Prophet Portraits

A piece in the March 3 issue of The Week states that depictions of the Prophet Mohammed are forbidden in Islam according to Paul Richard of the Washington Post. He believes that this is why the Danish cartoons have enraged Muslims. He states, however, that no ban is explicit in the Koran. For an explicit ban he tells readers to look in the Book of Exodus: man must not make "any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth below."

African Historical Link to Christianity

Talk about someone challenging conventional wisdom....In the book "New Dimensions in African History, " Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannan (scholar and Egyptologist) asserts that Africans along the Nile River were already into their 13th dynastic period before Abraham was born (p. 55). Check out his chronology of history and the various versions of the Bible here. In the book, he suggests that conventional biblical beliefs have been driven by colonialism: "...colonialism brings to us...history written by the conqueror for the conquered to read..." (p. 60).

Gospel of John vs. Gospel of Thomas

Following up on my last post, the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas discovered at Nag Hammadi, were written for different groups of Jesus' followers near the end of the first century according to Elaine Pagels in her book, "Beyond Belief." Per Ms. Pagels, John says that we can experience God only through the devine light embodied in Jesus. In contrast, Thomas states that the image of God is hidden within everyone. Obviosly, John's view prevailed, and has shaped Christian thought ever since.

Irenaeus

Per Wikipedia (Saint Irenaeus), until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945, Irenaeus' writings, "Against Heresies", was the best description of Gnosticism. Iranaeus was the first Christian writer to list the canonical gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - as divinely inspired. Irenaeus' writings were designed to explain the unity of God as opposed to the Gnostics' division of God into devine Aeons. However, per Elaine Pagels' book, "Beyond Belief", Iranaeus was instrumental in making Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John the only gospels that constitute the whole gospel, which became a powerful tool in Iranaeus' quest to unify the Christian movement during his life(130 - 202 C.E.). Ms. Pagels states that it's the inclusion of The Gospel of John with the other three gospels that has influenced Christians to read the three earlier gospels from John's perspective - just as Irenaeus intended.

What is Gnostic

Now I know what the term "gnostic" means (at least according to Elaine Pagels in "Beyond Belief"). According Ms. Pagels, the framers of Christianity used the term gnostic to refer to those they dismissed as people claiming to know it all. Thus, the Gnostic Gospels were viewed as heretical while the canonical gospels were determined to be orthodox. In fact the Catholic Encyclopedia website, defines Gnosticism as not an advancement of Christianity, but as a retrogression. Yet Ms. Pagels asserts that certain early Christian leaders rejected many sources of revelation and constructed the New Testament which defines Christianity to this day.

The Gospel of John

In the book "Beyond Belief," author Elaine Pagels writes that those who placed the Gospel of John within the New Testament and trashed the The Gospel of Thomas as "heresy," not only shaped, but limited Christianity.

Interesting stuff. I'm reading this book now. I'll post more about it later.