Interesting, Danny. in some traditions, it is maintained that our generic inner logos, if you will, can and does manifest as an outer being, either in a personal vision, or a collective inner vision. Those glowing angelic encounters being a somewhat more explosive component to our inner nature. Even the various depictions of nimbus's (sp?) and radiating countenances and disco-ball clothing among the scriptures have amazing similarities
And so also, often times, such encounters being an obviously higher experience, but not yet highest, there is usually the same mistake made (and so also a useful lesson to be learned) regarding these first "glimpses in the mirror." like mistaking this angelic manifestation as "strictly other." or misunderstanding the experience altogether and starting something cultic or occultic or worse.
That's why I find David Lynch movies so intriguing.
They're "psychological" dramas which feature different characters generated by (or within) a person's mind. A person who amidst great trial or tribulation disengages from his old primary identity to become a new character in a new world, which fragile world is gradually intruded by snippets of memories of the old life which threaten to cast down the ideal illusion.
The gnostics were always consider heretics from the faith. Their gospels did not carry the same weight as the writings that have come to be known as the Bible in the early church.
Councils of leaders would consider them and decide what was right and wrong. That's good leadership.
Christianity Today's Web site has some good research on the gnostics and their writings. You should checki it out.
If it is not fair to send someone to eternal judgment for a finite amount of sins, how can someone be given eternal life for the same finitie acts of righteousness?
and if there is no act that will garner eternal life (as scripture declares), it must simply already be here now, as always, hiding in plain sight, like God is known to do
If it is not fair to send someone to eternal judgment for a finite amount of sins, how can someone be given eternal life for the same finitie acts of righteousness?
Def, you already know that it is by grace that we are saved and not by works. Also that we have to accept the finished work of Jesus Christ in order to receive salvation from God. But you are correct in that without Jesus Christ, no one would receive eternal life.
But you are correct in that without Jesus Christ, no one would receive eternal life.
Mark, perhaps its not as much as some magic invocation/evocation of the actual person of "Jesus Christ," but something even simpler...like you said: "accepting the finished work."
eventually, someone in human history had to do it.
it had less to do with him as some special person, and more to do with what he taught and lived by his freewill choice. Once he understood and expressed "it," "it" had finally been introduced into the stream of history and human understanding, though he himself knew it would be a long time before the whole world would catch on.
he knew he was at the arc of a leap of spiritual evolution...being the one who was at and pushing the very edge of this arc of being...and simply knowing why this is is personally transforming, and begins to make you whole
and to add...i think Jesus himself was trying to get folks to think beyond the concept of special magic people as saviours and kings...which pretty much was one of the major problems with "OT" understanding
which is perhaps why they freaked out when he simply forgave someone, for example
when the spiritual and mundane merge in the obviousness of God, there is no need to wait for a super hero...you already are one
The gnostics were always consider heretics from the faith.
Not necessarily the case - Christianity started out as cool, James Dean-like antihero movement until smashing into that fateful telephone pole of the-heathen-culture-at-large, which tamed it down quite a bit.
quote:
Their gospels did not carry the same weight as the writings that have come to be known as the Bible in the early church.
But many of the gospels may have started out quite skinny in their youth, putting on more and more weight as they got older.
Some gospels had gotten quite fat. And once one puts on the pounds, it sure is tougher to lose.
quote:
Councils of leaders would consider them and decide what was right and wrong.
And sometime councils and leaders are wrong, and make mistakes, and commit great evils, and may even honor upon themselves the title of
"good leadership", and would convinceth thou to bow down thine knees and doeth likewise.
sirguess.... a query: are you familiar with the works of Annie Besant and other Theosophist authors? some of your thought would seem to be in agreement with much of Theosophist thought....
ive looked into theosophy and its history a while ago, though i recall little of it. but from what i do recall, i guess i am somewhat in agreement in some limited sense.
but i've never studied theosophy, or been a student of it, if that's what yer askin
A friend of Mary Magdalene’s — who wasn’t Mrs. Jesus, it seems — deserves more attention
AP Photo NY630
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
AP Religion Writer
Jane Fonda’s autobiography and related interviews depict her involvement with a women’s Bible study led by an Atlanta Presbyterian. Now she’s become fascinated with gospels from the Gnostic movement that early Christians barred from the Bible as inauthentic and heretical.
The feminism that shapes Fonda’s religious quest also plays into Dan Brown’s promotion of Gnosticism in his popular novel, “The Da Vinci Code.”
Did the Gnostics provide reliable information about Jesus? Birger Pearson, a University of California-Santa Barbara, expert, notes in Bible Review magazine that Gnostic writings involved were fourth-century translations from third- or second-century writings. The New Testament Gospels were first-century texts.
Brown’s celebrated claim that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and sired a royal bloodline is debunked by Pearson, who says “nothing at all” in biblical or Gnostic materials provides evidence.
The “Mrs. Jesus” theory depends on the assertion that Jewish men were required to marry. But we’ve known that’s untrue since the first century, when Josephus wrote about celibate Essene holy men.
Speaking of women, in the same issue of Bible Review, Ben Witherington III of Asbury Theological Seminary in Lexington, Ky., writes that with all the Mary Magdalene chatter we shouldn’t ignore that her real-life friend Joanna was equally — or perhaps more — important.
Who?
Joanna and Mary, both close companions of Jesus, attended his crucifixion and burial after the male disciples fled (Luke 23:49-56). They witnessed the empty tomb on Easter morning and went to tell the men, who initially dismissed the good news as an “idle tale” (Luke 24:1-11).
The first scriptural mention of Joanna says that Jesus “went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means” (Luke 8:1-3).
Chuza was the household administrator for Herod Antipas, the tyrant infamous for executing Jesus’ cousin and forerunner, John the Baptist.
Joanna’s travels were extraordinary because “women in early Jewish culture were not supposed to fraternize with men they were not related to,” Witherington notes.
Since Joanna’s husband was well-placed, she presumably had the freedom to travel and the financial means to support Jesus’ entourage. But this would have “put her husband’s career at risk,” he surmises.
That shows what a powerful attraction Jesus had for women followers, Witherington says. Jesus not only dismissed the taboo against men talking with women who weren’t their relatives but apparently didn’t treat women as ritually unclean during their monthly cycle (see Mark 7:15).
Witherington offers an added theory also proposed in “Gospel Women” (Eerdmans, 2002) by Richard Bauckham of Scotland’s University of St. Andrews.
An important statement about the role of women in the earliest church is Romans 16:1-16. There, Paul greets important church workers. One of them is Junia (or Junias), wife of Andronicus, whose Latin name is the equivalent of the Hebrew Joanna. Could she be the same Joanna of the Gospel account?
Witherington thinks she is. Paul says that Junia and Andronicus were notable “apostles,” making Junia the first woman given that exalted title, which clearly implies that she had seen the risen Jesus and had been commissioned directly by him.
Paul also says Junia and Andronicus “were in Christ before me.” Since Paul became a Christian two or three years after Jesus’ crucifixion, the couple would have been among the very earliest Christians when believers were virtually all Jews located in the Holy Land.
Witherington speculates that Chuza divorced Joanna, who then married the Christian Andronicus. “Herod Antipas would hardly have retained Chuza as estate agent if Chuza retained Joanna as a wife,” he figures, and maybe the divorce made her free to follow Jesus to Jerusalem.
That was a very interesting article, Def. Thanks for posting it.
My impression thus far of any attempts to date the gnostic writings is the same dilemma that I see also for the NT manuscripts - what has been passed down to us are copies, dating mostly to the third-fourth centuries? (with the exception of a second century fragment of this or that) -
and how old are the Nag Hammadi manuscripts?
Apparently about the same age as many of our existing NT manuscripts (circ. 4th century).
quote:
Originally posted by def59:
The first scriptural mention of Joanna says that Jesus “went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means” (Luke 8:1-3).
In discussing this passage in the Marcionite Gospel, Tertullian refers to these female groupies who "clung" to Jesus as "wealthy women", a very intriguing description.
I'm sure he was Danny, haven't you seen his pictures....the perfect blue eyes that gaze right into yours, light skined, without blemish, long wavey well-conditioned hair (no split ends), plucked eye-brows, I mean he's a virtual metrosexual. The ladies love that sort of thing.
maybe he was a hottie (and a metrosexual/hillbilly hybrid), but i would also think that, in the sub-culture he was a part of, for a man to come along and promote education, healing arts, universal compassion, the well-being of elderly and sick and outcasts, throws a great party, tells amazing stories, gives a good footrub, shakes up the greed and religion and ignorance of the patriarchy by expressing peace, etc...
...bright and influential women might just naturally become his students and dear friends, no?
heck, many of them might have thrown themselves at him at first. but a man who doesnt try to bang or exploit his "groupies" would be noticable rarity among minister types.
note: the dove descending on him from above being an anointing of a feminine nature (i mean, look at the form: wings unfolding + oil + descending from above + being well-pleased, all sorts of ooh aah shekinah glory type stuff, etc...is it sexual or a birth canal or both? does it even matter?)
the secret of the universe, including the "problems" with eden and the "solutions" of the book of Revelation, are to be found in sex and sexuallity, it seems...sexuality of body, sexuality of soul, and sexuallity of spirit
eros and agape in union...now there is a fiery tree that never ever goes out
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TheInvisibleDan
That's why I find David Lynch movies so intriguing.
They're "psychological" dramas which feature different characters generated by (or within) a person's mind. A person who amidst great trial or tribulation disengages from his old primary identity to become a new character in a new world, which fragile world is gradually intruded by snippets of memories of the old life which threaten to cast down the ideal illusion.
Danny
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sirguessalot
You never cease to amaze and educate me, oh invisible 1
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def59
The gnostics were always consider heretics from the faith. Their gospels did not carry the same weight as the writings that have come to be known as the Bible in the early church.
Councils of leaders would consider them and decide what was right and wrong. That's good leadership.
Christianity Today's Web site has some good research on the gnostics and their writings. You should checki it out.
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def59
If it is not fair to send someone to eternal judgment for a finite amount of sins, how can someone be given eternal life for the same finitie acts of righteousness?
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sirguessalot
neither sounds fair to me, def
and if there is no act that will garner eternal life (as scripture declares), it must simply already be here now, as always, hiding in plain sight, like God is known to do
and so simply seeing it is the spiritual birth
once we stop grasping and striving
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Mark Sanguinetti
Def59 says,
Def, you already know that it is by grace that we are saved and not by works. Also that we have to accept the finished work of Jesus Christ in order to receive salvation from God. But you are correct in that without Jesus Christ, no one would receive eternal life.
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sirguessalot
Mark, perhaps its not as much as some magic invocation/evocation of the actual person of "Jesus Christ," but something even simpler...like you said: "accepting the finished work."
eventually, someone in human history had to do it.
it had less to do with him as some special person, and more to do with what he taught and lived by his freewill choice. Once he understood and expressed "it," "it" had finally been introduced into the stream of history and human understanding, though he himself knew it would be a long time before the whole world would catch on.
he knew he was at the arc of a leap of spiritual evolution...being the one who was at and pushing the very edge of this arc of being...and simply knowing why this is is personally transforming, and begins to make you whole
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sirguessalot
and to add...i think Jesus himself was trying to get folks to think beyond the concept of special magic people as saviours and kings...which pretty much was one of the major problems with "OT" understanding
which is perhaps why they freaked out when he simply forgave someone, for example
when the spiritual and mundane merge in the obviousness of God, there is no need to wait for a super hero...you already are one
is this not universal?
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TheInvisibleDan
Not necessarily the case - Christianity started out as cool, James Dean-like antihero movement until smashing into that fateful telephone pole of the-heathen-culture-at-large, which tamed it down quite a bit.
But many of the gospels may have started out quite skinny in their youth, putting on more and more weight as they got older.
Some gospels had gotten quite fat. And once one puts on the pounds, it sure is tougher to lose.
And sometime councils and leaders are wrong, and make mistakes, and commit great evils, and may even honor upon themselves the title of
"good leadership", and would convinceth thou to bow down thine knees and doeth likewise.
Danny
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alfakat
sirguess.... a query: are you familiar with the works of Annie Besant and other Theosophist authors? some of your thought would seem to be in agreement with much of Theosophist thought....
just wondering...
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sirguessalot
ive looked into theosophy and its history a while ago, though i recall little of it. but from what i do recall, i guess i am somewhat in agreement in some limited sense.
but i've never studied theosophy, or been a student of it, if that's what yer askin
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sirguessalot
found interesting stuff tho...
*Theosophy according to skeptics
*Some sort of modern Theosophists
*Theosophy according to Catholics
*Some other modern Theosophical Society
at a glance, seems quite active and diverse, like some modern Alexandria, or metaphysical Disney-Land.
they seem to specialize in looking mostly backward, which is helpful.
unless its all one does, all the time, imo.
but even then....i'd at least get a t-shirt.
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def59
Here's an article I found interesting.
A friend of Mary Magdalene’s — who wasn’t Mrs. Jesus, it seems — deserves more attention
AP Photo NY630
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
AP Religion Writer
Jane Fonda’s autobiography and related interviews depict her involvement with a women’s Bible study led by an Atlanta Presbyterian. Now she’s become fascinated with gospels from the Gnostic movement that early Christians barred from the Bible as inauthentic and heretical.
The feminism that shapes Fonda’s religious quest also plays into Dan Brown’s promotion of Gnosticism in his popular novel, “The Da Vinci Code.”
Did the Gnostics provide reliable information about Jesus? Birger Pearson, a University of California-Santa Barbara, expert, notes in Bible Review magazine that Gnostic writings involved were fourth-century translations from third- or second-century writings. The New Testament Gospels were first-century texts.
Brown’s celebrated claim that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and sired a royal bloodline is debunked by Pearson, who says “nothing at all” in biblical or Gnostic materials provides evidence.
The “Mrs. Jesus” theory depends on the assertion that Jewish men were required to marry. But we’ve known that’s untrue since the first century, when Josephus wrote about celibate Essene holy men.
Speaking of women, in the same issue of Bible Review, Ben Witherington III of Asbury Theological Seminary in Lexington, Ky., writes that with all the Mary Magdalene chatter we shouldn’t ignore that her real-life friend Joanna was equally — or perhaps more — important.
Who?
Joanna and Mary, both close companions of Jesus, attended his crucifixion and burial after the male disciples fled (Luke 23:49-56). They witnessed the empty tomb on Easter morning and went to tell the men, who initially dismissed the good news as an “idle tale” (Luke 24:1-11).
The first scriptural mention of Joanna says that Jesus “went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means” (Luke 8:1-3).
Chuza was the household administrator for Herod Antipas, the tyrant infamous for executing Jesus’ cousin and forerunner, John the Baptist.
Joanna’s travels were extraordinary because “women in early Jewish culture were not supposed to fraternize with men they were not related to,” Witherington notes.
Since Joanna’s husband was well-placed, she presumably had the freedom to travel and the financial means to support Jesus’ entourage. But this would have “put her husband’s career at risk,” he surmises.
That shows what a powerful attraction Jesus had for women followers, Witherington says. Jesus not only dismissed the taboo against men talking with women who weren’t their relatives but apparently didn’t treat women as ritually unclean during their monthly cycle (see Mark 7:15).
Witherington offers an added theory also proposed in “Gospel Women” (Eerdmans, 2002) by Richard Bauckham of Scotland’s University of St. Andrews.
An important statement about the role of women in the earliest church is Romans 16:1-16. There, Paul greets important church workers. One of them is Junia (or Junias), wife of Andronicus, whose Latin name is the equivalent of the Hebrew Joanna. Could she be the same Joanna of the Gospel account?
Witherington thinks she is. Paul says that Junia and Andronicus were notable “apostles,” making Junia the first woman given that exalted title, which clearly implies that she had seen the risen Jesus and had been commissioned directly by him.
Paul also says Junia and Andronicus “were in Christ before me.” Since Paul became a Christian two or three years after Jesus’ crucifixion, the couple would have been among the very earliest Christians when believers were virtually all Jews located in the Holy Land.
Witherington speculates that Chuza divorced Joanna, who then married the Christian Andronicus. “Herod Antipas would hardly have retained Chuza as estate agent if Chuza retained Joanna as a wife,” he figures, and maybe the divorce made her free to follow Jesus to Jerusalem.
———
On the Net:
Bible Review: http://www.bib-arch.org/bswb—BR/indexBR.html
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TheInvisibleDan
That was a very interesting article, Def. Thanks for posting it.
My impression thus far of any attempts to date the gnostic writings is the same dilemma that I see also for the NT manuscripts - what has been passed down to us are copies, dating mostly to the third-fourth centuries? (with the exception of a second century fragment of this or that) -
and how old are the Nag Hammadi manuscripts?
Apparently about the same age as many of our existing NT manuscripts (circ. 4th century).
In discussing this passage in the Marcionite Gospel, Tertullian refers to these female groupies who "clung" to Jesus as "wealthy women", a very intriguing description.
Jesus must have been quite a charmer.
Danny
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lindyhopper
I'm sure he was Danny, haven't you seen his pictures....the perfect blue eyes that gaze right into yours, light skined, without blemish, long wavey well-conditioned hair (no split ends), plucked eye-brows, I mean he's a virtual metrosexual. The ladies love that sort of thing.
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sirguessalot
lol...lindy and Danny
maybe he was a hottie (and a metrosexual/hillbilly hybrid), but i would also think that, in the sub-culture he was a part of, for a man to come along and promote education, healing arts, universal compassion, the well-being of elderly and sick and outcasts, throws a great party, tells amazing stories, gives a good footrub, shakes up the greed and religion and ignorance of the patriarchy by expressing peace, etc...
...bright and influential women might just naturally become his students and dear friends, no?
heck, many of them might have thrown themselves at him at first. but a man who doesnt try to bang or exploit his "groupies" would be noticable rarity among minister types.
note: the dove descending on him from above being an anointing of a feminine nature (i mean, look at the form: wings unfolding + oil + descending from above + being well-pleased, all sorts of ooh aah shekinah glory type stuff, etc...is it sexual or a birth canal or both? does it even matter?)
the secret of the universe, including the "problems" with eden and the "solutions" of the book of Revelation, are to be found in sex and sexuallity, it seems...sexuality of body, sexuality of soul, and sexuallity of spirit
eros and agape in union...now there is a fiery tree that never ever goes out
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TheInvisibleDan
So Jesus will return, driving a Porsche -
or will it be in a Limo with a hot tub?
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