gnostic Jesus or another angle
If you want to read a long but excellent essay from beliefnet on How The Gnostic Jesus Became the Christ of Scholars, written by the scholar Philip Jenkins, click here. I think it is important to read this article, especially in light of Harpur’s The Pagan Christ. Take a look from another angle!
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“The best-known text from the Nag Hammadi treasure trove was the Gospel of Thomas, which in the last two decades has widely, if controversially, been attributed a degree of authority little less than that of the four gospels - and perhaps a great deal more. Other items in this collection supplied countless alternative views of Christianity: though only four explicitly bore the title of ‘gospels,’ dozens claimed to record the words or deeds of Jesus. New Testament scholar Marvin Meyer has described the Nag Hammadi collection as ‘just as precious, and perhaps even more precious’ than the texts in the New Testament.”
Why would these “other Gospels” be “more precious” than the “originals”? This would only make sense if you buy into conspiracy theories about the early church using select documents to consolidate some kind of power base.
If this is the case, they certainly picked the “wrong ones” given the view of earthly power vs. submission and servanthood portrayed in the synoptics and John. Does that make any sense?
I agree Fred: why are they more precious? There is certainly no certainty as to the date of Thomas, and the fact that it was rejected by the early church fathers as uninspired does not necessarily betray a conspiratorial cover-up.