Philip ... your history is not the history I have read. There were Gnostic variants of Catholicism and Judaism, NOT the other way around like you erroneously believe; nothing to support a pre-Christianity Gnosticism; therefore the Gnostics raped what was written about Jesus and Biblical Christianity to benefit their goals of deception. There were also Persian schools of Gnosticism, one well know teacher was Mani, with one in Babylon. One major proof of Gnostic influence in Islam is that Muslims like to quote Gnostic writings to support what the Quran says; therefore it is only logical to call the Quran a Gnostic bible, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that Mohammad was influenced by the Gnostics. There a numerous variants of Gnosticism and the Persian Empire did not go untouched by them, at one time a Gnostic variant was called the “Persian religion.” - It is evidence by Pauls warning to Timothy to avoid the Gnostics (1 Timothy 6:20) that Gnosticism had its beginnings in the last half of the first century CE, and their Christology did not agree with what the Apostles wrote about Jesus and Gods plan of Salvation through Him, just as Islam does not; therefore your assertion that the Persians were idol worshipers without any influence from the Gnostics is spurious. History provides evidence that the Apostle Thomas went into Arabia to preach the Gospel to the Persians and that there was a translation of their writings provided for Arab Christians using Aramaic, and that the Marian Theology started with Arab women but was rejected by the RCC until the fifth century when the RCC re-visited the ERROR by rewriting the theology to agree with what they wanted to believe. Nothing “moot” just that you have not read all of the available history.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 02:41:55 +0000