Gnosticism is an ancient religion stemming from the first century (approximately), and is an alternative messiah-religion that shares many features with
Christianity. An
inferior angelic being created the Earth, and this being is a hindrance to spiritual development. Many
Gnostic schools taught that the Hebrew Scriptures were the religious creation of this inferior god. To trick this god out of power, a saviour was sent by the
true god,
and the sacrifice of this innocent man undermined the power of the old
god, allowing the possibility for people to become saved and align
themselves with the true god. Gnosticism was heavily attacked by the
first
Christian anti-heresy writers. Some authors such as Freke & Gandy (1999) argue that
Christianity as we know it is a shallow version of Gnosticism which has mistaken symbolic stories for real ones
1, whereas many academics find that the historical and archaeological evidence is unclear:
Christianity and gnosticism are related, but, and although we don't yet know which one came first, it seems that
early
Christianity was much more Gnostic than it is now, and perhaps the
gnostic/literalist divide simply didn't exist for the first two
centuries of Christian history. By the 7th century,
literalist
Christians had overwhelmed Gnosticism and related forms of
Christianity, leaving us with modern Trinitarian Christianity.
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