Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Page from the Gospel of Judas Mandaean Beth Manda in Nasiriyah, southern Iraq, in 2016, a contemporary-style mandi. Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός, romanized: gnōstikós, Koine Greek: [ɣnostiˈkos], 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects.
Gnosticism is identified as an early form of syncretism that challenged the beliefs of early Christians. [citation needed] Gnostic dualism posited that only spiritual or invisible things were good, and that material or visible things were evil.
Widely regarded as the founder of modern academic study of the Kabbalah, Scholem produced the hypothesis that the source of the 13th century Kabbalah (such as the Zohar) was Jewish gnosticism that preceded Christian gnosticism. For example, in the title of his 1960's Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and the Talmudic Tradition.
Mandaeans claim that their religion predates Judaism, Christianity and Islam, [36] and believe that they are the direct descendants of Shem, Noah's son. [ 37 ] : 186 They also believe that they are the direct descendants of John the Baptist's original Nasoraean Mandaean disciples in Jerusalem.
Mandaeans have been forcibly converted to Islam, making them apostates from Islam if they revert to their religion, thereby risking being murdered. Such Mandaeans have voiced feeling unsafe in any Muslim country for this reason. [26] [27] [28]
Christianity is the largest Abrahamic religion with about 2.5 billion adherents, called Christians, constituting about 31.1% of the world's population. [156] Islam is the second largest Abrahamic religion, as well as the fastest-growing Abrahamic religion in recent decades.
Gnosticism refers to a collection of religious groups originating in Jewish religiosity in Alexandria in the first few centuries AD. [1] Neoplatonism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century, based on the teachings of Plato and some of his early followers.
The Sethians (Greek: Σηθιανοί) were one of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd and 3rd century AD, along with Valentinianism and Basilideanism.According to John D. Turner, it originated in the 2nd century AD as a fusion of two distinct Hellenistic Judaic philosophies and was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism. [1]