November 21, 2009, 3:18 pm by dc-agape.

Well I happen to have taken a trip to Wilmington, NC and forgot to bring my copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  As a result, I will have to make some posts from the Nag Hammadi Library which I can get on line at The Gnostic Society Library.  Since I have finished the Pray of the Apostle Paul and the Apocryphon of James, I will introduce you to the Gospel of Truth.  Two translations of this gospel are available, so I will explain which one I have chosen to read and why.

Two translations exist on the Gnostic Society’s website.  The first translation is by Robert M Grant.  RM Grant is a prolific writer about Gnostic Christianity and early Church history.  The Second translation is translated by Harold W. Attridge and George W. MacRae.  Dr Attridge is a professor at Yale Divinity School and Dr MacRae received his doctorates from Cambridge University.  I have look at both translations and I enjoy reading Attridge and MacRae’s version better.  Grant writes with a very spiritual mumbo-jumbo style, probably very similar to the original, but more difficult to understand and read.  Attridge and MacRae have made a stronger attempt at making this material reader friendly.  Neither have offered an introduction on-line.  So I have done so here as my first post.

This Gospel seems from historical perspective to be written during the era of St Valentinus’ (120 – 160 AD).  During this time Valentinus was nearly appointed a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.  This would have lead to the first recording of this Gospel to between 140 and 160 AD.  Irenaeus (175 – 185 AD) does report Valentinus using this Gospel as Scripture and possibly being the author.  If Valentinus was the author, The Gospel of Truth was written by a 2^nd generation Pauline Christian.  One must understand that Valentinus studied with Theudas , who was a pupil of Paul of Tarsus.  This information is recorded directly from Clement of Alexandria (130 – 160 AD).  If this is the case then the Gospel of Truth is as significant as the writings of Luke (The Gospel of Luke – written between 59 and 89 AD, the Book of Acts – written between 63 and 70 AD), Timothy, or Barnabas (The Book of Hebrews – written before 70 AD).  The history of Theudas (a disciple of Paul of Tarsus) is sketchy at best.  Little is known about him, yet many of the Gnostics claim direct training from him and indicate that he was a contemporary of Luke, Timothy, Apollos, and Barnabas.  As a result, this Theudas could not be the same Theudas that died in 44 AD after starting a revolt against the Romans.  We can be certain of this because Paul did not write the First Letter to Thessalonica until 50 AD.   

Posted in Gospel of Truth, The Nag Hammadi, Introduction | Print | 2 Comments »

November 21, 2009, 10:18 am by dc-agape.

Genesis 41:41-57

Here is the story of how Joseph single-handedly saved the world, Egypt and the surrounding countries from the famine that YHWH created.  The Pharaoh of Egypt made Joseph, a slave and a convict, his second-in-command.  What did Joseph do that was so spectacular…he predicted a famine seven years in the future!  Can you imagine a ruler today even taking a person like this serious?  Can you imagine a ruler today waiting seven years to see if this person was right?  But the Pharaoh had faith in Joseph.

The Pharaoh had so much faith in Joseph that not only did he make him his second-in-command; he gave Joseph the power to do anything at all.  This gave Joseph complete control over every single person in Egypt.  Joseph carries out the orders to store 20% of the grain crops each year.  Which will have rotted by the second year, but who’s counting, Joseph certainly was not.

The Pharaoh also gives Joseph a new and improved name: Zaphenath Paneah.  One of the benefits that Joseph received was a wife.  Yes, an idol worshipping wife from Egypt.  And not any idol worshipper, her father was a priest of On (possibly a priest in the city of Heliopolis).  By the way, there was never a god of Egypt named On!  For some reason the Word of God gets the priest’s patron god’s name wrong and cannot keep the meaning of Joseph’s Egyptian name.  Infallible, my foot!

From his marriage to the idolater, Joseph does get two sons: Manasseh and Ephraim.  I wonder what Abraham and Isaac would say about this, can an Egyptian idolater be better than a Canaanite idolater.  The names of the sons tells a lot about Joseph.  Manasseh means “to have forgotten his troubles and his family”; Ephraim means “that YHWH has made me fruitful”.  Funny how the first one is named after forgetting his family!  It is the second one that he remembers YHWH.  So for Joseph forgetting his father’s family is more important than honoring YHWH!

The famine arrives, and only Egypt is ready for it.  The entire world feels the effect and people from every country come to by grain from Joseph.  Now, if we attempt to interpret this literally, this has got to be the second biggest “Tall Tale” of the Word of God, the “Arc of the Flood” being the biggest.  I say that it is a very big tall tale because grain cannot be stored for seven years, and enough grain for the entire world and all the livestock, as well…impossible!  Also, can you imagine the mass die off of wild animals?  A famine does not affect only humans; one that lasts seven years would be just as deadly as the Flood.  All the livestock would be dead; all the seeds for planting new crops would be dead.  Humanity would have nothing to start anew with.  So surviving the 7 years of world-wide famine would really not accomplish much.  The earth’s ecosystem would have collapsed.  This story could not have happened as written in the Word of God.

Lookup a word or passage in the Bible
Include this form on your page

——————————————————————————–

Posted in Joseph, Tall Tales, Genesis | Print | 1 Comment »