Friday, June 02, 2006

Yeah, but What Else Did He Say?

"Gods Are Bored" artwork by Seitou, property of Seitou, email us!






Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" If you are just joining us for the first time, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with all the safety features on this web site. In case of a sudden plunge in atmospheric pressure, an ancient god or goddess will drop to your aid. Place the god or goddess close to your heart.

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Who said the following?

"I am the light that is before all things; I am all things; all things come forth from me; all things return to me. Split a piece of wood, and I am there; lift up a rock, and you will find me there."

Whoa. Heavy stuff. The kind of tricky memory verse some six-year-old would be assigned at a Pentecostal Sunday School. Except that whoever said the quotation above suggests that a spark of the divine inhabits everyone and everything, right down to wood and rocks!

Mmmmmmmm. Vaguely Native American, vaguely vain in the Timothy Leary mode. Definitely pantheistic. We like pantheism here at "The Gods Are Bored."

Give up on the memory verse? It comes from The Gospel of Thomas and is credited to Jesus Christ.

In case you've been looking for Jesus under a rock yourself, you're aware that a great deal was written about Jesus that didn't make the cut, Bible-wise. The above pithy quote is one intriguing example. Another is the Birth of Jesus story where he came to life from a lump of clay by the Jordan River. And we'll pass over the tired old Dan Brown stuff. Way too much press on that already.

In 1945 an Egyptian farmer dug up a jar with old writings in it. The writings included stories of Jesus with quotes. These alternate Gospels were dismissed as heretical by some early church leaders. But you know how travel was in those days. Local pockets of Christians kept looking for Jesus under rocks for hundreds of years.

Kind of makes you wonder what Jesus really said. I mean, can you go by the Good Book when you're worshipping a deity who never wrote anything down himself, preferring oral transmission through preaching?

Today we could just watch the video, or read the TelePrompter. But we just simply don't have a Gospel According to Me, by Jesus Christ. And so it could very well be true that his vision of the world was circular in a fetching, goddess-like way, and that he believed everything contains a divine spark in a fetching, Native American way.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" think these Egyptian farmers should keep on digging. They're bound to come up with The Gospel According to Me one of these days. Or at least a fabulous statue of Isis. We're fine with that.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS
ASSISTED BY PURRING FOSTER KITTEN

3 comments:

Hecate said...

Well, the xians would just insist that it wasn't really Isis it was St. Iris or something. Nothing vaguely Isis-like in the story of Mary, after all, is there? Nope. The xians invented everything brand new. Hah!

Hayden said...

sounds prehistorical - well, I wanted to say pan-european, but want to cast the net wider than that to include Sumar...

great quote. have followed the news but not read anything specific yet on this latest discovery.

Kate said...

I knew is was Jesus. He's really alright with me, "...Jesus is just alright Oh Yeah, Jesus is just alright with me, Jesus is just alright.... Jesus he's my friend, Jesus, he's my friend... take me by the hand, lead me far from this land, Jesus, he's my friend...."

Sorry, I got a little carried away by that old Doobie Bros song for a minute there.

I like pantheism too, and I agree that it fits in fine with Christianity. It took me a long time to realize that. :-)