The Other Bible

by Barnstone, Willis

• ISBN13: 9780060815981
• ISBN10: 0060815981
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-04-06
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

A new edition of our classic, The Other Bible, including a new index, new cover, and a new introduction from the author to bring The Other Bible up to date. The Other Bible gathers in one comprehensive volume ancient, esoteric holy texts from Judeo-Christian tradition that were excluded from the official canon of the Old and New Testaments, including the Gnostic Gospels, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Kabbalah, and several more. The Other Bible provides a rare opportunity to discover the poetic and narrative riches of this long-suppressed literature and experience firsthand its visionary discourses on the nature of God, humanity, the spiritual life, the world around us, and infinite worlds beyond this one. This new edition will include a full index and a new introduction from editor Willis Barnstone. o The interest in Gnostic texts begun with The Da Vinci Code has spread to include many of the other "suppressed" early texts of Judaism and Christianity, and this book contains many of them in one volume.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Note for the Second Edition
Creation Myths
The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch) (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	3	(7)
The Creation of the World	4	(6)
The Book of Jubilees (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	10	(4)
The Creation of the World	11	(1)
Adam, Eve, and Paradise	12	(2)
Haggadah (Jewish Legend from Midrash, Pseudepigrapha, and Early Kabbalah)	14	(25)
The Creation of the World	15	(24)
Manichaean Creation Myths (Gnostic) (Manichaeism and Other Gnostic Sects)	39	(12)
Primal Man	44	(1)
Adam, Child of Demons, and His Salvation	45	(1)
Concerning His Impure Doctrine (from Theodore bar Konai)	46	(2)
Manichaean Myth (from the Speech on Gehmurd and Murdiyanag)	48	(3)
The Secret Book of John (Gnostic)	51	(11)
Of Sophia, Mother of the Monstrous Creator Ialdabaoth, Yahweh	53	(4)
The Birth of Adam and Eve	57	(5)
On the Origin of the World (Gnostic)	62	(13)
The Creation of the World and the Demiurge Ialdabaoth	63	(6)
The Raising of Adam from Mud by Eve (Zoe-Life)	69	(1)
The Rape of Eve by the Prime Ruler (God) and by His Angels	70	(5)
The Hypostasis of the Archons (Gnostic)	75	(6)
The Hypostasis of the Archons	76	(5)
The Apocalypse of Adam (Gnostic)	81	(6)
The Revelations of Adam's Origin as Told to His Son Seth	82	(5)
The Gospel of Philip (Gnostic)	87	(14)
The Gospel of Philip	88	(13)
The Paraphrase of Shem (Gnostic)	101	(15)
The Conflict of Light and Darkness	102	(14)
The Second Treatise of the Great Seth (Gnostic)	116	(7)
The Second Treatise of the Great Seth	117	(6)
Creation of the World and the Alien Man (Mandaean Gnosticism)	123	(19)
The World Beyond	125	(1)
The World of Darkness	126	(1)
Cosmogony	127	(7)
The Creation of Man	134	(4)
The Head Is One World	138	(4)
Kabbalah	142	(7)
The Beginning	143	(1)
The Universe: Shell and Kernel	143	(1)
The First Light	144	(1)
Creation of Man	145	(4)
Histories and Narratives
The Martyrdom of Isaiah (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	149	(4)
The Martyrdom of Isaiah	150	(3)
The Fourth Book of Maccabees: Concerning the Sovereignty of Reason (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	153	(18)
The Martyrdom of Eleazar, His Wife, and Seven Sons	155	(16)
The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Christian Acts of Martyrdom)	171	(11)
The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity	174	(8)
The Story of Ahikar (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	182	(19)
The Story of Ahikar	183	(18)
The Genesis Apocryphon (Dead Sea Scrolls)	201	(7)
The Genesis Apocryphon	203	(5)
The Manual of Discipline (Dead Sea Scrolls)	208	(15)
The Manual of Discipline	210	(13)
The Damascus Document (Dead Sea Scrolls)	223	(12)
The Damascus Document	225	(10)
The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness (Dead Sea Scrolls)	235	(8)
The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness	237	(6)
The Letter of Aristeas (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	243	(10)
On the Translation of the Septuagint	244	(9)
Wisdom Literature and Poetry
The Psalms of Solomon (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	253	(2)
Psalm 16	254	(1)
The Thanksgiving Psalms (Dead Sea Scrolls)	255	(12)
Psalm 1	257	(1)
Psalm 4	258	(1)
Psalm 5	258	(1)
Psalm 6	259	(1)
Psalm 8	260	(1)
Psalm 9	261	(1)
Psalm 10	262	(1)
Psalm 11	262	(1)
Psalm 14	263	(1)
Psalm 15	264	(1)
Psalm 23	265	(1)
Psalm 25	265	(2)
The Odes of Solomon (Jewish Pseudepigrapha, Jewish Christian)	267	(19)
Ode 1	268	(1)
Ode 3	268	(1)
Ode 4	269	(1)
Ode 5	270	(1)
Ode 6	270	(1)
Ode 7	271	(2)
Ode 11	273	(1)
Ode 12	274	(1)
Ode 14	275	(1)
Ode 15	276	(1)
Ode 16	276	(1)
Ode 17	277	(1)
Ode 18	278	(1)
Ode 19	279	(1)
Ode 21	280	(1)
Ode 24	280	(1)
Ode 29	281	(1)
Ode 30	282	(1)
Ode 34	282	(1)
Ode 35	283	(1)
Ode 38	283	(1)
Ode 41	283	(1)
Ode 42	284	(2)
The Gospel of Truth and the Valentinian Speculation (Gnostic)	286	(13)
The Gospel of Truth	290	(9)
The Gospel of Thomas (Gnostic)	299	(9)
The Gospel of Thomas	300	(8)
The Hymn of the Pearl (Gnostic)	308	(6)
The Hymn of the Pearl	309	(5)
Manichaean Hymn-Cycles (Gnostic)	314	(12)
From the Govishn ig griv zindag	315	(1)
From the Parthian Hymn-Cycles	316	(10)
The Coptic Psalm-Book (Manichaean Gnostic)	326	(7)
Let Us Worship the Spirit of the Paraclete	327	(2)
Joy Came Over Me	329	(4)
Gospels
The Gospel of the Hebrews (Jewish-Christian)	333	(3)
The Gospel of the Hebrews	335	(1)
The Gospel of the Ebionites (Jewish-Christian)	336	(3)
The Gospel of the Ebionites	337	(2)
The Secret Gospel of Mark (Christian Apocrypha)	339	(4)
The Secret Gospel of Mark	341	(2)
The Apocryphon of James (Gnostic)	343	(7)
The Apocryphon of James	345	(5)
The Gospel of Bartholomew (Christian Apocrypha)	350	(9)
The Gospel of Bartholomew	351	(8)
The Gospel of Nicodemus (Christian Apocrypha)	359	(24)
The Acts of Pilate	362	(12)
Christ's Descent Into Hell	374	(4)
The Paradosis	378	(1)
The Pistis Sophia: Concerning the Union of the Child Jesus with the Spirit (Gnostic)	379	(4)
Infancy Gospels
The Infancy Gospel of James (The Birth of Mary) (Christian Apocrypha)	383	(10)
The Infancy Gospel of James (Protevangelium Jacobi) (The Birth of Mary)	385	(8)
The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew: The Book About the Origin of the Blessed Mary and the Childhood of the Savior (Christian Apocrypha)	393	(5)
The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew	394	(4)
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Christian Apocrypha)	398	(6)
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas	399	(5)
A Latin Infancy Gospel: The Birth of Jesus (Christian Apocrypha)	404	(3)
A Latin Infancy Gospel: The Birth of Jesus	405	(2)
The Arabic Infancy Gospel: The Children Who Were Changed Into Goats (Christian Apocrypha)	407	(4)
The Arabic Infancy Gospel: The Children Who Were Changed into Goats	408	(3)
Acts
The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and the Acts of John	411	(2)
The Acts of John (Christian Apocrypha)	413	(13)
From Miletus to Ephesus	414	(1)
First Stay in Ephesus	414	(2)
The Portrait of John	416	(1)
Christ's Earthly Appearance	417	(1)
Revelation of the Mystery of the Cross	418	(2)
The Destruction of the Temple of Artemis	420	(1)
Resurrection of the Priest of Artemis	421	(1)
Encounter with a Parricide	422	(1)
The Obedient Bugs	423	(1)
The Death of John	424	(2)
The Acts of Peter (Christian Apocrypha)	426	(19)
Peter's Daughter	427	(1)
The Gardener's Daughter	428	(1)
Marcellus	429	(2)
Peter's Miracles and First Attacks on Simon	431	(2)
Peter's Vision and Narrative about Simon	433	(2)
The Contest with Simon in the Forum	435	(5)
Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle Peter	440	(5)
The Acts of Paul (Christian Apocrypha)	445	(14)
Acts of Paul and Thecla	447	(6)
Paul in Ephesus	453	(2)
Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle Paul	455	(3)
The Beginning of the Stay in Ephesus	458	(1)
The Acts of Andrew (Christian Apocrypha)	459	(5)
Reconstructed Text of the Martyrdom	460	(4)
The Acts of Thomas (Christian-Gnostic Apocrypha)	464	(21)
How the Lord Sold Him to the Merchant Abban	465	(5)
Concerning His Coming to King Gundaphorus	470	(5)
Concerning the Serpent	475	(1)
Concerning the Youth Who Had Murdered the Maiden	476	(3)
Martyrdom of the Holy and Esteemed Apostle Thomas	479	(6)
Apocalypses
The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	485	(10)
Enoch's Dream Vision of Heaven, the Watchers, and the Giants	487	(1)
Enoch's Journeys through Sheol (Hell) and Heaven	488	(7)
The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch) (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	495	(6)
Enoch's Life and Dream	495	(1)
Ascension into the Heavens	496	(5)
The Sibylline Oracles (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	501	(5)
The Sibylline Oracles	502	(4)
The Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch) (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	506	(6)
Baruch's Lament over Zion	507	(2)
The Vision of the Forest, The Vine, the Fountain, and the Cedar	509	(1)
The Angel Ramiel Speaks of the Coming of the Bright Lightning, the Messiah	510	(2)
The Apocalypse of Ezra (4 Ezra) (Jewish Pseudepigrapha)	512	(5)
The Seer Speaks of the Signs Which Precede the End	514	(1)
The Angel Speaks	515	(1)
The Man from the Sea (Sixth Vision)	515	(2)
The Ascension of Isaiah (Christian Apocrypha)	517	(15)
The Ascension of Isaiah	519	(5)
The Vision Which Isaiah the Son of Amoz Saw	524	(8)
Apocalypse of Peter (Christian Apocrypha)	532	(5)
The Day of Judgment	533	(1)
Akhmim	534	(3)
Apocalypse of Paul (Christian Apocrypha)	537	(14)
Apocalypse of Paul	538	(13)
Apocalypse of Thomas (Christian Apocrypha)	551	(3)
Apocalypse of Thomas	551	(3)
Christian Sibyllines (Christian Apocrypha)	554	(13)
End of Book I	555	(1)
Book II	556	(4)
Book VI: Hymn to Christ	560	(1)
Jesus Christ, Son of God, Redeemer, Cross	561	(4)
Prophetia Sibillae Magae (Fourth or Fifth Century) (Mundus Origo Mea Est)	565	(2)
Hermes Trismegistus: Poimandres (Pagan Gnostic)	567	(8)
Hermes Trismegistus: Poimandres	569	(6)
Hermes Trismegistus: Asclepius (Pagan Gnostic)	575	(6)
Hermes Trismegistus: Asclepius 21-29	576	(5)
Hermes Trismegistus: On God's Bisexuality (Pagan Gnostic)	581	(1)
Hermes Trismegistus: On God's Bisexuality	581	(1)
The Book of Thomas the Contender (Gnostic)	582	(6)
The Book of Thomas the Contender	583	(5)
Trimorphic Protennoia (Gnostic)	588	(6)
Trimorphic Protennoia	589	(5)
The Thunder, Perfect Mind (Gnostic)	594	(9)
The Thunder, Perfect Mind	595	(8)
Diverse Gnostic Texts
Simon Magus	603	(7)
Conversion of Simon the Sorcerer	606	(1)
Commentaries	607	(3)
Valentinus and the Valentinian System of Ptolemaeus	610	(11)
The Valentinian System of Ptolemaeus	611	(10)
Ptolemaeus' Letter to Flora	621	(5)
Ptolemaeus' Letter to Flora	622	(4)
Basilides	626	(9)
Basilides	628	(1)
Basilides' System	629	(6)
The Naassene Psalm	635	(2)
Naassene Psalm	636	(1)
Baruch By Justin	637	(5)
Baruch by Justin	638	(4)
Marcion	642	(4)
Marcion	644	(2)
Carpocrates	646	(5)
Carpocrates	648	(1)
Epiphanes, Concerning Righteousness (Justice)	649	(2)
The Cainites	651	(2)
The Cainites	651	(2)
The Sethians	653	(6)
The Sethians	654	(3)
The Sethians	657	(2)
The Sethian-Ophites	659	(6)
The Sethian-Ophites	661	(4)
Ophite Diagrams	665	(4)
The Ophite Diagrams	665	(4)
Manichaean and Mandaean Gnostic Texts
Mani and Manichaeism	669	(11)
Synopsis of the Entire System According to Augustine	675	(5)
Faust Concerning Good and Evil	680	(2)
Faust Concerning Good and Evil	680	(2)
Augustine's Letters Against the Manichaeans	682	(2)
Epistula 236.2	683	(1)
From Other Letters of Augustine on the Manichaeans	684	(3)
From Contra epistulam fundamenti, 8, 12, 13, 15	684	(1)
From De natura boni, 42, 46	685	(2)
Evodius, Against the Manichaeans	687	(1)
Evodius, Against the Manichaeans 28.5	687	(1)
The Kephalaia of the Teacher	688	(2)
Concerning the Three Blows Struck at the Enemy on Account of the Light	689	(1)
Diverse Manichaean Documents	690	(6)
The Religion That I, Mani, Have Chosen	690	(1)
Mani's Death	690	(2)
Visions of Paradise in Manichaean Missionary History	692	(1)
The Light of Paradise	692	(1)
Prayer to Mani and Other Poems	693	(3)
Mandaean Salvation and Ethics	696	(9)
Soteriology (Salvation of the Soul)	697	(3)
Song of Ascent	700	(1)
Ethics and Morality (Mandaean)	701	(4)
Mystical Documents
The Divine Throne-Chariot (Dead Sea Scrolls)	705	(2)
The Divine Throne-Chariot	706	(1)
The Zohar, The Book of Radiance (Kabbalah)	707	(12)
Highest Grade of Faith	708	(1)
Midnight	708	(2)
A Seal upon Your Heart	710	(2)
The Ten Sefirot	712	(1)
The Destiny of the Soul	713	(2)
The Three Aspects of the Soul	715	(1)
Hymns in Heaven	715	(1)
God's Love	716	(1)
The Rose of Sharon	717	(1)
The Tree of Life	717	(2)
The Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius (Christian)	719	(4)
What Is the Divine Gloom?	721	(1)
How We Ought Both to Be United and Render Praise to the Cause of All and Above All	722	(1)
APPENDIX I. Plotinus	723	(10)
Plotinus, The Enneads (Pagan)	724	(9)
The Ascent of Union with the One	727	(6)
APPENDIX II. Glossary	733	(4)
Bibliography	737	(22)
Index	759

Excerpts

The Other Bible

Introduction

William Blake's wife, Catherine Boucher, once complained that she had very little of Mr. Blake's company for he was always in Paradise. When the English poet was not in the Paradise of an imagined Jerusalem or in the Hell of his native London, he was recording those revelations in a personal bible that he wrote throughout his life. His was a rebellious scripture, influenced by the canonical Bible as well as such texts as The Book of Enoch, a pseudepigraphical text from the intertestamental period. Other poets -- Wait Whitman, Charles Baudelaire, Jorge Guillen -- gave themselves to one book, to recording their personal religion, sacred or profane, in a bible for their times.

The word bible, from biblia, Greek for "small books," signifies broadly a collection of books by which a person or people can live. The ancient Bible was sacred, for its composition was held to be inspired by God. Similarly, if we believe the text, William Blake's prophetic books were divinely inspired. So the act of inspired composition, whether of a Blake or a Whitman or a biblical patriarch, whether of the West or East, appears to be a universal human endeavor, not restricted to one people or religion. After the closing of the Old Testament and during the first centuries of the Common Era, inspired authors continued to write sacred scriptures. They were written by Jews, Christians, Gnostics, and Pagans. Many of these texts were of amazing beauty and religious importance and competed with books within the canon. The Jewish texts are in large part called pseudepigrapha, which includes the Dead Sea Scrolls; the Christian texts are called Christian Apocrypha; the Gnostic scriptures, today so fascinating and even modish, were called by their orthodox rivals heretical. These Jewish, Christian, and Gnostic, books are presented here under the title of The Other Bible. Had events been otherwise and certain of these inspired texts incorporated in our Bible, our understanding of the tradition of religious thought would have been radically altered. Today, free of doctrinal strictures, we can read the "greater bible" of the Judeo-Christian world.

The Other Bible, then, is a book of holy texts that were not included in the Old or New Testaments. It contains creation and Eden myths, psalms and romances, gospels and epistles, prophecies and apocalypses, histories and mystical documents. Every genre of the Bible is represented. It also has works from early Kabbalah, Haggadah, Hermes Trismegistus, and Plotinus.

Why did the specifically Jewish and Christian texts fail to find a place in the Bible? Was it a question of divine authority, period, doctrine? These errant scriptures are often aesthetically and religiously the equal of books in the canon and offer vital information, such as infancy gospels on Jesus' childhood, as well as alternate versions of major biblical stories. In a Manichaean version of Genesis it is Eve who gives life to Adam, while the serpent, the Luminous Jesus, is a liberating figure urging the first couple to take the first step toward salvation by eating from the Tree of Gnosis. The exclusion of many texts was often as arbitrary and dubious as was the inclusion of such magnificent and dangerous books as Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs.

At times the cause of exclusion was fierce political and religious rivalry between sects, between factions, between Jew, Christian, and Gnostic. The antiquity of a book was a primary factor influencing inclusion, and for this reason many competing texts were attributed to great figures of the Bible -- to Enoch, Isaiah, Thomas, Paul-to give them both age and authority. For similar reasons pseudonymous books of the Bible -- the Song of Songs, the Psalms, and certain Epistles -- assumed the names of Solomon, David, and John in their titles. As for the abundant Gnostic scriptures, these were excluded precisely because of their Gnosticizing tendencies. Indeed, it is said that the early Gnostic Marcion of Sinope so angered the followers of the new religion of Jesus Christ that he provoked the Christian Fathers into establishing a New Testament canon.

The Gnostics were serious rivals of orthodox Christians. The most systematized and organized Gnostic cult was Manichaeism, which and the spread from Mesopotamia through Asia Minor to North Africa an, European territories of the Roman Empire. It extended to eastern Iran and into Chinese Turkestan, where it became the state religion of the Uigur Empire. Western China remained Manichaean until the thirteenth century. In the West it rose here and there as various medieval sects, such as the Bogomils and Cathari, and the Albigensians in southern France. Today in Iran and southwest Iraq the Mandaeans, a Gnostic offshoot of heterodox Jewish sects originally from eastern Syria and Palestine, continue in the Gnostic faith.

The most serious conflict between Christians and Gnostics was in the first four centuries of the Common Era. In the second century Valentinus, a major Gnostic thinker, sought election as Pope of Rome. Surely the fixation of the New Testament in Carthage in 397 would have been drastically different had Valentinus succeeded; and what would have been the views of that former Gnostic, Saint Augustine, whose words so affected the conciliar decisions at Carthage? Leaving aside speculations, we can say categorically that the Bible, with the absence of sacred texts from the entire intertestamental period, with its acceptance of a small and repetitious canon for the New Testament, with the exclusion of all later Christian Apocrypha, and the total rejection of Gnostic scriptures, has given us a highly censored and distorted version of ancient religious literature.

The Other Bible. Copyright © by Willis Barnstone. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Other Bible by Willis Barnstone
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.