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The Gospel of Judas opens with the following:
INTRODUCTION: INCIPIT
The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke
in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week
three days before he celebrated Passover.
To Sophian Gnostics, this is a gospel distinctly about the transference of consciousness into a body of light, and the opening reveals this, mystically. As most who read mystical texts such as the Zohar know, the mystic's view of scripture is that numbers, days and such are considered mystical "code". The "code" given here would point to the Sophian view of this text. The week here, from a Sophian view, would point to the seven interior stars, and the three days to the triplicity of the transcendent sephirot, or the transcendent principles beyond the seventh star, Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur in Kabbalah. The point that it occurs on passover, again makes this point, since Jesus' ministry transformed the whole idea of Exodus from a worldly, historical event, into a personal event, which is what we see as a direct reference to the transference of consciousness.
The Exodus comparison to a personal experience, is actually an ancient Kabbalist's view, and the Jesus story simply develops this old Kabbalistic idea. For more on the classical Judaic view on Exodus and passover, see "Kabbalah and Exodus" by Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi.
INTRODUCTION: INCIPIT
The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke
in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week
three days before he celebrated Passover.
To Sophian Gnostics, this is a gospel distinctly about the transference of consciousness into a body of light, and the opening reveals this, mystically. As most who read mystical texts such as the Zohar know, the mystic's view of scripture is that numbers, days and such are considered mystical "code". The "code" given here would point to the Sophian view of this text. The week here, from a Sophian view, would point to the seven interior stars, and the three days to the triplicity of the transcendent sephirot, or the transcendent principles beyond the seventh star, Ain, Ain Soph and Ain Soph Aur in Kabbalah. The point that it occurs on passover, again makes this point, since Jesus' ministry transformed the whole idea of Exodus from a worldly, historical event, into a personal event, which is what we see as a direct reference to the transference of consciousness.
The Exodus comparison to a personal experience, is actually an ancient Kabbalist's view, and the Jesus story simply develops this old Kabbalistic idea. For more on the classical Judaic view on Exodus and passover, see "Kabbalah and Exodus" by Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi.
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Re: Gospel of Judas - Content Discussion
Mon, May 22, 2006 - 4:44 PMI think the traditions of the Qabala re: the Tree of Life's Sephiroth, may have developed a bit later, but Merkabah mysticism was an earlier stage prior to the Qabala we know from Moses de Leon, the ascent of the chariot. Some of that sort of thing was definitely going on in Judaism of the time the Gospel of Judas was written, but it is hard to figure out just what the teachings were, as so much of it was oral.
In the Apocryphon of John and in the Hermetic Poimandres, there are discussions of ascending beyond the planets to heavens above. In the Apocryphon of John in particular, you find some of the same names mentioned in Gospel of Judas. -
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Re: Gospel of Judas - Content Discussion
Tue, May 23, 2006 - 10:00 AMThe mystic's position for examining a point isn't historical justification so much the mystical function of an interpretation. Merkabah mysticism, for example, post-dates the scripture it interprets by at least hundreds of years, perhaps more than a thousand. Is Merkabah Mysticism what the writers of scripture intended? Does this ever present question mean that Merkabah Mysticism is illegitimate? What about the one's that evolved from Merkabah Mysticism? If any of these schools of Kabbalah are "legitimate" schools of mysticism, than the argument of what an author or "original" work "intends" as the foundation for an interpretation's legitimacy must be deeply re-considered.
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Re: Gospel of Judas - Content Discussion
Tue, May 23, 2006 - 10:08 AMI hate to belabour this point, but I have run into so many instances of mystics arguing like history teachers that I feel I need to include the following as well:
Jaques Derridah does an excellent job de-constructing many of our historical pre-conceptions of the past in his book Grammatology. Our concepts of history, for instance, are based on a concept of history and society that is “book centered” whose concept of itself and of knowledge is based on the written word and written documentation.
We believe, for instance, that all there is to know about certain schools of mysticism in the past are what they wrote down, since this is what we would do, in our "book centered" conceptualizations of knowing. But the whole shift to a writing-centered conceptualization of “knowing” is a twentieth century mindset. Most of the “juicy stuff” may have never been written down in the past, because the concept of writing as a means of knowing and learning was secondary at best, for various reasons, whereas for us it is primary. We are very subtly “temporal-centric” in our ways of interpreting history which Derridah aptly points out. -
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Re: Gospel of Judas - Content Discussion
Tue, May 23, 2006 - 11:11 PMI don't disagree with that point, but I find great value in speculatively reconstruction, based in key principles.
So for me there is a tension between deconstruction and reconstruction, I don't go all the way with Derrida or Lyotard, yet I cannot deny certain points they illustrate either.
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