Reply #96: Interesting take from inside the religion

[kineneb]

I just finished my annual reading of Hyam Maccoby's The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity. Then I pulled out P.W. Roberts' In Search of the Birth of Jesus and my copy of the Gnostic gospels.

The "gnostic" Gospel of Thomas beat Bishop Spong to the draw, somewhere between C.E. 50-125:

(3) Jesus said: "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you,and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, the you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

I put more store in Thomas than much of the approved cannon.