Etu Malku, references for the following would be sufficient: "The communities to which Paul wrote his letters to were known to be centers of Marcionite Gnosticism" and the statement that Tarsus was a center of the Mysteries. Regarding the latter, could you please indicate the time period as...
Regarding rendering to Caesar, that has a specific context that is being ignored, and in any case I don't think Jesus would have considered human life the property of Caesar.
I'd have to agree with Angellous that qualifiers like the distinction between personal and national enemies has no foundation in Jesus's teaching. Furthermore, where is a God-given right to life or anything else spelled out in the Bible? I don't recall any of the early Christians fighting for...
Fair enough, what about more mythological gnostic texts? Do you see them making the same point concerning aquaintance as the canonical gospels and Thomas?
Sorry Angellous, I should have been more specific. By "sayings" I'm just referring to anything Jesus himself said. I don't mean it as a genre. I would consider parables to be stories. I guess to be more specific I'm asking, are there symbolic similarities between gnostic writings and things...
There seems some similarity between Jesus's kingdom of god and gnosis as aquaintance with god, but is there any indication of gnostic storytelling in his canonical sayings?
Thanks for the welcome everybody.
You're right PureX, I only started identifying as such after a few others called me an iconoclast in regards to challenging conventional wisdom, not smashing things.
Hi everybody,
My name is Sean. I'm an introverted iconoclast, so don't be scared. I'm not into breaking priceless works of art or bashing the worldviews of others. In fact, I consider understanding other worldviews essential to my inner iconoclasm. Nonetheless, I do try to meet the...