I looked into the historical Jesus and I don't want any other. If the historical Jesus were not God in the flesh, I'd be wrong, and I'd want to know I was wrong. I don't see anything directly wrong with your last paragraph, although it neglects the phase that happened before the baptism which I don't believe in neglecting. Anyway, so we're looking at a historical Jesus who merged his consciousness with the consciousness of the universe over a certain period of time; please go on.
Add: All told, in one sense Jesus never claimed to be God on his own. In another sense there's evidence Jesus made lots of divine claims typical for being one with (God the Father) the consciousness of the universe, and so people can twist the meaning of "claiming to be God" on both sides of the question. I'm pretty comfortable with the meaning I understand about the divine claims and I love to hear new takes on them.
If the historical Jesus were not God in the flesh, I'd be wrong, and I'd want to know I was wrong
And if I agree with you, we'd both be wrong. There is a divine spark within all of us. The jews claim this divine spark or spark of the Moshiach, as they call it, gives them alone the power to be united to God. That's why they rejected Jesus, because his God and their God was not one and the same. That's where they're wrong, they're worshiping to wrong God. But, it feels good for them since this is the creator of everything material, including MONEY.
Jesus isn't saying "follow me" or "worship me." He's saying find your own divine spark and each one of us must discover it. That's what we should focus on, not the religious icon called Jesus.
Jesus who merged his consciousness with the consciousness of the universe over a certain period of time; please go on
We must do the same thing as Jesus did. He showed us the way, we must follow. But, no one can do this work for you. You must do it yourself.
"I found all of them intoxicated. I found none of them thirsty. For empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world."
People are drunk on wealth, power, status, and pleasure. They came with nothing and will leave with nothing, yet they chase illusions. Eventually they'll sober up and realize what's truly important.
All told, in one sense Jesus never claimed to be God on his own
That's right Jesus never claimed to be God. Because he knew very well the people in Judea were worshiping a lesser God. You probably know this, according to the gnostics this God is the Demiurge, or Yaldabaoth, who is identified as the creator of the physical universe, asserting that he single-handedly established the world. This Demiurge is the creator of this evil world, the God of the jews; "for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, inflicting the punishment of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me". The Demiurge is also responsible for the flood of Noah, or the great flood present in every civilization.
When Jesus declared, “I and the Father are one,” he was not claiming to be Yahweh, he was talking about the consciousness of the universe, for gnostics this is the Monad.
But, before you label me a gnostic, I will tell you I believe the gnostics don't go all the way either. They also stop short with their revelations. Jesus taught that a divine spark exists within each person, a responsibility to let it grow, bringing happiness and connection with the divine. But this freedom comes with a burden: individual responsibility, mistakes, and suffering. What about those who lack the courage to follow this path? What about millions who simply want to live normal lives without the weight of freedom?
Okay, trying to follow, and I appreciate very much your (relatively) cogent explanation, James! .... First, I'm hearing the Jewish God involves "this divine spark or spark of the Moshiach", the "wrong God", then that Jesus says "find your own divine spark and each one of us must discover it" as if that's different; but it sounds the same to me. It also sounds the same as the imago Dei taught in Christianity. In reading the rest I don't find my question resolved because I don't see a difference between what the Jews at large (all sects) believed about this image (tzelem) and what Jesus believed about it; the differences were elsewhere. Second:
We must do the same thing as Jesus did. He showed us the way, we must follow.
We were just discussing that Jesus shows the Way and is the Way. I do believe that everything Jesus did as a human is what humans are capable of doing (plus greater works, John 14:12). We are to be one with him without any confusion in which one of us is what another is. That unity is called marriage. That leads to the question, when he "merged his consciousness with the consciousness of the universe", and Jesus and the Consciousness were one, was that a doing or a being?
Now I continue looking into demiurge(s) and finding interesting details that have changed over time. Demiurge is the Greek version and means public servant or architect, but is the last of the dodecad which ultimately comes from the ogdoad. But the ogdoad comes from Egypt (which literally makes the demiurge descended from Kek), and the Egyptian form comes from a branch allied to an old Semitic form reflected in the ancient legend of Eve (Hawah) bearing a boy and girl consistently every year. So it seems to me that ultimately the gnostic demiurge comes from some worshipped ancestor, someone who templates over both Cain and Lamech but may be historically distinct from both.
However, that leaves us searching for the attributes of the true God instead. I don't accord the attribute of being the true Architect (as public servant) to any creature but only to the Original (the Architect of architects). I don't accord the attributes of self-existence and power of force (which were intended by the term "Yah Sabaoth") except to the Monad. And I don't accord the attribute of being the final say on how things will work out for good to some subluminary, because I think the Source does cause all things to work out for good to the righteous (Gen. 50:20).
Finally, you seem to imply you have an answer as to those who don't desire the burden of responsibility. I wouldn't call that "normal" but it's clear that there are shortcuts people take instead of growing in the liberty that comes from enslaving yourself to the Monad. Now the fact seems to me that the mistakes and suffering are the path of growth, but the question is about those who don't want to grow and would rather eat Matrix fake steak instead. There are several ways that answer could go and (without leading the witness) I agree that gnostics didn't get any solution reported on their behalf.
So my lines of inquiry would be (1) differences between those Jews who rejected Jesus and those (Jews) who accepted Jesus, (2) differences between what Jesus did and what Jesus was, (3) differences between attributes of Monad and attributes of Dodecad. I appreciate it. If you want to redirect things to a new post (not necessary but sometimes helps organize), that could be c/HolySeekersOfTheWay, or it could also be c/TheNarrowWay (although I'm not currently contributing there and would only comment on that forum from a distance, out of respect for the moderator and for other reasons). There's nothing wrong with continuing here off-topic from OP though, since it's unmoderated; if we hit the maximum comment depth we can just start a new cascade of comments (pinging the user with "u/" and username, which gives the same notification as replying directly does).
What is this? you have nothing else to do but monitor this platform? you replied to my message just a few minutes later. I haven't read your message in entirety, so I can't yet reply... but, I just can't understand what you're doing. And why? so please be honest, I don't care what you think, believe, or follow.
Also keep in mind, I don't know how many messages we can exchange. There must be a limit. And since I'm new on this platform I'm not allowed to DM, so time and space is short.
Heh, I try helpfulness; then I let others decide. Trying brevity instead: My last reply was in about an hour, and so is this one (hover for timestamps); this evening I'm browsing and doing other work. Don't read too much into anybody's habits. My last paragraph above is the TLDR.
I said, I'm very interested in folks that might be able to prove me wrong and/or improve my views. You've got some insights and I like interacting with them. Coming from the trad church but with lots of nontrad pieces, ultimately I believe we can all agree on truths if we are in core agreement at pursuing truth at all costs. Secondarily, I wanted to give you positive suggestions for Scored generally (the mod of c/TheNarrowWay is very close to your views). If you don't want to keep explicating your views, that's your privilege.
The cascade limit is about 24 or 28, but that's only for organization; if you ever get an error replying to someone that seems to be due to a long cascade, simply copy the reply to clipboard, go to the OP (e.g. click permalink or context), and paste it as a new reply to OP with the ping of the other's name (like u/SwampRangers) added. I haven't heard that DMs are prohibited to newcomers; if so then it should fade soon as you contribute even brief comments, but it might just be your trying to DM someone who blocks all (the admins are big on privacy and so they don't even publish all the interface quirks). If you want me to DM as test, let me know.
TLDR: Spacetime limits are yours to choose; many of us are regulars who talk to everyone (beware us!); in particular I'm interested in anyone who pursues truth at all costs; so I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the 3 points I closed with (click context to see).
Jesus says "find your own divine spark and each one of us must discover it" as if that's different; but it sounds the same to me
No, totally different. Gnostics believe the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh is the Demiurge. Same as in the Apocryphon of John "And she called his name Yaltabaoth.". Yahweh occurs more than 6,800 times in the Old Testament, and for good reason, he is the creator of our material world. And he is our creator. Yahweh, the Demiurge, is also a ruler, a jealous god who seeks control. Sofia his mother, and a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma, desired to create something apart from the divine and did this without consent from the Father. Demiurge (Yahweh) having stolen a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior realm. Thus Sophia’s power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe. Sophia (wisdom in Greek) resides in all humans as this divine spark.
Sophia when she realized her mistake she decided to cast her child, the Demiurge, out of the Pleroma. The Demiurge, now alone, believed that he was the only being who had ever existed, and created the material world out of his ignorance, trapping sparks of divinity within Adam and Eve along the way. The Demiurge traps souls within the physical realm, making them forget their divine origin. This makes sense, and there are many examples of this in the Bible. Jesus mission is that of spiritual liberation, and his goal is the awakening of this divine spark of wisdom (Sophia), enabling the enlightened soul to return to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.
So far so good. Now, where I disagree with some/many of the gnostics, they conceive the relation of the Demiurge to the Supreme God as one of actual antagonism. The Demiurge thus became the personification of the power of evil (he's not), the Satan of Gnosticism, with whom the faithful had to wage war (they don't) to the end that they might be pleasing to the Good God (it's not). However, it is true John says "has three names: The first name is Yaldabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. He is blind. His power is great. He falsely claimed, 'I am God, and there is no other God beside me.' But he did not know that there exists the true Source above him." - The Apocryphon of John
IMO, the Demiurge, the God of the OT, Yahweh is not evil, far from that. I'll go more in depth about this later, I don't have time now.
Finally, you seem to imply you have an answer as to those who don't desire the burden of responsibility
I don't have the answer, I just raised the question.
differences between those Jews who rejected Jesus and those (Jews) who accepted Jesus
I'm not sure what that means. I know what the Church teaches, with which and I don't agree. Christianity demands something different from every other religion, it doesn't matter how good you are, if you don't believe in Jesus, you will burn in hell forever. Might as well say: accept the Empire narrative and obey, or else.
And here is why I disagree:
Jesus's message: Find the spark within yourself and connect. Inner transformation matters.
Church's message: Worship (accept) Jesus and obey us or be condemned to hell. Belief is everything.
differences between what Jesus did and what Jesus was
Jesus was student under John the Baptist, but he was also a teacher. He was a prophet who never claimed to be God (any God). Now, what he did... he brought a message of spiritual liberation. This message was first of all extremely dangerous to Rome because it told people that imperial power was ultimately meaningless. A dangerous message to the Jews, risking to destroy everything they had work so hard achieve. That is to enslave people. Not only financially, but also from a religious perspective. But a message of liberation to the people:
Find the Divine Spark: He taught that each person has a divine spark connecting them to the ultimate source of love and truth.
How to activate it once you found it: He showed people how... through love, forgiveness, compassion, and inner obedience.
True Freedom: The poor and oppressed are spiritually free. The rich and powerful are trapped in spiritual death.
differences between attributes of Monad and attributes of Dodecad
For the attributes of the Monad I'll direct you once again to the Apocryphon of John: "He is the invisible Spirit... he is more than a god, since there is nothing above him, for no one lords it over him. For he does not exist in something inferior to him, since everything exists in him. For it is he who establishes himself. He is eternal, since he does not need anything. For he is total perfection... he is always completely perfect in light... He is illimitable... He is unsearchable... He is eternal... He is ineffable... He is unnamable... He is immeasurable light.".
Very helpful, James, I'll mull it over and get back to you.
When this came up before, I've said I believe in Samael just fine, but I'm not able to accord him more titles than he clearly deserves, namely Yahweh, Yaldabaoth, Demiurge, or Creator. But then I haven't had opportunity to read the whole Apocryphon through so maybe I should do that first.
his God and their God was not one and the same. That's where they're wrong, they're worshiping to wrong God.
If that is true, it would logically follow that Jesus's Jews and other rabbis' Jews did teach different things. But I don't see the proof that it's true they had different gods. Sofia and her son (Samael) don't come from Jewish tradition but from Grecized Egyptian tradition. Yah doesn't come from Greek or Egyptian tradition but from Hebrew tradition. Therefore when Apocryphon says that Samael is called Yaldabaoth it doesn't mean he automatically gets the rights of the meaning of Yah Sabaoth. Apocryphon might be truly reporting the lies of Samael's followers. For someone who doesn't understand the Near East cult of Yah to look at Yah's attributes very casually and say, oh sure, Yah must be exactly Samael, would be to fail all principles of comparative religion by comparing apples to scorpions.
And that's what I mean by (1), asking where these two Jewish movements differ. Yes, they differed in practices, but not clearly in theology. If you don't like the later church's theology, that's fine, we don't have to bring that up because we're focusing on the theology taught by Jesus. In particular you're right to note that the framing "if you don't believe in Jesus, you will burn in hell forever" is suspect because so much is missing; but that's a side point. On the main line, it seems that we'd need to come to agreement on methods of how to read and interpret sources to determine whether Jesus's Jews and other rabbis' Jews had different gods in their original theology. Transformation and belief in truth (knowledge, trust) are both essential and always accompany each other: transformation means there's belief, and belief means there's transformation.
Jesus isn't saying "follow me" or "worship me."
IMHO "Follow me" is one of the most certain things the historical Jesus said. He didn't say "worship me" (who does?), but I've documented that the words for "worship" meant quite a few different things than we expect (even latria), and so when people bowed to Jesus respectfully that fell under several words for "worship" and was considered worship (even if we don't count it to have that meaning today). But, more important (if I can use Paul), the way we follow Jesus is exactly the way we follow other leaders, and in bowing cultures we bow to Jesus in the way we bow to other leaders. When you get to latria, it is only offered to the Father, but it can be offered through the physical image of God in humans and that's the direction latria should be taken (worship God who is in us).
So for (2) it's not essential to argue about the specifics of claiming to be a god, but (again) claiming many different powers and titles of divinity is very tied up with Jesus's narrative. And whenever you think about divinity in any human you find that Jesus was so one with the Monad that, whatever attribute you think of, he had first. He didn't intend us to be separate from him but that we would all be one in a many-membered "body of Christ". So, just as his nature and message align perfectly, so should ours. You make a decent description of the message and so our message, and our spark of divinity, must be united just as his was.
Sofia his mother, and a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma, desired to create something apart from the divine and did this without consent from the Father. Demiurge (Yahweh) having stolen a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior realm.
I've heard this, but I don't understand how we can classify these Dodecad offshoots as "good" or "not evil" if we're also calling them nonconsensual and thieving and mistaken and false. It's also not a cosmology that particularly appeals to historical truth claims better than say Zeus and Hera do. One issue is that this life involves doing physical good, and so a message of focusing solely on some other life that is not something we generally experience is an extraordinary claim that I'd ask for greater proofs of. So I appreciate your speaking so forthrightly and yet I ask the same questions of the meaning of these things that I ask others who raise similar points.
So in question (3) you give an excellent definition of the Monad. What I don't understand is why we should give any credit or value to Samael. For instance I use the word "Yah" (self-existence) to mean precisely "It is he who establishes himself", so I don't believe in awarding its forms freely to Samael (who isn't even an original of the Dodecad but an offspring).
TLDR: (a) All that is just for me to categorize and seek to enfold your thoughts. When it comes to specifics (and any debate), we are likely to begin to question which documents weigh more heavily than which if we get to a hard disagreement. I like to preclude that instead, by first asking how we would jointly use documents and inner revelation and other sources in some objective, agreed way so that we can come to the same answers with the relative certainty of math and science. That is, not calling something right or wrong by appeal to authority, but by making inferences to the best explanations. If you're someone who pursues the truth at all costs then right evaluation of revelations shouldn't be an issue.
(b) Your exposition puts you very close to one Conspiracies regular, and significantly close to the moderator of another forum I referred to. Neither are very aligned to traditional Christendom but both state they uphold original Christianity. If you'd like me to get these two folks involved, I can ping them, but I don't want to do so if you're wanting to keep it between us two for now. There is also another moderator I alluded to whose thoughts are pretty close to mine but who might be too traditional for you; that person will probably be along in time sooner or later too.
I looked into the historical Jesus and I don't want any other. If the historical Jesus were not God in the flesh, I'd be wrong, and I'd want to know I was wrong. I don't see anything directly wrong with your last paragraph, although it neglects the phase that happened before the baptism which I don't believe in neglecting. Anyway, so we're looking at a historical Jesus who merged his consciousness with the consciousness of the universe over a certain period of time; please go on.
Add: All told, in one sense Jesus never claimed to be God on his own. In another sense there's evidence Jesus made lots of divine claims typical for being one with (God the Father) the consciousness of the universe, and so people can twist the meaning of "claiming to be God" on both sides of the question. I'm pretty comfortable with the meaning I understand about the divine claims and I love to hear new takes on them.
And if I agree with you, we'd both be wrong. There is a divine spark within all of us. The jews claim this divine spark or spark of the Moshiach, as they call it, gives them alone the power to be united to God. That's why they rejected Jesus, because his God and their God was not one and the same. That's where they're wrong, they're worshiping to wrong God. But, it feels good for them since this is the creator of everything material, including MONEY.
Jesus isn't saying "follow me" or "worship me." He's saying find your own divine spark and each one of us must discover it. That's what we should focus on, not the religious icon called Jesus.
We must do the same thing as Jesus did. He showed us the way, we must follow. But, no one can do this work for you. You must do it yourself.
"I found all of them intoxicated. I found none of them thirsty. For empty they came into the world, and empty too they seek to leave the world."
People are drunk on wealth, power, status, and pleasure. They came with nothing and will leave with nothing, yet they chase illusions. Eventually they'll sober up and realize what's truly important.
That's right Jesus never claimed to be God. Because he knew very well the people in Judea were worshiping a lesser God. You probably know this, according to the gnostics this God is the Demiurge, or Yaldabaoth, who is identified as the creator of the physical universe, asserting that he single-handedly established the world. This Demiurge is the creator of this evil world, the God of the jews; "for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, inflicting the punishment of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me". The Demiurge is also responsible for the flood of Noah, or the great flood present in every civilization.
When Jesus declared, “I and the Father are one,” he was not claiming to be Yahweh, he was talking about the consciousness of the universe, for gnostics this is the Monad.
But, before you label me a gnostic, I will tell you I believe the gnostics don't go all the way either. They also stop short with their revelations. Jesus taught that a divine spark exists within each person, a responsibility to let it grow, bringing happiness and connection with the divine. But this freedom comes with a burden: individual responsibility, mistakes, and suffering. What about those who lack the courage to follow this path? What about millions who simply want to live normal lives without the weight of freedom?
Okay, trying to follow, and I appreciate very much your (relatively) cogent explanation, James! .... First, I'm hearing the Jewish God involves "this divine spark or spark of the Moshiach", the "wrong God", then that Jesus says "find your own divine spark and each one of us must discover it" as if that's different; but it sounds the same to me. It also sounds the same as the imago Dei taught in Christianity. In reading the rest I don't find my question resolved because I don't see a difference between what the Jews at large (all sects) believed about this image (tzelem) and what Jesus believed about it; the differences were elsewhere. Second:
We were just discussing that Jesus shows the Way and is the Way. I do believe that everything Jesus did as a human is what humans are capable of doing (plus greater works, John 14:12). We are to be one with him without any confusion in which one of us is what another is. That unity is called marriage. That leads to the question, when he "merged his consciousness with the consciousness of the universe", and Jesus and the Consciousness were one, was that a doing or a being?
Now I continue looking into demiurge(s) and finding interesting details that have changed over time. Demiurge is the Greek version and means public servant or architect, but is the last of the dodecad which ultimately comes from the ogdoad. But the ogdoad comes from Egypt (which literally makes the demiurge descended from Kek), and the Egyptian form comes from a branch allied to an old Semitic form reflected in the ancient legend of Eve (Hawah) bearing a boy and girl consistently every year. So it seems to me that ultimately the gnostic demiurge comes from some worshipped ancestor, someone who templates over both Cain and Lamech but may be historically distinct from both.
However, that leaves us searching for the attributes of the true God instead. I don't accord the attribute of being the true Architect (as public servant) to any creature but only to the Original (the Architect of architects). I don't accord the attributes of self-existence and power of force (which were intended by the term "Yah Sabaoth") except to the Monad. And I don't accord the attribute of being the final say on how things will work out for good to some subluminary, because I think the Source does cause all things to work out for good to the righteous (Gen. 50:20).
Finally, you seem to imply you have an answer as to those who don't desire the burden of responsibility. I wouldn't call that "normal" but it's clear that there are shortcuts people take instead of growing in the liberty that comes from enslaving yourself to the Monad. Now the fact seems to me that the mistakes and suffering are the path of growth, but the question is about those who don't want to grow and would rather eat Matrix fake steak instead. There are several ways that answer could go and (without leading the witness) I agree that gnostics didn't get any solution reported on their behalf.
So my lines of inquiry would be (1) differences between those Jews who rejected Jesus and those (Jews) who accepted Jesus, (2) differences between what Jesus did and what Jesus was, (3) differences between attributes of Monad and attributes of Dodecad. I appreciate it. If you want to redirect things to a new post (not necessary but sometimes helps organize), that could be c/HolySeekersOfTheWay, or it could also be c/TheNarrowWay (although I'm not currently contributing there and would only comment on that forum from a distance, out of respect for the moderator and for other reasons). There's nothing wrong with continuing here off-topic from OP though, since it's unmoderated; if we hit the maximum comment depth we can just start a new cascade of comments (pinging the user with "u/" and username, which gives the same notification as replying directly does).
What is this? you have nothing else to do but monitor this platform? you replied to my message just a few minutes later. I haven't read your message in entirety, so I can't yet reply... but, I just can't understand what you're doing. And why? so please be honest, I don't care what you think, believe, or follow.
Also keep in mind, I don't know how many messages we can exchange. There must be a limit. And since I'm new on this platform I'm not allowed to DM, so time and space is short.
Heh, I try helpfulness; then I let others decide. Trying brevity instead: My last reply was in about an hour, and so is this one (hover for timestamps); this evening I'm browsing and doing other work. Don't read too much into anybody's habits. My last paragraph above is the TLDR.
I said, I'm very interested in folks that might be able to prove me wrong and/or improve my views. You've got some insights and I like interacting with them. Coming from the trad church but with lots of nontrad pieces, ultimately I believe we can all agree on truths if we are in core agreement at pursuing truth at all costs. Secondarily, I wanted to give you positive suggestions for Scored generally (the mod of c/TheNarrowWay is very close to your views). If you don't want to keep explicating your views, that's your privilege.
The cascade limit is about 24 or 28, but that's only for organization; if you ever get an error replying to someone that seems to be due to a long cascade, simply copy the reply to clipboard, go to the OP (e.g. click permalink or context), and paste it as a new reply to OP with the ping of the other's name (like u/SwampRangers) added. I haven't heard that DMs are prohibited to newcomers; if so then it should fade soon as you contribute even brief comments, but it might just be your trying to DM someone who blocks all (the admins are big on privacy and so they don't even publish all the interface quirks). If you want me to DM as test, let me know.
TLDR: Spacetime limits are yours to choose; many of us are regulars who talk to everyone (beware us!); in particular I'm interested in anyone who pursues truth at all costs; so I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the 3 points I closed with (click context to see).
No, totally different. Gnostics believe the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh is the Demiurge. Same as in the Apocryphon of John "And she called his name Yaltabaoth.". Yahweh occurs more than 6,800 times in the Old Testament, and for good reason, he is the creator of our material world. And he is our creator. Yahweh, the Demiurge, is also a ruler, a jealous god who seeks control. Sofia his mother, and a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma, desired to create something apart from the divine and did this without consent from the Father. Demiurge (Yahweh) having stolen a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior realm. Thus Sophia’s power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe. Sophia (wisdom in Greek) resides in all humans as this divine spark.
Sophia when she realized her mistake she decided to cast her child, the Demiurge, out of the Pleroma. The Demiurge, now alone, believed that he was the only being who had ever existed, and created the material world out of his ignorance, trapping sparks of divinity within Adam and Eve along the way. The Demiurge traps souls within the physical realm, making them forget their divine origin. This makes sense, and there are many examples of this in the Bible. Jesus mission is that of spiritual liberation, and his goal is the awakening of this divine spark of wisdom (Sophia), enabling the enlightened soul to return to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.
So far so good. Now, where I disagree with some/many of the gnostics, they conceive the relation of the Demiurge to the Supreme God as one of actual antagonism. The Demiurge thus became the personification of the power of evil (he's not), the Satan of Gnosticism, with whom the faithful had to wage war (they don't) to the end that they might be pleasing to the Good God (it's not). However, it is true John says "has three names: The first name is Yaldabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. He is blind. His power is great. He falsely claimed, 'I am God, and there is no other God beside me.' But he did not know that there exists the true Source above him." - The Apocryphon of John
IMO, the Demiurge, the God of the OT, Yahweh is not evil, far from that. I'll go more in depth about this later, I don't have time now.
I don't have the answer, I just raised the question.
I'm not sure what that means. I know what the Church teaches, with which and I don't agree. Christianity demands something different from every other religion, it doesn't matter how good you are, if you don't believe in Jesus, you will burn in hell forever. Might as well say: accept the Empire narrative and obey, or else.
And here is why I disagree:
Jesus was student under John the Baptist, but he was also a teacher. He was a prophet who never claimed to be God (any God). Now, what he did... he brought a message of spiritual liberation. This message was first of all extremely dangerous to Rome because it told people that imperial power was ultimately meaningless. A dangerous message to the Jews, risking to destroy everything they had work so hard achieve. That is to enslave people. Not only financially, but also from a religious perspective. But a message of liberation to the people:
For the attributes of the Monad I'll direct you once again to the Apocryphon of John: "He is the invisible Spirit... he is more than a god, since there is nothing above him, for no one lords it over him. For he does not exist in something inferior to him, since everything exists in him. For it is he who establishes himself. He is eternal, since he does not need anything. For he is total perfection... he is always completely perfect in light... He is illimitable... He is unsearchable... He is eternal... He is ineffable... He is unnamable... He is immeasurable light.".
Very helpful, James, I'll mull it over and get back to you.
When this came up before, I've said I believe in Samael just fine, but I'm not able to accord him more titles than he clearly deserves, namely Yahweh, Yaldabaoth, Demiurge, or Creator. But then I haven't had opportunity to read the whole Apocryphon through so maybe I should do that first.
Going back to the earlier statement then:
If that is true, it would logically follow that Jesus's Jews and other rabbis' Jews did teach different things. But I don't see the proof that it's true they had different gods. Sofia and her son (Samael) don't come from Jewish tradition but from Grecized Egyptian tradition. Yah doesn't come from Greek or Egyptian tradition but from Hebrew tradition. Therefore when Apocryphon says that Samael is called Yaldabaoth it doesn't mean he automatically gets the rights of the meaning of Yah Sabaoth. Apocryphon might be truly reporting the lies of Samael's followers. For someone who doesn't understand the Near East cult of Yah to look at Yah's attributes very casually and say, oh sure, Yah must be exactly Samael, would be to fail all principles of comparative religion by comparing apples to scorpions.
And that's what I mean by (1), asking where these two Jewish movements differ. Yes, they differed in practices, but not clearly in theology. If you don't like the later church's theology, that's fine, we don't have to bring that up because we're focusing on the theology taught by Jesus. In particular you're right to note that the framing "if you don't believe in Jesus, you will burn in hell forever" is suspect because so much is missing; but that's a side point. On the main line, it seems that we'd need to come to agreement on methods of how to read and interpret sources to determine whether Jesus's Jews and other rabbis' Jews had different gods in their original theology. Transformation and belief in truth (knowledge, trust) are both essential and always accompany each other: transformation means there's belief, and belief means there's transformation.
IMHO "Follow me" is one of the most certain things the historical Jesus said. He didn't say "worship me" (who does?), but I've documented that the words for "worship" meant quite a few different things than we expect (even latria), and so when people bowed to Jesus respectfully that fell under several words for "worship" and was considered worship (even if we don't count it to have that meaning today). But, more important (if I can use Paul), the way we follow Jesus is exactly the way we follow other leaders, and in bowing cultures we bow to Jesus in the way we bow to other leaders. When you get to latria, it is only offered to the Father, but it can be offered through the physical image of God in humans and that's the direction latria should be taken (worship God who is in us).
So for (2) it's not essential to argue about the specifics of claiming to be a god, but (again) claiming many different powers and titles of divinity is very tied up with Jesus's narrative. And whenever you think about divinity in any human you find that Jesus was so one with the Monad that, whatever attribute you think of, he had first. He didn't intend us to be separate from him but that we would all be one in a many-membered "body of Christ". So, just as his nature and message align perfectly, so should ours. You make a decent description of the message and so our message, and our spark of divinity, must be united just as his was.
I've heard this, but I don't understand how we can classify these Dodecad offshoots as "good" or "not evil" if we're also calling them nonconsensual and thieving and mistaken and false. It's also not a cosmology that particularly appeals to historical truth claims better than say Zeus and Hera do. One issue is that this life involves doing physical good, and so a message of focusing solely on some other life that is not something we generally experience is an extraordinary claim that I'd ask for greater proofs of. So I appreciate your speaking so forthrightly and yet I ask the same questions of the meaning of these things that I ask others who raise similar points.
So in question (3) you give an excellent definition of the Monad. What I don't understand is why we should give any credit or value to Samael. For instance I use the word "Yah" (self-existence) to mean precisely "It is he who establishes himself", so I don't believe in awarding its forms freely to Samael (who isn't even an original of the Dodecad but an offspring).
TLDR: (a) All that is just for me to categorize and seek to enfold your thoughts. When it comes to specifics (and any debate), we are likely to begin to question which documents weigh more heavily than which if we get to a hard disagreement. I like to preclude that instead, by first asking how we would jointly use documents and inner revelation and other sources in some objective, agreed way so that we can come to the same answers with the relative certainty of math and science. That is, not calling something right or wrong by appeal to authority, but by making inferences to the best explanations. If you're someone who pursues the truth at all costs then right evaluation of revelations shouldn't be an issue.
(b) Your exposition puts you very close to one Conspiracies regular, and significantly close to the moderator of another forum I referred to. Neither are very aligned to traditional Christendom but both state they uphold original Christianity. If you'd like me to get these two folks involved, I can ping them, but I don't want to do so if you're wanting to keep it between us two for now. There is also another moderator I alluded to whose thoughts are pretty close to mine but who might be too traditional for you; that person will probably be along in time sooner or later too.