The interesting thing on the National Geographic video was that at one time there were something like 30 gospels. Isn't the DaVinci Code based around studies of the Gospel of Mary Magdeline?
I didn't know that the earliest Gospel, Mathew, wasn't written by Mathew, and wasn't written until decades later. Apparently John wasn't written until 60 or more years later. None of the authors for the for Cannonized Gospels are known.
It was interesting that the Gnostism denomination of Christianity believed in a more "personal" relationship with Christ and with God, just as todays funamentalists believe. But the hierchical Christians which became the Catholics dominated them two centuries later.
One thing in the NG show I remember from my Southern Baptist Sunday School, or perhaps my New Testament history class at Oklahoma Baptist University, was that Judas was particularly favored by Christ. The Gospel of Judas confirms that, and they hadn't even dug it out of the desert when I was taught that.
Didn't they also believe that the flesh was inherently evil, countered by the Spirit being inherently good? (Carried through to modern thought, this is one of the basic concepts of Scientology...)
If we are "made in God's image", how can our bodies be inherently evil?
I'm sure that as one of the faithful Judas was high on the Lord's list until those last few hours.
But without Judas, there might not have been Christianity at all.
I don't know that one could say that Judas was particularly favored by Christ...scripture states Jesus already knew it was he who would betray him...it may be more like"hold your friends close, hold your enemies closer!"
In addition to the Gospel of Mary; the Magdalene story is supported in Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Philip, Pistis Sophia, and the Gospel of the Egyptians.
I didn't know that the earliest Gospel, Mathew, wasn't written by Mathew, and wasn't written until decades later. Apparently John wasn't written until 60 or more years later. None of the authors for the for Cannonized Gospels are known.
The letters of Paul were the first known writings around ~50CE.
Of the Gospels, Mark was the earliest at ~65-80. Matthew and Luke followed maybe 20 years later ~80-100. John was the last at ~90-120CE.
Scholars are pretty sure that Luke was a real person and author of both his Gospel and Acts of the Apostles. The others are anonymous writings that were produced by independent Christian communities venerated particular disciple. They named the texts according to whichever disciple was that community's hero.
It was interesting that the Gnostism denomination of Christianity believed in a more "personal" relationship with Christ and with God, just as todays funamentalists believe.
Gnosticism, in general, holds that original unknowable God -the Monad, made the spiritual universe. And as part and parcel of the act of creation, certain quot;emanations" or "aeons" were produced automatically, each less godly (or more evil) in sequence.
The last (so far) spiritual Aeon was Sophia. Sophia being further from God than the rest of creation, attempts a creation on her own, but messes it up and makes the 'Demiurge'. The Demiurge creates the physical universe we know and all the evil in it. Some sects taught that the demiurge is Satan, others that it was the OT God of the Jews.
Jesus is another Aeon sent in bodily form to provide the knowledge (gnosis) for mankind to escape the faulty material world and return to the spiritual existence as it was before the Demiurge.
It wasn't so much a "personal" encounter with God-Monad, but a release from this corrupt material domain into the pure spiritual existence as it was intend.
Sophia and (spiritual) Jesus were equal angel creations greater than man but less than God. (Some sects took a yin/yang approach to their theology to make Jesus & Sophia husband and wife. In this case, Mary was the earthly form of Sophia - and we have the Magdalene legend).
It was for this reason that the early Church adopted the doctrine of the Trinity -- to combat the belief that Jesus was somehow a lesser being than God.