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I am beginning what some will call a difficult, yet rewarding goal. In the next year or so, I will be reading and writing on the well known "Dr.Eliot's Five Foot Shelf," known as The Harvard Classics. My goal is to finish 51 volumes in the next year. I hope is to use this Blog as my Journal, which will enable me to engage with my thoughts, ideas, confusions, logic, and analytical triumph in understanding these classics. Once I complete 51 volumes of "The Harvard Classics," I intend to dive into the Great Books also known as the "Great Books of the Western World." I know that there are many other important works of the Eastern Canon and other cultural importance's out there, which I intend to read, but I have to begin somewhere. I will write up a more in-depth summary of Dr.Eliot's "The Harvard Classics," and the Mortimer Adler's "The Great Books of the Western World," as I proceed to read,review,annotate and chew on these classics. I will proceed to write about each book,page and paragraph as I see fit. If you'd like more information, or simply looking to chat about these historical classics, please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected] This is a beginning of self-education and self-improvement and I hope you will join me. You can follow my journey on my Blog - http://www.leonbasin.blogspot.com

The Gospel of Thomas Video about the Lost Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, which many historians feel contains the oldest content and is historically closer to Jesus than the 4 biblical Gospels are. It is written in the form of simple sayings and parables said by Jesus. The Gospel of Thomas is a closed-door, or secret teaching.To understand it you have to be a part of the lineage of Thomas, you had to be a gnostic. So the academics or researchers of today cannot fully fathom it's meaning- Some people are not aware that there are more Gospels than just the 4 main ones in the modern bible. Most of Jesus' Disciples have a Gospel. One of the most famous that has been found is the Gospel of Thomas, it is especially famous because it was found in it's complete form, and none of the other ones were, just fragments of them. So the question then becomes which Gospel is the most authentic and the closest to the teachings of the Grandmaster, Jesus Christ. Hardcore Christians don't want to admit that it could be older than their gospels, so they will always point out that the actual physical text we have of the Gospel of Thomas is in fact from hundreds of years after Jesus. However, according to high level scholars like Koester of Harvard, or Elaine Paegels, the content of the Gospel of Thomas is older than the papyrus of it that we have today. Why is that? Another factor we have to explain and look at now then, is the so called Lost Q document. Since textual criticism had become big in the last century or 2, something new was discovered. Throughout history it was always assumed that Luke and Matthew were derived from Mark, and that Mark was the original and oldest gospel. However, it was discovered that Luke and Matthew share common material that is not found in Mark. How can that be then? It means Luke and Matthew both derived some of the same information from another source, it has never been discovered but scholars have called it the "Q document". So how does this relate to the Gospel of Thomas you ask? Because it has long been believed by experts in textual criticism that the Q document would have been in the form of sayings, and parables, by Jesus. The Gospel of Thomas is in that format, and contains original information. The Original source for the teachings of the NT is not found or known by modern scholars, but it is known that it would have been in the form of a collection of saying by Jesus. This Lost original gospel source is known as the Q manuscript What is historically accurate? The truth is there are no gospels that perfectly agree without error Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas Collection -- Translations and Resources