Reddit reviews Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
We found 4 Reddit comments about Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Vintage
One of the best of the apocryphal writings, if you ask me. I might be a bit partial, though. :)
Have you read Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas by Elaine Pagels? So good!
My favorite passage from The Gospel of Thomas:
(113) His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"
<Jesus said,> "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'here it is' or 'there it is.' Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."
The Gospel seems to change our minds such that it reveals to us what is already in front of us, but we are blind to. Truly the further light and knowledge we all seek!
For historical background:
The book discusses various early versions of the Bible and problems with translations. The author is a Christian.
The book discusses some of the divergent views held by early Christians
If you are interested in some of the gospels that the early church fathers rejected for inclusion in the canonical gospels, I've listed a few books dealing with those below. They give you an idea of the variety of beliefs present among early Christians.
I remember there being a good bit of controversy about that quote. Specifically the church fought to have the Book of Thomas excluded from the Bible because it taught a more protestant view: that each person can find Christian salvation on his own terms. But the Church didn't like that, b/c it comprimised their whole "we have a monopoly on the gateway to Heaven" sales pitch. So Thomas's book was excluded, and in the Book of John, Thomas was made to look like a fool ("doubting Thomas"). Read Beyond Belief for more info.
This is a perfectly reasonable response. I just think our reasoning is heavily differentiated when it comes to bodily autonomy. If a fetus can not survive outside the body of the mother, it is not viable as human life.
The violinist essay to me has put it best in terms of an ethical stance. I would not be in favor of abortion after a time which a fetus could be viable (5 months). Even before that begins to be a bit too far along for me personally. But, there are far too many cases and contexts for any one person to be the arbiter of what is right ethically in each of those cases.
The young woman I knew, I had to counsel through the process, healing, and trauma. If she’d had the child, she would have lost her job as a bartender (yes, I know this is supposedly illegal, but try living in the real world), had few skills to recommend additional employment as she only had an associate’s degree, and would have suffered even more emotionally as a result of having a child she had to give away rather than raise - as a motherless child herself.
In the case of my friend’s miscarriage, the fetus was technically still alive. It was no longer viable for my friend to carry the pregnancy due to the uterine tear, and the fetus was largely not viable / the pregnancy could not continue. So by your standard of care, it would have been an abortion.
I think as a society we tend to underrate women’s pain and autonomy, and we rely on women’s self-sacrifice for care work. I think this colors the lens through which people often view early pregnancy, and there is a systematic bias against women, assuming they should have to perform care / host labor in order to create new life. (Some interesting if tangential work written by Anne-Marie Slaughter and Soraya Chemaly in this regard!)
I simply don’t subscribe to these ethics that treat women as second class humans. And I was raised Catholic. (Read a few Elaine Pagels books and got a degree in religion to undo that).
My arguments are not to try to devalue life. I think most women who become pregnant and don’t wish to be struggle tremendously if they have to terminate. I know I would. But I also think society should look to the care of the woman, financially and emotionally, before the care of potential offspring. We are so quick in American culture to ask women to create children, and then we ask provide no assistance once the child is born. We assume a woman will provide care. That this is what they are for.
In many other cultures, even ones I find sexist in nature, women are given a great deal more care after the birth of the child. In Arab cultures, other women come over and take the child off the mother’s hands so she can rest - for days or weeks at a time. They cook, care for the baby, let the Mother sleep. This example starts to become tangential to my main argument, but I think it shows a real difference in how American culture approaches pregnancy and motherhood. You just have the child, we can’t help you after. It is sexist on its face.