Organic Portals, the "Second Death", Reincarnation, NDEs
JGeropoulas said:
A very popular and widespread theology once existed within the Roman empire that would explain this mystery (along with many other mysteries within Christianity), and this theology is readily apparent in the rediscovered scriptures found at Nag Hammadi. This ancient belief system is virtually unknown to the modern world, however. As one might suspect, it failed to survive the 1,500-year editing and censorship campaign of the official church.
Regarding Novak's work, I have a couple of his books and find his work quite interesting for the primary reason that it highlights the fact that there is a gap in our knowledge about what the ancients really believed. He, of course, proposes this "widespread theology" that he claims once existed, and says that, to him at least, its features are readily apparent in the Nag Hammadi texts. He then goes on to relate it to the Egyptian belief systems, etc.
Well, as I said, it highlights that there's a gap, but that doesn't mean that what he has filled the gap with is the answer in its entirety, or even that the foundational assumptions that he makes and upon which he builds his theory are even correct.
It is also not so clear as he likes to think that the Nag Hammadi texts are the "secret teachings of Jesus."
My suggestion, when reading something like this, if you don't already have the foundational material under your belt, is to begin to follow his references and read the original material on which he bases his ideas. Then, try to discover everything you can about this original material: what is its provenance, who discovered it, who first interpreted it, were there any other interpretations, when, where and why did one interpretation become accepted over another, etc. It's also helpful to learn as much about the personalities involved and their backgrounds.
For example, there is no way to understand the theories about Egypt without really studying the history of Egyptology and the characters involved and their agendas. There are many theories based on certain ideas that are accepted as factual about Egypt and its religious beliefs and its "science," and so forth that do not stand up to scrutiny. As Frederick Giles writes:
All historical studies are works of interpretation, and even studies of recent history result in quite different interpretations of the same data. Where the data is present only in skeleton form the opportunity for error is greater...
This particular period of Egyptian and Western Asiatic history has been the subject of more than its fair share of fanciful theorising...
Archaeology at best provides a carefully stratified view of the material history of a period in the life of a settlement, from which certain conclusions may be drawn regarding the social structure of the site in question. ...
However, it is relatively ineffective in dealing with absolute chronology, in the absence of written material. ...
The written records likewise were not inscribed with modern commentators in mind, and they are not only subject to the whims of modern interpreters but also to the motives of their original creators. [In the present example] Some of the material in the Amarna Archive was originally written to mislead the Egyptian court as to the intentions of its authors. ...
Except where the texts have been preserved by continuous recopying, their selection has been determine by the accidents of nature and the discoveries of excavators. Undoubtedly many texts have been discovered but remain unpublished...
However, despite the above it is not only that material remains unpublished, it is also the case that material is misinterpreted particularly by those who wear the blinkers of an idee fixe. For example the view of Akhenaten held by many, until not too long ago, made him out to be not only a religious revolutionary or a moral crusace but also a committed pacifist. This involved a wilful misinterpretation of the Amarna archive. ...
It is not only that interpretations of ancient times are from time to time affected by hopelessly corrupt sources, but also that the pursuit of a particular theory leads scholars to make changes to ancient documents where their theoretical construction has led them to believe that the ancient text is in error. ...
He then goes on to review the body of material that is available in very cold and clinical detail pointing out that all the fanciful notions about what the Egyptians did or did not believe amount to little more than fantasies created by those who, by their professional training, ought to know better.
Since I have spent the past few years literally buried in the material about the most ancient of our known civilizations, seeking the raw material and the details of discovery in order to understand why this or that interpretation was made, who made it and why, I've come to realize in a far more thorough way that Gardner wasn't joking when he said that knowledge of ancient Egypt (and its neighbors) is suspended on rags and tatters.
Novak hasn't, apparently, done his homework. He is building his theory on the theories of those who interpret the raw data according to their own fanciful notions.
It's rather like an archaeologist who discovers a clay tablet with a drawing of a wolf on it. A few feet away, he discovers another tablet with a small child on it. He immediately connects the child and the wolf to "Little Red Riding Hood" and announces breathlessly that there was an ancient version of Little Red Riding Hood.
So, some non-expert comes along and, reading this "expert's" idea, begins to think: oh, well, Little Red Riding Hood was known in Egypt and this expert on mythology tells us that the story is about the old and rejected part of us being swallowed and then reborn with the help of the masculine self and the child self. So, that means this ancient culture had a complex religious life and expressed it in mythical formulations!
And he then begins to look for similar material from similar experts and voila! He has a new theory:"A very popular and widespread theology once existed..."
The problem is: when you get down and dirty into the raw material itself, you realize with shock that there is absolutely no basis whatsoever for most of the nonsense that has been promulgated as the "ideas, customs, religions", etc of the ancients.
It makes it all very difficult.
