Thanks Robert,Robert Tulip wrote:Similarly, it is wrong to twist the Biblical idea that the way of the flesh is evil into the false idea that flesh itself is evil. The way of the flesh is following instinctive desires and temptations, and does not mean regarding the body itself as evil. True spirit is about making the body whole, not neglecting the body.
The consistent biblical presentation is that the physical body is not evil,rather it was the Gnostics who propagated the material= evil/spiritual= good duality and they sought escape from the physical to the spiritual.
In Genesis the creation is good but in Gnosticism it is the botched job of the arrogant demiurge.So it is gnosticism that is hostile and alienated to the created material world and not Christianity.
Likewise the notion of Gnosticism as proto-feminism is absurd as it is Sophia who carelessly creates the evil demiurge and a reading of the gospel of Thomas reflects their very negative view of women.
The biblical expression "the flesh" refers to the fallen nature and not the physical and material itself. I did not say that Christ was actually sinful but that he was treated as though he was, consistent with the biblical concept of bearing sin or the typical image of a lamb making atonement.
Had he actually been sinful he could not make atonement since he would have been guilty and due the penalty for sin anyway.
That the atonement includes a restoration of the cosmos to the original ideal is found in the new testament writings.
I don't see how you find Gnosticism a scientific basis for the salvation of the material cosmos. As Douglas Groothius remarks, "trying to find an ecological concern in the Gnostic corpus is on the order of attempting to harvest wheat in Antartica."
Consistent with your interpretive hermeneutic you read the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream as being of various astrological ages corresponding to brass,silver,gold and feet of iron mixed with clay.
But Daniel himself provides the interpretation to Nebuchadnezzar as it's being of kingdoms present and future, and says to Nebuchadnezzar that he is the head of gold,meaning his Babylonian kingdom.
It's not that snakes are inherently morally evil though many are poisonous, but the authors point to aspects of animal's behaviours and characteristics metaphorically, such as ravening wolves,roaring lions and deadly snakes with poisonous bites.
Some modern Gnostics attempt to distance themselves from the early and original ideas found in their writings and in doing so assert the opposite.
However to claim there is a Gnostic core in the new testament gospels with hidden meanings reflecting the gnostic ideas of the time, and to say these propound a scientific ecological salvation, is not in harmony with their clearly articulated ideas.
