Ancient and Modern Gnosticism
The Gnostic Gospels: Part Two
Are They Authentic?
by Douglas Groothuis
from the Christian Research Journal, Winter 1991, page 15. The
Editor-in-Chief of the Christian Research Journal is Elliot Miller.
In the first installment of this two-part series, I outlined
the stark contrasts between the gnostic Jesus and "the Word
become flesh." These respective views of Jesus are lodged within
mutually exclusive world views concerning claims about God, the
universe, humanity, and salvation. But our next line of inquiry
is to be historical. Do we have a clue as to what Jesus, the Man
from Nazareth, actually did and said as a player in space-time history?
Should such gnostic documents as the Gospel of Thomas capture our
attention as a reliable report of the mind of Jesus, or does the
Son of Man of the biblical Gospels speak with the authentic voice?
Or must we remain in utter agnosticism about the historical Jesus?
GLOSSARY
aeons: Emanations of Being from the unknowable, ultimate metaphysical
principle or pleroma (see pleroma).
Nag Hammadi collection: A group of ancient documents dating from
approximately A.D. 350, predominantly Gnostic in character, which
were discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945.
pleroma: The Greek word for "fulness" used by the Gnostics
to mean the highest principle of Being where dwells the unknown
and unknowable God. Used in the New Testament to refer to "fullness
in Christ" (Col. 2:10) who is the known revelation of God in
the flesh.
pseudepigrapha: Ancient documents which falsely claim authorship
by noteworthy individuals for the sake of credibility; for instance,
the Gospel of Thomas.
syncretism: The teaching that various religious truth-claims can
be synthesized into one basic, underlying unity.
Valentinus: Influential early Gnostic of the Second Century A.D.
who may have authorized the Nag Hammadi document, the Gospel of
Truth.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unless we are content to chronicle a cacophony of conflicting views
of Jesus based on pure speculation or passionate whimsy, historical
investigation is non-negotiable. Christianity has always been a
historical religion and any serious challenge to its legitimacy
must attend to that fact. Its central claims are rooted in events,
not just ideas; in people, not just principles; in revelation, not
speculation; in incarnation, not abstraction. Renowned historian
Herbert Butterfield speaks of Christianity as a religion in which
"certain historical events are held to be part of the religion
itself" and are "considered to...represent the divine
breaking into history."[1]
Historical accuracy was certainly no incidental item to Luke in
the writing of his Gospel: "Many have undertaken to draw up
an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just
as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were
eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself
have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed
good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent
Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you
have been taught" (Luke 1:1-4, NIV). The text affirms that
Luke was after nothing less than historical certainty, presented
in orderly fashion and based on firsthand testimony.
If Christianity centers on Jesus, the Christ, the promised Messiah
who inaugurates the kingdom of God with power, the objective facticity
of this Jesus is preeminent. Likewise, if purportedly historical
documents, like the gospels of Nag Hammadi, challenge the biblical
understanding of Jesus, they too must be brought before historical
scrutiny. Part Two of this series will therefore inspect the historical
standing of the Gnostic writings in terms of their historical integrity,
authenticity, and veracity.
LOST BOOKS OF THE BIBLE?
Although much excitement has been generated by the Nag Hammadi
discoveries, not a little misunderstanding has been mixed with the
enthusiasm. The overriding assumption of many is that the treatises
unearthed in upper Egypt contained "lost books of the Bible"
-- of historical stature equal to or greater than the New Testament
books. Much of this has been fueled by the titles of some of the
documents themselves, particularly the so-called "Gnostic gospels":
the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of
the Egyptians, and the Gospel of Truth. The connotation of a "gospel"
is that it presents the life of Jesus as a teacher, preacher, and
healer -- similar in style, if not content, to Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John.
Yet, a reading of these "gospels" reveals an entirely
different genre of material. For example, the introduction to the
Gospel of Truth in The Nag Hammadi Library reads, "Despite
its title, this work is not the sort found in the New Testament,
since it does not offer a continuous narration of the deeds, teachings,
passion, and resurrection of Jesus."[2] The introduction to
the Gospel of Philip in the same volume says that although it has
some similarities to a New Testament Gospel, it "is not a gospel
like one of the New Testament gospels. . . . [The] few sayings and
stories about Jesus...are not set in any kind of narrative framework
like one of the New Testament gospels."[3] Biblical scholar
Joseph A. Fitzmyer criticized the title of Pagels's The Gnostic
Gospels because it insinuates that the heart of the book concerns
lost gospels that have come to light when in fact the majority of
Pagels's references are from early church fathers' sources or nongospel
material.[4]
In terms of scholarly and popular attention, the "superstar"
of the Nag Hammadi collection is the Gospel of Thomas. Yet, Thomas
also falls outside the genre of the New Testament Gospels despite
the fact that many of its 114 sayings are directly or indirectly
related to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Thomas has almost no narration
and its structure consists of discrete sayings. Unlike the canonical
Gospels, which provide a social context and narrative for Jesus'
words, Thomas is more like various beads almost haphazardly strung
on a necklace. This in itself makes proper interpretation difficult.
F. F. Bruce observes that "the sayings of Jesus are best to
be understood in the light of the historical circumstances in which
they were spoken. Only when we have understood them thus can we
safely endeavor to recognize the permanent truth which they convey.
When they are detached from their original historical setting and
arranged in an anthology, their interpretation is more precarious."[5]
Without undue appeal to the subjective, it can be safely said that
the Gnostic material on Jesus has a decidedly different "feel"
than the biblical Gospels. There, Jesus' teaching emerges naturally
from the overall contour of His life. In the Gnostic materials Jesus
seems, in many cases, more of a lecturer on metaphysics than a Jewish
prophet. In the Letter of Peter to Philip, the apostles ask the
resurrected Jesus, "Lord, we would like to know the deficiency
of the aeons and of their pleroma."[6] Such philosophical abstractions
were never on the lips of the disciples -- the fishermen, tax collectors,
and zealots -- of the biblical accounts. Jesus then discourses on
the precosmic fall of "the mother" who acted in opposition
to "the Father" and so produced ailing aeons.[7]
Whatever is made of the historical "feel" of these documents,
their actual status as historical records should be brought into
closer scrutiny to assess their factual reliability.
THE RELIABILITY OF THE GNOSTIC DOCUMENTS
Historicity is related to trustworthiness. If a document is historically
reliable, it is trustworthy as objectively true; there is good reason
to believe that what it affirms essentially fits what is the case.
It is faithful to fact. Historical reliability can be divided into
three basic categories: integrity, authenticity, and veracity.
Integrity concerns the preservation of the writing through history.
Do we have reason to believe the text as it now reads is essentially
the same as when it was first written? Or has substantial corruption
taken place through distortion, additions, or subtractions? The
New Testament has been preserved in thousands of diverse and ancient
manuscripts which enable us to reconstruct the original documents
with a high degree of certainty. But what of Nag Hammadi?
Before the discovery at Nag Hammadi, Gnostic documents not inferred
from references in the church fathers were few and far between.
Since 1945, however, there are many primary documents. Scholars
date the extant manuscripts from A.D. 350-400. The original writing
of the various documents, of course, took place sometime before
A.D. 350-400, but not, according to most scholars, before the second
century.
The actual condition of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts varies considerably.
James Robinson, editor of The Nag Hammadi Library, notes that "there
is the physical deterioration of the books themselves, which began
no doubt before they were buried around 400 C.E. [then] advanced
steadily while they remained buried, and unfortunately was not completely
halted in the period between their discovery in 1945 and their final
conservation thirty years later."[8]
Reading through The Nag Hammadi Library, one often finds notations
such as ellipses, parentheses, and brackets, indicating spotty marks
in the texts. Often the translator has to venture tentative reconstructions
of the writings because of textual damage. The situation may be
likened to putting together a jigsaw puzzle with numerous pieces
missing; one is forced to recreate the pieces by using whatever
context is available. Robinson adds that "when only a few letters
are missing, they can be often filled in adequately, but larger
holes must simply remain a blank."[9]
Concerning translation, Robinson relates that "the texts were
translated one by one from Greek to Coptic, and not always by translators
capable of grasping the profundity or sublimity of what they sought
to translate."[10] Robinson notes, however, that most of the
texts are adequately translated, and that when there is more than
one version of a particular text, the better translation is clearly
discernible. Nevertheless, he is "led to wonder about the bulk
of the texts that exist only in a single version,"[11] because
these texts cannot be compared with other translations for accuracy.
Robinson comments further on the integrity of the texts: "There
is the same kind of hazard in the transmission of the texts by a
series of scribes who copied them, generation after generation,
from increasingly corrupt copies, first in Greek and then in Coptic.
The number of unintentional errors is hard to estimate, since such
a thing as a clean control copy does not exist; nor does one have,
as in the case of the Bible, a quantity of manuscripts of the same
text that tend to correct each other when compared (emphasis added)."[12]
Authenticity concerns the authorship of a given writing. Do we
know who the author was? Or must we deal with an anonymous one?
A writing is considered authentic if it can be shown to have been
written by its stated or implied author. There is solid evidence
that the New Testament Gospels were written by their namesakes:
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But what of Nag Hammadi?
The Letter of Peter to Philip is dated at the end of the second
century or even into the third. This rules out a literal letter
from the apostle to Philip. The genre of this text is known as pseudepigrapha
-- writings falsely ascribed to noteworthy individuals to lend credibility
to the material. Although interesting in explaining the development
of Gnostic thought and its relationship to biblical writings, this
letter shouldn't be overtaxed as delivering reliable history of
the events it purports to record.
There are few if any cases of known authorship with the Nag Hammadi
and other Gnostic texts. Scholars speculate as to authorship, but
do not take pseudepigraphic literature as authentically apostolic.
Even the Gospel of Thomas, probably the document closest in time
to the New Testament events, is virtually never considered to be
written by the apostle Thomas himself.[13] The marks of authenticity
in this material are, then, spotty at best.
Veracity concerns the truthfulness of the author of the text. Was
the author adequately in a position to relate what is reported,
in terms of both chronological closeness to the events and observational
savvy? Did he or she have sufficient credentials to relay historical
truth?
Some, in their enthusiasm over Nag Hammadi, have lassoed texts
into the historical corral that date several hundred years after
the life of Jesus. For instance, in a review of the movie The Last
Temptation of Christ, Michael Grosso speaks of hints of Jesus' sexual
life "right at the start of the Christian tradition."
He then quotes from the Gospel of Philip to the effect that Jesus
often kissed Mary Magdalene on the mouth.[14] The problem is that
the text is quite far from "the start of the Christian tradition,"
being written, according to one scholar, "perhaps as late as
the second half of the third century."[15]
Craig Blomberg states that "most of the Nag Hammadi documents,
predominantly Gnostic in nature, make no pretense of overlapping
with the gospel traditions of Jesus' earthly life."[16] He
observes that "a number claim to record conversations of the
resurrected Jesus with various disciples, but this setting is usually
little more than an artificial framework for imparting Gnostic doctrine."[17]
What, then, of the veracity of the documents? We do not know who
wrote most of them and their historical veracity concerning Jesus
seems slim. Yet some scholars advance a few candidates as providing
historically reliable facts concerning Jesus.
In the case of the Gospel of Truth, some scholars see Valentinus
as the author, or at least as authoring an earlier version.[18]
Yet Valentinus dates into the second century (d. A.D. 175) and was
thus not a contemporary of Jesus. Attridge and MacRae date the document
between A.D. 140 and 180.[19] Layton recognizes that "the work
is a sermon and has nothing to do with the Christian genre properly
called 'gospel.'"[20]
The text differs from many in Nag Hammadi because of its recurring
references to New Testament passages. Beatley Layton notes that
"it paraphrases, and so interprets, some thirty to sixty scriptural
passages almost all from the New Testament books."[21] He goes
on to note that Valentinus shaped these allusions to fit his own
Gnostic theology.[22] In discussing the use of the synoptic Gospels
(Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in the Gospel of Truth, C. M. Tuckett
concludes that "there is no evidence for the use of sources
other than the canonical gospels for synoptic material."[23]
This would mean that the Gospel of Truth gives no independent historical
insight about Jesus, but rather reinterprets previous material.
The Gospel of Philip is thick with Gnostic theology and contains
several references to Jesus. However, it does not claim to be a
revelation from Jesus: it is more of a Gnostic manual of theology.[24]
According to Tuckett's analysis, all the references to Gospel material
seem to stem from Matthew and not from any other canonical Gospel
or other source independent of Matthew. Andrew Hembold has also
pointed out that both the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Philip
show signs of "mimicking" the New Testament; they both
"know and recognize the greater part of the New Testament as
authoritative."[25] This would make them derivative, not original,
documents.
Tuckett has also argued that the Gospel of Mary and the Book of
Thomas the Contender are dependent on synoptic materials, and that
"there is virtually no evidence for the use of pre-synoptic
sources by these writers. These texts are all 'post-synoptic,' not
only with regard to their dates, but also with regard to the form
of the synoptic tradition they presuppose."[26] In other words,
these writings are simply drawing on preexistent Gospel material
and rearranging it to conform to their Gnostic world view. They
do not contribute historically authentic, new material.
The Apocryphon of James claims to be a secret revelation of the
risen Jesus to James His brother. It is less obviously Gnostic than
some Nag Hammadi texts and contains some more orthodox-sounding
phrases such as, "Verily I say unto you none will be saved
unless they believe in my cross."[27] It also affirms the unorthodox,
such as when Jesus says, "Become better than I; make yourselves
like the son of the Holy Spirit."[28] While one scholar dates
this text sometime before A.D. 150,[29] Blomberg believes it gives
indications of being "at least in part later than and dependent
upon the canonical gospels."[30] Its esotericism certainly
puts it at odds with the canonical Gospels, which are better attested
historically.
THOMAS ON TRIAL
The Nag Hammadi text that has provoked the most historical scrutiny
is the Gospel of Thomas. Because of its reputation as the lost "fifth
Gospel" and its frequently esoteric and mystical cast, it is
frequently quoted in New Age circles. A recent book by Robert Winterhalter
is entitled, The Fifth Gospel: A Verse-by-Verse New Age Commentary
on the Gospel of Thomas. He claims Thomas knows "the Christ
both as the Self, and the foundation of individual life."[31]
Some sayings in Thomas do seem to teach this. But is this what the
historical Jesus taught?
The scholarly literature on Thomas is vast and controversial. Nevertheless,
a few important considerations arise in assessing its veracity as
history.
Because it is more of an anthology of mostly unrelated sayings
than an ongoing story about Jesus' words and deeds, Thomas is outside
the genre of "Gospel" in the New Testament. Yet, some
of the 114 sayings closely parallel or roughly resemble statements
in the Synoptics, either by adding to them, deleting from them,
combining several references into one, or by changing the sense
of a saying entirely.
This explanation uses the Synoptics as a reference point for comparison.
But is it likely that Thomas is independent of these sources and
gives authentic although "unorthodox" material about Jesus?
To answer this, we must consider a diverse range of factors.
There certainly are sayings that harmonize with biblical material,
and direct or indirect relationships can be found to all four canonical
Gospels. In this sense, Thomas contains both orthodox and unorthodox
material, if we use orthodox to mean the material in the extant
New Testament. For instance, the Trinity and unforgivable sin are
referred to in the context of blasphemy: "Jesus said, 'Whoever
blasphemes against the father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes
against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against
the holy spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven.'"[32]
In another saying Jesus speaks of the "evil man" who
"brings forth evil things from his evil storehouse, which is
in his heart, and says evil things"[33] (see Luke 6:43-46).
This can be read to harmonize with the New Testament Gospels' emphasis
on human sin, not just ignorance of the divine spark within.
Although it is not directly related to a canonical Gospel text,
the following statement seems to state the biblical theme of the
urgency of finding Jesus while one can: "Jesus said, 'Take
heed of the living one while you are alive, lest you die and seek
to see him and be unable to do so'" (compare John 7:34; 13:33).[34]
At the same time we find texts of a clearly Gnostic slant, as noted
earlier. How can we account for this?
The original writing of Thomas has been dated variously between
A.D. 50 and 150 or even later, with most scholars opting for a second
century date.[35] Of course, an earlier date would lend more credibility
to it, although its lack of narrative framework still makes it more
difficult to understand than the canonical Gospels. While some argue
that Thomas uses historical sources independent of those used by
the New Testament, this is not a uniformly held view, and arguments
are easily found which marshall evidence for Thomas's dependence
(either partial or total) on the canonical Gospels.[36]
Blomberg claims that "where Thomas parallels the four gospels
it is unlikely that any of the distinctive elements in Thomas predate
the canonical versions."[37] When Thomas gives a parable found
in the four Gospels and adds details not found there, "they
can almost always be explained as conscious, Gnostic redaction [editorial
adaptation]."[38]
James Dunn elaborates on this theme by comparing Thomas with what
is believed to be an earlier and partial version of the document
found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, near the turn of the century.[39] He
notes that the Oxyrhynchus "papyri date from the end of the
second or the first half of the third century, while the Gospel
of Thomas...was probably written no earlier than the fourth century."[40]
Dunn then compares similar statements from Matthew, the Oxyrhynchus
papyri, and the Nag Hammadi text version of Thomas:
Matthew 7:7-8 and 11:28 -- "...Seek and you will find;...he
who seeks finds...Come to me...and I will give you rest." Pap.
Ox. 654.5-9 -- (Jesus says:) 'Let him who see(ks) not cease (seeking
until) he finds; and when he find (he will) be astonished, and having
(astoun)ded, he will reign; an(d reigning), he will (re)st' (Clement
of Alexandria also knows the saying in this form.) Gospel of Thomas
2 -- 'Jesus said: He who seeks should not stop seeking until he
finds; and when he finds, he will be bewildered (beside himself);
and when he is bewildered he will marvel, and will reign over the
All.'[41]
Dunn notes that the term "the All" (which the Gospel
of Thomas adds to the earlier document) is "a regular Gnostic
concept," and that "as the above comparisons suggest,
the most obvious explanation is that it was one of the last elements
to be added to the saying."[42] Dunn further comments that
the Nag Hammadi version of Thomas shows a definite "gnostic
colouring" and gives no evidence of "the thesis of a form
of Gnostic Christianity already existing in the first century."
He continues: "Rather it confirms the counter thesis that the
Gnostic element in Gnostic Christianity is a second century syncretistic
outgrowth on the stock of the earlier Christianity. What we can
see clearly in the case of this one saying is probably representative
of the lengthy process of development and elaboration which resulted
in the form of the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi."[43]
Other authorities substantiate the notion that whatever authentic
material Thomas may convey concerning Jesus, the text shows signs
of Gnostic tampering. Marvin W. Meyer judges that Thomas "shows
the hand of a gnosticizing editor."[44] Winterhalter, who reveres
Thomas enough to write a devotional guide on it, nevertheless says
of it that "some sayings are spurious or greatly altered, but
this is the work of a later Egyptian editor."[45] He thinks,
though, that the wheat can be successfully separated from the chaff.
Robert M. Grant has noted that "the religious realities which
the Church proclaimed were ultimately perverted by the Gospel of
Thomas. For this reason Thomas, along with other documents which
purported to contain secret sayings of Jesus, was rejected by the
Church."[46]
Here we find ourselves agreeing with the early Christian defenders
of the faith who maintained that Gnosticism in the church was a
corruption of original truth and not an independently legitimate
source of information on Jesus or the rest of reality. Fitzmyer
drives this home in criticizing Pagels's view that the Gnostics
have an equal claim on Christian authenticity: "Throughout
the book [Pagels] gives the unwary reader the impression that the
difference between 'orthodox Christians' and 'gnostic Christians'
was one related to the 'origins of Christianity'. Time and time
again, she is blind to the fact that she is ignoring a good century
of Christian existence in which those 'gnostic Christians' were
simply not around."[47]
In this connection it is also telling that outside of the Gospel
of Thomas, which doesn't overtly mention the Resurrection, other
Gnostic documents claiming to impart new information about Jesus
do so through spiritual, post-resurrection dialogues -- often in
the form of visions -- which are not subject to the same historical
rigor as claims made about the earthly life of Jesus. This leads
Dunn to comment that "Christian Gnosticism usually attributed
its secret [and unorthodox] teaching of Jesus to discourses delivered
by him, so they maintained, in a lengthy ministry after his resurrection
(as in Thomas the Contender and Pistis Sophia). The Gospel of Thomas
is unusual therefore in attempting to use the Jesus-tradition as
the vehicle for its teaching. . . . Perhaps Gnosticism abandoned
the Gospel of Thomas format because it was to some extent subject
to check and rebuttal from Jesus-tradition preserved elsewhere."[48]
Dunn thinks that the more thoroughly the Gnostics challenged the
already established orthodox accounts of Jesus' earthly life, the
less credible they became; but with post-resurrection accounts,
no checks were forthcoming. They were claiming additional information
vouchsafed only to the elite. He concludes that Gnosticism "was
able to present its message in a sustained way as the teaching of
Jesus only by separating the risen Christ from the earthly Jesus
and by abandoning the attempts to show a continuity between the
Jesus of the Jesus-tradition and the heavenly Christ of their faith."[49]
What is seen by some as a Gnostic challenge to historic, orthodox
views of the life, teaching, and work of Jesus was actually in many
cases a retreat from historical considerations entirely. Only so
could the Gnostic documents attempt to establish their credibility.
GNOSTIC UNDERDOGS?
Although Pagels and others have provoked sympathy, if not enthusiasm,
for the Gnostics as the underdogs who just happened to lose out
to orthodoxy, the Gnostics' historical credentials concerning Jesus
are less than compelling. It may be romantic to "root for the
underdog," but the Gnostic underdogs show every sign of being
heretical hangers-on who tried to harness Christian language for
conceptions antithetical to early Christian teaching.
Many sympathetic with Gnosticism make much of the notion that the
Gnostic writings were suppressed by the early Christian church.
But this assertion does not, in itself, provide support one way
or the other for the truth or falsity of Gnostic doctrine. If truth
is not a matter of majority vote, neither is it a matter of minority
dissent. It may be true, as Pagels says, that "the winners
write history," but that doesn't necessarily make them bad
or dishonest historians. If so, we should hunt down Nazi historians
to give us the real picture of Hitler's Germany and relegate all
opposing views to that of dogmatic apologists who just happened
to be on the winning side.
In Against Heresies, Irenaeus went to great lengths to present
the theologies of the various Gnostic schools in order to refute
them biblically and logically. If suppression had been his concern,
the book never would have been written as it was. Further, to argue
cogently against the Gnostics, Irenaeus and the other anti-Gnostic
apologists would presumably have had to be diligent to correctly
represent their foes in order to avoid ridicule for misunderstanding
them. Patrick Henry highlights this in reference to Nag Hammadi:
"While the Nag Hammadi materials have made some corrections
to the portrayal of Gnosticism in the anti-Gnostic writings of the
church fathers, it is increasingly evident that the fathers did
not fabricate their opponents' views; what distortion there is comes
from selection, not from invention. It is still legitimate to use
materials from the writings of the fathers to characterize Gnosticism."[50]
It is highly improbable that all of the Gnostic materials could
have been systematically confiscated or destroyed by the early church.
Dunn finds it unlikely that the reason we have no unambiguously
first century documents from Christian Gnostics is because the early
church eradicated them. He believes it more likely that we have
none because there were none.[51] But by archaeological virtue of
Nag Hammadi, we now do have many primary source Gnostic documents
available for detailed inspection. Yet they do not receive superior
marks as historical documents about Jesus. In a review of The Gnostic
Gospels, noted biblical scholar Raymond Brown affirmed that from
the Nag Hammadi "works we learn not a single verifiable new
fact about the historical Jesus' ministry, and only a few new sayings
that might possibly have been his."[52]
Another factor foreign to the interests of Gnostic apologists is
the proposition that Gnosticism expired largely because it lacked
life from the beginning. F. F. Bruce notes that "Gnosticism
was too much bound up with a popular but passing phase of thought
to have the survival power of apostolic Christianity."[53]
Exactly why did apostolic Christianity survive and thrive? Robert
Speer pulls no theological punches when he proclaims that "Christianity
lived because it was true to the truth. Through all the centuries
it has never been able to live otherwise. It can not live otherwise
today."[54]
NOTES
1 Herbert Butterfield, Christianity and History (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1950), 119.
2 Harold W. Attridge and George W. MacRae, "Introduction: The
Gospel of Truth," in James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi
Library (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988), 38.
3 Wesley W. Isenberg, "Introduction: The Gospel of Philip,"
Ibid., 139.
4 Joseph Fitzmyer, "The Gnostic Gospels According to Pagels,"
America, 16 Feb. 1980, 123.
5 F. F. Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 154.
6 Robinson, 434.
7 Ibid., 435.
8 Robinson, "Introduction," 2.
9 Ibid., 3.
10 Ibid., 2.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 See Ray Summers, The Secret Sayings of the Living Jesus (Waco,
TX: Word Books, 1968), 14.
14 Michael Grosso, "Testing the Images of God," Gnosis,
Winter 1989, 43.
15 Wesley W. Isenberg, "Introduction: The Gospel of Philip,"
in Robinson, 141.
16 Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1987), 208.
17 Ibid.
18 See Stephan Hoeller, "Valentinus: A Gnostic for All Seasons,"
Gnosis, Fall/Winter 1985, 25.
19 Ibid., 38.
20 Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (Garden City, NY: Doubleday
and Co., 1987), 251.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 C. M. Tuckett, "Synoptic Tradition in the Gospel of Truth
and the Testimony of Truth," Journal of Theological Studies
35 (1984):145.
24 Blomberg, 213-14.
25 Andrew K. Hembold, The Nag Hammadi Texts and the Bible (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1967), 88-89.
26 Christopher Tuckett, "Synoptic Tradition in Some Nag Hammadi
and Related Texts," Vigiliae Christiane 36 (July 1982):184.
27 Robinson, 32.
28 Ibid.
29 Francis E. Williams, "Introduction: The Apocryphon of James,"
in Robinson, 30.
30 Blomberg, 213.
31 Robert Winterhalter, The Fifth Gospel (San Francisco: Harper
and Row, 1988), 13.
32 Robinson, 131; See Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins, 130-31.
33 Robinson, 131.
34 Ibid., 132.
35 Layton, 377.
36 See Craig L. Blomberg, "Tradition and Redaction in the Parables
of the Gospel of Thomas," Gospel Perspectives 5: 177-205.
37 Blomberg, Historical Reliability, 211.
38 Ibid., 212.
39 See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "The Oxyrhynchus Logoie of Jesus
and the Coptic Gospel According to Thomas," in Joseph Fitzmyer,
Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (Missoula,
MT: Scholars Press, 1974), 355-433.
40 James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster
Press, 1985), 101.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., 102.
43 Ibid.
44 Marvin W. Meyer, "Jesus in the Nag Hammadi Library,"
Reformed Journal (June 1979):15.
45 Winterhalter, 4.
46 Robert M. Grant with David Noel Freedman, The Secret Sayings
of Jesus (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1960), 115.
47 Fitzmyer, "The Gnostic Gospels According to Pagels,"
123.
48 James Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1977), 287-88.
49 Ibid., 288; see also Blomberg, Historical Reliability, 219.
50 Patrick Henry, New Directions (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1977), 282.
51 Dunn, The Evidence, 97-98.
52 Raymond E. Brown, "The Gnostic Gospels," The New York
Times Book Review, 20 Jan. 1980, 3.
53 F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 1988), 278.
54 Robert E. Speer, The Finality of Jesus Christ (Westwood, NJ:
Fleming H. Revell Company, 1933), 108.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of document, CRJ0088A.TXT (original CRI file name),
"The Gnostic Gospels: Are They Authentic?"
release A, April 30, 1994
R. Poll, CRI
A special note of thanks to Bob and Pat Hunter for their help in
the preparation of this ASCII file for BBS circulation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1994 by the Christian Research Institute.
|
