Dear Gary (and All),
I just joined this group, having heard a friend recommend your book in another
group. I haven't read your book, but it is in the mail on its way to me. Meanwhile,
wandering the bookstore here this week, I came across two books I was drawn to and
bought. Haven't started them yet. One is The DaVinci Code. One is Elaine Pagels
book about the Gospel of Thomas.
So today I join this group and look at the list of recent messages here and am drawn
to this one due to its subject line. It's the first post I read (and the only one so far).
Lo and behold, you mention both the new books I've just bought ... and also turn out
to be the author of the one that I've ordered.
Guess its time for me to delve into Thomas, huh?
Diana
--- In Disappearance_of_the_Universe@..., "garyrrenard"
<garyrrenard@y...> wrote:
I've never read any of Elaine Pagels books. (For those who don't
know, she is a Ph.D. from Harvard and Professor of Philosophy at
Princeton, and author of a couple of famous books, including "The
Gnostic Gospels" and her new best seller, "Beyond Belief: The Secret
Gospel of Thomas.") As you know, Thomas is a subject that's near and
dear to my heart (LOL) so when Elaine was interviewed on National
Public Radio a couple of weeks ago, I listened with great interest.
The first thing I noticed was that she seemed to be confirming,
albeit in a more scholarly fashion, the things that Pursah said about
Thomas and the church in "Disappearance." It reminded me of what
Pursah half seriously said on P.81, "I told you they snubbed me." I
think Elaine made a good case for the Jesus of The Gospel of Thomas
being much closer to the historical Jesus, who was the most highly
advanced wisdom teacher and was leading people to the Kingdom of God
through an internal process, while the later written Gospels,
especially The Gospel of John, (which may have been written as long
as 70 years after the first version of Thomas) portrayed Jesus as
God's only Son who came to die for our sins in a sacrificial act of
Atonement, which is a concept totally alien to Thomas.
I also think it's interesting that there has been a marked
increase in interest lately in The Gospel of Thomas as well as Thomas
himself. Surely my visitors knew this would happen, and it will be
interesting to watch how "Disappearance" takes its place in the grand
scheme of things. (BTW, I have also been told that one of the themes
of the new and very popular novel, "The DaVinci Code" has to do with
Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene, a subject that my teachers also
touched upon.) It's fascinating to me that my book came out just
before these two.
I think perhaps Elaine's most important contribution is that she
emphasizes in a highly credible way that Jesus was not about
Christianity's made up set of beliefs, but about the seeking of
spiritual experience that would lead one to God. I also hope that my
book demonstrates, through Arten and Pursah's many statements,
including Pursah's explanation of about 20 of the sayings in The
Gospel of Thomas, which she then uses to move into the teachngs of
the Course, that the Voice of that Gospel and the Voice of A Course
in Miracles are indeed one and the same: the Voice of the historical
Jesus. Love and peace, Gary.
