Similarities of practices between Sufism & Gnostic Christianity

[Brian]

The "man sent from God, whose name was John," actually refers to John the Baptist rather than to the author of Gospel. That said, however, I think the opening chapters of the book of John are very interesting and are generally overlooked in part because they don't dovetail nicely with "the Church's" interpretation. This holds true for much else, too, for that matter.

 

BTW, John the Revelator and John the Apostle appear to have been two different people.

 

[Lairg]

Religions tend to incorporate teachings etc from earlier religions to allow transfer of their followers.

 

So with John, I wonder about Jonah.   Also John is Johannes so I wonder about Oannes - who was an amphibian in Sumer and given the task of clearing the mouth of the Euphrates River for commercial traffic.

 

Jonah in the whale.   Is that a concealment of an amphibian.

 

Now according to the Greeks, Oannes with maybe 6 other amphibians, used to come out of the sea at dawn and spend the day teaching civilization to the Greeks, going back into the sea at dusk.

 

More generally we know the amphibians as Annedotus.   

 

A friend once saw an amphibian show itself to her in the ocean.  So I asked her: was he repulsive.  She said he was so I showed her a picture of Anu as the cup-bearer (for Alalu).  She said her amphibian looked just like the statue in the image.

 

So was John a man sent by god(s)?  Perhaps so.