Dallas Theological Seminary
The Current Situation and How We Got Here
▪ Walter Bauer
▪ “The New School” - Pagels, King, Ehrman, Koester
▪ The Many Recent Books
▪ The Popularization
▪ The Basic Claims on Orthodoxy and Alternative Christianities
▪ Apocalypse of Peter
▪ Apocryphon of James
▪ Apocryphon of John
▪ Dialogue of the Savior
▪ Eugnostos the
Blessed
▪ Excerpta ex Theodoto
▪ Gospel(s) of Bartholomew
▪ Gospel of the Egyptians
▪ Gospel of Mary Magdalene
▪ Gospel of Judas
▪ Gospel of Nicodemus (= Acts of Pilate)
▪ Gospel of Peter
▪ Gospel of Philip
▪ Gospel of the Savior
▪ Gospel of Thomas
▪ Gospel of Thomas the Contender
▪ Protoevangelium of
James
▪ the Infancy Gospel of Thomas
▪ the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew
▪ Gospel of Truth
▪ Hypostasis of the Archons
▪ Interpretation of Knowledge
▪ Letter to Rheginos
(= Treatise on the Resurrection)
▪ Pistis Sophia
▪ Second Treatise of the Great Seth
▪ Sophia of Jesus Christ
▪ Teachings of Silvanus
▪ Treatise on the Resurrection (see Letter to Rheginos)
▪ Tripartite Tractate
▪ A Valentinian
Exposition
▪ Fragments: Papyrus Egerton
2
▪ Papyrus Oxyrhynchus
840
▪ the Strasbourg Coptic Papyrus
▪ Mentioned by not found: Gospel of the Hebrews
▪ Gospel of the Nazareans
▪ Gospel of the Ebionites
The key event follows. Sophia, an aeon herself, conceives of a thought from herself (9:25–26). She sought to conceive without her consort’s consent (9:34). What she produced was “imperfect and different from her appearance” (10:4), a lion-faced serpent called Yaltabaoth, the first archon to take power from his mother (10:9–19). He is also called the Great Ruler. Here is the start of evil, emerging from an act independent of the highest God. A woman, Sophia, acts on her own. She repents and asks for forgiveness (13:36–14:10).
Yaltabaoth moves to create the first man, which chapters 15 and 16 detail part by part. Later, the command of “the Mother-Father of all” sends five lights to Yaltabaoth to tell him to breathe into the being a breath. Unknown to him, Yaltabaoth breathes into the body an element of power from his mother. The being moves, coming to life (19:15–33). The archons will have power over the “natural and perceptible body,” but in him was an Epinoia, hidden in Adam that was the correction of the mother’s deficiency (20:9–29).
Saying 13: “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘You are like a righteous angel.’ Matthew said to him, ‘You are like a wise philosopher.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying who you are like.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am not your (2nd person sing) master. Because you (sing) have drunk, you (sing) have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out.’” Jesus then takes Thomas aside for a private discussion. When the disciples ask Thomas about the conversation, he replies that if he mentioned any of the things, they would pick up stones, and fire would come out of the stones and burn them.
First, there is high Christology because Jesus’ role is inexpressible. Second, there is emphasis on a held secret, not to be revealed to everyone, reflecting the elite and secret side of this movement. Third, Jesus’ response has Thomas’s reply about being incomparable especially in mind and affirms the inexpressible Jesus over the other options. Those who embrace Thomas’s reply know something that others do not.
“Nothing, then, redeems us from this world. But the All which we are, we are saved. We have received salvation from end to end. Let us think this way! Let us comprehend this way! But there are some (who) wish to understand, in the enquiry about those things they are looking into, whether he who is saved, if he leaves his body behind, will be saved immediately. Let no one doubt concerning this, . . . indeed, the visible members which are dead shall not be saved, for (only) the living [members] which exist within them would arise.What, then, is the resurrection? It is always the disclosure of those who have risen.”
111: “Jesus said, ‘The heavens and earth will be rolled up in your
presence. And the one who lives from the living one will not see death.’ Does
not Jesus say, ‘Whoever finds himself is superior to the world’?”
Peter, blessed are those belonging to the Father, for they are heavenly. It is he (i.e., the Father) who revealed life, to those who are from life, through me. I reminded those who are built on what is strong, that they should heed my instruction and distinguish between words of unrighteousness and transgression of law (on the one hand), and righteousness (on the other), since they are from the height of every word of this fullness of truth. Graciously they have been enlightened by him whom the principalities sought.
There was one Creator God. Jesus was both human and divine; He truly suffered and was raised bodily. He also is worthy to receive worship. Salvation was about liberation from hostile forces, but it also was about sin and forgiveness—the need to fix a flaw in humanity that made each person culpable before the Creator. This salvation was the realization of promises that God made to the world and to Israel through Israel’s Law and Prophets. The one person, Jesus Christ, brought this salvation not only by revealing the way to God and making reconciliation but also by providing for that way through His death for sin. Resurrection into a new exalted spiritual life involves salvation of the entire person—spirit, soul, and body. Faith in this work of God through Jesus saves and brings on a spiritual life that will never end. This was the orthodoxy of the earliest tradition.
This orthodoxy can also be stated in terms of what was to be excluded and included:
(1) God was not to be divided in such a way that He was not the Creator. God was a Creator of all things, and that initial creation was good.
(2) A division between Jesus and the Christ in terms of His basic person and work was not acceptable. Orthodoxy was that Jesus came truly in the flesh and truly suffered.
(3) Redemption only on a spiritual plane was not the true faith. Salvation included a physical dimension of resurrection and extended into the material creation.
(4) Jesus did not come only to point the way to faith, to be a prophet, merely a teacher of religious wisdom, or to be a mere example of religious faith. Rather, His work provided the means to salvation. Jesus was more than a prophet, which is why He was worshipped.
(1) The claim
that Gnostic Christians existed alongside orthodox Christians at the start of Christianity
is “simply false.”
(2) Gnosticism was “not the first unorthodox belief on the block.” The Marcionite heresy likely preceded it (not to mention the Ebionites).
(3) “Yet another falsehood that revisionist historians espouse is that there was no core belief system in the first century that could later be called orthodoxy.” To show this has been a major burden of our tour. Each of our four topics surfaced core teaching.
(4) The adoption of the Hebrew Scriptures as canon meant that Gnosticism would have never been recognized as a “legitimate development of the Christian faith.” The view of the Creator God was most important in the rejection of Gnosticism and Gnostic Christians.