egypt 1945
a group of farmers tilling their fields
unearth a clay jar
it contains more than 50 biblical
scrolls dating back to the 3rd century
a.d
making them even older than the books of
the so-called new testament
instead these texts are supposedly
first-hand accounts
written by friends and followers of
jesus and were worshiped
as fact by a relatively obscure group of
ancient christians
known as agnostics gnosticism comes from
a direct oral tradition that is passed
down from the early christians
and evolves separately from the
institutionalized church
and there's the tradition that the
gnostics have teachings that come
directly from jesus
through apostles followers even family
who come from jesus gnostic
comes from the word gnosis which means a
personal revelation and experience
and when we look at those texts today we
see
secret learning secret teachings
secret teachings directly from jesus
himself
passed down through his closest
followers and potentially giving us a
first-hand account of jesus's life and
deeds
one might think such gospels would be
held in high regard by the church
but in fact it was quite the opposite
when i first encountered what i called
the gnostic gospels
we were all surprised that there were so
many gospels that weren't in the new
testament
the reason that a lot of these books
didn't make it into the bible is that
they weren't congruent
with the core message of the books that
did make it in
texts were declared to be sort of full
of errors and they'll lead you astray
one famous bishop calls them an abyss of
madness and blasphemy against christ
so these were the enemies of the early
church and christians thought
they must have horrible things in them
the penalty for copying and or even
keeping
any of the gnostic texts would have been
increasingly severe
it could have even led to more severe
punishment like torture and death
these lost books of the new testament
include a number of so-called gospels
including the gospel of thomas the
gospel of philip
the gospel of the egyptians and many
others
but just what was it in these gnostic
texts
that made many bible scholars and
clarisse reject them as being
not only too controversial but too
dangerous
the gospels of the new testament all
tell you how important jesus is
jesus is son of god the son of man the
king of israel the messiah
i mean you name it he's somebody very
special
and he's not like you and me now the
gospels
of thomas or philip they say something
quite different
they say jesus yes he may be speaking
divine truth but he's really like you
and me
but of all the gnostic gospels there is
one
that many biblical scholars believe to
be more significant and more
controversial than the rest the gospel
of mary
there's a lot of controversy about mary
magdalene in the bible
she's portrayed a certain way she's
she's one of the followers of jesus
oftentimes she's described as a
prostitute as one who
jesus kind of picked up from obscurity
and made her one of his followers
but the gospel of mary it specifically
says that
jesus loved mary more than the other
disciples in fact they actually put that
in the mouths of one of the disciples so
don't you know that he loved her
more than us although the actual author
of this gospel is
unknown and several pages of the
original text have never been found
the text seems to reveal astonishing
details about mary magdalene's
relationship with jesus
there are even those who are convinced
that mary was not only one of jesus's
most devoted followers
but also perhaps his lover or even
his wife certainly we discover in the
gnostic text that there are many many
references
to jesus's relationship to mary
magdalene
she is referred to as his beloved she is
referred to
in a sexual manner in the gnostic
gospels
so not only was jesus married but jesus
was married to mary magdalene
because jesus was a rabbi it would have
been required for jesus to be married
if jesus were not married this would
have been something that would have been
remarked upon and talked about and the
fact that it is not
is actually one of the things that
proves that jesus
was married because it would have been
very normal for him to have been so
gnosticism was seen as a problem because
there was a core belief that had to be
maintained
that there were certain non-negotiable
truths that were part of the christian
gospel
and so if anything was contradictory to
that
then it needed to be suppressed or
refuted
so there is a lot of gnostic material
that tells
us jesus was married to mary magdalene
two thousand years of church tradition
is overturned by the gnostic gospels
because mary magdalene emerges
as a successor of jesus does the bible
continue to inspire
billions of people around the world not
because of the answers it provides but
because of the questions it inspires us
to ask
questions about what many believe to be
its inconsistencies
and contradictions questions about life
and
humankind's unique place in the universe
questions that may forever remain
unexplained
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