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“The Lawless Person Will Do No More Wrong Than the Lawful Person”: A proposal for a new perspective on ethics in the Gospel of Truth
Dalarna University, School of Education and Humanities, Religious Studies.
2009 (English)In: 2009 Annual Meeting Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, 2009Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

No longer scholars expect valentinian texts to advocate indifference to ethics, libertinian or radically ascetic stereotyped positions. On the part of the Gospel of Truth the discussions on the paraenesis on page 32-33 has highlighted the use of wide spread Jewish and Christian ethical jargon. However, as page 33 of the Gospel of Truth is a philologically very difficult text the analysis of the ethical message has been seriously hampered in earlier scholarly works. I propose a new solution to these problems and claim that the Gospel of Truth exhorts an ethic that does not relate itself to any cosmic order. In this manner the Gospel of Truth represents an ethical perspective that is a consequence of a sharply anticosmic worldview. To violate or to follow cosmic laws is equally bad as both these attitudes relates to a fallen system, which is based on punishment that causes fear. The receivers of knowledge instead ought to follow the will of the Father of truth. The practical behaviour may or may not coincide with a cosmic code of conduct, but this is irrelevant for those who pertain to the knowledge of the Father. On this basis I construe a social setting for the text, and discuss in what way this effects the interpretation of the general message of the Gospel of Truth.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
New Orleans, 2009.
Keywords [en]
Gospel of Truth, Valentinianism, early Christianity, Gnosticism, ethics, anticosmicity, Nag Hammadi.
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-4136OAI: oai:dalea.du.se:4136DiVA, id: diva2:521989
Conference
2009 Annual Meeting Society of Biblical Literature , New Orleans, 21- 24 November, 2009
Available from: 2009-08-12 Created: 2009-08-12 Last updated: 2012-04-24Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf