Good Friday, The Shroud, Gnosticism, and Various Other Ruminations

Regardless of the outcome of the centuries-old debate stretching back into
the annals of time regarding the celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ,
today seems as good a day as any to acknowledge the selfless sacrifice of
our Lord and Savior.

According to all accounts, He died somewhere around 3pm in the afternoon.
Darkness covered the land according to Scriptural description from 12 noon to 3pm.
This darkness was recorded by a historian named Phlegon who penned
a historical work sometime around AD 140.

Unfortunately none of his original works survived the ages, but they are referenced
by Sextus Julius Africanus, and Origen, an early church theologian and scholar.

According to Sextus Julius Africanus:

"Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was
a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth."

Origen records:

"Now Phlegon, in the thirteenth or fourteenth book, I think, of his Chronicles,
not only ascribed to Jesus a knowledge of future events (although falling into
confusion about some things which refer to Peter, as if they referred to Jesus),
but also testified that the result corresponded to his predictions.
So that he also, by these very admissions regarding foreknowledge, as if against his
own will, expressed his opinion that the doctrines taught by the fathers of our
system were not devoid of divine power.

And with regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus
appears to have been crucified, and the great earthquakes which then took place,
Phlegon too, I think, has written in the thirteenth or fourteenth book of his
Chronicles.

He imagines also that both the earthquake and the darkness were an invention;
but regarding these, we have in the preceding pages made our defense,
according to our ability, adducing the testimony of Phlegon, who relates that
these events took place at the time when our Savior suffered."

In addition to these impressive historical corroborations of the testimony
of the Gospels, we also have the quotation of ancient Samaritan historian
Thallus by Sextus Julius Africanus in which Thallus chronicles
the crucifixion of Jesus and offered a plausible explanation for the phenomenon
of the accompanying darkness:

"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were
rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown
down. This darkness Thallus, in his third book of his History, calls, as appears
to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun."

In any case, pardon me for my tangential perambulations.
Today I also had the opportunity to watch an illuminating History documentary
on the Shroud of Turin and the computerized rendering of the face of the
man wrapped therein.

There indeed does seem to be a body of convincing forensic evidence
indicating that there is something to the Shroud of Turin.
It did irritate me slightly that the entire commentary was seemingly
infused with various praising references to the gnostics of the early
1st and 2nd centuries who authored the non-canonical gospel of Thomas
(a blatantly 'borrowed' name since Thomas had nothing to do with authoring this work).

What bothers me is that the gnostics were branded as Christians in the
documentary, even though their teachings are only remotely Scriptural
in the fondest light and very close to a poorly rendered episode of the
X-Files in some other, less flattering ones.

The gospel of Thomas contains some 114 'sayings of Christ'
many of which either vaguely or overtly contradict the sayings of Jesus
from the canonical Gospels.
For example, Simon Peter saying 'Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.'
Jesus saying, 'I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.'

This has nothing in common with the nature of the rest of Scripture.
Scholars should know this. Yet it never comes up when things like this are
discussed in documentaries and the like.
For more information on the discrepancies between the so-called
gospel of Thomas and authentic Scripture you may examine here.