The Sophia of Jesus Christ: What is the relationship between Jesus and Sophia (Divine Wisdom) in the gospels?

The Sophia of Jesus Christ is by far the most different Gospel I've ever read, to say the least. The debate about dating is critical, since some argue that it reflects the true, recorded, sayings of Jesus, which is possible if they were to be dated as far back as the 1st century. Others argue that they are, in fact, considerably later, and constitute an unreliable secondary source. The author of this gospel is unknown. If you have ever read any of the Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament, then some of this might make sense to you, If you haven’t, then hold on because it’s about to be a bumpy ride. The Sophia of Jesus Christ begins with Jesus, resurrected and talking to his disciples and also a few women, one we know for sure was Mary. 

                                                           

They followed Jesus to Galilee and up on to a mountain called “Divination and Joy.” When they all arrived there they were confused and started to bombard Jesus with tons of questions, namely about the universe and the plan, the holy providence, the authorities and their power, and everything that Jesus is doing with them in his plan. He then appeared to them, but this time it was not in his previous form but in a form called the “invisible spirit”, as the text explains. The author says that Jesus was a great light but could not go on explaining what he was like because we as mortal beings could not handle it, but only pure and perfect flesh could endure his appearance.                   

 Jesus then laughed and asked them what they were so afraid of and why they were so confused. This in particular is funny to me because of all the times in the Synoptic Gospels when Jesus constantly has to tell his disciples what is going on and they still don’t get it, so that in itself is one similarity to the canonized gospels. This gospel is simply devoted to all of the questions that his disciples ask him, and Jesus answers with some information that I have never even heard of, and I was raised in church. For the most part, Jesus is explaining to them God, who he is and what he is, and his plan for the universe and everything that went into it. Jesus also gives them some insight in deeper detail about who he is and what his purpose was. This is another similarity in the other four gospels, given the fact that he was clearly painted as the savior of the world.                                                                                I think a difference in this text and the other four gospels is that Jesus goes into more detail about the big plan and really what everything means in the Sophia of Jesus Christ. In the other gospels he was like “yeah I’m the savior of the world”, but in this one he alludes to so much more than that. This text gives insight to so many different ideas that it’s honestly hard to describe and difficult to even comprehend. This is cheesy, but it really is like an onion…many layers. Jesus talks about god of gods, king of kings, and aeons,which are different emanations of God all throughout this text and the more he gives to his disciples, the more questions they continue to ask. I think the assumed audience to which this was written was really anyone who wanted to know more about God’s plan; I don’t think the author wrote it for a specific people.                         

I believe this gospel was not included because there are so many different ideas going on with the identity of God and Jesus and it would confuse modern day Christians, because again, this is some complicated information to take in. My question is what is the relationship between Jesus and Sophia (Divine Wisdom) in the gospels? Given the different perspectives on the relationship between Jesus and Wisdom as presented in the Gospels, people must ask whether Jesus is to be understood as a prominent prophet of Sophia, an incarnation of Sophia or as Sophia Incarnate. “Wisdom writings can be observed in both protocanonical texts such as Proverbs and Job, and in deuterocanonical texts including Sirach, Esdras, and the Wisdom of Solomon. In these Jewish texts, Divine Wisdom is personified as a female figure that is sometimes referred to as “Lady Wisdom.” Lady Wisdom is portrayed as a teacher, bride, sister, savior, mother, and beloved, who actively invites men to accept her. Philo referred to Sophia as “the daughter of God” and many scholars believe that Sophia was deliberately contrasted with the pagan goddess Isis, while at the same time taking on many of the characteristics attributed of Isis. It is has been pointed out that Sophia was meant to be a poetic reference to the Law/Torah of God, rather than a real or separate person within the Jewish tradition. However, in early Christian tradition, Sophia was often extended and understood to refer to Jesus Christ himself.”                                             

 The Wisdom/Sophia tradition went into two directions in early Christianity. One was the Gnostic tradition and the other was by St. Paul and the Gospel writers, which led to the theology of the early Church Fathers.                                                                                                                         

“The early Christian church seems to have embraced the Wisdom Tradition as relating to Jesus in a way that is nearly lost today. The early Church accepted as canonical and authoritative Wisdom texts such as Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon (as Roman Catholics still do) and viewed many of those texts as referring to Jesus directly. In particular, the Byzantine Church seems to have upheld the Wisdom Tradition in equating Christ with Sophia more explicitly then many of the Western Churches. An example of this can be seen in the famous and beautiful “Hagia Sophia” (Holy Wisdom) Church in Istanbul, Turkey that is dedicated to Jesus Christ.”

Sources:

1.      http://www.franciscan-anglican.com/Sophia.htm

2.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sophia_of_Jesus_Christ

3.      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeon

4.      http://gnosis.org/naghamm/sjc.html

What is the significance of the crown of thorns and purple robe Jesus wore at his crucifixion?

For my blog question on John this week I would like to focus on a few different issues within Jesus’ crucifixion, specifically the significance of the purple robe and crown of thorns that were placed on him. John 19:5 says: Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold, the Man!” Before I read this book, I didn't really know that they had put any different clothes on him before the crucifixion; I had only seen pictures of Jesus on the cross with a little white tunic covering his midsection, so I thought it was an interesting topic to research and find out if there was a deeper meaning behind it. Fortunately for me, there was. Growing up in church, it’s easy for me to look at this theologically but I am trying my best to branch away and gain some other interpretations on why they chose a robe and a crown and not something else, so bare with me.   

Robe Colors

                                                                                                                                  There are accounts of the purple robe and crown of thorns in Mathew, Mark and John. Mark and John say that it is indeed purple, but Mathew calls it scarlet, which is obviously a more red color. Eric Lyons, in his article about the robe color, states that a difference like this one means that the Gospel writers all wrote on their own accord, with no help from a higher being. This is what led to the contradictions within the stories themselves. Lyons, when describing how the difference in color came about, related it simply to the fact that people see colors differently. When one person sees red, another could see maroon. It all boils down to different shades of the same color inevitably. There was no difference in scarlet and purple in ancient Rome, they would use the term “purple” when actually describing various shades of red. Because of this, none of the Gospels are wrong when describing what color the robe was, they just used the terms interchangeably .

Significance of Crown and Robe

 

            John 19:2-3 says “And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. The color Purple was that of royalty. They came up to him, saying, 'Hail, King of the Jews!' and struck him with their hands." The context of this is that they were mocking Jesus. They used both the crown and the robe to present him as a king to the public. It has been rumored that the robe Jesus wore could have been Herod’s robe.  They also hung a sign above him that read “King of the Jews.”  Hebrews 6:7-8 also states that thorns were viewed as a curse in ancient culture (http://www.compellingtruth.org/crown-of-thorns.html). Hebrews states "For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned."                                  

The idea that Jesus was crowned with thorns highlighted that His suffering and death were a curse. Galatians says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Some say that dying this way was in fact the perfect death, because Jesus redeemed Christians from the curse of death by becoming the curse itself (http://www.compellingtr.There is more symbolism with the crown found when Adam and Eve sinned, which brought upon the curse and evil in the world. The Roman soldiers took an object from a curse (the crown of thorns) and put it on the head of a man that was to deliver all people from that curse, so…jokes on them. While the crown and robe were meant for mockery, it was actually the perfect duo for Jesus (http://www.gotquestions.org/crown-of-thorns.html).                                     
           

                  

What did Jesus mean when he said "Let the dead bury their own dead", in Luke 9:60?

For this blog I’m going to focus on what Jesus meant when he said “Let the dead bury their own dead”, as it is seen in Luke 9:60. I chose this particular scripture because it is one of those sayings where I feel Jesus sounds a bit harsh with his words and I wanted to crack down on the significance of what he was really saying beneath the surface. 

Franz, on the website http://www.ldolphin.org/deaddead.html, explains that there are two different times in the four Gospels that Jesus tells a disciple that he could not take a leave of absence to bury his father. Once in Mathew 8: 21-22 and another time in Luke: 9:60. Franz says, “Critical scholars suggest that Jesus was encouraging His disciples to break the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother, by not giving their fathers a proper burial.” The majority interpretation would say that Jesus meant for the spiritually dead to worry about burying the physically dead. However, the interpretation is not consistent with Jewish burial practices in the first century AD.

The Requests

The first request by a disciple was written in Mathew 8, as Jesus was about to take the twelve to cross Galilee and into the Decapolis city of Gadara. One disciple did not want to go because he thought of the Gentiles as “unclean.”He asked Jesus if he could go bury his father and Jesus replied. Critics say that this could have been Peter because he had trouble associating with the Gentiles. As it is in Luke, Jesus again says the same thing to another disciple because he felt it was more important for him to go with the others to Perea.

Jewish Burial Practices in First Century AD

            According to http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/ancientburial.html, burial was very important in Israel. There are many instances where we see that Jewish burial had certain standards, as in Abraham’s purchase of the cave at Machpelah (Genesis 23). In the New Testament, standards of Jewish burial were raised quite a bit as we see when the disciples took Jesus’ body and poured myrrh and aloes on him. We also see that they wrapped his body in linen cloth with spices. Jewish custom also says that burial should be without delay, out of respect for the dead. It refreshes the soul and then can be admitted to God’s presence. This also had a lot to do with climate, because the Israelites did not embalm their dead.

 

                                       

So, according to these customs, I could see why the disciples had put some urgency and careful thought about the matter. According to  http://www.gotquestions.org/let-dead-bury-dead.html some Jews at the time wanted to stay behind for one year, in order to rebury the bones of their fathers.

So what did Jesus mean?

            First of all, before we can analyze what Jesus meant by “the dead” we first need to figure out who the dead were. According to http://www.gotquestions.org/let-dead-bury-dead.html the word dead is use in two different ways: To be dead to the law (Romans 7:4) and to be dead to sin (Romans 6:11). The Jews use the word dead to express the idea that it has no influence or power over people. People who do not follow Jesus on Earth are dead to him, along with Earthly possessions. This is why he calls them the “spiritually dead” and says that they are the ones to bury the “physically dead”. In other words, people of the Earth are supposed to follow Jesus first and leave the dead behind, according to the majority interpretation.