Closing the Circle & The GoTh Timeline

Closing the Circle is (going to be) a book about the continuity of the teachings of Jesus, which in turn belies the discontinuity of our world of time and space, which is obfuscated by our seeming experiences of the 'passing of time,' not to mention the illusion of 'development.' The illusory nature of such concepts of reality is exposed head on in the teachings of J, by affirming in so many ways that truth merely is, and does not have to become, and both the Gospel of Thomas (GoTh) and A Course in Miracles(ACIM) are expressions of that truth, which are quite consistent with one another, as is highligted in particular by Pursah's kernel of the Thomas Gospel, as published in Gary Renard's Your Immortal Reality. One of such dubious developments was the repression of the teachings of Jesus, and the blatant replacement of them in the world by Paul's teachings about Jesus, which in order to obliterate all traces of the crime were for good measure named "Christianity," and which in effect were nothing more than the ego's coopting Jesus by producing a g-rated version of him in all respects, and thus to firmly pull him into the world and assign him a role which suited us, and which accordingly could become "popular" as in "popular religion," and "popular culture." One of the items I'd like to consider at the outset is the most probable timeline of GoTh as I see it, and discuss some of its implications. 1) J (30-33 AD) 2) => Q & GoTh (50-60 AD) 3) => Mk (55-65 AD) 4) => Lk & Mt (75 AD) 5) => Jn (90-120 AD) 6) Traditional "Christianity," as formed by the Council of Nicea in 321 AD. The above is a step-wise representation of the funnel of information that led to the formation of the classic notion of a monolithic Christianity, an illusion which even in the official version did not last much longer than to the time of the first split, between the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic church, about 300 years later. What we now understand is that the funnel overflowed a few times, and spilled material which did not fit the mold of what Christianity was becoming. Meanwhile the other traditions lived on without the dubious "benefit" of being the Roman state religion which was arrogantly named after Jesus (Christ), and which made Christ special rather than understanding that we are him, and he is who we truly are. The Thomas tradition lived on in India, and in the West it literally went underground for 1600 at Nag Hammadi, but ultimately was rediscovered there in 1945, and from the 50's till now has led to a gradual re-framing of our understanding of those early years of Christian history, and for many of us to a more intimate understanding of Jesus as he speaks to us directly, without many of the later distortions. At the modern end we thus have the rediscovery of the text in 1945, and the gradual emergence of translations, commentary and interpretations into the public awareness in the 60 years since then. In a way this went amazingly slowly, if one realizes that at least in the Anglo-Saxon world it was not until the simultaneous publication in 2003 of Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe, Elaine Pagels' Beyond Belief, and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, that active interest in the Thomas Gospel began to dawn on the awareness of main stream audiences. Considering the growing bookshelves of Thomas related literature, it is proving to be fertile territory indeed. I will humbly add my contributions, and through this blog I will discuss some detailed material more in depth which is part of the research for my book. Needless to say, from my perspective Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe and its follow-on book Your Immortal Reality are by far the most interesting of the lot, culminating in Pursah's offering of a kernel of the Thomas Gospel which she represents to be authentic, thus bypassing some of the inevitable historical distortions which are undoubtedly present in the text we found at Nag Hammadi. Moreover the consolidation of Thomas interpretations around A Course In Miracles which Pursah's version implicitly solidifies, provides a clear anchor for the discussion of Thomas which has not existed heretofore and which accounts for the sometimes wildly speculative literature around Thomas. In short, I would argue that the appearance of the Pursah kernel in 2006 consolidates the content of Jesus' teachings in the Thomas tradition in a way which eliminates a lot of corruption of the tradition and gets us back to a coherent whole. If one is stuck however in a Newtonian concept of the world, it would not be possible to give Pursah's version this kind of authentic authority. To many students of the Course however this viewpoint may naturally feel comfortable and "right." I would conclude this introductory comment with the observation that, since Gary quoted my "recap" of revisionist early Christian history in his book, I clearly agree with everything Pursah represents about the history of Thomas' tradition in the overall context, and I gladly accept her endorsement of a position which common sense had already led me to believe was substantially the most reasonable view of the matter. We will come to consider the major different interpretations and dating of Thomas in future postings to this blog.