"Whether Christ was actually divine, or even existed, has nothing to do with the evolution of the church and its doctrines a hundred or more years later."
I see that modern gnostics are just as stupid and ignorant as the original ones. On your side are a few fragments written far too late to be eyewitness testimony, let alone containing anything of worth. On mine are thousands of copies that appear fully formed, the earliest ones with negligible distance from the events they describe, with boatloads of references to history and geography that we can check out. These accounts move through history unchanged. Within a generation or two church authors are vigorously defending their authenticity and core teachings against sceptics and gnostics.
> If you think the Bible as we know it isn't the product of human politics more than anything else, you need to educate yourself.
Yeah right. Here's this marginal peasant from a scummy town in an unknown corner of the Roman empire with an extremely questionable birth narrative. He says and does outrageous things that are hard to understand, mixes with the lowest of society and is eventually executed in the most shameful way possible for blasphemy. And this rural redneck claims to be God in human form? That's real convincing I must say.
You got that exactly backwards. Biblical historians generally agree that most of what we know as the New Testament were written 50-100CE. Many of the gnostic gospels were pretty clearly written earlier, by people closer to Jesus. Why were they excluded, while all of Paul's crap thrown in? Politics. His was a vision of Christianity suitable to those in power in 367CE. Again, instead of violating the rules by calling people stupid, please learn the actual facts.
"Many of the gnostic gospels were pretty clearly written earlier"
Says you. The textual evidence says otherwise. The gospel of Judas for example has a sole surviving copy dated ~300AD. Irenaeus mentions it around 180AD as being the usual gnostic load of shite. So we don't even know whether we have the original text. It's about as reliable as my personal eyewitness account of the French Revolution that I wrote last week, that is to say, not at all. The gospel of Thomas leaves an equally pathetic mark on history and was only discovered in the 1940s. Clearly a divine text for the ages! Or perhaps not.
"by people closer to Jesus."
History seems to be silent on who these people actually were. Any ideas? In fact, history seems to be really, really quiet on the gnostics in general. They clearly scuttled away and didn't say much when their faith was challenged.
"Why were they excluded, while all of Paul's crap thrown in? Politics."
No, because they weren't eyewitnesses, clearly borrowed FROM the canonical gospels and not the other way around, and have nothing new to add that isn't the moronic mystical mutterings of idle urbanites.
"His was a vision of Christianity suitable to those in power in 367CE."
Gnonsense. There was no "vision" of Christianity when Paul was around - it was a very simple call to worship the resurrected man Jesus and obey what he commanded. How did it grow from twelve followers to become the official religion of Rome in just a few hundred years? The article deliberately avoids the real reason: early believers were convinced that their teacher had risen from the dead and could prove it. If not, Christianity would not have survived a few months, let alone become one of the foundations of Western civilization on Earth.
"Again, instead of violating the rules by calling people stupid, please learn the actual facts."
Point me at the two thousand years of gnostic-driven civilization, science and culture and I'll think about it although I see you've carefully not answered my earlier points so my hopes aren't high.
I see that modern gnostics are just as stupid and ignorant as the original ones. On your side are a few fragments written far too late to be eyewitness testimony, let alone containing anything of worth. On mine are thousands of copies that appear fully formed, the earliest ones with negligible distance from the events they describe, with boatloads of references to history and geography that we can check out. These accounts move through history unchanged. Within a generation or two church authors are vigorously defending their authenticity and core teachings against sceptics and gnostics.
> If you think the Bible as we know it isn't the product of human politics more than anything else, you need to educate yourself.
Yeah right. Here's this marginal peasant from a scummy town in an unknown corner of the Roman empire with an extremely questionable birth narrative. He says and does outrageous things that are hard to understand, mixes with the lowest of society and is eventually executed in the most shameful way possible for blasphemy. And this rural redneck claims to be God in human form? That's real convincing I must say.