be guided and inspired by the Breath of the Living One, it will lead them to a fulness and an integration of Masculine and Feminine.
This Approach may also help us to understand a difficult passage in Matthew 28:11-12 "But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." (KJV) Gnostic tradition, dismissing the literalistic notion that communion with the creative Intelligences would ever require castration of its creatures, interprets the word Eunuch as a gloss. Yeshua would actually have used androgyne. The redactors of Matthew, however, may have judged that the latter word (Like many words, for that matter!) could easily give rise to misunderstanding: People might interpret it as an advocacy of sexual androgyny, thus giving rise to a confused facination with people who manifest a curious mixture of male and female.
But the word androgyne was meant by gnostics in a spiritual sense of the integration of our masculine and feminine polaritites so as to know the Toality of who we are.
** TRANSLATION: ITS ALLEGORY!!! IT's About Finding Balance between our own Masculine and Femine energies...Yeshua in Thomas did not want to actually make Mary's gender "male" or give her a male sex organ..it is allegory for finding our own balance between the energies of feminity and masculinity.**
Fundie:the Gnostic Gospels are so chevanistic. In one of the gospels they state that a women must become a man to be saved. The four gospels of Matthew, Mark,Luke and John say that WHOEVER wants to be saved can be saved.(John 3:16) Also, the Gnostic Gospels hardly ever has any other witnesses. The gospels of Matthew,Mark,Luke and John have from 2 to 500 witness. 500 seeing Jesus die on the cross and raise from the dead.
Which caused me to have to come up with this long response:
Okay I busted out my Book Copy of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas:
(LeLoup, The Gospel of Thomas Gnostic Wisdom of Jesus ( Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2005)
The Passage in question that you claim shows how sexist the Gnostics are:
Logion 114:
" Simon Peter said to him: Mary should leave us, for women are not worthy of the Life. Yeshua Answered: This is how I will guide her so that she becomes Man. She, too, will become a living breath like you Men. Anywomen who makes herself a Man will enter into the Kingdom of God."
*See Also in the Canonised Bible Matthew 19:11-12*
Authors Commentary:
It is instructive to the contrast of this logion with the following long passage from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. *28* (http://www.gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm) In that Gospel we again find Peter the representative of a repressive, patriarchal attitude towards women. We also find there the theme of a "Perfected" Human Being, but in a different expression: as those who have integrated the masculine and the feminine in themselves, whatever their biological sex happens to be.
*Long excerpt from the Gospel of Mary go to the gnosis.org site to read that sites translation ..of if you got the time to order it order LeLoups Gospel of Mary because he is referencing that here in his commentary on his Translations of Thomas*
Mary goes on to describe how Christ appeared to her in a vision, telling her "You are blessed, for the sight of me does not disturb you"; and "There where is the nous, lies the treasure." then the Savior Instructs her in the art of visionary gnosis, which is neither sensory perception of the psyche or intellect, but rather a state of opening that mystics call the nous, or the fine point where the highest region of the soul merges with the Spirit. In this openness that reaches to the depths of being, the uncreated in humanity is One with the uncrerated in God (See Meister Eckhart). Mary Finishes with her long: "Henceforth I Travel toward repose, where time rests in the Eternity of Time; I go now into silence."
*Some more commentary that is beyond the scope of this post*
Thus, both these gospels show evidence of Peter's difficulty in acknowledging the rightful place of a woman - which is not unrelated to the more general difficulty of acknowledging the rightful place of gnosis. Levi invites the disciples to take the path of the "Anthropos" or fully realized human being (not andros, meaning "male". No Matter what their gender happens to be, if they let themselves be guided and inspired by the Breath of the Living One, it will lead them to a fulness and an integration of Masculine and Feminine.
This Approach may also help us to understand a difficult passage in Matthew 28:11-12 "But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." (KJV) Gnostic tradition, dismissing the literalistic notion that communion with the creative Intelligences would ever require castration of its creatures, interprets the word Eunuch as a gloss. Yeshua would actually have used androgyne. The redactors of Matthew, however, may have judged that the latter word (Like many words, for that matter!) could easily give rise to misunderstanding: People might interpret it as an advocacy of sexual androgyny, thus giving rise to a confused facination with people who manifest a curious mixture of male and female.
But the word androgyne was meant by gnostics in a spiritual sense of the integration of our masculine and feminine polaritites so as to know the Toality of who we are.
** TRANSLATION: ITS ALLEGORY!!! IT's About Finding Balance between our own Masculine and Femine energies...Yeshua in Thomas did not want to actually make Mary's gender "male" or give her a male sex organ..it is allegory for finding our own balance between the energies of feminity and masculinity.**
