April DeConick on the New Testament

# 07 May, 2013 17:29
XtrialbyfireX	I found this really great blog by the scholar April DeConick and I thought I'd share it: http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-wild-thought-about-scripture.html I'm hoping she makes an entire book out of this study b/c it would be very fascinating. It seems that the modern orthodox understanding of scripture is a synthesis of a time when Christianity was much more diverse and contradictory elements in scripture were integrated instead of understood for their original purposes. In fact a lot of the texts of the New Testament were written to counter other texts and other groups of Christians who are also represented in the New Testament. Most interesting to me is the possibility that the Gospel of John, which is possibly the most important book of the Bible, is actually a Gnostic text, and the only one to find it's way into canon. (I've been hearing this for the last year or so, but this is the first scholar I've read talk about it). I've mentioned elsewhere on the show notes that Gnostics outright rejected the violent God of the Old Testament, which is a teaching that I think that modern day Christianity might benefit from. A Gnostic would say that anyone who waves around signs sayings saying “God hates fags,” the Westboro Baptist Church, or priests that cover up child molestation all serve Sammael, the blind god of the Old Testament. quote

# 07 May, 2013 17:29

I found this really great blog by the scholar April DeConick and I thought I'd share it:

http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-wild-thought-about-scripture.html

I'm hoping she makes an entire book out of this study b/c it would be very fascinating. It seems that the modern orthodox understanding of scripture is a synthesis of a time when Christianity was much more diverse and contradictory elements in scripture were integrated instead of understood for their original purposes. In fact a lot of the texts of the New Testament were written to counter other texts and other groups of Christians who are also represented in the New Testament.

Most interesting to me is the possibility that the Gospel of John, which is possibly the most important book of the Bible, is actually a Gnostic text, and the only one to find it's way into canon. (I've been hearing this for the last year or so, but this is the first scholar I've read talk about it).

I've mentioned elsewhere on the show notes that Gnostics outright rejected the violent God of the Old Testament, which is a teaching that I think that modern day Christianity might benefit from. A Gnostic would say that anyone who waves around signs sayings saying “God hates fags,” the Westboro Baptist Church, or priests that cover up child molestation all serve Sammael, the blind god of the Old Testament.