6 Things You Did Not Know About Gnosticism
I’ve been doing a bit of reading, teaching, and writing about Gnosticism of late. And I have to tell you that this area of ancient religion is complicated, weird, contested, misunderstood, and did I say “weird.” I’ll have a few videos coming out on this topic eventually, but I thought I’d provide members of the Aviary a sneak peek into something that will give them the secret “knowledge” about Gnosticism.
# 1 Not Everything Wrong or Weird is Gnostic
# 2 Gnosis can just mean “insight” just as Gnostic can just mean “intellectual”
# 3 Gnosticism separated the high God of salvation from the low God of creation
# 4 The Gospel of Thomas is not Gnostic
# 5 To Understand Gnosticism, read Plato and Philo.
# 6 The Origins of Gnosticism are widely disputed.
This isn't purely academic, understanding Gnosticism is important for grasping the nature of orthodoxy and heresy, the big debates in church history, and why the “lost Christianities” lost out! Plus, there’s also a lot of totes cray cray stuff on you.tube about Gnosticism that too many people are watching. So I’m trying to offer a corrective here.
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