Who are the Gnostics and where did they come from? Often they are thought of as a Christian heresy but it may be more complicated then that.
Carl Smith looks at these questions in his book No Longer Jews: The Search for Gnostic Origins. The title gives it away that he sees a Jewish connection.
First, Smith gives a nice survey of the theories that are out there, sharing the pros and cons. He then comes down on the side of a Jewish origin in Egypt.
This may sound surprising to those with just a bit of knowledge of Gnosticism. The Gnostics believed that the Old Testament God was at best an ignorant fool and at worst an evil deity. How could that come from Jews?
Smith argues that Gnosticism, which we have no traces of from the first century, emerged out of the disappointment of the Jewish war during the time of Trajan.
Of course these Jewish Gnostics eventually latched onto Christian concepts and the system began to evolve into the complex system that we know it to be.
You may not agree with Smith’s conclusions, but he at least introduces the reader to the conversations that are taking place.
