Beyond the Canon with Jesus and Mary

Infancy Gospel of Thomas- shows imperfections of Jesus, some people like it because it shows his humanity and there is humor compared to gospels→popular, was it entertainment or spiritual? But some people consider it heretic

Gospel of James (145 CE)

  • centered around Mary more than Jesus

  • emphasizes her more than any of the other gospels, magnified in her glory

  • shown to be special early on with the miraculous birth for someone who previously couldn’t have kids→ given to the temple b/c she’s sacred

  • grows up and has to leave eventually b/c of her period→ seen as unclean

  • someone needs to take responsibility for her→ married off in a lottery-like system that apparently involves divine sanctioning

  • married to Joseph but his character seems different→ is a widower, important b/c not emphasized in canonical gospels, but here he has children from a previous marriage who are not Mary’s children

  • in the canonical gospels, he is said to have siblings

    • possible interpretations:

      • named siblings are actually cousins

      • other one important earlier on in Christianity b/c central authority Catholic Church put forth a Doctrine of Perpetual Virginity for Mary→ James Gospel makes sense with this, however, the Church threw this text out and saw it as heretical but this text was still popular b/c there are a lot of copies of it

  • some ideas were adopted but text was still thrown out

    • doesn’t say a lot about Jesus

    • gives an importance to Mary more than Jesus→ Mary seen as an intermediary in some denominations to pray to God

    • Mary has an important role and esteemed as a figure in Central+South America→ maybe this text promotes her too much to have been accepted back then, just like how Paul’s letters may have been changed

  • Jesus was born in a cave while they were traveling→ in other stories, they were still in civilization

  • tests about purity involved, like when they find out she’s pregnant→ drink a concoction and sent out in the desert → ordeal

  • makes Jesus’ birth much more about nature, far away from human→ emphasizes divine qualities, much like many other divine births in ancient literature→ Greek Gods see this happen a lot

    • maybe this text seems too mythological

  • charge laid against it was that it was inauthentic

  • draws connection b/w Jesus and family in a way most gospels don’t, Matthew shows resentment b/w Jesus and family

  • also talks about John the Baptist’s birth b/c he was also part of the prophecy that mentioned the Messiah

  • very aligned with Hebrew tradition→ little about reformation or anything

  • also used a lot in Orthodox Christianity

Gospel of Thomas

  • Sayings Gospel→ words of Jesus

  • plucking quotes→ put into a list

  • ½ of them are pretty much word for word from canonical gospels but other ½ are not

  • no context for the quotes

  • church authorities did not like sayings gospels

    • most important sayings were in gospels, read them in context

    • promotes individual reflection on what they mean→ hard to establish 1 tradition/interpretation

  • sayings could be attributed to anybody, doesn’t really show importance of Jesus as much

  • his sayings have historically been the most important part of a text

    • quotation marks go back to marking the words of Jesus in a text→ now used for anybody

  • was lost for most of history (rediscovered 1945)

  • when Athanasius came out with his list of texts, a lot of texts were seen as scary→ this was one of them

    • buried in Nag Hammadi around Egypt→ 2 brothers digging for fertilizer, found a jar of 13 texts deliberately buried→ sold parts of codexes b/c needed money→ don’t know if they were all brought back together

    • not shared publicly for a while

    • some works of Plato and Gnostic texts included

  • Gnosticism- the person who buried these texts clearly wanted these texts to go together→ Plato, Gnosticism, Sayings Gospel

    • Monad = 1 driving force in the universe, can be God or Providence or anything

    • Aeons = manifestations of the Monad force, can be called Gods/deities/divine beings, or just ideas, like Sophia = wisdom

    • could be brought into connection w/ Christianity or even other religions

    • would consider Christ or Holy Spirit Aeons

    • Demiurge = aeon responsible for creating material universe, but was seen as a bad thing

    • the material world is disorienting+deceptive→ keep you from understanding true/divine aspect of the universe, like the allegory of the cave→ inferior version of reality

    • goal = overcome this→ Gnosis (knowledge/enlightenment/salvation)

    • gnosis = knowledge but also salvation, revelation, smth significant occurring to you bc of your knowledge

                  end goal = living your life in such a way that brings to you knowledge & salvation & etc., overcoming physical body & whatnot

                  lifestyles varied greatly

                  some ppl got rid of basically every example of the material world, but others didn't take it that far

                  some would spend material wealth they get to help others (gain wisdom there vs hunting for food every day)

            more self-centered than Socrates (cave allegory) bc main goal is to get knowledge and yea ig share it but that doesn't matter thatttt much

            spoken (or written, if not materialistic) words!!!

            gnostics did freq. believe that john the Baptist had all the info & then jesus came along and screwed everything up

            also believed that jesus was born 100% human

            MANY (dominant view) believed Jesus was an aeon who came down to live as human in order to share knowledge towards salvation

            alllll don't fully fit w Christianity

      gospel of Thomas

      gospel of john

            prob ~90 CE

            john's least known of the other apostles

            idea of jesus = sacrificial lamb of Christianity comes from this book

            this book is "correcting" the narrative so far (see: gnostics)