Showing results by author "Joseph B. Lumpkin" in All Categories

The newly discovered Gospel of Jesus' Wife was revealed to the public in September of 2012. The small scrap of codex is the size of a credit card, but it has reignited controversy over what is now mounting evidence that Jesus may have been married. Gospels and letters, some hidden by the church and some lost until recently, tell the story of who Jesus was, what he looked like, and hint at who he may have married. Were Jesus of Nazareth and Mary of Magdala husband and wife? The evidence is piling up.

The extremes to which the church and its leaders have gone in order to protect and justify various decisions regarding points of faith is fascinating, but tends to obscure the truth. Revisionist history, coercion, greed, lust, and propaganda were the order of the day when the major items of doctrine were being decided. In fact, many of those truths that we hold so dear in our Christian faith were decided, if not invented, through or because of political and financial aims, and not by theological insight. Many doctrines went well beyond what the early church held as truth.

Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and secular mystics all search for a deeper and personal connection with life and spirit. In this audiobook, we will look at all major paths of mysticism and see what marvelous truth and beauty is held within the heart of the mystic. This amazing journey may have a thousand paths, but all will end at the door of the infinite. The mystical experience is an encounter with the deepest truth and ultimate reality in which there is a sense of sacredness so rich and beautiful it cannot be adequately described.

This audiobook will reach down into your soul and force contemplation. It will make you search the length and breadth of the consequences of your beliefs and faith and it will make you want to seek the very heart of God and His grace in your life through the words you hear. Take your time. God will be there, waiting. The journey is not an easy one. It takes heart-wrenching emptiness to be filled with only Him.

It is because of the Eastern tone of Thomas, the Gnostic theology embedded in Thomas, and the possible pre-Christian influence of the text that makes it so compatible with the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching, so as to make one a fascinating supplement to the other. Both advance inner and intuitive knowledge above all. Both allude to the way to acquire this knowledge through an unwavering search within oneself.