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Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, the holiest day in the Gnostic calendar.

Last year in honor of this day I posted an excerpt from the Gospel of Truth. Today I will contemplate an interesting aspect of many post-ressurection encounters with Jesus. These concern an unrecognized savior, either unknown even to those who were closest to him, or hidden in the guise of different forms.

What could this mean? I sense here a rather intriguing mystery: the unrecognized savior, hiding in disguise even from those who knew him for months or years. Maybe the hinted meaning is not so difficult after all: anyone we encounter, no matter what his or her appearance, could be a manifestion of the divine. Maybe it also refers to my thoughts a couple of weeks ago, about how each of us are in turn are at times called upon to be the savior for someone else.

The Buddhists have a saying, that we should treat every person we encounter as if he or she is Buddha... because in a very real sense, we are.

First the canonical accounts, and then the most interesting non-canonical accounts, and then a miscellany of different accounts.

Expandcanonical accounts: the unrecognized or unfamiliar Jesus )


Expandnoncanonical sources: Prisca, Valentinus, Acts of John )


Expandadditional noncanonical accounts )
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The other book that came on Friday was Neil Douglas-Klotz's Prayers of the Cosmos. Those of you who have been reading my journal for a while, or have looked through the memories, know I was extremely fond of his book The Hidden Gospel, as I have quoted from it several times.

Prayers of the Cosmos is I think best approached as a companion book to The Hidden Gospel, because it doesn't flow nearly as smoothly, and seems to presume the reader's familiarity with the material and themes raised in the latter book. This book contains a treatment of the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes, seen through the lens of Sufi mysticism and the fluidness of the Aramaic language. His work won't satisfy people who are looking for academic rigor (or mainstream Christian theology) but many of his sentiments have been influential on me, perhaps even transformative.

ExpandRead more... )
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Let's make this a trilogy of readings in modern liberal theology.

This excerpt is from Burton Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament?. Mack is an atheist, or agnostic, member of the Jesus Seminar, and his book makes for pretty dry reading. But some of the information he presents is, IMO, invaluable.

Most readers of the Gospel of Mark soon notice that there are two miracle stories about Jesus and the disciples crossing the sea, and two stories about Jesus feeding a crowd in the open. Why two? This question then triggers other questions about the miracles that take place around and about these major events (Mark 4:35-8:10). Why so many?

ExpandRead more... )

...[T]he contours of a Jesus movement also begin to emerge. It was a movement that had developed quite a strong self-consciousness about itself as a group. The people were ethnically mixed, gathered for meals, had leaders who cared for the association and its needs, perhaps had some way of distributing food among themselves, and may have been in the process of ritualizing and symbolizing their common meals. Here was a Jesus movement that took a look at its members, noticed the social formation taking place, delighted in its novelty, realized how strange they must appear to others, wondered how to imagine themselves in comparison with other peoples, found the comparison with "Israel" fascinating, and had a great time trying out various scenarios before settling on the set of miracles that cast Jesus in the roles of a Moses and an Elijah. pp. 65-67
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In a deep and significant way, we are now able to see that all of the Gospels are Jewish books, profoundly Jewish books. Recognizing this, we begin to face the realization that we will never understand the Gospels until we learn how to read them as Jewish books. They are written, to a greater or lesser degree, in the midrashic style of the Jewish sacred storyteller, a style that most of us do not begin even now to comprehend. This style is not concerned with historic accuracy. It is concerned with meaning and understanding.

Expanda specific example )

Stories about heroes of the Jewish past were heightened and retold again and again about heroes of the present moment, not because those same events actually occurred, but because the reality of God revealed in those moments was like the reality of God known in the past.

We are not reading history when we read the Gospels. We are listening to the experience of the Jewish people, processing in a Jewish way what they believed was a new experience with the God of Israel. Jews filtered every new experience through the corporate remembered history of their people, as that history had been recorded in the Hebrew scriptures of the past.

If we are to recover the power present in the scriptures for our time, then this clue to their original meaning must be recovered and understood. Ascribing to the Gospels historic accuracy in the style of later historians, or demanding that the narratives of the Gospels be taken literally, or trying to recreate the historical context surrounding each specific event narrated in the Gospels -- these are the methods of people who do not realize that they are reading a Jewish book.

From Rev. John Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes, pp. 36-37
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If you are interested, please see my post on the parable of the wedding banquet in [livejournal.com profile] sacred_opinion.
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[livejournal.com profile] aarondarling wrote:
homosexuality is listed along with many other sins...as things that people do that are not followers of God. Which is interesting at least.

I know this isn't much of an answer -- but I think of "laundry-list" morality as a tool people use in an attempt to understand what would please or displease God. I think the situation is much more complex than simply the statement that certain actions always please or always displease God.

My theology doesn't view God as a "parent in the sky" who watches closely and approves or disapproves of each and every action. All of us have flaws and imperfections and make mistakes -- and I think that ulimately it is the overall expression of compassion and agape that determines whether or not we have lived as members of what I call the "cosmic tribe."

I keep coming back to Matthew 25:31-46, wherein the practice of unconditional compassion is depicted as the prime determinant of "sheep" vs. "goats."

Another observation I might make is that in the Bible God often chooses people who would be considered very un-virtuous for his tasks, sometimes very important ones... Moses and Paul come to mind. So we are left wondering why it is that God chose them over many people who led more virtuous lives.
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Just posted this in [livejournal.com profile] challenging_god and wanted to post here for posterity.

Regarding slavery and polygamy in the Bible.

I have been told by Christians exactly what [livejournal.com profile] spakspang wrote to me in a recent reply to my post from Wednesday night:

Slavery is also something I do not think was ever supported by God, however was again rampant throughout the culture. God often times used the oppressive natures of the times to teach his people when they walk away from him.


This raises a really thorny issue. If God never supported slavery, how are we supposed to know it is wrong from the Bible? What I mean is, if God does not directly speak God's mind on an issue like this, but "out of the hardness of our hearts" (as Jesus said) allows us to do things like own slaves, take more than one wife, and divorce when he actually disapproves, how are we to know what God's *real* opinion is on *any* issue?

Alternatively, it was *Moses* who stepped in and changed God's law to allow for divorce. (This is one possible interpretation of Matthew 19:8.) If that is the case, how can we ever trust people who speak for God (or claim to speak for God) with telling us the *real* opinions of God?
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[livejournal.com profile] aarondarling requested more about the Spirit from the Bhagavad-Gita. Here is a passage that seems to exemplify the Gita's teaching on this subject.

[Bhagavad-Gita 6:20] When the mind is resting in the stillness of the prayer of Yoga [yoga-sevaya, the science of union], and by the grace of the Spirit [atmana] sees the Spirit and therein finds fulfillment;
[21] then the seeker knows the joy of Eternity: a vision seen by reason far beyond what senses can see. He abides therein and moves not from Truth.
[22] He has found joy and Truth, a vision for him supreme. He is therein steady: the greatest pain moves him not.
(trans. Juan Mascaro)

To verse 20, compare:
[Matthew 6:6] But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

To verse 21, compare:
[I Corinthians 2:9] As it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"
[10] --but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

[Acts 2:1] When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
[2] Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
[3] They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

Edit: I should comment here on the mention of grace in verse 20 above. In the esoteric tradition it is indicated that the experience of union depends upon two conditions: the readiness of the aspirant, and the descent of grace. The aspirant signals readiness by cultivating control of breath and posture and by focusing attention on the sahasrara or crown of the head (possibly the "upstairs room" mentioned in Acts 1:13?).

This readiness however does not guarantee the descent of grace, as anyone who has spent time in contemplative prayer or meditation will tell you, it is possible to do this for months or years without any result resembling dhyana or samadhi. Therefore the experience of union is described always as a revelation.
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I've been largely silent for the past few days because I've spent most of my spare time, which hasn't been much lately, putting together this post.

In a comment on Beliefnet's Progressive Christianity board, user Sparrowhawk mentioned a concept by theologian Walter Bruggemann, that each Christian has about 40 passages which serve as a basis for her faith and actions. Inspired by this, I thought it might be an interesting exercize to see what passages have central importance for me.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive -- and at this point excludes sources outside the regular canon, a shortcoming I will have to rectify at some point -- but it helps put a lot of my ideas into perspective. I found the exercize very helpful.

ExpandRead more... )

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