This has nothing to do with Gnosticism versus the faith tradition created many years later in the name of Jesus... though, they didn't even get that right. His name wasn't Jesus. The name Jesus came from a series of translations and transliterations. He was known in Aramaic, his mother tongue, as Yeshua Bar Yosef (Yeshua, son of Joseph). We haven't even begun to talk about Gnosticism. Anyone who has studied mythology and symbology for any length of time will immediately recognize the motifs running throughout the Bible. These patterns show up across cultures and spiritual traditions, centuries before Christianity existed. You're quoting John 8 to interpret Genesis. I'm reading Genesis as it stands. Genesis 3:22: God confirms the serpent told the truth. "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil." You can interpret that through later theology created by the founders of Christianity and the religion they created ABOUT Yeshua, or you can read what the creation myth of Genesis actually says. The Genesis narrative has multiple source traditions woven together. Scholars identify at least two distinct authorial hands in the text, though some argue for four separate sources commonly known as J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomist), and P (Priestly). The tale is rich with ancient symbology that predates later theological interpretations, similar to how the story of Noah and the great flood is not unique to Judaism or Christianity. That story has been used throughout multiple spiritual traditions to symbolize the washing away of the old and the ushering in of the new. The gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written 40 to 70 years after Yeshua by anonymous communities, not by the disciples themselves. This is standard teaching in seminaries. The names were added in the second century by church tradition, which is often done in religions to manufacture scriptural authority. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not write Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Reading a book rich with symbology, mythology, and parable as literal fact is to miss the mark. And that book, those teachings of Yeshua, are about you. Hamartia (ἁμαρτία) is a Greek archery term that translates to missing the mark, which has been translated into the English word sin. Think about that. To combine the Tanakh (Old Testament) and what has become called the New Testament in the same book is also to miss the mark. The Tanakh speaks of the Judeo Father God who gets angry, becomes wrathful and vengeful, who teaches an eye for an eye. The teachings of Yeshua were much more radical for the time. He taught to love one's neighbor as oneself, to help the needy, the concept of agape love, and that an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. These teachings are much more in alignment with the Buddha, who lived 500 years before the birth of Yeshua. These two books do not come from the same religion. When Yeshua referenced the Tanakh, he did so as any Jewish teacher would, citing scripture while teaching his radically different message of self-realization and enlightenment. Yeshua himself never wrote anything. He wasn't a Christian. He knew nothing of the religion that would be created in his name in the years and decades after his death. He was a Jewish mystic teaching direct experience of the divine, showing others they too could realize their unity with God. Yeshua explicitly taught this. Luke 17:20-21: The kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say see here or see there. For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you. John 14:12: Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these. Psalm 82:6, which Yeshua quotes in John 10:34: I said, you are gods. You are all sons of the Most High. 1 Corinthians 3:16: Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst? But the religion created later flipped his message. Yes, he taught you how to awaken. Yes, he said the kingdom is within you and you're capable of what he did, and greater. But the institution said forget all that. You're a sinner. He's special. You're not. Just believe in him, accept the sacrifice, and he'll handle everything. No inner work required. You are God's beautiful creation... tainted at birth by original sin. You'll never be what Yeshua taught that you already are, but do your best. Show up. Tithe. Let the institution mediate your relationship with God. Yeshua spoke Aramaic, not Greek. The gospels were written in Greek decades after his death by people who never met him. Most English Bibles translate from those Greek texts, which means the words attributed to Yeshua have already passed through one language barrier. The Peshitta preserves an Aramaic tradition closer to the language Yeshua actually spoke, but the version most English speakers read has been filtered through Greek theological concepts that didn't exist in his Jewish mystical context. Just like the Buddha 500 years before, they turned a teacher of self-realization and enlightenment into an object of worship; declared that his attainment was beyond your grasp, and called anyone who actually followed his teaching a heretic.

Good job with this, Ava. There was one point I'd question - I'm pretty sure the canonical gospels were written much later than that. That's about the time the so-called gnostic gospels were written, with the partial exception of John, which is an adaptation of an Egyptian text.

Thank you. Excellent question. The gospels were written 40-70 years after Yeshua's death... that's when the texts themselves were composed by anonymous communities. The names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John weren't added until the 2nd century. And they weren't officially canonized as scripture until the 4th century councils. Three separate timelines. The writing, the attribution, and the canonization all happened centuries apart. Mark was written first, around 70 CE. Matthew and Luke came later, around 80-85 CE, and scholars believe both authors used Mark as their source; along with a hypothetical lost document they call Q. John was written last, around 90-100 CE. None of these authors knew each other. None of them met Yeshua. They were compiling oral traditions and earlier written fragments decades after his death, each shaped by the theological concerns of their own communities. As for the Gnostic gospels—Thomas, Philip, Mary, Judas—those came even later. Most scholars (including Bart D. Ehrman) date them to the 2nd and 3rd centuries, well after the canonical gospels. Some scholars like Elaine Pagels argue that Thomas may contain early oral traditions, but even she dates the text as we have it to around 90-140 CE at the earliest. While some Gnostic texts, like Thomas (one of my favorites), may preserve early material, most scholars see them as reflecting later theological developments rather than earlier eyewitness accounts.