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Christine85
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The Gospel of Nazarenes and Essene Gospel of peace. Both are what Jesus apparently said. I even read that the Essene Gospel of Peace was found in the Vatican?
What is the Church's position on Gospel of Nazarenes and Essene Gospel
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andreashofer
Guest
As far as I find is the “Essene Gospel of peace” as well as the “Gospel of Nazarenes” not in accordance with and not included in the catholic bible. Therefore I conclude that it can not help me to holiness and joy, but by curiosity only lead to speculation and excitement. I probably would end up making up my own doctrines, rather than beholding the beauty of traditional teaching, that endured unshakeable for over 2000 years in the catholic church.
Speculation, if you go along that road, always leads to idolatry.
Both texts probably are by now so corrupted, that we “little children” of the early church fathers could find many reasons to split up in intellectual disagreement. God forbid.
The Vatican is not built on intellectual agreement of men, but guided by the Holy Ghost to prevail against false teaching. That is why we have a catholic bible, that is written, inspired by the Holy Ghost and not some other text, that come about by intellectual agreement.
We must trust in the catholic bible, the encyclicals, papal letters and sound teaching.
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cmodrmac
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There are a number of Gnostic texts (many including Gospel of Mary and Judas) -appears you are referring to some-They supply a view of early Christianity which was quite heterogenous-they are what they are -texts written by ealry gnostic Christains
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patrick457
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wiggbuggie
Guest
I heard some people say that these gospels or jewish gospels are the original matthew and later translated into greek and the gospel as we now have it.
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patrick457
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More precisely: there is a tradition since Papias that Matthew wrote the “oracles” (logia, ‘words’) of Jesus “in the Hebrew dialect, and each translated as he was able.” Later Fathers connected this elusive Logia (now dubbed the Gospel according to the Hebrews among other names) with the canonical Greek Matthew, opining that Greek Matthew is a translation of this work. Some of them even believed that this ‘Hebrew’ text was preserved to their own day and thus quoted from text(s) they believed to be the genuine article. The problem is, many quoted portions do not agree with each other - which leads many to opine today that they were actually quoting different gospels which share the same characteristics: they were used by different Jewish Christian groups and they all seem to be versions of Matthew’s gospel. One of these documents is now given the title Gospel of the Nazarenes.
I still don’t know what this ‘Essene Gospel of Peace’ is, but it would be worth mentioning that the gospel is a literary genre invented by Christians. So what’s up with the ‘Essene’?
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Christine85
Guest
I had read a bit from the Essene one some time ago but yes, I think definitely not stray from what Holy Church teaches. I will say that the Essene one speaks of Things like Mother Earth and Mother sun … That Jesus allegedly said these things.
These gospels are adamant that Jesus says don’t eat meat. But when I think about it in the NT, it says not to judge one on what they eat.
These gospels are adamant that Jesus says don’t eat meat. But when I think about it in the NT, it says not to judge one on what they eat.
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Mintaka
Guest
I went over to the Paleojudaica blog, which is a news blog run by a professor who specializes in ancient Jewish and Christian texts and pseudepigrapha. This is what one of his academic readers mentions about the “Essene Gospel of Peace”:
This text appears to be based on Edmond Bordeaux Szekely’s “Essene Gospel of Peace,” which he claimed was a translation from ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, and Old Slavonic texts, but which is instead a twentieth-century fabrication.
Here’s a raw vegetable guy talking in more detail about the book’s fictitiousness, including things that conflict with things historically recorded about the real Essenes, or the real Dead Sea Scrolls texts.
So yeah, don’t fall for a hoax.
Here are the real non-Bible books found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not my favorite site, because Gnostic stuff is creepy, but I give them props for getting the Dead Sea Scrolls info up.
There are real texts around from Greco-Roman medicine, if that’s what interests you. The four-humors theory of Galen and Hippocrates and the rest of those guys – there’s plenty of stuff about diet in those books. (Although most vegetarians in the ancient world went by weird rules, like the Pythagoreans who believe beans were full of soul and that was what gave you gas.)
This text appears to be based on Edmond Bordeaux Szekely’s “Essene Gospel of Peace,” which he claimed was a translation from ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, and Old Slavonic texts, but which is instead a twentieth-century fabrication.
Here’s a raw vegetable guy talking in more detail about the book’s fictitiousness, including things that conflict with things historically recorded about the real Essenes, or the real Dead Sea Scrolls texts.
So yeah, don’t fall for a hoax.
Here are the real non-Bible books found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Not my favorite site, because Gnostic stuff is creepy, but I give them props for getting the Dead Sea Scrolls info up.
There are real texts around from Greco-Roman medicine, if that’s what interests you. The four-humors theory of Galen and Hippocrates and the rest of those guys – there’s plenty of stuff about diet in those books. (Although most vegetarians in the ancient world went by weird rules, like the Pythagoreans who believe beans were full of soul and that was what gave you gas.)
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patrick457
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More like ‘longwinded and incomprehensible to the point of boring’. Unless you were initiated into the various sects’ hidden mysteries and thus comprehend whatever teachings they have, trying to wade over a lot of gnostic stuff like the Books of Jeu will probably fry your brain crisp.
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patrick457
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I would also add that if you want a book on the DSS, I’d recommend two works by Geza Vermes: The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (the title is a slight misnomer since he does not include biblical texts or unimportant fragments, but it is a collection of most, if not all, the meaningful texts found in Qumran) and The Story of the Scrolls: The Miraculous Discovery and True Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Vermes’ occasional - at times somewhat offensive for Catholics - potshots against the Church notwithstanding (he was born into a Jewish family who converted during WWII - his parents died during the Holocaust - and was a priest when he became involved in the Qumran discoveries during the late 1940s-50s; he has since ‘reverted’ back to Judaism around 1957), he still stands out as one of the pioneers in the study of the DSS (he is one of the first to study the scrolls shortly after they were found in 1947). Other good books on the subject IMHO include those written by James C. VanderKam. As with other instances, I think it’s better to stay away from sensationalistic works if you’re keen about the facts.
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patrick457
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One more thing:
For much of the 18th-19th centuries up to the early 20th, there was actually this huge obsession with the Essenes among biblical scholars. The Essenes are often cast as this ultra-mystical, gnostic-like secret society (which kind of made them a hit with people who like that sort of stuff, this after all being the time when Westerners are beginning to gain knowledge about Eastern religions and philosophies) and are often portrayed as the solution to each and every mystery in Jesus’ life. So Jesus was supposedly born in an Essene family, studied under the Essenes, achieved His fame with some behind-the-scenes help from Essenes, was rescued from death and revived by Essenes, and eventually left His disciples to retire to an Essene monastery. The ‘Essene connection’ was really a highly-overused cliche amongst many historical Jesus scholars of the period to the point of being ludicrous.
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