Re: tsunami impact on animals

What status do you accord the Nag Hammadi texts, as far as their authority for Christians is concerned, relative to the canonical books of the NT?

Shalom
George

I use the texts comparatively, but use the non-canonicals to understand the canonicals. It's not a matter of status. It's a matter of the preponderance of evidence, and the fleshing out of Biblical ideas. For example, the story of Moses at the Red Sea. He didn't command the waters to part until a man of Judah had already walked into the water over his head in the faith that God would part them. You've never heard that story. It is from Jewish sources. I would never have appreciated Jesus walking on water until I read it and saw how he was perfectly foreshadowed in this story. I gained a more complete understanding of the fall when Jesus said: when you disrobe without being ashamed, you will not be afraid, in the nag hammadi texts. The saying is the direct opposite of what genesis says happened with the fall, only Jesus says it is the return, telling me this is how he understood the fall, at least as far as first century gnostics were concerned. Since the understanding from t!
he NG texts gels with genesis so perfectly, it bolsters my understanding of genesis and helps me see how writers of the texts understood and recorded Biblical ideas.

rich
Received on Tue Jan 11 12:56:16 2005