Entry for July 16, 2007--Are Soul Mates Born to Be Together?
A few months ago I ran into an old high school friend who I hadn't seen in over 35 years. He told me the amazing story of how he and his divine complement met and I thought I would share it to prove the point that soul mates are born to be together.
Jeff and his wife, Debbie, were born in the same hospital within 3 days of each other and lay side-by-side in the nursery until they were whisked away to be raised in different cities. They reunited 20 years later, introduced by friend, after Debbie took a job in her old hometown. They fell in love almost immediately and have been happily married for 30 years.
Although not many soul mates meet while still in diapers, many meet early in life so that they have all the time in the world to fulfill their souls' promises for the lifetime. It's not unusual for a soul mate couple to discover they both attended the same elementary school, high school or that their parents knew each other for years before they met. For these soul mates, the connection between them is so obvious that they couldn't deny they were meant for each other.
As I have explained in my book, Divine Complement, soul mates have a plan for their incarnation, a destiny that includes the life lessons they wish to learn and one that often pinpoints an approximate timeline for their first meeting, For some, because they failed in a previous incarnation to demonstrate love, respect and commitment, they need many years together to redeem themselves and grow enough spiritually to appreciate the kind of love that they had failed to demonstrate in a previous life. This lifetime becomes one "ground hog day" in the history of all their incarnations. At the end of a life, we all come to understand that love was the magic elixir to every problem.
It would be embarrassing to discover that you killed your soul mate in another life and now you have to humble yourself day after day to prove you are not the same awful person. Most soul mates don't remember their previous lifetimes, but many do have some form of recollection. Usually it's just a gut feeling that they knew their soul mate in another life or an overwhelming sense of quilt that they can't seem to shake and can find no reason for. For those who do remember other lives, the memories hold special meaning and help to make sense of some of present day difficulities they face in relating to each other. Its not to say that challenges like infidelity or avoidance are because of past life karma, but a past life can color how we feel about our soul mate, especially in the beginning of the relationship.
So if your relationship with your soul mate seems like you are with an old friend, it is likely that you had many lifetimes together and you recognize the divine connection that's established in your hearts. Although many soul mate relationships can be challenging because of karmic contracts, many describe the road of their relationship to be a smooth paved road with few bumps. These couples seem to have a magic formula for love that others only dream of.
Do you have a soul mate story to tell? I would love to hear it.
God Bless You,
Ariadne
Entry for January 24, 2007--The Copycat Gospel of Judas
The Copycat Gospel of Judas
"We now know it is an authentic Coptic text" summed up the National Geographic testimony on the authenticity of the Lost Gospel of Judas unveiled in May of 2006. But is it more an authentic copycat gospel or perhaps another kind of fraud?
Some questions immediately arose in my mind after reading the Gospel of Judas. How is it that so many varied elements from so large a number of different Gnostic texts all found their way (packed tightly I must add) into this one document consisting of only 13 pieces of papyrus? Also why is it that the Gospel of Judas appeared also to be saturated with key phrases familiar to the four canonical Gospels that could be immediately recognized as Jesus' idioms? These facts raised my suspicion and I decided to take a closer look.
I must mention that I am not a scholar on Gnosticism, although I have done some research on Gnosticism and had read the tractates of the Nag Hammadi Library several times. When the Gospel of Judas was unveiled on the National Geographic special, I had just completed some research on Gnosticism for a new book and therefore, the material was fresh in my mind.
Scholars who initially studied the translations of the Gospel of Judas have presumed that like many of the other Gnostic writers of the time, the author of the Gospel of Judas used the pseudonym of one of the disciples, in this case Judas, in order to convey his own Gnostic ideologies and gain acceptance amongst his peers and the Christian community. But why would the author draw from so many varied Gnostic writings and at the same time mimic the narrative style of the 4 canonical gospels? Who wrote this gospel? A 'copycat scribe'? I wondered if the author had the other texts on the table in front of him as he composed the gospel, as it seemed to me that he must have? One might of course argue that it was after all written by a Gnostic writer and therefore would hold similarity in its spiritual language, philosophy and doctrine to other essays of the period. However, after my examination it did not so much resemble a reiteration of a doctrine of faith but appeared more a foolish and poorly constructed plagiarism of content compiled from too large a number and variety of sacred Gnostic texts from different schools.
I wish to offer my analysis, examining pieces of the translation text of the Gospel of Judas that I compare to each tractate (essay) or gospel that the elements were obviously borrowed from to prove my point.
The Introduction
Strikingly, similar to the opening of the Gospel of Thomas the Gospel of Judas begins,
"The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover."
Compare to the Gospel of Thomas,
"These are the Secret words that the living Jesus spoke and Didymus Judas Thomas wrote down."
I suggest that the opening of Judas was modeled after the Gospel of Thomas.
The Chosen Disciple
Again modeling after the Gospel of Thomas in which Jesus takes Thomas aside, the Gospel of Judas presents an identical scenario. Judas is taken aside and favored by Jesus to receive the secret mysteries of the Kingdom. Jesus says,
"Let any one of you who is strong enough among human beings bring out the perfect human and stand before my face."
None of the other disciples dares to stand, except for Judas and he is taken aside. Judas said to him, "I know who you are and where you have come from."
This narrative bares similarity to Saying 13 of the Gospel of Thomas, in which Jesus takes Thomas aside after he replies to Jesus' following request,
"Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like."
Thomas' reply is,
"Master my mouth is incapable of saying whom you are like."
Conversely, Judas' statement in the Gospel of Judas is,
"I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you."
Judas like Thomas is taken aside and is given secret teachings in private. And in both gospels the other disciples were characterized as rising to anger and jealousy.
It appears clear that Gospel of Judas used elements of Thomas to construct its dialogue. Why, who and for what reason would someone construct a Gospel to mimic the Gospel of Thomas? The question needs further exploration.
The Child Image
The Gospel of Judas tells us that Jesus often appeared to the disciples as a child. Where is it that this characterization of Jesus also appears? It is in The Apocryphon of John in the opening of a long revelation delivered by the resurrected Christ who first appears to John in a vision as a child and changes into two other likenesses, an old man and a servant. The description reads,
"I was afraid, and behold I saw in the light a youth who stood by me."
In the Apocalypse of Paul this youthful image of the risen Christ is replicated as the child spirit that speaks and accompanies Paul.
The Laughing Jesus
In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus bursts into laughter in response to the disciple’s prayer of Thanksgiving and later in response to Judas' questions. The first scene opens,
"When he [approached] his disciples,[34] gathered together and seated and offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread, [he] laughed."
When the disciples ask him why he is laughing he mocks their worship suggesting they are worshiping a false God.
This image of the laughing Jesus is not one familiar to the four gospels of the New Testament, in fact in the Gospel of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John Jesus never laughs once. Where is it that this altogether different characterization of Jesus also found? It is found in both the Apocalypse of Peter and The Second Treatise of The Great Seth, two separate revelation dialogues that are both Gnostic in their philosophies.
The Apocalypse of Peter reads,
"And I (Peter) said: 'What do I see, O Lord, that it is you yourself whom they take, and that you are grasping me? Or who is this one, glad and laughing on the tree? And is it another one whose feet and hands they are striking?"
It goes on,
The Savior said to me: 'He whom you saw on the tree, glad and laughing, this is the living Jesus, But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness." (NHL-377/VII, 3 81,6-25)
In the Second Treatise of The Great Seth the laughing image is similarly conveyed,
'Yes, they saw me; they punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. I was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the archons and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance." (NHL-365/VII, 2 56,4-19)
As we notice, the laughing Jesus in the Gospel of Judas mimics the characterization portrayed in the two tractates, however the Gospel of Judas, in contrast, is not a revelatory essay but rather more the kind of narrative story we find in the four canonical gospels, depicting three days in the life of Jesus. The laughing portrait in the other two treatises are that of an enlightened resurrected Jesus who appears to John in a vision and laughs because he has transcended out of the ignorance of the human generation having been reborn to his spirit form. In the GJ the laughing portrait is put within a literal context and depicts Jesus in an unflattering light, mocking his disciples. What was the motivation of the writer in portraying Jesus laughing at his disciples? Perhaps, it was to portray him as arrogant and dispassionate.
Familiar sayings, language usage and metaphors
Compare Judas: When Jesus heard this, he laughed and said to them,
"Why are you thinking in your hearts about the strong and holy generation?"
to Luke 5:22
Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, "Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? "
The phrase either parodies Luke or more likely uses the phrase to establish a façade of authenticity by replicating the language in Luke.
"Truly, I say to you."
"Truly, I say to you," a recognizable phrase from the four canonical gospels, is repeated six times in the narrative dialogue between Jesus and Judas in the GJ. My question was: Why would the author use this familiar phrase with such repetition in his dialogue between Jesus and Judas? The answer of course is that it was also used in repetition in the Gospels of MatThew and John. In John 3:1-21, ESV, the phrase, "Truly, truly, I say to you" is repeated a total of 25 times. In Matthew, it appears as "Truly I say to you," exactly as it appears in GJ. Altogether the phrase is used a total of 50 times in the four gospels, Mark, Luke, Matthew and John. The reason for the parroting seems obvious: The writer of GJ wished his gospel to appear authentic. By using the familiar phrase in a repetitive fashion just as it appears in the other Gospels he might convince his audience that his gospel was an actual account of Jesus’ interaction with his disciples.
Underdeveloped and familiar parable metaphors
As an attempt to replicate or emulate some of allegorical flavor of Jesus' language we find metaphoric bits and pieces scattered here and there that add little meaning or wisdom to the "good news" of the Gospel of Judas. For instance, in response to Judas question,
"Rabbi, what kind of fruit does this generation produce?…. And what will the rest of the human generations do?"
Jesus said, "It is impossible to sow seed on rock and harvest its fruit."
Undoubtedly, the "sowing seed on rock" metaphor was inserted to appeal to an audience already familiar with the "Seed Sowing" parable, found not only in the canonical Gospels, but also in the Gospel of Thomas. However, it is used in a totally new context and its usage struck me as odd and out of place as if it was merely inserted to add the language and flavor of Jesus' teachings in Mark.
Another example of a metaphor with an altered meaning appears in the section titled Jesus Offers an Allegorical Interpretation of the Vision of the Temple. I t reads,
"A baker cannot feed all creation under heaven."
The metaphorical phrase stands out as the only decipherable sentence in the passage, as the 15 lines before it are conveniently missing from the Codex and those beneath are mere fragments mostly pronouns and conjunctions. It is interesting to me that this one complete sentence survived out of 16 or so lines. Without a context this metaphor is pretty meaningless of course, however standing on its own it lacks the kind of mystery and meaning that is ever-present in Jesus allegories and parables. For instance, compare it to Saying 96 in the Gospel of Thomas:
"The Kingdom of the Father is like a woman who took a little leaven, hid it in dough and made it into large loaves."
The baker in Thomas' allegory has hidden a mystery in the dough that multiplies its volume, conveying the same mystery and principle of abundance as the parable of the mustard seed, a mystery Jesus made manifest in performing the miracle on the Mount in feeding the multitudes. In comparison, Judas' baker appears unenlightened and even ignorant of manifestation of God's kingdom. His baker cannot feed creation, where as in the Thomas saying he can. Obviously, the author of the Gospel of Judas either lacked spiritual understanding and insight or was deliberately attempting to counter or discredit the accounts of the miracles of manifestation that Jesus performed.
Obviously, the author of this Gospel could not replicate the wisdom that Jesus was so masterfully able to put into parable form. The question I raise is then why should he try? What was he hoping to accomplish? My premise is that these elements were deliberately inserted to mimic other gospels and tractates— an attempt to fool the author's audience. Who was the author's audience? Gnostic students of his time? Or, I suggest perhaps readers of the 21st century?
Gnostic Elements and terms.
Like the other Gnostic tractates the Gospel of Judas is saturated with Gnostic terms, names and descriptions of cosmological archons such as aeon, self-generated one (autogenes), Sophia, Zoe, Bardelo and Lord of the Universe that make up the complex cosmology of Gnostic doctrine. For this reason, most scholars thus far have identified it with the Sethian Gnostic School, more specifically likely Christian Sethian.
For instance, there are several names for the archons and for God in the Gospel of Judas that are pulled from a variety of the Gnostic tractates in the Nag Hammadi Library. One is the term "Lord of the Universe". Because "E", was used as the name for God in another passage, I wondered why the author chose to depart from the other usages by stating this alternative name. It struck me as oddly placed and I did not immediately recognize the term from the Sethian material. However, because I was following the premise that the Gospel was a "copycat", I began combing through the various essays, by this time knowing I would find the term used somewhere amongst the tractates in the Nag Hammadi Library. My search for this name for God ended with The Sophia of Jesus Christ and The Eugnotos The Blessed, two tractates that are nearly identical and commonly seen as two versions of the same essay.
They read,
The Lord of the Universe is not rightly called "Father" but "Forefather." For the Father is the beginning (or principle) of what is visible. For he the Lord is the beginningless Forefather. – Eugnostos The Blessed—III 74-75.
In scanning over all the essays in the Nag Hammadi Library, I found no other Gnostic essay that used "Lord of the Universe" to describe God. Therefore it was a term used only by one other author. Considering this fact, it appears that the author of GJ had deliberately padded and patched together his document with as many names and terms gathering them from as many Gnostic essays as possible, often neglecting the fact that some of the essays represented different schools of thought from different periods. Again, what was the likely reason for this? It seems reasonable to conclude that the author thought the authenticity might come under question and he wanted to leave as little doubt as possible that his gospel matched the language of a variety of Gnostic writers. But in doing so, he neglected that a reader may view this over saturation and padding of terms from so many different Gnostic writers as highly suspicious.
Plagiarisms
Some similarities are obvious plagiarisms. Like many of the Gnostic authors, the author of Gospel of Judas offers explanations of the nature of the Cosmos and the creation of the heavens earth and man, including the bodies of angels, divine emanations of the Father and the archons (rulers). Again it appears that the author had in hand the other Gnostic tractates to draw from, rather than relying on any revelation of his own.
As an example, the section Adama and The Luminaries, appears to have derived its material from the Apocalypse of James in which the enumeration of 72 is also given to the heavens.
The Gospel of Judas reads, "The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for each of them five firmaments, for a total of three hundred and sixty firmaments…."
With respect to the seventy-two heavens, I found only one tractate that it could have been drawn from, the Apocalypse of James.
Compare the paragraph of Gospel of Judas above with the Apocalypse of James, which reads:
The lord said, “These are the seventy-two heavens, which are their subordinates. These are powers of all their might; and they were established by them; and these are they who were distributed everywhere, existing under the authority of the twelve archons."
William Schoedel, the translator of the Apocalypse of James speculated that the enumeration of 72 heavens may have been drawn from esoteric Jewish teachings of gematria which offer the number 72 as the number drawn from the word for God, YHVH.
The mysterious Nebro
"And look from the cloud there appeared an [angel] whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name was Nebro, which means ‘rebel’ others call him Yaldabaoth." —Gospel of Judas
The mysterious name Nebro posed some difficulty, as I had not recognized him as any of the Gnostic archons nor aeons. In the Gospel of Judas, Nebro is the first mentioned as one of twelve angels created to rule over the Chaos and the Underworld. We are told that his name means rebel and that he is also known as Yaldaboath. In the Apocryphon of John. the Demiurge has the name "Yaltabaoth", and proclaims himself as God.
After combing the various tractates of the Nag Hammadi searching for the reference source of the lineage of the five angels, Galia, Yobel, Harmathroth, and Adonaios, mentioned in the GJ I stumbled upon the name "Nebruel" amongst the list of the other angels in the Gospel of the Egyptians (III, 2 and IV, 2). I went to bed wondering what the difference in spelling (Nebro versus Nebruel) suggested? I woke up with a dream in which I was reading a sentence with the nouns "EL" and "Nebro" highlighted. Because "El" is a Hebrew word for God, I thought the writer had deliberately removed the suffix "el" from the name perhaps to suggest Nebruel was not a god or to support the premise that Jesus had rejected the God of the Jews. It seemed a deliberate change of the spelling whatever the reason for it. Of course, if working off the assumption that GJ was a legitimate Coptic document, one merely might think the omission of "el" was the result of a translation error.
In The Gospel of the Egyptian there is a recounting of the creation of the rulers over Hades (the Underworld). Sophia emerges with the angel Gabriel and brings forth two monads. It reads,
"Then the cloud, being agreeable, came forth in the two monads, each one of which had light. [...} the throne, which she had placed in the cloud above. Then Sakla, the great angel, saw the great demon who is with him, Nebruel. And they became together a begetting spirit of the earth. They begot assisting angels."
When further comparing the Gospel of Judas with the Gospel of the Egyptian, the plagiarism is noticeable. The GJ derives its material on the The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld and The Rulers and Angels from the Gospel of the Egyptians almost verbatim.
For instance, the GJ states,
"The twelve rulers spoke with the twelve angels: "Let each of you ….and let them ….generation…[lost line] angels:
The first is Seth, who is called Christ.
The [second] is Harmathoth, who is […]
The third is Galiala.
The fourth is Yobel.
The fifth [is] Adonaios.
Compare to Gospel of the Egyptian, 58
"Each one of [these] twelve [angel]went [forth. The first] angel is Athoth, He is the one whom the great generations of men call [ … The] second is Harmas, who is the eye of the fire. The third [Galila. The] fourth is Yobel. The fifth is Adonaios, who is [called] Sabaoth………".
The author of the Gospel of Judas appears to have copied most of the lineage from the Gospel of the Egyptian. The slight difference (spellings mostly) was deliberate, reminding me of the plagiaristic style of a junior high school student writing a book report from crib notes and making a couple of adjustments.
Conclusions:
From this brief analysis what should be obvious is that the author of The Gospel of Judas was a "Copy Cat" if not a complete fraud. I pose the question, "Who wrote this gospel and for what purpose?" It seems obvious that the author had at least six Gnostic essays on the table as he or she constructed the Gospel of Judas, as well as, the four canonical Gospels to draw style and phrases from. The list is as follows:
1.The Apocryphon of John and the Apocalypse of Paul- for the image of Jesus as a child.
2.Gospel of Thomas- for its theme of the "Chosen Disciple" and similar language.
3. Apocalypse of James- for the cosmological model and the 72 heavens
4. Sophia of Jesus and The Eugnotos The Blessed - term for God, "The Lord of the Universe".
5. Apocalypse of Peter and The Second Treatise of The Great Seth-for the "Laughing Jesus".
6. The Book of the Egyptians- for its list of the angels and cosmology
7. John and Matthew for the phrase "Truly I say to you."
8. Luke- for the idiom, "Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?"
Was this the doing of a "copycat" scribe who wanted recognition from his Gnostic peers? Certainly, other gospel writers drew from each other's writing to some extent, but none to the extent of the Gospel of Judas. Why would the author go to such length to over pad the Gospel with phrases and language familiar to the 4 canonical Gospels? There would be no need as his peers were Gnostics.
If the papyrus had not been carbon dated by reputable scientists one might suspect it to be a more modern fraud? But suppose it was not the same document that was tested. And further suppose that there was a group who conspired to forge the document, perhaps after acquiring 13 pieces of ancient papyrus on which they set about to write in Coptic a cleverly constructed gospel drawing material from a variety of Gnostic essays. Their gospel would be padded with like terms of Gnostic doctrine, a mix a soup aimed at creating a controversy and upsetting the applecart of Christian faith. Since there are only a handful of Coptic experts on the planet, the field would be quite narrow.
Their motivation: Money, notoriety, a sense of pride in fooling a load of people including reputable scholars and as I mentioned the fulfillment of a conspirator's dream of dismantling Christian ideology. One commentator wrote of the Gospel of Judas, that not since the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas had there arrived a document that was likely to turn the Christian world on its head. Perhaps this was the hope of conspirators-- to embarrass the Church with an altogether different portrayal of Jesus Christ, one so contrary to Christian ideology that it would make at least some people ponder which depiction of Jesus was accurate.
The depiction of Jesus in Gospel of Judas is unflattering to say the least. He seems a bit insane, portrayed as a suicidal mystic who would conspire in his own crucifixion to escape the world he came to convert. He lacks humility, mocking his disciples’ faith and appears dispassionate. It is true that Gnostics, as seekers of truth, were like many New Age spiritualists of this era wishing to explain a world of suffering, corruption and greed and applying ritual and other spiritual practices as a means of transcendence of the material. Their philosophy was derived from revelations and transcendent experiences that awarded them wisdom and "Gnosis"—the ultimate truth. And they believed that true transcendence could not be achieved while in the body. The Gnostics perhaps were the first Christians who were later deemed heretics by the competing Paulists. We know that there did exist a Gospel of Judas, because Irenaeus mentioned it for its heretical content. However, Irenaeus gave no detailed account of what the gospel said.
To suggest that the Gospel of Judas survived and was bought on the antiquities market, restored, and translated just in the nick of time to ride on the coat tails of the Da Vinci Code seems convenient. Furthermore, no proof other than hearsay was given as to the location of the discovery as no dealer would come forward nor could he be traced. We know nothing about where this so called "authentic" Coptic text was really unearthed, although the public was taken on a fictionalized journey to Egypt to show how it could have been unearthed. I found the documentary almost as manipulative, divisive, and deceptive as the text itself.
Whichever theory as to the authorship of the Gospel of Judas, Gnostic scribe or conspiracy, is most plausible is up for grabs. I would be in favor of a thorough re-examination and comparative analysis of the texts by a few scholars as well as another carbon testing of the document.
--Copyright Ariadne Green, 2006--
Ariadne Green, author Ariadne’s Book of Dreams, Warner Book and Divine Complement, 2006. Visit Ariadne'’s website at http://www.ariadnegreen.com
