The Gospel of Thomas rocks my socks.

[logansrogue]

Jesus said, "When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father."

There's a possible subtext there, which I'm sure wasn't the aim, that even the biggest, strongest and most powerful man came from a woman. I think what the intended message in that line was that we'd know God by the fact that he wouldn't be one of us.


Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say toyou, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, thekingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come toknow yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize thatit is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will notknow yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are thatpoverty."

God, I love that shit. Anything that says that heaven is within us and around us - that's gold. It's beautiful to read and beautiful to think on.


Jesus said, "Do not be concerned from morning until evening and from evening until morning about what you will wear."

Hah! Tell that to me when I've got a big event coming up! *laughs*



The problem with any scripture, though, is that eventually I'll run into something that just annoys me, or that I just don't get. Maybe I will one day.

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Some old rituals I have seen refer to 'the bornless one', in a similar sense. I think your interpretation is correct.

The second quote is quite lovely, and interestingly parallels a vision I had.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

I like anything that honours women in some way. It's a refreshing change, especially when so much of that was left out of the 'canonical' Bible. I think the beauty of that line is that there are different ways of looking at it, and they're all very harmonious.

Really? Sounds like an interesting vision! That line reminds me of the line that they used repeatedly in Stigmata (I really love that movie).

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

The hidden gospel on which they based the plot of 'Stigmata' was Thomas, fragments of which had been circulating for many years. They made up the history of the gospel in the movie, but the actual text was based on Thomas itself.

I like Thomas as a gospel because it's just weird enough to be exciting and new, but still sounds plausible as a description of what JC might have said. I mean, as plausible as any of 'em. I love the kingdom is within you stuff, but it doesn't get all loopy like the gospel of Judas, which recently made some (IMO unwarranted) waves.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I knew that, I had a stupid moment. LOL!!

Sometimes the uncanonical gospels do get a bit weird, but I put that down to lost cultural metaphor. People thousands of years ago would have got it, but we're like, "... Huh? A who and a what now?" HEheh.

[aeditimi.livejournal.com]

I love imagining the day, 2000 years from now, when historians are scratching their heads trying to figure out what all the animals stand for in political cartoons, or trying to understand the cultural references in some recused fragment of film they've found.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they'll be like, watching a bit of the Wedding Singer, going, "I don't get it... why is it funny?"