The buzz lately in the technology world is the artificial intelligence chat bots. I like to play around with new technologies (hence the abundance of A.I. art that graces my blog), thus I decided to give OpenAI’s chat GPT a shot. This program is quite interesting. If you have never used it, it’s sort of …
Author Archives: bP
Missing fragment from the Gospel of Philip?
As I continue down the rabbit hole that is the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, I noticed a fragment that I have read before. While describing the Gnostics (Borborites), Epiphanius mentions they use a “Gospel of Philip” and then writes out a saying from said gospel. I have edited the saying (i.e. took out his …
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Norea, wife of Noah
Norea (Noria) is a figure that pops up in various Gnostic texts. The most popular Norea text is titled “The Thought of Norea” and is presented as a prayer in the third person to the Monad. If you haven’t read it, here it is: Father of All, Ennoia of the Light, dwelling in the heights …
Kollyridianism – Marian worship
Back when I did my posts regarding the “Book of Mary’s Repose”, the book that accompanied that text included a long history of the Virgin Mary’s history regarding the dormition tradition. Part of the book mentioned an earlier sect that had even deified Mary. The book did not go into detail, so I didn’t pursue …
Gospel of Thomas 114 & Theodotus
Simon Peter said to them, “Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.” Jesus said, “Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.” – Gospel of Thomas, saying …
An Index to Barbelo
…who am I, the Thought of the Father, Protennoia, that is, Barbelo, the perfect Glory, and the immeasurable Invisible One who is hidden. I am the Image of the Invisible Spirit, and it is through me that the All took shape, and (I am) the Mother (as well as) the Light which she appointed as …
An Ode to Sophia
The Acts of Thomas features the popular poem “Hymn of the Pearl”, but also features another poem that does not get enough recognition and that is the “Hymn to Wisdom” aka “An Ode to Sophia”. I am going to present two different translations of this poem. The first one will be the one I like …
The Nativity of Jesus – Expanded Edition
With it being near the time of Christmas, I thought it’d be interesting to see how the story of the Nativity of Jesus plays out in apocrypha texts versus the canonical storyline. Below are the two canonical sources, the first being from the Gospel of Matthew (ESV translation): The Birth of Jesus Christ Now the …
Crucifixion body swapping
Recently I finished reading “The Gospel of Barnabas” which is an Islamic leaning text about the life and ministry of Jesus. If you are not familiar with the Islamic tradition, the Jesus of Islam is not exactly the same as the Jesus in Christianity. While there are a lot of similarities, the main difference is …
The Temptation of Allogenes
As I mentioned in my previous post, there is a text in the Codex Tchacos that rarely gets spoken of and that is “A Book of Allogenes”, also known as “The Temptation of Allogenes”. This is not the actual name of the text but what was given to it due to the contents, and it …
