'Gospel of the Lots of Mary' found hidden inside 1,500-year-old book 02/05/2015 4:08:21 PM PST
Posted on 02/06/2015 7:33:18 PM PST by ealgeone
A 1,500-year-old book that contains a previously unknown gospel has been deciphered. The ancient manuscript may have been used to provide guidance or encouragement to people seeking help for their problems, according to a researcher who has studied the text.
Written in Coptic, an Egyptian language, the opening reads (in translation):
"The Gospel of the lots of Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, she to whom Gabriel the Archangel brought the good news. He who will go forward with his whole heart will obtain what he seeks. Only do not be of two minds
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It isn’t the physical mechanism, it is the spiritual framework relied upon, that makes a lottery righteous or sinful. The Urim and Thummim were holy lots and they had scriptural support.
Translation, as most of the books we know are.
I’m not the one in the thread who needs to be told that.
Link didn’t work.
The Lord’s choice for Apostle being not Matthias, but _____.
(I won;t insult your intelligence by filling in the blank.)
(And if casting lots had been the correct procedure, it would have resulted in the afore-not-mentioned _____.)
:’)
She probably did speak the language it is written in. Either her and Joseph already knew the language when they fled to Egypt or it was language they had to learn while in exile in Egypt. Matthew Chapter 2 may hold the answer to your question.
Pagan Egypt was rotten with diviners and was a stronghold of Gnosticism in the Christian era, so this isn’t surprising. Instead of flipping open some pagan text at random, a nominal Christian in 6th century Alexandria flipped open this book. Some folks are weak.
Re: “It isn’t the physical mechanism, it is the spiritual framework relied upon, that makes a lottery righteous or sinful. The Urim and Thummim were holy lots and they had scriptural support.”
I have always found the Urim and the Thummim an odd curiosity because in any other context, using such a thing would be considered divination. I am not denying what you said above, I agree with it, but it still seemed out of place somehow. I always thought ine the Old Testament days that the role of the prophets was to bring God’s guidance through prayer and direct revelation from the Holy Spirit.
As to the Apostles casting lots to replace Judas, that was obviously a throw back to the Urim and Thummim idea. This too was odd to me because Jesus never mentioned using such a method for determining God’s will, and, we don’t see it ever mentioned again in the New Testament as being a practice of the early church. One of those mysteries that I want to ask Peter about when we get to Heaven one day.
I must be missing the mysterious aspect here...Unless we’re assuming the eleven were acting on their own and without instruction in
- Announcing the need for a replacement for Judas
- Stating the qualifications for that replacement
- Appealing to the Lord to make His choice known
- Casting lots to reveal that choice
Acts 1:26
“Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.”
So, maybe it’s not divination, eh?
I think there’s a big difference between drawing straws and using Tarot cards or Ouija boards to make choices
I don’t get why they felt the need to cast lots. Peter’s listing of the qualifications for an Apostle make sense and then praying for God’s guidance makes sense but then throwing dice to determine God’s answer?
It seems out of place. Was this a common practice of the early church? Is it ever mentioned again in the New Testament? Should we be doing this today to determine God’s will?
It just seems to me that they were Apostles - eleven of the original Apostles - they had witnessed Jesus’ miracles - He told them that if they asked anything in His name, He would answer them - why not rely on the literal moving of the Holy Spirit to tell them who the replacement should be?
I’m not trying to argue with anyone - if it is not a mystery to you, good for you, but it is one to me.
I’m not trying to argue either, just thinking this through. :-)
We’re not told of the Lord’s instructions to the eleven concerning this matter. But I don’t think either of us want to charge them with acting without instructions.
So if they were following His instructions in all other aspects here - the first three listed above - seems to me they were following His instructions in the fourth as well.
The Holy Spirit had not been sent to them yet. That would occur a few days later, and the Lord’s instructions to the church thereafter would come through the mouths of the apostles, through those who received gifts of the Spirit through the apostles’ hands, through visions and angelic direction, etc.
In short, if the Lord instructed it, that was the right way to do it. Going beyond that is treading on dangerous ground.
Whaddya think?
ever hear of adamantly agreeing?
Well, we do see it a lot in secular contexts where questions of merit are unclear and yet nobody is thinking of demons. “Let’s flip a coin.” And “fair lottery” is understood as a tautology.
I’d suggest it is a matter of attitude. If you found yourself flipping coins a lot, you could consider if there is a better way to make the kinds of decisions you are needing to make. In a group of people, a lottery might be viewed as fairest because it puts the question completely out of the realm of human bias. It is attitude that dedicates the lottery to God or to Satan (the god of this world). Not the mechanism.
The giving of the Holy Spirit would make such questions a lot easier to decide, obviating the need to use lots. The drawing of the lots may have represented a low place in their faith, a low place which would not last. (This is one reason why the story of “Mary’s lots” sounds so phony. If she ever had any, she quickly learned that she could throw them away because God illuminated her in a far better way.)
If a Christian is attempting to participate in a secular context (e.g. as a business manager) and is asked for a fair way to decide a question, if investigations of obvious merit do not solve the issue the Christian would not be wrong to suggest a random drawing.
“I think there’s a big difference between drawing straws and using Tarot cards or Ouija boards to make choices”
Agreed.
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