One problem is that you know in the early church there was a debate around the physicality of Jesus's resurrection. Yes, so the canonical tradition ends up uh stipulating that Jesus physically resurrects and you must believe that otherwise you're a heretic. And that's

part of the the Catholic particular emphasis on the Divinity of the body which has a real wisdom rather than a disembodied Soul. You're also you also have like the Gnostic tradition broadly speaking, the Gnostic tradition in early Christianity. It's so popular that

Valentinus nearly, Valentinus nearly becomes the bishop of Rome. He's nearly the pope, you know, and um there's I I I talked about this the other day and I should have looked it up. I can't remember which Church Father it was that

was was telling the the church community, the early Church community, when you go to a new place don't ask to be taken to the Christian Church, ask to be taken to the Catholic church because otherwise you might end up in a Gnostic Church. It's so popular. Right, right. And a lot of the

Gnostic tradition says that the thing that that's being gotten wrong is the idea that there was this literal Resurrection, right? No, no. The the kingdom of God is here and now. The resurrection is inside of you and you you attain it through gnosis. I mean the Gospel of Thomas which

is probably the most famous non-canonical gospel and could have been written um at the same time as like the Gospel of John. This is the early text doesn't even mention the resurrection, doesn't mention a crucifixion. It's a list of sayings, yeah. And the the very

form of that book as as one scholar whose name I've forgotten unfortunately has pointed out of that of that collection shows that these people believed that the thing that's important is not what Jesus did but what he said the thing that's important is the knowledge the thing

that's important and so so this Resurrection stuff sort of doesn't matter now the thing is in that early Church community somebody who said well this question of like the resurrection is a physical you know historical event that you're kind of missing the point the

thing that matters is like you know the resurrection that takes place inside of every person it sort of sounds a little bit like the kind of approach that you would take now if that's true that would mean that in the early church you'd have been condemned as a heretic so so when a

modern Catholic says to you you know Jordan Peterson are you Christian you know what do you think about Catholicism um I think that the reason that they're interested is because if it's true what I'm saying then they would have to say oh I suppose at least according to my

understanding of Catholicism that's a of I can't count you among my number you know so I think that's probably why people are interested and I I wonder if well that's a gen that's a that what would you say that would constitute a

genuine form of inquiry for sure and I wonder if you feel like you're I I mean I don't know I mean see one of the things I really like about the the the the the the bodily tradition of the Resurrection is that it see what it does

That's so remarkable is that it doesn't desacralize the body and that's very very important you know the the I think the fundamental problem with Gnosticism is that it becomes a it's very easy for it to become a doctrine that's

contemptuous of the body and contemptuous of the of the material world a great deal of the Gnostic tradition literally believes that the material world is created by an evil right exactly well exactly exactly exactly the insistence on the bodily Resurrection is a medication against

that and it's an effective one I would I would really love to ask uh about Genesis this might be a bit of a tangent and tell me if if it's if it's uninteresting to you but there's one Gnostic text called the testimony of

truth that was discovered in the Nag Hammadi library and this is buried probably around 300 AD so it must be earlier than that it's a fairly early text and this text identifies the serpent in the Garden of Eden with Christ and this is fascinating to me because when I when I

read as a leader to illumination yes there tradition that makes the serpent a higher God than the original God because he's the agent that calls to conscience yeah now of course yes now the serpent doesn't is never identified as as Satan or the devil except by except by

Christian tradition it's just the serpent now there's so much interesting about this when when I first read the the the Genesis what when I well even the classic Christians often regarded the fall as the what would you say faithful but heaven-sent error that made the

Incarnation of Christ, both possible right, so there there's, it's very interesting because there's a gloss on that where even in traditional Christianity the becomes, that's right, yeah, it gives you Christ and and Jesus at one point compares himself to a serpent in the Gospel of John, you know

um, early in ear, oh yes, he'll lifted up like,  'Mes lifs up the Ser' insanely, see that's one of the passages actually, sorry, I don't want to derail you from your tangent, but um that's one of the passages that I've

concentrated a lot in this new book that I've just finished, uh, uh, 'We who wrestle with God', because that equ, that Christ manages with his identification with the serpent in the desert, that is so stunningly brilliant, that I cannot

possibly imagine how anyone could have thought it up, it's to, to, to identify him with the source of the poison that to gaze upon what would you say redeemed the Israelites in the desert, it's so, there's so much in that that it's, it's, it's really a kind

of miracle, that serpent on the Stak, that's sleepus, it's the same symbol, yeah, so that just in itself is something stunning to, there is, there is something amazing there, I think of, well obviously I'm not going to go as far as saying

that I can't imagine that was thought up, maybe not by somebody, it's, it's complicated with the Bible of course, um, and there's a lot to say there, I mean, I mean the author of The Gospel of John is obviously a sort of theological genius

in the way that the authors of the synoptic gospels at least weren't as much um so you know it's it's it's believable to me that that that that could be the case but but besides the point um because that would that that's another complicated thing to

talk about but when when I first I I it wasn't the first time but the first time I really tried to read the the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden and I was doing it in the service of sort of producing a video I was I want to make

sure I want to revisit the story make sure I sort of understand it properly um I'm reading this text and God says you must you you can eat of any of the any of the trees but not the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil immediately you think to yourself

why not you know why why wouldn't and some people like to say oh it's because that's actually by eating of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil you get to dictate morality doesn't read like that to me it reads to me like knowledge

of Good and Evil let's just take it at face value to to start with it's like why not God why not well we're not told but don't do it because in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die yeah now the serpent comes along and the

serpent is described as more cunning than any of the animals that God God created um I don't speak Hebrew unfortunately but where it says you know for example more more cunning than any of the the the beasts that God had created that could mean of all of the

beasts that he created, or more cunning than the beasts that he had created, almost as if this is a being in the garden that God himself didn't actually create, or God isn't sort of connected to in the same way, because why

is the serpent there in the first place is a question that's worth asking, you know, okay, that's for sure. So you have the serpent and and that word cunning, I thought to myself, what does that mean? So, so I I looked it up and it's it's the

word like arum or AUM, I don't know how to pronounce it, but I looked elsewhere in the Old Testament and it's used in a few different ways, you know. It means cunning, it means subtle, subtle, yeah, throughout Proverbs it's used to it's

used consistently to mean sensible, what I mean, prudent. And so there's one reading of this, you know, now now the serpent was more sensible than any of the other beasts of the Garden of Eden and he comes to Eve and says, did God say that

if you eat of that tree you'll surely die? And she says, yeah, that's what he said. And he says, you will not surely die in the day that you eat thereof, you'll just, God just knows you'll become like him knowing good and evil, and he doesn't

want that. So Eve looks at the fruit and she eats the fruit and does she die in the day thereof? Well, again, a complicated question, but on face value, no, she doesn't die. She gives them to Adam, he doesn't die. And what does happen? Well, God says to them, or God says, now they

have become like us, knowing good and evil. They must be banished from the garden so they do not outreach, outstretch their hand and and and eat from the Tree of Life. So it seems to me that you've got this serpent who could plausibly be described as the most

sensible of the animals, telling Eve there's an immense, the people, the people who regard Milton's Satan as what an admirable revolutionary tend to have the same attitude towards the serpent in the garden. And it's a complicated, it's a very complicated issue because even to

the degree that the serpent is an agent of Lucifer, which I think is an extraordinarily profound, what, reading and overlay on that initial story, I think it's remarkable. Lucifer is the bringer of light. It might be easy to just toss all

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Download the Hall app today at hall.com Jordan for an exclusive 3-month trial. That's hall.com Jordan, right? Yeah. Jesus himself is referred to as Lucifer at one point in the in the gospel, which is which is quite a fascinating... Well, I guess the question is like,

illumination to what end? I I do think that the interpretation that you rejected um with regard to the consumption of the fruit of the knowledge of the tree of Good and Evil is moral presumption. It's the sin that n suggests to everyone as the medication

for the death of God. We have to define our own values. It's like, no, we can't. It's knowledge of Good and Evil, you know? Yeah, but it but it's it's more than that. It's it's the it's the consumption

of the essence of moral knowledge itself. It sounds to me that like I I can never, you know, contradict an ex Jesus there, like that that might may be the case. But if I if I read this text naturally, if I just say, well, like how does this

naturally read to me? Yeah, it reads to me like you have. And when I that's why I brought it up because you consider this Gnostic tradition, right? The evil demiurgic creator of the universe, and like you have and and and the author of

The testimony of truth says you know what God is this what God is this that that that firstly you know condemns man for wanting to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and secondly lies to him about what's going to happen when he does and and recognizes and and

we're missing like 50% of the text like it's it's ripped to shreds these Gnostic texts it's fascinating I think the the Gospel of Judas spent about 30 years in a safety deposit box in New York City and destroyed the whole

thing it's fascinating story but so we don't know for sure but there's a point where it seems to identify this this serpent with with with with Christ with Jesus and reading that I'm like that that makes makes a lot of sense to me on

on a surface reading the ambivalence about the human rise to self-consciousness right is that a good or is that something good or something evil because why does God then say now they've become like us knowing good and evil they must not be allowed we must

banish them lest they reach out their hand and and and eat from the Tree of Life [Music]

Are You a Gnostic Heretic? | Alex O'Connor

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Are You a Gnostic Heretic? | Alex O'Connor

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