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Nag Hammadi Library And The Gnostic Gospels Analysis

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When Ng Hammadi was digging for “sabakh” a soft soil used in Upper Egypt for fertilizer he discovered earthenware jugs of a reddish color. He removed the enclosed manuscripts and put them on a pile of straw next to his mothers’ stove. Some were carelessly burned, but most of those that remained were sold to antiquities dealers, smuggled out of Egypt or held by the Egyptian government in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. These Gnostic Gospels consisted of fifty-two texts and are seen as the most significant archeological discovery akin to the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1977, American scholar J. M. Robinson published the complete edition of The Nag Hammadi Library, and The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels is a study of the theological significance of the discovered texts and she was the …show more content…

The Orthodox Christians denounced gnostic teachings and the Gnostics denounced Christian teachings, which begs which religion is spiritually correct. While Gnostics thought Christians listened to their church leaders sermons to gain knowledge of Christ rather than seeking Him themselves. They saw our steps to baptism, profession of the creed, and becoming a martyr the wrong path to becoming a true Christian. Only through gaining gnosis was the one truly way to be in touch with spiritual teachings.
The Orthodox Church allowed anyone and everyone into membership and the way to Christianity. The Gnostics saw Christ’s message as encouragement to search for answer rather than actually being the set of answers. Also, the Orthodox considered their teachings to be the absolute truth. Gnostics instead viewed their teachings as a way to find the truth. The Gnostics placed gnosis above all else, making their worship too exclusionary and not a lasting religion. The Orthodox united people under a banner of Christianity and were inept at setting up structures to facilitate their

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Soon more will follow and with the beginning of this holy war Leo the third created a movement called Iconoclasm which has the meaning of smashing images. This was used to destroy all religious symbols from the empire and began to ban worship and also veneration. However this is stopped when the emperor Michael the third is placed in power, and he discontinued the tradition. As the byzantine empire grew more stable with less land to protect this lead to more time for arts, which, lead to more trade control and the restoration of the churches. Many byzantine missionaries also converted the slavs to christianity.

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In the past students did not know the guidelines of what they could say at school,but the students at Des Moines brought attention to the rights of every student at school(Blacher 10). Things changed in the 1960's many students wore black armbands to school as a way of protesting the Vietnam War (Blacher 11).The Des Moines school banned them from wearing their armbands(“Case summary:Tinker”1). Mary Beth and John Tinker believed it was their constitutional right to be able to express how they feel(“Case summary:Tinker”1). They decided to take their case to the courts. case went all the way to the supreme court(“Case summary:Tinker”1).

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The Latin Catholics continued to disagree with the Greek Orthodox Church after their split and both of these churches continued to try and gain on each other and try to prevail as the lasting Catholic Church in Europe. (Document 2) With the churches separated, they didn’t want to be associated with each other so the Orthodox Church changed the name of one of the three patriarchs to make it sound like lesser of a name because they felt that since the Romans left them then they are better than them and shouldn’t be considered in the same category. This further shows evidence of the dislike and differences between these two sides of the Catholic Church. (Document 6)

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Emphatically, this transpires as an important Egyptian archeological find, dating approximately from the thirty-first century B.C. and contains a quantity of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. Unambiguously, Egyptologist, Bob Brier, refers to the Narmer Palette as “the first historical document in the world;” dating well before the construction of the pyramids. In fact, the stone text indisputably reveals the name of a Phoenician god, Baal-Hermon, meaning Baal of the North that presided on Mount Hermon, where the fallen angels descended.

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In Chapter II of The Gnostic Gospels, “One God, One Bishop”, Pagels outline how the Orthodox Christians seek to exclude the Gnostics with a creed that confirms one true God. Pagels intent is to describe how both religions differentiate in their meaning of how God shows his sovereignty. The creed was to help identify the Orthodox from the Gnostics “by confessing one God, who is both “Father Almighty” and “Maker of heaven and earth” (28). The Gnostics claim the Orthodox Christians worship a false God because of their “all-good” God creating a fallen world. Through discovering texts in history, Pagels support a claim from Marcion (a dualist) who believes there are two different Gods.

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Both religions believe in the Holy Trinity, even if they do not necessarily have the same theological beliefs as to where the Holy Spirit comes from. Both religions also cite the same text; the Bible. The differences between the two churches is significant, however. Roman Catholicism is far more structured than the Eastern Orthodox church; at the head of all Catholic affairs is the Pope. As previously stated, the Pope holds much more power than the patriarch does in the Orthodox church.

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In 1054, the Great Schism had taken place. After many disagreements involving the nature of the Trinity, the relative importance of the faith and reason, and especially the use of Icons, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic church had broken their communion. Although the churches based off Christianity and monotheism, the amount of control and association the church had over everything had varied. Roman Catholic churches in Western Europe no longer had any stable control or involvement in politics, as the region became decentralized and had instead became dependent on religion as more of a form of organization during the Middle Ages. Whilst the West had become decentralized, the Byzantine Empire had started to become even more successful in control over the association of government and

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During the middle ages, Eastern orthodox religion was a reason Europe was divided economically • Religion is what shaped the Middle Ages so when Europe split they didn’t really associate with each other which includes

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St. Iraneaus debated that Gnostics are those who are spiritual with growing knowledge of God, lack the true faith because Gnostics deny the “Incarnation and bodily Resurrection of Christ,” [p. 182]. Iraneus described in p. 4 of Selections that believers should mirror Christ 's life. The purpose of establishing an uncomplicated simplicity of just believing in one God while understanding that redemption of the entire human race is only through Jesus Christ. [ p. 13].St. Iraneaus debated that Gnostics are those who are spiritual with growing knowledge of God, lack the true faith because Gnostics deny the “Incarnation and bodily Resurrection of Christ,” [p. 182].

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Elaine Pagels uses The Gnostic Gospels to consider the relation between gnostic teachings and what would become orthodox teaching. Pagels uses both texts to analyze the theological differences in terms of issues of religious authority. The orthodox and the Gnostics had very different ways of understanding what constituted truth, as they had incongruous ideas about who was entitled to preserve and teach that truth. The theological meaning of Jesus ' death and resurrection, the importance of apostolic succession, the position of women vis-a-vis men in the early Church, the question of whether Jesus and the apostles after him had passed on a secret teaching in addition to the teachings known from the New Testament--these are some of the thorny

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The iconoclasm controversy is quite different. Leo III and Constantine V pushed their agendas, and those who did not agree, like the Patriarch Germanus, were replaced. This goes to show how much power the empirical throne had over the Church. The beginning of the iconoclasm controversy had to do with the dangerous attacks of the Arabs. Leo III feared that God was letting the Arabs win as a form a punishment to the Byzantine empire because of their widespread veneration of icons.

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Everyone knows the gospels are very important to the Catholic Church, But why? We read them at mass every Sunday so they must have a deeper meaning. Well that’s just it. They teach about Jesus’ life on earth, his death and resurrection. They might differ from each other but that is because they were written by four different authors.

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