For Immediate Release                                                                         

Sara Sgarlat, Publicity Director
434-296-2772, ext. 49
ssgarlat@hrpub.com  

“Whoever discovers the meaning of these
sayings will not experience death.”
--from the Gospel of Thomas in

     The discovery of the lost gospels and scriptures of Nag Hammadi in 1945 brought serious defeat to the longest censorship campaign in human history. It could no longer be denied that the original teachings of Christianity had been betrayed and corrupted, even if there is no agreement among sects as to what Jesus actually taught. Author/ scholars such as Elaine Pagels and Marvin Meyer have captured the imagination of readers by asking what were the true teachings of Original Christianity?

     The first Saying in the formerly lost Gospel of Thomas suggests that the whole book has but a single theme to explore: it seems to be a primer on how to avoid death. Taking in to account Jesus’ New Testament words: “ whoever lives and believes in me will never die,” we see that in the Gospels of both Thomas and John, Jesus makes the stunning and seemingly impossible promise: that it is possible for a person to never die. And in Original Christianity: A New Key to Understanding the Gospel of Thomas and other Lost Scriptures (ISBN 1-57174-445-2), author Peter Novak gives startling evidence that the original teachings of Jesus allowed for both reincarnation and an eternal afterlife!

     Novak suggests that Jesus and the authors of the Gnostic Gospels believed in a Binary Soul Doctrine (BSD), which includes the understanding that each living person possesses a body, a soul, and a spirit, and that soul and spirit are not identical. Novak tells us that the Binary Soul belief system was found in cultures as diverse as Egypt, China, India, Hawaii, Alaska, Australia, and even Mexico; and that some of them, such as Egypt and China, focused their religious efforts on trying to teach people to live  in such a way that their two souls would not split apart at death.

     In reviewing the early history of Christianity, Original Christianity details how the concept of reincarnation did not mesh with the Roman Empire’s political need for control over the population. Being able to damn a person’s soul to eternal punishment was ultimately more useful.

     Novak likens the soul and spirit of the Binary Soul Doctrine to our conscious and unconscious minds, and discusses how modern science’s discoveries about the nature of the conscious and unconscious explains a great deal about the afterlife traditions of the ancients, as well as the reports of today’s afterlife researchers.

     If the conscious and unconscious divide at death, however, one must ask if the relationship between these two in life has anything to do with that eventual outcome. This is the subject of Original Christianity, which offers fresh insights on the beliefs and politics of the early church founders, reveals the true identities of many mysterious biblical figures, includes a verse-by-verse analysis of the Gospel of Thomas, and presents convincing evidence that Thomas and Jesus were identical twins. Most importantly, the rediscovery of the lost theology of Original Christianity means Christ’s central message of personal integrity can again take center stage, and eternal afterlife is still available to those pursuing their faith outside the bounds of orthodox religion. 
 

October  2005  ●  Religion  •  ISBN 1-57174-445-2  •  Trade paper  •  $16.95