The Gospel of Thomas: The Enlightenment Teachings of Jesus

The Gospel of Thomas is one of the books that never made it into the Bible. It doesn't fit the 'allowed' types of books that a bunch of men hundreds of years ago decided were fit to be in the Bible.

The book consists of what are stated as sayings of Jesus and the book notes that these sayings are very basic and seem to have been altered in the 'accepted' Bible books, making the Gospel of Thomas earlier than the 'accepted' books like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The book has 114 sayings of Jesus. It also talks about the Gospel of Philip, nonduality and Gnosticism. In this Gospel Jesus is not a savior. He's a teacher, a spiritualist. Some people relate Jesus to the Buddha in his nature. The author defines Gnosticism as a dualistic religious system that combines ideas from mythology, philosophy and other sources. It holds that the world is evil, created by rebellious angels. It holds that self-knowledge is the knowledge of God, making the self and the divine the same thing. In the Bible Jesus speaks of spin but in Thomas he speaks of enlightenment. There is no need for priests, bishops and the other levels of the clergy. Life is not sin but is ignorance. The four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John show the use of the Tomas sayings but reworded a little. The author notes that no gospel was actually written by original follower of Jesus. John and Peter were both illiterate. Thomas holds that salvation can be while one is alive, overcoming ignorance. The author points out what parts of the four accepted gospels seem to be missing things from each other. Jesus was a righteous man as opposed to an actual God. The author goes into the origin of priests and heretics. He discusses the importance of Mary Magdalene. Constantine burned 'heretic' books, the type of thing we have seen done before in Nazi Germany. The author says that "We are, by virtue of our evolution, one with Jesus, one with God, one with all nature.' There's also an appendix.

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