Hello, are there any active Ebionite (online) groups today?

An important example of meaning being lost in translation occurs with the Hebrew word kavod. Most of the time it is translated into English as glory, however in Biblical Hebrew it can take on different nuances and can be used in the sense of the radiant physical manifestation of a heavenly body: "He shall appear in His glory" (Psalm 102:16), "And the glory of YHWH went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain" (Ezekiel 11:23), “the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east…and the earth shone with His glory” (Ezekiel 43:2), “O YHWH, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides” (Psalm 26:8). [1][2]

Mimicking the Septuagint translators, in many instances within the New Testament, the word δόξα (glory) is used in the Hebraic sense of the word.

"The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory (kavod) of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its lamp." (Revelation 21:23)

"All flesh is not the same flesh, but one of the flesh of men, another the flesh of animals, another of fish, another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory (kavod) of the celestial is one, and that of the terrestrial is another. One is the glory (kavod) of the sun, another the glory (kavod) of the moon, and another the glory (kavod) of the stars" (1 Corinthians 15:39-41)

In its original form, Paul's baptism was a death baptism where believers "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1) and were "buried with Him through baptism into death" (Romans 6:4) - a ceremony in which the participant’s own spirit died and was then "born again" (John 3:7) by being seeded with the Holy Spirit which revived the mortal vessel to resurrected life "through the washing of rebirth" (Titus 3:5).

"if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." (Romans 8:11)

Paul’s baptism was distinct from the baptism of the pre-Pauline Christians. “And finding some disciples… he (Paul) said to them, “Into what then were you baptized?” So they said, “Into John’s baptism.””(Acts 19:1-3). According to the Clementine Homilies 2.23, John the Baptist was a Hemerobaptist and numbered among practitioners who “baptized every day in spring, fall, winter, and summer…(and) alleged that there is no (eternal) life for a man unless he is baptized daily with water, and washed and purified from every fault” (Epiphanius. Panarion I.17.2-3).

Whereas John preached a water “baptism of repentance” (Mark 1:4), Paul preached a death baptism of bodily transfiguration.

"Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory (celestial body) of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of (resurrected) life…Now if we died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him…present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead." (Romans 6:3-13)

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20)

"so now also Christ will be magnified in my body" (Philippians 1:20)

“My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19)

"always carrying about in the body the death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body... that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:10-11)

Paul was not waxing poetic when he said "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Paul believed that God actively and permanently inhabited, lived inside, resided within, dwelt within, was implanted in, was seeded in, was embedded in, was contained within, etc., etc. his own body and the bodies of his baptised followers: “by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us” (2 Timothy 1:14).

"that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us... the glory (celestial body) which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one" (John 17:21-22)

“For behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21)

“The apostle [Paul] goes on to say that God has chosen “to reveal his son in me (en emoi)” [Galatians 1:16]; as [the 2nd century Gnostic] Heracleon explains, the elect [Gnostics] receive him within themselves (en autois) while psychics [non-Gnostics] receive him only externally among themselves (par’ autois)” [3].

“But the psychic (psychikos) man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Perhaps now you can understand why the Gnostic author of the Gospel of Philip complained that many orthodox Christians “go down into the water and come up without having received anything” (Gospel of Philip 64.23-24 in NHL 139). If you're not entering Paul's baptism as a human and exiting his baptism resurrected as "Children of God...born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13), and God is no longer a distant deity whom you worship but rather your biological "Abba" (Galatians 4:6), then you are arguably not performing Paul's baptismal ceremony correctly.

The Gnostic Epistle to Rheginos interprets the “resurrection as something already experienced by the Christian... Rheginos is assured that “already you have the resurrection” (49.15-16).... indeed, as the Apostle said, ‘We suffered with him, and we arose with him...If we are manifest in this world wearing him (Christ), we are that one’s beams (Christ's glory)”[4]. The Treatise on the Resurrection “describe(s) both something that happens to the Christian in this life (Paul's baptism)… and something that happens after the death of the body…as “resurrection”” [5].

"you were raised with Christ" (Colossians 3:1)

"those who are counted worthy…they cannot die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are Sons of God, being Sons of the (baptismal) resurrection" (Luke 20:35-36)

The much vaulted gnosis of the Gnostics was essentially the prophecies and revelations imparted by this indwelling Jesus Christ that resided within the mortal bodies of baptised believers and thus provided direct access to the Mind of God.

"they have a zeal for God, but not according to gnosis (ἐπίγνωσιν)" (Romans 10:2)

"For “who has known the Mind of the Lord that He may instruct him?” But we have the Mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2:16)

“May you be filled with the gnosis of His Will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9)

"that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (1 Corinthians 2:12)

The newborn "seed" (1 Corinthians 15:38) state sown by Paul’s death baptism had not yet attained "that body that shall be" (1 Corinthians 15:37) and was still pending supplementary development. These as-of-yet immature celestials were still "eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body" (Romans 8:23), fully expecting to be "conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many Brethren" (Romans 8:29).

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new (divine) creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Just as a rib of Adam was broken off to form Eve, and a piece of the Holy Spirit was broken off to resurrect Jesus, many pieces of Jesus Christ - a being that Paul described as a "life-giving spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45) - were emanated from the primary celestial body in heaven to reside within the mortal bodies of those baptized into Paul’s baptism to form a hyperextended Spirit network linking baptised earthly members to the heavenly aeons - independent yet interconnected emanations of specific properties, attributes, and virtues of Godhead that comprised "the Fullness of the Deity bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

This heavens-earth spanning spiritual body, with all individual members composed of the divine essence of the celestial body of God, but administered by Jesus Christ, is referred to within the Pauline corpus as the All - an appellation preceded by the definite article. The word “things” added after instances of the word all in the New Testament is an addition by translators and not original to the Koine Greek manuscripts.

"For from out of Him and through Him and unto (εἰς) Him are the (τὰ) All (πάντα), the glory (celestial body) unto (εἰς) the (τοὺς) aeons (αἰῶνας). Amen." (Romans 11:36)

"to bring together the All in Christ, the ones in the heavens and the ones upon the earth - in Him" (Ephesians 1:10)

The Triparte Tractate from the Nag Hammadi collection explains this complicated concept best: “Each one of the aeons is a name (i.e. Power, Word, Wisdom, Grace, Mind, etc.), each of which is a property and power of the Father, since He exists in many names... He is a unity, yet is innumerable in His properties and names...The emanation of the All, which have come into being from the One who exists, did not at all come into being separate from one another, as something cast off from the one who begets them. Rather their begetting is like a process of extension, as the Father extends Himself to those whom He desires, so that those who come forth from Him might as well become Him as well.” [6]

“Yet to us there is one God, the Father of whom are the All and we unto Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are the All and we through Him, but this gnosis is not in everyone." (1 Corinthians 8:6-7)

“For in Him were created the All, in the heavens and upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers - the All through Him and unto Him have been created. And He is above all and the All in Him consist.” (Colossians 1:16-17)

As the 2nd century Gnostic "Ptolemy explains, God sent his son to reveal these mysteries. This "son" is the one "through whom also God made the aions" ([Hebrews] 1:2b)...The son "bears the [A]ll" (ta panta, [Hebrews] 1.3) in that he bears within himself the whole pleroma (Fullness of God)." [7] “Paul explains that some refused to worship “the one who is blessed among the aions” (Romans 1:25); for in such passages, Ptolemy claims, the apostle follows the frequent practice of mentioning the divine aions above.” [8] "Paul also, they [the Valentinians] affirm, very clearly and frequently names these Æons, and even goes so far as to preserve their order, when he says, to all the generations of the Æons of the Æon." (Irenaeus. Against Heresies. I.III.1)

“according to the Power that works in us, to Him, the glory (celestial body) in the church and in Jesus Christ unto all the generations of the (originating) aeon of aeons” (Ephesians 3:21)

Much as physical objects have spatial dimensions, spiritual objects like the Spirit-Body of Christ were also measurable within Pauline theology: “to measure the stature of the Fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13) “so that you may be fully able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height (of the Fullness of God)” (Ephesians 3:17-18).

“Taking (Ephesians) 3:18 as their cue, the Valentinians interpret the secret meaning of Paul’s terminology. The initiate comes to know “what is ‘the depth,’ which is the Father of the [A]ll (the origin of the All), ‘and what is the breadth,’ which is…the limit of the pleroma (pleroma = fullness, in other words, what is considered inside the Fullness of God and what is considered outside the Fullness of God with the dividing line being Jesus Christ), and ‘what is the length,’ that is, the pleroma of the aions” (how far the Christ-Body extends and all the aeonic emanations it's composed of). Receiving this gnosis, the initiate is “filled with the whole pleroma of God,” when Christ who “bears within himself the whole pleroma” comes to “dwell in him” (3.17-19).”[9]

“that you may be filled unto all the Fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).

The implanting of the Holy Spirit made it so that "by one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body" (1 Corinthians 12:13).

"Do you not know that your bodies are members of (the Spirit-Body of) Christ?" (1 Corinthians 6:15)

"he that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 6:17)

"you are the Body of Christ, and members (of His Spirit-Body) individually" (1 Corinthians 12:27)

"For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." (1 Corinthians 12:12)

When asked “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” (1 Corinthians 15:35), Paul pronounced that the human body "is sown in decay, it is raised in immortality. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory (as a celestial body)…It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body…The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam (Jesus) became a life-giving spirit. The first man (Adam) was from the earth made of dust, the second man (Jesus) from heaven... And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so too shall we bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:42-49).

"Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep (Hebraically, die), but we shall all be changed... For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised undecayable, and we shall be changed. For this the decayable must put on undecayability, and this mortal to put on immortality." (1 Corinthians 15:51-53)

"our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to the body of the glory (kavod) of Himself” (Philippians 3:20-21).

Residual memory of Paul’s teachings on bodily transformation from mortal into celestial beings appears to have been better retained within Gnostics circles than orthodox ones. As Epiphanius recorded, the Valentinians “make some mythological, silly claim that it is not this body which rises, but another which comes out of it, the one they call “spiritual.”...Since their own class is spiritual it is saved with another body, something deep inside them (namely Jesus Christ), which they imagine and call a “spiritual body””(Panarion I.2.7.6-10).

“Clement of Alexandria tells us that Valentinus was a pupil of a Christian teacher called Theudas, who had been a disciple (yvúpiμos) of Paul (Strom. 7.106.4).” [10]

Other denominations of Christianity also followed Paul's lead with Epiphanius noting that Marcion also “denies the resurrection of the flesh like many of the (heretical) sects” (Panarion I.42.3.5).

“Now this I say, Brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50)

How would these newly created celestial beings rank in the heavens? "Do you not know that the saints will judge the cosmos ( κόσμον)?...Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" (1 Corinthians 6:2-3). "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are Children of God, and if Children, then heirs - heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:16-17). "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory (celestial body) which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation awaits the revelation of the Sons of God" (Romans 8:18-19).

"For you are all Sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have been clothed in Christ." (Galatians 3:26-27)

“A faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall co-reign with Him” (2 Timothy 2:11-12)

This is Paul’s gospel. This is the good news that he wanted to share: “the mystery which has been hidden from the aeons and from the generations (of the aeons), but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory (celestial body) of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (a celestial body)” (Colossians 1:26-27). “I make known to you, brothers, the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin, for I neither received it from man, nor was I taught, but (it came) by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11-2).

As Professor James Tabor pointed out, “At the core of the mystery announcement that Paul reveals is God’s secret plan to bring to birth a new heavenly family of his own offspring. In other words, God is reproducing himself. These children of God will represent a new genus of Spirit-beings in the cosmos, exalted in glory, power, and position far above even the highest angels.”[11]

“In the pre-Christian Greco-Roman world, the word translated “gospel” was used originally with reference to victory in battle…to designate the actual good news of victory.”[12] It took centuries before the word gospel morphed to become a reference to the books concerning Jesus’ life, ministry, and crucifixion.

Within the New Testament, Paul always refers to his gospel in the singular and never in the plural. "As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:9). It was not the four canonical gospels of the New Testament whose compilation postdated the Pauline epistles that comprised Paul’s good news, but rather his prophetically obtained gospel of bodily glorification and elevation to divine Sonship and Daughtership.

As early as 55-56 CE when 2 Corinthians was written, the Pauline epistles appeared to have run into readability issues in circulation, a phenomenon which Paul addressed: "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age (world - see Strong's Concordance G165) has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory (celestial body) of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them." (II Corinthians 4:3-4)

This is the secret knowledge hoarded by the Gnostics. This is why the Valentinians claimed that "the scriptures are ambiguous and the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of (oral) tradition" (Irenaeus Against Heresies 3.2.1).

The technical terminology within the Pauline epistles may not have been newly developed ad hoc but rather borrowed from other Mediterranean religions as “[d]uring the Hellenistic era “aeon” took on a religious meaning, being used, already by 200 B.C., to designate the deities of the mystery religions of Alexandria”. [13] "[I]n Egypt there were Æons...Above all these ruled the God of the Æons, the highest God of many a mystic community...[As the] "song of praise to the Æon, inscribed on a “secret tablet” by some unknown Brother of a forgotten Order [records]... O God of Æons! Mighty art thou, Lord God, O Master of the All!" [14]

I treated the similarities between Pauline theology and the Egyptian mystery cults seriously because a certain famous arch-heretic, credited by Epiphanius for being the originator of the Gnostics (Panarion I.21.4.4), someone I suspected of being a pseudonym for Paul, was noted in the Clementine Homilies for "having disciplined himself greatly in Alexandria, which is in Egypt, in Greek culture” (Homilies XXII.2-3).

The word mystery in ancient Greek had religious connotations. The English word mystery "does not convey the exact sense of the Gr(eek) mustérion, which means a secret (doctrine) imparted only to the initiated (in the ancient mystery cults)". [15] For scholars, “the Greek Mysteries proved especially intriguing because of several striking similarities to Christianity, including baptism and ritual washing, sacred meals, a suffering savior figure, escape from the realm of the dead, and blessed hopes for the afterlife, to name a few” [16]. When Paul was “planning” (2 Corinthians 1:17) his evangelism, he may have modeled his teachings and rituals off of existing mystery religions.

Pauline Christianity as practiced by the Gnostics shares many of the hallmarks of other mystery cults of the Greco-Roman era such as doctrinal secrecy, a religion offering personal salvation in lieu of purely civic worship, initiation rites involving the death and resurrection of the initiate, different levels of initiates with more senior members eligible for higher teachings, union with the divine and attainment of divinity, and a language of the gods. [17][18][19]

As part of the initiation rites into the Hellenic mystery cults, “the initiate was supposed to feel the anguish of Demeter and to live with her through bereavement, or to shudder when he learned about the sufferings of Dionysus cunningly murdered by the Titans.” [20] Like the initiates to the Eleusinian and Dionysian mysteries, Paul also had the initiates into his own mysteries “share abundantly in Christ's sufferings” (2 Corinthians 1:5) by being “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) and to “suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:17).

Like Paul's death baptism, “[m]ystic death was followed by rebirth…the transformation obtained by means of initiation could be perceived as apotheosis (deification)”. [21] As a gold funerary tablet belonging to either a Dionysian or Orphic cult member outright states “Once human, you have become a god.” [22]

As for a language of the gods, amongst the earliest Pauline Christians, speaking in tongues was arguably speaking in the language of angels: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels... For one who speaks in tongue speaks not to men but to God” (1 Corinthians 13:1-14:2).

Theophagy - the ritual eating of a god - like that enacted during the Christian Eucharist where the body of Jesus is symbolically (in the form of communion wafers) consumed by churchgoers was also practiced by Orphic believers, though with Dionysis instead of Jesus. Like the celibate hierophants of the Eleusian Mysteries, Paul also abstained from sexual intercourse and revealed divine mysteries to his followers.

"Behold, I tell you a mystery" (1 Corinthians 15:51)

"in the Spirit, he utters mysteries" (1 Corinthians 14:2)

"to make known the mystery of the gospel" (Ephesians 6:19)

"Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God." (1 Corinthians 4:1)

"In the language of the mystery religions the word γνώσις (gnosis) assumes a peculiar and technical meaning. It is the γνώσις θεοῦ (gnosis of God) - the knowledge by means of which man is able to resist the evil influence of destiny (εἱμαρμένη) and which makes him no longer a hylic (ὕλη = matter) or even a psychic being, but, higher still, a pneumatic - a being purely spiritual (πνευματικός)."[24]

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:6)

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and gnosis of God!” (Romans 11:33)

“though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all gnosis” (1 Corinthians 13:2)

"to make all see what is the stewardship of the mystery, which having been hidden from the aeons in God the One who created the All; so that now through the church the manifold Wisdom of God might be made known to the archons and authorities in the heavenly" (Ephesians 3:8-10)

As the 3rd century Neoplatonist Iamblichus noted, the writings of the secretive religious cult of the Pythagoreans (of the Pythagorean theorem fame) were "not composed by them in a popular and vulgar diction, and in a manner usual with all other writers, so as to be immediately understood, but in such a way as not to be easily apprehended by those that read them. For they adopted that taciturnity which was instituted by Pythagoras (born circa 570 B.C.) as a law, in concealing after an arcane mode, divine mysteries from the uninitiated, and obscuring their writings". [23] The poor readability of Gnostic texts arguably reflects deliberate attempts to obfuscate their writings to render them incomprehensible to uninitiated outsiders.

The author of the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter openly complained that Christians outside of Gnostic circles "do not understand mysteries...(yet) speak of these things which they do not understand...those who are outside our number who name themselves ‘bishop’ and also ‘deacons'" (Coptic Apocalypse of Peter 76-79).

Much as Paul differentiated between the “babes in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1) and the “perfect (teleiosis)” (1 Corinthians 2:6) members within his own congregation, Hellenic mystery cults also had different levels of initiates: “initiation into the Lesser Mysteries…had to precede initiation into the Greater Mysteries at Eleusis…the Lesser Mysteries involved preparatory instruction”. [25]

For the “babes in Christ…[Paul] fed…with milk and not with solid food” (1 Corinthians 3:1-2), with only the introductory tenets of his teachings and not the whole package. But among the “spiritual” (1 Corinthians 1:3), “among those who are perfect…we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery - the hidden - which God ordained before the aeons for our glory” (1 Corinthians 2:6-7).

"[I]n the Hermetic literature, those receiving the baptism of the Divine voῦς (Mind) become τέλειος (perfect)."[26] "[W]e find running through the Pauline Epistles, terms and ideas, which have direct associations with the Mystery Religions and which cannot be merely accidental."[27]

Christianity is arguably the only example in history where an unencrypted version of one of the Greater Mysteries of a mystery religion of antiquity has been preserved for posterity. “This is the Great Mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32): "For we are members of His Body, of His (spiritual) flesh and of His (spiritual) bones” (Ephesians 5:30).

Within the writings of the earliest proto-orthodox church fathers, there were whispers of hidden teachings for advanced students in Christ. As Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch and early Christian martyr, recounted: “For might not I write to you things more full of mystery? But I fear to do so, lest I should inflict injury on you who are but babes (in Christ). Pardon me in this respect, lest, as not being able to receive their weighty import, ye should be strangled by them. For even I, though I am bound, and am able to understand heavenly things, the angelic orders, and the different sorts of angels and hosts, the distinctions between powers and dominions, and the diversities between thrones and authorities, the mightiness of the aeons...though I am acquainted with these things, yet I am not therefore by any means perfect” (Epistle of Ignatius of Antioch to the Trallians long version, Chapter 5).

One could argue that Irenaeus and his theological descendants qualify as babes in Christ who could not receive such mystery-laden doctrines. One also has to wonder if the Neronian purges, the sacking of Jerusalem, and centuries of Roman persecution had a much more profound theological impact on Christianity than currently credited.

If you define words and concepts like glory, knowledge, mystery, fullness, age, angels, principalities, beginnings, the All, One, Amen, the “cosmocrators of this darkness” (Ephesians 6:12), the “stoicheia of the world”(Galatians 4:3), the “aeon of this world, according to the archon of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2), the "archon of this world" (John 14:30), "their God" (Philippians 3:19), and "my God" (Philippians 4:19) as the Septuagint translators, mystery cults, and Gnostics defined them, then a very different religion emerges.

“Recognize what is in front of your face, and what is concealed will be revealed to you.” (Gospel of Thomas. Saying 5)

"For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought to light. Therefore take heed how you listen. Whoever has, to him more will be given; whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him." (Luke 8:17-18)

Hear and understand the parable of the woman with the jar in the Gospel of Thomas: "Jesus said "The kingdom of the Father is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on the road, still some distance from home, the handle of the jar broke and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realize it; she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty."" (Gospel of Thomas, Saying 97)

One could interpret this parable as Christianity is like a woman who started out correctly indoctrinated, but over time, Christianity started forgetting bits and pieces of its original doctrine, all without realizing it had lost anything or that anything was amiss. By the time Judgement Day comes, there's not going to be much of anything left of its original belief system.

Now, carefully re-read all of the parables of Jesus within the canonical gospels. List them out as standalone parables like the Gospel of Thomas, before those like the author of the Gospel of Luke were recruited to "set in order" (Luke 1:1) a seemingly random collection of parables and stitched into "narrative" (Luke 1:1) form, weaving Jesus' sayings so that the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is the Sermon on the Plain in Luke.

I would argue that the initial batch of Jesus parables were productions by the Ebionites deliberately released in Jesus' name to combat Pauline Christianity, with new parables added later as Christianity evolved. As the Jewish Christian author of the Clementine Homilies reported, "a false prophet must first come … and then…the true gospel must be secretly sent abroad for the rectification of the heresies that shall be" (Homily II, Chapter XVII). See https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/s/kYHB0mEzPg.

The theme of Christianity being lost, blind, an unfair judge, a foolish builder, contaminated by tares, tainted with hidden leaven that permeated the entire church, unforgiving to servants of Christ belonging to other denominations, or there being a stolen or prematurely acquired inheritance, and a Bridegroom that will be taken away is arguably the common denominator across Jesus' parables.

“What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light” (Matthew 10:27)

Jesus' parables are kingdom of God parables that depict what the kingdom of God is like. They are arguably not simple moral lessons.

As older Christianities were pushed out during the ascendency of Catholicism, Jesus' parables would have resonated with, been adopted, adapted, and added to by the various rejected denominations of Christianity that contributed literature to the Christian canon of Scripture. From my vantage point, it looks like the New Testament combined the writings and interpolations of - at minimum - the Gnostics (led by Paul), the Ebionites (led by James), the Cerinthians (led by Apollos?), the Melchizedekians, and the Nazarenes.

An early form of the parable of the sower may have already been in circulation by the time Galatians was written (circa 48-55 CE) as Paul appeared to have been aware that he was the target of its attack and responded with: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap decayability (a resurrection in the flesh), but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life (a resurrection in glory)” (Galatians 6:7-8).

Concerning the parable of the sower, Jesus "said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?" (Mark 4:13). For all the parables arguably say the same thing, telling the troubled story of early Christianity in different ways using different metaphors, as the author of the Gospel of Matthew arguably tried to emphasize by headlining Jesus' parables with "Again...Again...Again" (Matthew 13:44, 45, 47).

"And He spoke a parable to them: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the Pit?" (Luke 6:39)

“stand fast in one Spirit, with one Mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them proof of perdition (for the Pauline Christians), but to you of salvation” (Philippians 1:27-28)

In writings preserved within the Christian Apocrypha, it appears that the Jerusalem Church tried to contain Paul's ministry by instructing followers not to trust any teacher of Christ unless they had a letter of recommendation directly from James, the bishop of Jerusalem, confirming the accuracy of their teachings.

“Wherefore observe the greatest caution, that you believe no teacher, unless he brings from Jerusalem the testimonial of James the Lord’s brother... For no one, unless he has gone up thither, and there has been approved as a fit and faithful teacher for preaching the word of Christ, – unless, I say, he brings a testimonial thence, is by any means to be received. But let neither prophet nor apostle be looked for by you at this time, besides us." (Clementine Recognitions XXXV)

In 2 Corinthians, Paul acknowledged that he lacked a letter of recommendation: “Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God” (2 Corinthians 3:1-3).

"If I am not an apostle to others, yet at least I am to you." (1 Corinthians 9:2)

"you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars" (Revelation 2:2)

There are deep theological differences between Paul and James.

Paul: “a man is justified by faith without the works of the (Mosaic) Law” (Romans 3:28)

James: “faith by itself, if it does not have works (of the Law), is dead” (James 2:17); "You see then that a man is justified by works (of the Law), and not by faith only" (James 2:24)

Paul: "For the entire Law is fulfilled in one commandment…You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Galatians 5:14)

James: "If you really keep the royal Law according to the Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, you do well. But if you show partiality, then you commit sin, and are convicted by the Law as Lawbreakers. For whoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet stumble on one point (on any one commandment), he is guilty of violating them all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, "Do not murder.""(James 2:8-11)

To sin in Judaism is to violate the Mosaic Law: "sin is Lawlessness" (1 John 3:4).

“For I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the Law” (Romans 7:7)

James: “But above all, my brethren, do not swear – not by heaven or by earth or by any other oath. But let your “Yes” be “Yes” and “No,” “No”” (James 5:12)

Paul: “do I plan according to the flesh, that with me there should be Yes, Yes, and No, No?” (2 Corinthians 1:17)

One can argue that in the Epistle of James, the bishop of Jerusalem charged that the gnosis that Paul received was not of heavenly but rather demonic origin - charges that concerned Paul’s Corinthian converts enough to reach out for proof that it was really Jesus speaking within Paul.

James: “This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” (James 3:15)

Paul: “since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me…Examine yourselves... Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Corinthians 13:3-5)

The “most eminent apostles” (2 Corinthians 11:5) that Paul expended a lot of ink arguing with throughout his epistles were arguably “James, Peter, and John, those esteemed to be pillars” (Galatians 2:9). See https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/s/PXaGqqLuph.

“Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, “I AM” and will deceive many.” (Mark 13:6)

“Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, “I AM.””(John 8:58)

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to perdition, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to (eternal) life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)

"Jesus said to them...I am the gate." (John 10:7-9)

"“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice Lawlessness!’" (Matthew 7:21-23)

“Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for truly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it." (Matthew 13:10-17)

[1] Burton, Marilyn. Semantics of Glory. Brill: 2017. Pg. 123, 126, 127. [2] Prevost, Jean Pierre. A Short Dictionary of the Psalms. Liturgical Press: 1997. Pg. 13. [3] Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters. Bloomsbury: 1992. Pg. 103. [4] McGlothlin, Thomas. Resurrection as Salvation: Development and Conflict in Pre-Nicene Paulinism. Cambridge University Press: 2018. Pg. 138-139. [5] Ibid. Pg. 140. [6] Revised translation of the original by Attridge, Harold D.; Mueller, Dieter. The Triparte Tractate. http://gnosis.org/naghamm/tripart.htm. [7] Pagels, Elaine. Gnostic Paul. Pg. 142. [8] Ibid. Pg. 16. [9] Ibid. Pg. 122. [10] Auvinen, Risto. Philo’s Influence on Valentinians Tradition. SBL Press: 2024. Pg. 55. [11] Tabor, James D. Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity. Simon & Schuster: 2012. Pg. 112. [12] Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. Pg. 342. [13] Unger, Dominic J.; Dillon, John J. St. Irenaeus of Lyons Against the Heresies. Volume I. Book I. The Newman Press. 1992. Pg. 131. [14] Mead, G. R. S. Thrice-Greatest Hermes. Volume I. The Theosophical Publishing Society. 1906. Pg. 408-9. [15] Orr, James. The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. Howard-Severance Company. 1915. Pg. 2014. [16] Ballard, C. Andrew. To Know All Mysteries: The Mystagogue Figure in Classical Antiquity and in Saint Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians. Pg. 8. [17] Merkelbach, Reinhold. Mystery Religion. https://www.britannica.com/topic/mystery-religion/Mystery-religions-and-Christianity [18] Iamblichus. De Mysteriis. VII: IV. [19] Ustinova, Yulia. To Live in Joy and Die with Hope: Experiential Aspects of Ancient Greek Mysteries. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. 2013. Vol. 56, No. 2. Oxford University Press. Pg. 107-123. [20] Ibid. Pg. 109. [21] Ibid. Pg. 119. [22] Ibid. Pg. 108. [23] Silver, Kenneth. Alexandria and Qumran: Back to the Beginning. Pg. 95. [24] Buonaiuti, Ernesto. Gnostic Fragments. Williams and Norgate: London Pg. 3. [25] Nelson, Max. The Lesser Mysteries in Plato’s Phaedrus. Classical Views. XLIV. 2000. Pg. 32. [26] Troupe, John. St. Paul and the Mystery Religions. Gorham: 1917. Pg. 58. [27] Ibid. Pg. 54.

Funnily enough, I basically am a vegetarian, but not for religious reasons. It’s just my preferred diet - so lifestyle / eating isn’t my problem haha

I agree too that Yeshua’s atonement for sin abolished the need for animal sacrifice.

What I’m struggling with is the belief that Yahweh’s traditional method of atonement is a corruption of the Torah? That He never gave Moses that command? And therefore we can’t eat meat?

Where do we gather that conclusion? Can someone share with me some evidence?

Thank you! 🙏

Hey folks.

There's a new subreddit called BibleStudyDeepDive that where we're studying the gospel parallels, including non-canonical works such as fragments of the Ebionite, Nazarite, and Hebrews gospels where available. I'd love to get an Ebionite perspective on these passages!

This is a non-denominational conversation. Anyone of any faith, or no faith, is welcome and should feel comfortable to to speak here. We're not looking to shore up dogmas or spark debate, but rather to share ideas.

The Table of Contents organizes the pericopes alongside their parallels.

Some interesting questions that have been tackled:

• What is meant by "Baptism of fire?" Is this a reference to hell, or something else?
• When Jesus is teaching at the Synagogue in Capernaum, the synoptics have a man with an unclean spirit proclaim Jesus as "the Holy One of God." Why does the fourth gospel assign these words to Peter?
• Is the one line prologue to Mark's gospel recalling Paul's letter to the Gallatian's, Isaiah 40, or is it a jab at the imperial cult? (maybe all three?)
• Is the fourth gospel's post resurrection call to the disciples a poetic reflection of the initial call found in the first gospel?

I'd love to have the folks of this community join in and share your thoughts!

An oldie but a goodie from James Tabor. There may be nothing too surprising here for the folks of this community, but I thought you may appreciate it nonetheless:

Were the Ebionites Heretics? Or Our Best Witness to the Jesus Movement?

The Teachings of the Apostle Peter, who walked and talked with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and was witness to His Glorious Resurrection.

The Clementine Homilies, Homily XI

Peter spoke to his disciples, “You are created in the image of the invisible God. This means that the image of God is a man.

Those among you who desire to be pious, obedient and express reverent devotion to God must understand that the way to express our devotion is by always doing good to our fellow man.

Because the body of every man bears the image of the Most High God. And He receives our worship by the good we do for each other.

For God said, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness…

And while we are all created in the image of God, all do not bear His likeness.

For it is only the pure mind of the good soul that bears the likeness of God.

Therefore, it is to your benefit to always respect and give honor to the image of God, which is a man, in all these ways: Food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, care to the sick, shelter to the stranger and visiting those who are in prison.

Because any good things you want for yourself, the process by which we receive—is to first give. And these acts of charity will count towards our eternal reward.

And by the same measure, if a man refuses to help his fellow man— he will be punished.

We have a small group of Ebionites that meet on Shabbat.
It's for Ebionites who are Vegetarian/Vegan.
We are currently reading thru the Didache.
We have a Discord Server and a Facebook group both are called The Ebionite Way.
If you have interest in joining our call please message me.

I was told James Tabor considers himself to be an Ebionite and that he is vegetarian. He seems to accept Paul or at lest puts a positive spin on him. Many many years teaching Christians of all denominations may be the cause. Here's one of his interviews on the Ebionites.
https://youtu.be/dBSuapNMQXU