Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [138]
“These are the secret words which the living Jesus spoke, and which the twin, Judas Thomas, wrote down.”
The words came from the Gospel According to Thomas. Although other early Christian writings were known to have existed and scraps of a mysterious Gospel According to Thomas had been found previously, the entire text had never been seen. This “new” gospel was the first of fifty-five texts discovered at Nag Hammadi. These were the so-called “Gnostic Gospels,” a secret set of early Christian writings. Written in Coptic, a North African dialect used exclusively by an Egyptian Christian sect, they proved to be fifteen-hundred-year-old translations of older Greek writings. Some of the books contained familiar sayings from the New Testament. But other teachings and statements attributed to Jesus were unique and extraordinary, potentially shaking the foundations of Christianity with the questions they raised. In one text, the Gospel of Philip, Jesus is depicted kissing Mary Magdalene, one of his female followers. It is not a brotherly peck on the cheek either:
“…the companion of the [Savior is] Mary Magdalene. [But Christ loved] her more than [all] the disciples, and used to kiss her [often] on her [mouth].” (As cited by Elaine Pagels in The Gnostic Gospels, p. XV)
“Gnostic,” an early Christian sect whose name comes from the Greek gnosis, usually translated as “knowledge,” is a term used loosely to identify groups of early Christians who held beliefs very different from conventional Christianity. Just as modern Christianity is split among many contending sects with differing ideas about Jesus, the early church was deeply divided. Gnostics believed, for instance, that Jesus’ rising from the dead was spiritual, rather than an actual physical event. They also believed in a spiritual search for inner truth that had more in common with eastern views like Buddhism than with orthodox Christianity. The “Gnostic Gospels” had been denounced as heresy by early Christian leaders who were no longer persecuted victims. They had become the authorities. To challenge them was to risk excommunication, arrest, or worse for heresy. About five hundred years after Jesus lived, someone—a monk? there are remains of a monastery near Nag Hammadi—took a set of these banned texts and buried them in the Egyptian desert, either out of self-preservation or for posterity. While the Nag Hammadi discoveries have opened up a great many questions, they also make one thing clear: the earliest Christians did not agree on what we call the New Testament and they may have had more of Jesus’ life and words to read and study than the stories and teachings familiar to most contemporary Christians.
This brief look at the evolution of the New Testament provides another reminder that one person’s “Word of God” can be an other’s heresy. And the story doesn’t end with the establishment of the New Testament sixteen hundred years ago. A group of devout believers in the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus have another holy book, called the Koran, given to their prophet Muhammad, who lived around six hundred years after Jesus lived. Roman Catholics have a catechism to expand on the teachings of the Holy Bible. They also believe the Pope, their earthly leader, sometimes speaks the “infallible” word of God. Another large and growing group of Christians believe in another divine book given to their prophet by an angel. The book could only be read by someone wearing a pair of golden spectacles. That book, deemed holy by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is the Book of Mormon. So put a Jew, a Muslim, a Roman Catholic, and a Mormon in the same room. All may be sincere, good, devout believers who think they possess the “Truth,” or the Word of God. And none