How many people here are both isolated and alone and also have the Christian faith?

I once read ' The Kingdom of God is inside you and all around you , it's not found in bricks and motor ' I was raised Christian but I am very curious about facts and ideas surrounding religion. The problem is it's difficult to talk about it with people . I always believed that any faith is a personal thing and never understood why it was necessary to share it or the need of a Priest , Vicar etc. Why can't you talk to God yourself , why do you have to go to church ? Monks Isolate themselves . So isn't Isolation and worship the perfect union ?  

Well, yes! Bricks and mortar means institutions and hierarchies. 

It's a really interesting subject . I believe that quote came from the Gospel of Thomas that didn't appear in the bible . There is also a Gospel of Judas where Jesus said to Judas ' Everything you see will be yours . You are my most important Apostle but will be the most hated'  

I very much like to hear it read at a pace of about 2600 seconds for the whole thing. Forgive my precision on that and remember my name.

The fundamentals of the sayings in any translation are as opaque obscure and open to interpretation as each other.  That can be no doubt but they are thought provoking. Thought is good. Deepthought is excellent.

The context of the Zenith of the early Gnostic Christian centuries is what I really find compelling in terms of my wholly amateur and attention disordered efforts to research and understand the period and it's writings.

I have ears to hear.

Number

Gnosticism is sometbing I'm very interested in too, though I wouldn't know about reading the originals. Bently Layton published an excellent come dium, though his translation quibbles do slow down the full context of each context. 

Some of the apocrypha are in the Septuagint, or maybe all of them, I haven't really got round to studying them much, and I am not confident on what the overlap is between them, the pseudepigrapha and the intertestamental writings.

As a Christian I believe there was the true faith as taught by Jesus and various heresies which his followers were warned about. But for reasons I find obscure God has allowed various errors to creep in to all the denominations such that none of them have totally correct theology. I think in part it is a test (which is often failed) to see whether Christians prefer to fight over minor details or remain united in love, as that is one of the core tenets which is more important than many of the things which we have split over. It is difficult! And is one reason I wanted to study the Biblical languages.

That sounds HARDCORE sister !  I maintain more of a floating interest.  If you have a Catholic bible, much of the apocrypha is included therein.  It is only the more protestant Bibles that exclude it.

The Gnostic texts are my main driving interests - but you obviously need the context of the canonical gospels to be able to get your head around how they may once have fitted into various "Christianities" (a view that I do ascribe to) in the earliest centuries after the J-Fella met his end.

Ah, thanks, I haven't really looked into the gnostics, I haven't finished reading the NT in Greek yet and then I have the Septuagint and the early church fathers, and the apocrypha... And learning Hebrew...

I have learned to be shy about sharing this type of stuff.....people think I am a religious/Christian nut job - which I am not - but I am VERY interested in things that are old wisdom (as defined by people from bygone eras.)  I'm just as intrigued by Gilgamesh, Budda, various Pagan understandings, deep space etc etc.  I'm Autistic, don't you know !!

They are the key folk (that I have encountered) who provide scholarly commentary and translations on the Nag Hamadi Codicies and the various fragments found earlier in the dumps.  In the early hundreds CE, the Gospel of Thomas was very popular and prolifically written (by the standards of the day.)

Maybe we can continue tomorrow, or some other day - I wouldn't want to disrupt your beauty sleep but I do enjoy a good manuscript so would probably enjoy getting you started! I don't recognise your references though, will have to google those.

Yes, the first one is Coptic.  PLEASE don't get me started, I need to retire for sleep !

The second one is the Oxyrhynchus Greek Fragment.

Blatz, Layton, Doresse, Attridge, Funk's Parallels.......I can wax lyrical about this stuff for hours and hours.

Yes, the first one is Coptic.  PLEASE don't get me started, I need to retire for sleep !

The second one is the Oxyrhynchus Greek Fragment.

Blatz, Layton, Doresse, Attridge, Funk's Parallels.......I can wax lyrical about this stuff for hours and hours.

I very much like to hear it read at a pace of about 2600 seconds for the whole thing. Forgive my precision on that and remember my name.

The fundamentals of the sayings in any translation are as opaque obscure and open to interpretation as each other.  That can be no doubt but they are thought provoking. Thought is good. Deepthought is excellent.

The context of the Zenith of the early Gnostic Christian centuries is what I really find compelling in terms of my wholly amateur and attention disordered efforts to research and understand the period and it's writings.

I have ears to hear.

Number

Gnosticism is sometbing I'm very interested in too, though I wouldn't know about reading the originals. Bently Layton published an excellent come dium, though his translation quibbles do slow down the full context of each context. 

Some of the apocrypha are in the Septuagint, or maybe all of them, I haven't really got round to studying them much, and I am not confident on what the overlap is between them, the pseudepigrapha and the intertestamental writings.

As a Christian I believe there was the true faith as taught by Jesus and various heresies which his followers were warned about. But for reasons I find obscure God has allowed various errors to creep in to all the denominations such that none of them have totally correct theology. I think in part it is a test (which is often failed) to see whether Christians prefer to fight over minor details or remain united in love, as that is one of the core tenets which is more important than many of the things which we have split over. It is difficult! And is one reason I wanted to study the Biblical languages.

That sounds HARDCORE sister !  I maintain more of a floating interest.  If you have a Catholic bible, much of the apocrypha is included therein.  It is only the more protestant Bibles that exclude it.

The Gnostic texts are my main driving interests - but you obviously need the context of the canonical gospels to be able to get your head around how they may once have fitted into various "Christianities" (a view that I do ascribe to) in the earliest centuries after the J-Fella met his end.

Ah, thanks, I haven't really looked into the gnostics, I haven't finished reading the NT in Greek yet and then I have the Septuagint and the early church fathers, and the apocrypha... And learning Hebrew...

I have learned to be shy about sharing this type of stuff.....people think I am a religious/Christian nut job - which I am not - but I am VERY interested in things that are old wisdom (as defined by people from bygone eras.)  I'm just as intrigued by Gilgamesh, Budda, various Pagan understandings, deep space etc etc.  I'm Autistic, don't you know !!

They are the key folk (that I have encountered) who provide scholarly commentary and translations on the Nag Hamadi Codicies and the various fragments found earlier in the dumps.  In the early hundreds CE, the Gospel of Thomas was very popular and prolifically written (by the standards of the day.)

Maybe we can continue tomorrow, or some other day - I wouldn't want to disrupt your beauty sleep but I do enjoy a good manuscript so would probably enjoy getting you started! I don't recognise your references though, will have to google those.