A Troubled Millennial Generation – A solution from the Nag Hammadi Monastery in Egypt

ea35b8082ff0023ecd0b470de7444e90fe76e7d41fb814469df0c7 640 sunrise

A 29 year old American Millennial just challenged the sanity of US President Donald Trump. During an interview with the press by emphasizing the need for a Green New Deal she metaphorically pointed her finger in his face and made it clear that he is destroying life on our planet.

 

XXX

Quote: US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

“We must be as ambitious and innovative in our solution as possible,” Ocasio-Cortez declared during a press conference unveiling the Green New Deal resolution, which calls for a “national mobilization” to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. “We’re here to say that small, incremental policy solutions are not enough.”

Definition “Green New Deal”

Planetary resource depletion and destruction (negative external costs) were never a part of Adam Smith’s pricing equation nor was recompense for ongoing irreparable ecological consequences. The Green New Deal calls for a pricing recognition of negative external costs beginning with fossil fuels.

A Solution from The Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi

The Gospel of Thomas found in 1945 near the Nag Hammadi monastery in Upper Egypt speaks to our ecological crisis. It speaks directly to those of the Millennial Generation like US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It speaks to the US President Donald Trump. It speaks to his enablers. It gives all of humankind the mental framework we will need as we face the challenges now confronting us.

First a brief review of 21st century ecological reality: Recent temperature inversion throughout the globe was the most extreme in recorded history. The Polar Vortex in 2019 brought extremely low temperatures to parts of the US. 2018 was the warmest year on record for ocean heat content, which increased markedly from 2017. It was the fourth warmest year on record for surface temperature. It was the sixth warmest year in the lower part of the atmosphere. Greenhouse gas concentrations reached record levels for CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide. Sea ice was well below the long-term average at both poles for most of the year. The summer Arctic sea ice minimum was the sixth lowest since records began in the late 1970s.

Now to that gospel: In the fourth century it was buried by the monks in a cliff near their Nag Hammadi monastery. The Roman Christian church had declared it “heretical” and “schismatic.” (It remains so declared by the Roman Catholic Church today) They placed it along with other so declared writings in a large clay jar and buried that jar in the side of the cliff. It remained there until the last century. It was only known before then in the form of fragments of later writing scattered in European monastery libraries throughout Europe. After its discovery, the American scholar Dr. James M Robinson (1924 – 1916) and his team translated it from the written Coptic into English.

The Nag Hammadi monastery was founded by followers of Jesus who had gone to Egypt shortly after his death. The gospel was probably originally written in Aramaic and then later translated into Egyptian Coptic, a form of Egyptian writing using Greek lettering that had become common in Egypt after Alexander’s conquest three centuries before the Common Era. The Gospel discovered was a Coptic copy of prior Coptic versions. By analyzing the Coptic imagery in the Greek lettering, many scholars concluded that it may have been written shortly after the death of Jesus and could therefore possibly be the earliest gospel on record, having preceded the canonical gospels we now see in the Catholic and Protestant Bibles. It should however be noted that there is debate among some scholars as to whether it could have originated so early. Nevertheless, there is no question that in the fourth century when the foundation of the Roman church was laid it challenged that foundation.

It can be described as being opposed to doctrinal areas of originating Roman Christian orthodoxy.

After reading the authors referenced below, meeting one, corresponding with the other and attending several Westar seminars on the Nag Hammadi discovery, I wrote the following in my journal.

“A young Jewish wisdom teacher and healer from a remote province of the Roman Empire, one racked by royal ineptitude (reign of Herod and his sons), temple corruption, religious dissension, sharp ethnic hatred and brutality, appeared on the scene. He told his followers that The Kingdom of God is not up in the Heavens, it here on Earth, both inside and outside of us. He said; we just don’t see it.”

We will now examine in some depth several of the sayings of Jesus as recorded in that gospel and the way they contradict much of present day Judeo/Christian/Islamic doctrinal thought as to the image of God, the persona of Jesus and even more importantly our relationship to Nature. We will examine in exact terms how these ancient images relate to our ecological problem today. The conclusion is that unless Jews, Christians and Muslims are able to rethink their relationship to this planet in a Thomas gospel way, our species may only have a few centuries before it will face self-imposed extinction.

Jesus in that gospel told us that the material and nonmaterial here on earth are a synchronous part of the cosmic (God) dimension. That assumption at the time was not a part of the thought process of the Jewish world. Nor was the need for interactive equilibrium of all life and nonlife on the planet. The Torah and the thought process that preceded it in Egypt and the Levant had defined our planetary relationship as one where we were down here and Heaven is up there. In the Book of Genesis we were even told that we can be like the Gods and that we can have dominion over the earth, that we are to subdue it.

Roman Catholicism when it formed in the Fourth Century incorporated much of that thought process into its planetary understanding. Western Civilization as it took form in the succeeding years incorporated it.

In the Thomas gospel Jesus introduced the entirely different concept, that of interactive equilibrium He was saying that God is in everything, everywhere. He challenged the idea of a separation between heaven and earth.

Now in the 21st century a discussion of this has become very important. There are far reaching ecological ramifications as to how we need to view our place on the planet and in the cosmos.

Another challenge that Gospel makes relates to the planetary/cosmic meaning of the person of Jesus. In defiance of the canonical Gospel of John, Jesus tells us in the Thomas gospel that we save ourselves not by belief in him as our personal savior; we save ourselves by going through an inner search to find who we really are and by our desire then to be like him. The implication here is that no ecclesiastical institution or declaration of faith can save us. Only we can save ourselves.

Many scholars believe that this is the reason the Gospel of Thomas was excluded from the canon by the Roman Christian Church and declared heretical. If one could find the Kingdom within, there would then be no need for the creedal Christianity as expressed in John 3:16 with its requirement of the declaration of belief in Jesus as one’s personal savior. There would in fact have been no need even to be a member of the Roman church.

The following quotation from Elaine Pagels book; Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas supports this.

“I was amazed when I went back to the Gospel of John after reading Thomas, for Thomas and John clearly draw upon similar language and images, and both, apparently, begin with similar secret teaching. But John takes this teaching to mean something so different that I wondered whether John could have written his Gospel to refute what Thomas teaches…. I was finally convinced that this is what happened.”

We will now turn to several of the “sayings” of Jesus as they were recorded in the Gospel of Thomas. These sayings take on enormous importance as we try to understand our relationship to this planet and the cosmos. They speak to life and non-life; the material and the non-material. As we think about them, we must understand that the original meanings of the words were specific to an early first century period. Suffice it to say; expressions such as “Kingdom of God” cannot and should not be taken literally as a “Kingdom.” In our modern age, expressions like “cosmic dimension”, “other dimension”, “divine intelligence”, “implicate order” and “creative power” better express that meaning. We need to see the words of Jesus as first century observations having a value that spoke to those around him at that time and in that era, and speak to us today as universal truths.

Here are five sayings from the Gospel of Thomas that deal with our relationship to the physical world that surrounds us. Jesus says to Thomas:

(3) The Kingdom is in inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize who you are.

(17) I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the human mind.

(51) What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it.

(77) I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.

(113) His disciples said to him; When will the kingdom come? Jesus replied; it will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, look, here or Look, there! Rather, the Father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don’t see it.

These words of Jesus showed heaven and earth not separate and distinct from each other. It is interesting to observe just how modern they are. Jesus viewed the material world around us – including ourselves, as nonmaterial. He also viewed our minds as nonmaterial. He said that our minds and our bodies, as well as the physical world surrounding them, are a part of an all-encompassing “Kingdom is inside of you, and outside of you.”

There are profound implications here for our 21st century world. Clearly we humans have not entered this state of this being, or very few of us.

Here is an important condition to recognition of the “state of being”: Jesus said the transition for some will be painful. We see this in the following three sayings:

(2) When he finds, he will become troubled.

(58) Blessed is the man who has suffered and has found life.

(69) Blessed are they who have been persecuted within themselves. It is they who have truly come to know the father.

To begin to understand the significance of the Nag Hammadi discovery and its Gospel of Thomas as a way to approach our ecological problems in the 21st century we must understand the meaning of Jesus’ call for inner struggle. When Jesus says to Thomas: When he finds, he will become troubled, Jesus was referring to the abandonment of false gods worshiped, i.e., materialism, power, one’s ego, etc., gods that remove a person from the experience of being at one with the dimension to which Jesus refers as the Kingdom of God.

The words when he finds refers to finding The Kingdom not in some distant place in the sky, but within ourselves and all of Nature around us.

Jesus makes it very clear that for many it will not be easy to become at one with this Kingdom of God … spread out upon the earth…. He says: Blessed is the man who has suffered and has found life and Blessed are they who have been persecuted within themselves.

Jesus was asking us to join in and be a part another dimensionality. Given the materialist and hedonistic society in which we live, it becomes obvious, as it was at the time of Jesus; that the pain for many will be harsh. So Jesus uses the words: When he finds, he will become troubled.

These words do not sit well in our modern society. The very idea of becoming troubled brings discomfiture. We see this in the “who me worry” response among the many now being made aware of the needed lifestyle changes in order to avert ecological disaster. Any form of change in their lives that would force them to face recognition of planetary reality is avoided.

An unforgiving planet, however, is demanding that we come face to face with this he will become troubled. So here is the question: Can you and I change? Can human society change? And if so how? Again, we must return to the Gospel of Thomas. Jesus is telling us that we cannot find The Kingdom of God until we have cast aside everything in this world that is taking us away from the “other dimensional” purpose of our lives. He is saying only then can we experience the Kingdom of God … spread out upon the earth.

I now ask you to take a huge visual leap; to imagine yourself as having turned away from those self-generated destructive forces that are destroying our planet. Imagine that a critical mass of the public has also turned with you. World political power has entered into agreement on a new societal paradigm. All of humanity has gone through an inner search and experienced the pain associated with that search. People have turned their backs on the rigidity of their religious beliefs ‑ and the false gods of consumerism, egoism, greed and avarice that were distracting them. Humans are living in perfect union in the Kingdom of God … spread out upon the earth. The air is pure. The oceans are pure. Species extinction has been arrested. Human evolution into higher and higher forms is taking its course; the same for all other species. We have found what is inside of us and what is outside of us. Society has come to realize; we spent thousands of years looking for the Kingdom of God up in the heavens, and it was not there at all. It was all along as Jesus told us inside of you, and it is outside of you, no longer “up there.” All Abrahamic ascension myths come to their end. Abrahamic Armageddon turns out to be no more than the result of a Freudian self-destructive human psychosis. The contrast between human negativity and the positive power of the “Holy Spirit” as Jesus originally expressed it begins to make sense. We are here on Planet Earth in an ongoing conjunction with the eternal.

Can humanity live in consonance with this “Nature” Jesus Gospel of Thomas idea? Can the above scenario come to pass? Not without greater acceptance as to Jesus’ way to achieve it. Many would prefer to place the blame on a cosmic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Others are too hedonistic to care. Others are just too stupid to understand. Others are too desperate to be concerned. Jesus identified our problem. None of us likes being troubled.

This lost Christian gospel found near an ancient monastery at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt shows us how relevant the words of Jesus were to an understanding of the relationship between ourselves and our planet and the cosmos. It also shows that if we are saved, it will be we only who saved ourselves.

 

Beyond Belief, The Secret Gospel of Thomas

The Gnostic Gospels

The Origin of Satan

Elaine Pagels PhD, Department of Religion, Princeton University, scholar on early Christianity. Nominated for Pulitzer Prize.

 

The Nag Hammadi Library in English

The Gospel of Jesus

James M Robinson, Ph.D, Leader, Coptic translator, Nag Hammadi discovery

 

David Anderson brings together a wide range of interests in his writings, namely; theology, history, evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, geopolitics, and economics.

He has written four books. The fourth has just been published. It is about the necessary geo political, social, religious, economic paradigm shift for human survival.

See: http://www.inquiryabraham.com/new-book.html

 

Tags:

Support Countercurrents

Countercurrents is answerable only to our readers. Support honest journalism because we have no PLANET B.
Become a Patron at Patreon

Join Our Newsletter

GET COUNTERCURRENTS DAILY NEWSLETTER STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

Join our WhatsApp and Telegram Channels

Get CounterCurrents updates on our WhatsApp and Telegram Channels

Related Posts

Join Our Newsletter


Annual Subscription

Join Countercurrents Annual Fund Raising Campaign and help us

Latest News