The bit they took out the bible

The Gospel of Thomas www.gnosis.org... is supposed to be the part of the bible that the romans removed.
The first verse (I think thats what they are called) makes a very bold statement...

"Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."

Does anyone have a good understanding of what these texts mean? Are they supposed to have a different meaning or purpose to each person? I believe I can sort of understand some of them, but I would be very interested to hear other people's interpretations.

My brother and I were talking about the Bible one day. He told me that it has been altered and a bunch of stuff has been added in and that there are seven books that were taken out of the Bible.

Well, to me the first sentence simply means that those who realise that there is life after death never actually experience death as "the end of life" which is the common deffinition of it, but as a "begining of a new existence".

Jesus is light sent to world, to people, to understand this.

Originally posted by paperclip
Well, to me the first sentence simply means that those who realise that there is life after death never actually experience death as "the end of life" which is the common deffinition of it, but as a "begining of a new existence".

I agree with this Paperclip, we all know that the human body can be killed, or will eventually die. This statement I believe refers to the Immortal Soul that we all posess (IMO).

here is a very good site with many gospels that were not "included" in the Bible we know now because they were discover in later times or because they are too extreme...

i think they are ALL REAL but they are not in the Bible and this IS a mistake...

www.gospels.net...

There was a whole lot of good stuff that got snipped from the bible throughout many continuing edits.

Some of the best stuff in my opinion deals with the ideas that all men are gods, endowed with the soul of god, and immortal in the face of physical death. There is also the bit about not needing churches to worship, which means not needing priests. No wonder they cut that bit huh?

There's the simple fact that "Jesus died for our sins" is the most commonly misinterpreted Bible verse. Some people read this to mean he died so that they could sin. No, no, no. He died BECAUSE you sinned, and continue to sin. Sin kills Jesus. Every man is Jesus, in a sense, until he kills that side of himself with sin. He was the Roman Superman, and everybody can become him. Of course sin is all messed up, and pretty much nothing they tell you is a sin really is, unless you believe them.

It all comes down the power of belief and faith over dogma. If you believe that you can walk on water and turn water into wine, you can. If you believe sacrificing babies to the dark lord will grant you immortality, it will. It's really that simple. Men die and murder to protect that secret, they have been doing so for thousands of years, and the truth is that there is no such thing as a secret anymore.

hmmm a quote from the Gospel of Thomas:

"(22) Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom."
They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?"
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."

Does this mean there is no original sin, with which we are all tainted from the birth acording to popular dogma?
I mean, Jesus says here that infants are like those who will enter the kingdom, they are pure, no sin. They are in the state of existence which allows them to enter the kingdom.

paperclipi think it has to do with innocent as a suckling baby. because there is allways the orginal sin (adam and eve). As far as the analogies, That is a hard one to follow.. Opposites becoming the same, and replacing the old with new. Reborn? we have heard that one before. that is my take.

I highly doubt that in the 1900 years the gospels have been around and even the bible that God would allow us to miss something important. that would not allow use to attain salvation. None of use were there to make the decisions, and none of us have any real clue who the authors are of the missing books.

Original sin was introduced by Catholics as a means of controlling the populace. When you train a donkey you use a carrot and a stick. Heaven is the most succulent carrot ever conceived, and damnation in hell is a mighty big stick.

On a somehwhat similar note, I like to call later events in Jesus' life the Cruci-Fiction. It was largely thought up later, as a performance piece to insight riots against the Jews in England.

Originally posted by AllseeingEYE
The Gospel of Thomas www.gnosis.org... is supposed to be the part of the bible that the romans removed.
The first verse (I think thats what they are called) makes a very bold statement...

"Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."

Does anyone have a good understanding of what these texts mean? Are they supposed to have a different meaning or purpose to each person? I believe I can sort of understand some of them, but I would be very interested to hear other people's interpretations.

I do believe that it has a seperate meaning to each individual person as later on in the gospel he say, " Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." how ever you interperet that in you heart is what it means.. for me it means that i dont ahve to go to chutch.. i can find God anywhere i look, and i have. I have read parts of the gospel, and it truly is amazing .. it is too abd the popes back then found its credability too low to be included in the bible ... but then again, it wasnt a first hand account... this gospel was written based on a second hand account.

There are a lot of books that different people believe were removed from the Bible or were never there but should have been. These works are called "apocrypha" and if you do a search on that term you will come up with a lot of stuff.

The "Gospel of Thomas" is a popular piece of apocrypha with lay readers, because of several popular (but not necessarily scholarly) books about it, some of which postulated the Jesus visited Tibet, and so on. Few if any of these theories on Jesus' life are taken seriously by Biblical scholars, although, like the da Vinci Code or the Left Behind books, they make a lot of money for their authors!

There are quite a few apocryphal books or portions in the Old Testament, too, and there is a difference between the books in the Catholic and Protestant canons. Consider "Bel and the Dragon", or "the Book of Judith", etc.

Understand that there has been quite a bit of scholarship since the King James and Douai Versions were written centuries back; not only change of the meanings of words ("kill" versus "slay", of course, comes to mind), but new discoveries, including the Dead Sea and Nag Hammadi texts, as well as better scholarship of Greek.

There are, I'm sure, some agendas in the various Church councils which drove acceptance or denial of certain apocryphal works, but in most cases, it was the various ecclesiastical weenies getting together and trying to decide on both the historicity and the underlying message of these books which were kept out of (or admitted to) the canon.

I doubt that many serious Biblical scholars consider it as a "conspiracy"; but then, you probably won't find too many Biblical scholars in the conspiracy business, anyway.

It's not so much that things were taken OUT of the bible as things that were never put into it. The gospel of Thomas and Mary just to name two.

But yes, the bible has gone through a lot of changes throughout its history both politically, religiously and economically motivated. When you take the time to learn the reasons for the changes made to the bible, you will learn much about the church and Christianity.

The bible will continue to change and evolve as our society changes and evolves.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
Original sin was introduced by Catholics as a means of controlling the populace. When you train a donkey you use a carrot and a stick. Heaven is the most succulent carrot ever conceived, and damnation in hell is a mighty big stick.

Doesn't really matter to me what catholics did with it. What it really means is that no matter how perfect anyone can be, they cannot overcome original sin. Whcih has been around since the Garden of eden. I think almsot every religion uses original sin to create a need for people to develope saving faith

Originally posted by paperclip
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."

Doesn't sound like any other 'quotes' from Jesus in the New Testament.
If this really is a quote from Christ, and I don't believe it is, then He's
speaking veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery differently from how He usually speaks
in the rest of the bible.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
If this really is a quote from Christ, and I don't believe it is, then He's
speaking veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery differently from how He usually speaks
in the rest of the bible.

He never said anything in the new testimant.. it's all heresay.

What are you talking about Flyersfan? The quotes attributed to Jesus always follow the exact same sentence structure, evidenced nicely in that piece quoted by paperclip. I'm not saying I know for a fact that that was a Jesus quote, hell I don't even think he existed, but that quote does not in any way vary from the norm. Please explain yourself. What criteria are you basing your opinion on? Vocab, syntax, verbage, what?

There are MANY Gospels of the life of Jesus that were removed from the bible. The in 312 AD, the Emporer Constantine made a huge push to blend his peoples pagan beliefs with the rising popular christian beliefs (Constantine knew that the Christian Churh was growing in power, so to get the backing of that church, he began pushing the christian church onto his own pagan following people). To do so, he had to do some serious "cutting and pasting" of both religions. Scriptures were removed and added and blended (at the time, there were over 600 books contained in the bible). Pagan symbols were revamped into christian symbols and vice versa. Religious structures were destroyed. All in an attempt to virtually bring the "Church and State" as close together as possible. With Constantine being linked so closely to the powerful christian church, he then would have great power. But the goal of the revamping of the bible was not to make it a "better" book, but to be used as a tool of power withing the church. It elevated the status of "men" and demonized women who were free thinkers (see the unjust persecutions of women branded as witches to follow during the dark ages).

I would say that is not at all like they typical quotations of Jesus in the New Testament. The imagery -- 'inside like the outside'; 'above like the below' are unique; having a 76-word subordinate clause between the subject and the verb; and the overall zen-like (replace an eye with an eye, etc.) exemplification, and the use of terms like 'one and the same' -- they're are all atypical of Christ's words in the Bible

Wyrdeone says:

"On a somehwhat similar note, I like to call later events in Jesus' life the Cruci-Fiction. It was largely thought up later, as a performance piece to insight riots against the Jews in England."

Are you saying that the concept of the crucifixion and the actions of the Pharisees reported -- in other words, the last portion of all four Gospels --was retroactively put in place only during late medieval times to incite action against the Jews?

WyrdeOne, all four gospels presently in the Bible were written well after the reported death of Jesus by crucifixtion. None are firsthand accounts. Therefore, they are hearsay.

Additionally, none of the original manuscripts exist. What we have are copies of copies. Historians do not consider the Bible to be a reliable documentation of the events of that time, as no corroborating documentation exists.