Gnostic

Gnosticism is a complex web of beliefs revolving around the idea of special "Gnosis" or deep special knowledge that is not apparent to the unenlightened. It was quite popular in the time following Jesus and led to the writings of various statements that were attributed to Jesus and other teachers.

Gnosticism teaches that spirit is the essential and good reality and matter is the negative, a prison or evil to overcome. Gnostics do not believe that a good God would create a physical (or imperfect) world and so they hypothesize that it was created by a lesser, evil deity (the Demiurge) in order to imprison the spiritual within matter. Gnostics then believe that people should overcome the physical to become pure spirit.

More recently authors like Tom Harpur and Dan Brown have brought gnostic interpretations to the life and work of Jesus Christ. Although these points of view are widely shown in the mainstream media, little attempt is taken by reporters to verify their claims against scripture or the historical facts.

Some examples of Gnostic Gospels are :

• The Gospel of Judas
• The Gospel of Phillip
• The Gospel of Thomas

References

Letters From a Skeptic, Gregory Boyd (1995) ISBN 1-56476-244-0