Hunter Farish’s Reviews > Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas > Status Update

2/2: This description seems to leave out some of his less than moral legislative acts — namely his systematic oppression of Jews as well as his unreasonable taxation and subjugation to “various compulsory public services” of both Jews and Christians he deemed ‘heretics.’ I wish she wouldn’t have made such a blanket statement.

Ptolemy/Valentines: God>word>Jesus
Irenaeus: God=word=Jesus

3/3: to say that Jesus couldn’t have been mortal ONLY takes away from humans — “don’t aspire to be as Jesus was; he was the only son of the word itself — of god.” Irenaeus’s explanation of Jesus as God does not negate the idea — nor the benefits — that seeing Jesus as mortal may provide.

2/3: Jesus absolutely can be viewed as both mortal and divinely appointed (but not as God) and still assume the position of Savior. Irenaeus believes that the only way we could be saved is if the word itself, God, joined humans in human form, but I don’t see that this is necessary for the ‘saving’ of humans. Continued on next.

1/?: I can’t agree with Irenaeus’s conviction that in the course of human events, God had lost his occupation within us to the forces of the devil and that that provides ground on which to say “Jesus must’ve been the messiah AND God incarnate, and therefore humans can’t see him as Thomas’s gospel does — as divinely appointed but mortal.” Continued next post.

5/5: It is also therefore evident that the REASON for avoiding such righteous search for the truth is in the conquest of and in service to the prioritization of cultivating a large and incessantly pervasive network over said search for the truth. It is Gnosticism (seeking understanding and knowledge) that is cast out by Irenaeus, and complacent uncertainty that remains, as such complacency fuels power-seeking ability

IMPORTANT CONT: It is therefore evident that a factor in the burying of the Nag Hammadi texts is the fact that they were subversive, but not necessarily untrue. I believe this was the start of a rich Christian history of avoiding the actual search for truth — the widely understood reason of religion. “We may not consider alternatives as they may subvert the ability of our religion to gain POWER AND INFLUENCE.

IMPORTANT: It is important to understand that Irenaeus and his teacher, Polycarp, were interested in constructing universal rules and values of the church (Catholicism). Irenaeus felt that allowing such ideas as presented by followers of Thomas’s gospel or in the Gospel of Philip (who called for not only one baptism but many) posed an immediate threat to unification of the church. These ideas would create schism.

IMPORTANT CONT: The answer to this question is illuminating: Irenaeus favored the four gospels he includes in the New Testament because they matched more closely with current Christian traditions, and called the ones that didn’t heretical. Continued on next post.

IMPORTANT: In this last chapter, The Canon of Truth and the Triumph of John, the final 5 pages or so discuss what was my major question so far — why did Irenaeus and his contemporaries favor John’s gospel and what did they find objectionable in the Nag Hammadi texts? Continued on next post.