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Two nondualists walk into a bar....
-Mike Himelstein
The Gospel of Thomas: The
Enlightenment Teachings of Jesus, by Robert Wolfe
Review by Paula Marvelly
In 1945, a peasant boy called Mohammad Ali
unearthed a clay jar, near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper
Egypt, in which were thirteen papyrus leather-bound books,
containing in total 52 texts. Written in Coptic (an ancient
Egyptian language) about fifteen hundred years ago, the texts are
translations from earlier works written in Greek. Focusing on a
diverse range of subject matter – creation mythology,
discussions on the nature of the soul and reality, hagiography of
the apostles and the teachings of Jesus – they are now
collectively known as the Nag Hammadi Library. More specifically,
they belong to a branch of theological doctrine, which scholars
term Gnosticism; taken from the Greek work, gnostikoi (meaning
‘insightful’ or ‘intuitive’), their wisdom is
drawn from the contemporaneous mystical traditions of
It is believed that these texts were widely
known in their day but the Roman Emperor Constantine (known for
boiling his wife alive as well as murdering his own son) had
other ideas about their future. In 325 CE, he convened the
Council of Nicaea where the official texts of the Bible were
decided upon: those texts that were deemed acceptable we now know
as the New Testament; those texts that supported the Gnostic
position were burned (and those who disagreed with the Emperor’s
decision were exiled).
Of all the Gnostic texts, the one which
encompasses the ‘enlightenment’ teachings of Jesus the
most profoundly is The Gospel of Thomas. At the very beginning of
the tract, the writer announces the immortal phrase, ‘Whoever
finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience
death’ (p.155). (Indeed, such a statement could suffice as
an introduction to the entire canon of Gnostic scripture.)
The Gospel of Thomas: The Enlightenment
Teachings is essentially composed of two main sections: a general
critique, entitled ‘The Fifth Gospel’; and a commentary
on the verses of the gospel themselves, entitled ‘Nondual
Perspective’.
...
Without doubt ... the suppression of the
Gnostic gospels irrevocably changed the course of history and the
way in which Jesus’ message has been interpreted over the
centuries, something that is only being acknowledged in recent
years.
Robert Wolfe is an accomplished writer
[advaita-academy..org hosts many of his articles]. In this
particular offering, he has made use of exhaustive research,
which does him much credit. In the world of academe, a thesis of
such magnitude (challenging the bedrock beliefs of Christendom no
less) cannot be taken lightly on board.
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Read the entire review by Paula
Marvelly at
http://advaita-academy.org/books/The-Gospel-of-Thomas-The-Enlightenment-Teachings-of-Jesus.ashx
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