Date: Monday, April 27, 2020
Presenter: Dr. Hal Taussig

On April 27 we investigated one of the most hidden and fascinating female divine characters of Christ texts in the second century.  This figure is Norea, who is found in a number of first through third century texts, but perhaps best known in two works of the famous Nag Hammadi jar of 52 early Christ texts found in the Egyptian desert in 1945.  We focused on this divine figure in the Nag Hammadi documents “The Thought of Norea” and “The Reality of the Rulers” (sometimes titled “The Hypostasis of the Archons”).

Norea is a powerful female character in both texts, which complement what we know about her but do not give a completely matching picture.  Both show Norea as a part of the many different dimensions of divinity in the first through third centuries.  But in “The Thought of Norea” she is a dynamic dimension of the Fullness of God, whereas in “The Reality of the Rulers” she is Eve’s first daughter, who successfully defends her mother against the evil rulers of the world.   Our study will depended substantially on the scholarship of Professor Celene Lillie and Professor Birger Pearson.

Text Availabilities:

The Reality of the Rulers

Hypostasis of the Archons

The Thought of Norea

The Thought of Norea

These online translations, especially of “The Thought of Norea,” have not translated a number of Greco-Coptic words, leaving them incomplete in English. Below is a translation of “The Thought of Norea,” where Hal Taussig has used the standard translation (online) by Søren Giversen and Birger A. Pearson and added his own translations of the Greco-Coptic terms:

Father of All, Light’s thinking, dwelling in the heights above the (regions) below, Light dwelling in the heights, Voice of Truth, upright Mind, untouchable Word, and ineffable Voice, incomprehensible Father!

It is Norea who cries out to them. They heard, (and) they received her into her place forever. They gave it to her in Mind’s Father, the Superhuman (Greco-Coptic: Adamas), as well as the voice of the Holy Ones, in order that she might rest in the ineffable Power of thought, in order that might inherit the first mind which had received, and that might rest in that which divinely self-generates, and that she (too) might generate herself, just as she also has inherited the living Word, and that she might be joined to all of the Imperishable Ones, and speak with the mind of the Father.

And she began to speak with the words of Life, and remained in the presence of the Exalted One, possessing that which she had received before the world came into being. She has the great mind of the Invisible One, and she gives glory to Father, and she dwells within those who […] within Fullness, and she beholds the Fullness.

There will be days when she will behold the Fullness, and she will not be in deficiency, for she has the four holy helpers who intercede on her behalf with the Father of the All, the Superhuman (Greco-Coptic: Adamas). He it is who is within all of the Adams, possessing the thought of Norea, who speaks concerning the two names which create a single name.

Norea: Key Dimension of God’s Fullness and/or Eve’s First Daughter Discussion Transcript

Shirley Paulson:

Welcome everyone to the April, 2020 Tanho Monday Textual Study. I’m your host, Shirley Paulson of Early Christian Texts, and our presenter this evening, again, is Dr. Hal Taussig. In the study tonight, we’ll be talking about Norea, Key Dimensions of God’s Fullness and/or Eve’s First Daughter. Our focus on this divine figure comes from two Nag Hammadi texts: The Thought of Norea and the Reality of the Rulers. Norea is a powerful figure in both texts, which compliment what we know about her, but they do not give a completely matching picture. So we’ll learn more about why. And so I suggest you stay tuned. Just a gentle reminder that donations supporting the creation of these textual study archives are greatly appreciated. Five to ten dollars per session would be enough to keep us going. You can find the donation link, the text we’re studying tonight, more information about past and future study sessions, as well as other archived recordings on the Early Christian Texts website by clicking the button on the homepage that says, [The Bible and Beyond Discussions]. So, Hal, it’s all yours. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve got to say.

Hal Taussig:

Thanks so much, Shirley, and thank you all for joining us on this regular fourth Monday of the month. And today we get to talk about Norea. Norea is well known as a figure in the early Christ movements of the second and third centuries for quite some time but not really been studied much. Perhaps one of the ways that Norea has gotten some more attention in the last 50 years, is because she is in two different texts from the Nag Hammadi library. It turns out that she is more complicated and more present than in these two texts. But we will mostly be talking tonight about these two texts in Nag Hammadi. So these two texts are the Reality of the Rulers, and the Thought of Norea. Both are relatively short texts, The Reality of the Rulers or sometimes taken by another name of, the Hypostasis of the Archons.

We have a number of things to talk about just in terms of who, what, where, and when. My basic proposal is that we don’t know much about who, what, where and when on either of these texts, but they seem really powerful and interesting enough for us to take time anyway. That is, we really don’t know who wrote the Thought of Norea, or the Reality of the Rulers. They are like many of the other texts that have been recently discovered in the early Christ movements. We simply don’t know. And I’m quick to say that most of us who hang around the study of these ancient texts also are fairly sure that most of the books in the New Testament, we don’t know who wrote them, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, for instance.

Most scholars are fairly sure that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But the case is worse for Norea. No one thinks that Norea wrote, Norea because Norea is the figure in the Thought of Norea. The Reality of the Rulers is a bit of a larger text in which Norea plays a very large part as well. So let me say just a little bit more about Norea as a figure. And then I’m going to stop and we’ll get into some conversation, especially about some of the vagaries and complexities of thinking about Norea. Norea is a female figure and in both of the texts we’re looking at and probably others, she is divine. Now divine is a tricky topic in the ancient Mediterranean world, in that one would say she is a goddess, or she has divine power, or she has divine reality, or she has divine presence. In all of the cases where Norea occurs, it’s clear, however, that she is not the only divine.

So this is a plethora of divine figures that are at stake. So we will quickly note in both texts that she is a character or a persona that stands alongside both humans and other divine figures. In one of the texts, we will see, for instance, she has a brother and in that same text, she has a mother and father. And the mother and father of Norea, at least in the Thought of Norea, and to a certain extent in, the Reality of the Rulers, the father and mother of Norea are Eve and Adam. So that goes back pretty far, right? It, however, is almost impossible to talk about Norea without seeing her as very powerful and indeed in that case, divine of some sort or other.

Let me just say, I will take a little bit more time with both of these texts, but I want to say a couple more things. First of all, you need to know that although I’ve been working with Norea for almost 10 years. I’m very, very dependent on another scholar who knows much more about Norea than I do. And that is professor Celine Lillie is really to my thinking, the major scholar of Norea. She has done in her recent book, (I’ll Flash it across the screen) Celine Lillie’s recent book, the Rape of Eve, has a substantial treatment of Norea. To my mind it’s probably the clearest thing that’s been written about Norea. By the way, professor Lillie, “l i l l i e”, is a professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. And this larger book called, the Rape of Eve, which I think Shirley, you have had her on your site.

Shirley Paulson:

Yes, I was just going say real briefly, Hal, that we just did a podcast with her about two months ago on the Rape of Eve, so you can listen to a half hour conversation with Celine on that subject of the Rape of Eve.

Hal Taussig:

Yes, actually

Shirley Paulson:

Really good.

Hal Taussig:

Yes. Well, and I want to say it’s really one of the books I recommend most – not because of the striking title, although that really does say a lot. But this is a whole set of early Christ documents that she has brought together to rethink the character of Eve. And the reason we get to Norea, in this case is, because the Thought of Norea, the primary text that we begin with tonight, that Norea is, as I said before, the daughter of Eve. In the canonical text you only have two children, Abel and Cain, in that family. But, you have two more Seth and Norea in the longer history of Adam and Eve, or I would say the longer mythology and history, just the text around Adam and Eve.

I’m going to stop here for a moment to see if there are some very basic things that you would like to ask or think about right away. We do this always on Mondays as a way in which we get to talk with each other. So it’s not appropriate for me to go more than 10 minutes without seeing what’s up with you all in terms of this character. I know some of you are probably hearing about Norea for the first time, but let’s see if there’s some key questions that I’ve forgotten to think about early on, or if you have some other kinds of statements to make.

Mary:

Hal thank you for these fascinating insights on Norea. I’m wondering if you see parallels between her and Hochma Wisdom in Proverbs.

Hal Taussig:

Hmm. Thanks, Mary. Yes, so you, did I pay you to ask that question?

Mary:

I promise I was not paid.

Hal Taussig:

Yes. So I have actually co-written two books on the figure of Sophia. So the answer is yes, I can go on about Sophia and Norea as well, and Hochma. So, just to say very briefly, ‘Hochma’ and ‘Sophia’ are simply the Hebrew and Greek words for the character of Wisdom who occurs quite regularly in the Bible, both the first testament and the secondt testament. So Mary, thinking about what the relationship is between, let’s say Sophia Hochma and Norea, actually is addressed in the text that Celine Lillie has looked at of the Reality of the Rulers. So there is some relationship to there, but it’s not a direct family relationship. I would say, if I can get close to a decent answer and be a little bit funny at the same time, I think Norea would be a first or second cousin of Sophia.

In other words, they are clearly in the same family of divinities for Ancient Israel and larger early Christ people, but they don’t have – unlike Sophia – they don’t have a direct, close family relationship. That being said, I think there’s one other thing to add to this. So really, we’re just letting our guards down in the last 40 years on the fact that there are a whole set of divine figures in ancient Israel, and in ancient, early Christ movements. In the middle of this 20th century, basically, not until the middle of the 20th century, did someone even dare talk about a divine figure that was not just the regular old guy in Israel and early Christ movements. But now I think it’s very appropriate, Mary, that you asked a question about Sophia Hochma. And please stay with us on that, because we may have — I’m pretty sure — that we’re going be learning, some brand new stuff, me included, this evening.

Thank you very much. Sure. Other thoughts or, or questions about Norea?

Speaker 4:

I just want to know, why do we spend any time studying about Norea? How does Norea have any influence on my own life?

Hal Taussig:

Oh, thank you. It feels like you almost paid me in asking that question. It’s very helpful. Well, I think the main reason that I hear a lot of people talking about Norea today, as well as Sophia, Hochma, and Wisdom, is that these are divine figures in the larger biblical communities. And they’re not bad divinities. They’re all-powerful and good divinities. In other words, one of the reasons, and this is probably not quite so much what I would be saying, but I would come close to this. The people that ask me to tell them more about Norea are searching for a kind of divine presence that’s not just male. And so this is one of the ways in which people in our day are finding divine figures of goodness and power in the literature of the ancient Christ people and the ancient Israel people. Did that get anywhere in terms of your question?

Speaker 4:

Well, I know that a lot of the ancient writings do bring out women prophets, you know, women disciples, all of that. So I think that’s very helpful. But I still don’t get how is learning more about Norea going to help me today to have more access to God, and to healing and to helping this world through what we’re going through right now. I, you know, I’m not real sure why we’re doing this.

Hal Taussig:

Yeah, thanks. Let me look at that in terms of your question. So, these are in larger conversations that I’m having with people who feel like they are, indeed, losing a way of connecting with God. What I hear from a number of people about Norea, particularly, but also as Mary talked about Sophia and Wisdom. For many people today, there’s a certain brittleness and a problematic character to a God that is only male. And so, I would say that the primary thing that people might look for closely, as we begin a conversation about Norea, would be, ‘What would it be like to have a divine female presence that belongs to the larger biblical set of stories and characters?’  But that would be another, more applied way of saying, “What does it matter to her?” In other words, “What does she matter to us?” And then a kind of a one sentence would be, “If we could find a powerful, loving, female, divine presence, it looks like it would help a lot of us.”

The thing is, of course, that we don’t, in the way we have been taught biblical texts – We hardly ever get that.

Shirley Paulson:

You know, I might just throw in here, Hal, but I think maybe one of the problems is that, if we’re talking about a female figure, are we talking about multiple gods or is there a way of conceiving still the monotheistic concept? If you have a female that’s mixed in there somehow, how do we deal with a monotheism that…

Hal Taussig:

Oh, yes, yes. So you just asked the biggest question that came from the opponents of early Christianity, I mean the opponents of early Christianity mostly coming from the Greco-Roman world. But to a certain extent, perhaps from Israel, they ask this question, “Listen, there’s God the Creator, and now you’re saying that there’s Jesus who is God too, and maybe you’re saying there’s also the Holy Spirit who’s also God.” And so this is what the critics of early Christ people said, “You’ve got too many gods.” And the way of course, that Christianity eventually brought some coherence to that was in the notion of the Trinity. But what I want to say is that the very early people who followed Christ were confusing to most other people because they thought they were polytheists. Because Jesus was God, and then the Father was God, and then the Holy Spirit. So that’s the next step there, Shirley, in thinking about this.

But when you look more carefully at both inside and outside the Bible with the Christ people, you’ll see that there are all kinds of other divine figures that… Let’s take the figure of Sophia or Wisdom. In the book of Proverbs, she is a figure who comes down from God. She is divine, and she comes to give messages to humans. This is all in the book of Proverbs in the Bible. And there, it sounds like, for most of Proverbs, it sounds like she is, herself, a divine figure, period. She’s certainly the one that the book of Proverbs talks about most. But, there’s also just at the very beginning, and at the very end of the book of Proverbs, it says the ‘Creator God’ and ‘Wisdom God’ are sort of the same thing.

So that’s a part of a bigger set of questions, Shirley, that is very alive in the first and second century after Jesus has come into being. So, for instance, Jesus will talk also about the Son of Man as if the Son of Man is a divine figure. Now, you could ask Jesus when he’s talking about the Son of Man in let’s say, ‘Mark’ chapter eight. You would ask Jesus, “Wait a minute, Son of Man, is that the God? Or is that just a part of God?” And Jesus would probably go on to other questions. In other words, Jesus also talks about Wisdom and talks about the Son of Man as separate presences. And sometimes it seems like Jesus means that as one. And sometimes it seems like it’s a little slippery as to how many it is.

So, Shirley, then I would have to say I think there, at least when we a look at the early Christ texts from the Bible and beyond, there’s not a completely clear answer how much both Israel of the first century and the Christ people of the first century… how many they think there are not more than one presence of God. And then of course, in Christianity, a lot of folks would say, well, I’m really more interested in the Holy Spirit than I am in the creator, God, and back and forth. Let’s see if we have any other. We’re getting off really well to some of the deepest parts of this text. We’ll want to get into the text itself in a little bit. But let’s see if there’s any another thought or question.

Mark Mattison:

Yes, please. I have a question.

Hal Taussig:

Good.

Mark Mattison:

In the text itself, talking about the Norea and her relationship to Sophia, in the text itself, it says, “Days will come when She will attend fullness and no longer be in deficiency.” And that sounds a lot like Sophia character. And then in the Nag Hammadi scriptures, John Turner comments in the introduction that, ‘”Norea is a symbolic equivalent of Sophia who seeks restoration to the divine realm by correcting the deficiency that originated through her attempt to extend the Supreme deities created power beyond the divine realm.” that goes on to talk about her as the upper Sophia and the lower Sophia. So it sounds that John Turner is associating Norea directly with Sophia, and you said that they’re not directly identical, but rather related. So would you say that John Turner is kind of overreaching here? Or what would you say?

Hal Taussig:

Yes, thanks. Well John studied even longer than I did these texts. So John really needs to be paid attention to. And I have never heard John say that, but you clearly have. And I’m sure that John wrote so much that I have missed some of it. But I would want to say that. John and I are in the same room on that . But it depends on when you’re talking would be one way of saying it, because, certainly, Wisdom Sophia has a certain different space or a certain different character in, let’s say, the fourth century b c e, than she does in the second century ce. But I think I would not want us to make light of in some places, Norea and Sophia have a pretty identified self. Whether John would think of it as a familial relationship or not. I, myself, can’t quite tell.

Shirley Paulson:

Mark, let me just mention that it’s hard to hear you from a distance. I don’t know if everybody really heard your question. Maybe Hal, if you could summarize really quickly what Mark was saying so we can kind of follow what you were saying.

Hal Taussig: 

Yes, talking about the character of Wisdom, Sophia, who is a divine figure in the first Testament and the Second Testament and whether she is the same as, or directly related to this figure of Norea, that we’re talking about. Thank you. As I said before, I called them second cousins. And here there was a suggestion that John Turner might call them first cousins or sisters. I think he didn’t say that, John. It was a little closer.

Yes. I was just gonna say for those who don’t know that John Turner is a well-known scholar in this area.

Does anybody know whether John is still living?

Mark Mattison:

No, he’s not. He passed away last year.

Hal Taussig:

I thought so. I thought so. I had heard tell.

We’ve got the Thought of Norea which is probably the most we have about her in one place. That is in the text that we have on Shirley’s website. 40% of you have read the Thought of Norea.

I think you’re about right.

Okay. Okay. Oh, thank you. That’s good. So, I’m going to go back. So that means that I’m going to read the entire four paragraphs of the Thought of Norea. I want you to know about this before I read it, and I’ll read it slowly and as well as I can. So this is a text that was translated from Coptic, and I do some Coptic translation, but this is done by Birger Pearson and Søren Giversen,  both from Sweden, I believe.

Søren and Birger had a kind of translation style that was in their generation, when we were first giving, this is one of the oldest texts of, the Thought of Norea that we have. And they, when they came across a Coptic word that they thought didn’t have an equivalent word in English, they left it in Coptic. And I found that very troubling. I would rather get the Coptic a little bit right, or a little bit wrong, rather than just leave you with a foreign word that you don’t know anything about. So this is my Giverson and Pearson’s text, except I have not left any Coptic words in it. I’ve tried to translate them all. And I’m pretty sure at least Birger would have a good argument against me doing this.

So here we go. This first paragraph is not a sentence. It’s is kind of an acclimation. “Father of all lights thinking, dwelling in the heights above, the regions below, light dwelling in the heights, voice of truth, upright mind, untouchable words, and ineffable voice, incomprehensible Father.” You notice, I don’t think there are any verbs in that. Okay. That’s sort of like, “Hey, this is what I was starting.” Then, “It is Norea who cries out to them. They heard, and they received her into her place forever. They gave it to her in Mind’s Father and the superhuman, as well as the voice of the holy one, in order that she might rest in the ineffable power of thought in order that that might inherit the first Mind, which had received, and that might rest in that which divinely self generates.”

“And she, too, might generate herself just as she also has inherited the living word. And she might also be joined to all of the imperishable One and speak with the Mind of the Father. And she began to speak with the words of life and remained in the presence of the exalted One. Possessing from which she had received before the world came into being. She was the great mind of the invisible One. And she gives glory to Father, and she dwelled within those who within fullness, and she be beholds the fullness. There will be days when she will behold the fullness, and she will not be in deficiency for she has the four holy helpers who intercede on her behalf with the father of all, and the, the superhuman he is who is within all of the atoms, and possessing the thought of Norea who speaks concerning the two names, which create a single name.”

Alright. All right. Well, that’s a pretty big mouthful. Well, let me say just a few more words, but I would assume that you have some things to jump in on in confusion or admiration, in a minute. Just to say again, over the top. It’s impossible it seems to me, to think of Norea as anything as humankind. She is laced with all kinds of divinity. So, for instance, she is a part of the mind’s father. She’s a part of the superhuman, she’s the voice of the holy ones. She’s an ineffable power. She’s joined to the Imperishable ones and she speaks with the mind of the Father. And she has the great mind of the invisible one, and she gives glory to the father, and she dwells within the fullness. So anyway, it would seem to me that it’s fairly clear that this person is hot stuff, that she is a deeply full reality of divinity.

But the thing that it seems to me is very confusing is how these words fall over the top of each other. They’re centered in who she is, and it seems like the text is sort of interested in mapping her as to how she relates to the superhuman, how she relates to the mind’s father, how she relates to imperishable ones, how she is the word of light. And above all, I think for me, the key word that seems to be closest to her is the word, ‘fullness’. There. I want to just say a little bit about the fullness of God because there is a, book in the new testament that talks about the fullness of God as if it is a person. And that’s the book, the Letter to the Ephesians. There, the fullness of God is not just God being full, it’s a kind of dimension of God. And at the same time, the fullness of God is defined by guess who, Jesus. So for instance, in the book of Ephesians the fullness of God is very much like Jesus. And I would want to say, “no”. Alright, so that gets us into this text a little bit more. Let’s stop and see what you all think.

Shirley Paulson:

Well, I think you need to tell us a little bit about the superhuman, how…

Hal Taussig:

(laughing) … who said it. Okay. The superhuman and this is where, for instance, Birger Pearson, did he, he punted on that because it’s a Greco Coptic word. And the Greco Coptic word is “adamas”. And it is related of course, to the word Adon or Adam, but it’s different. So for instance, as you saw later in this text, this text does use the words Adam, but it’s in the plurals, the Adams. But adamas is a super Adam. So I don’t have anything more to say than superhuman is Adamas or super Adam. Other thoughts or questions?

Mark Mattison:

How would you say with the “mas” ending, how about “Christmas”? or “Christ-mas”?

Hal Taussig:

Christmas? Yes. No, actually I think not because Adam and adamas is …som Adamas is Greco-Coptic. But Adam here is, of course, that is a Hebrew word, “Adam”, and that means “the Earthen one.” So no I guess it doesn’t. I wish it had something to do with Christmas, but I don’t think so.

Speaker 6:

Who are the two names which create a single name that are mentioned in the last line?

Hal Taussig:

I don’t know. See, this is one of the many times in which when we’re doing texts that are fairly new to us, I do not know that. And it, I’ve read it probably 50 times, but I think it’s best for me to say, I don’t think it’s clear. Similarly, in other words, the way this text falls all over itself with what I would call beauty and power and all in the honor of Norea. So for instance, it could be since it’s in the same sentence, it could be two Adams, but I don’t think so. So for instance, in that same sentence, “He, it is who is within all of the Adams.” But that doesn’t sound like two of them. It sounds like more than two Adams. “And who speaks concerning the two names which create a single name.” We just don’t have enough text. You know, if we had three more pages of this text we might know more.

Sue Humble:

Hal, I have a question. I’m not sure I can phrase it as clearly, but in the description that you read of her, I’ve not heard any of that before. So as I was listening to it, a question that kept coming to mind is,”Is she the image of something or is she really a being?”

Hal Taussig:

Well, can I ask that back to you? How does she sound?

Sue Humble:

(laughing) No, fair! Well, have you only heard it that one time?

Hal Taussig: 

Okay. Sorry.

No. I’m just not sure. And I’m not sure of that word, “image”, I’m even thinking about going back to Genesis and being made in the image and likeness of God. So I’m not sure if I’m thinking of her as an image of a deity, or something else, or whether she’s her own being.

Hal Taussig:

Yes.

Sue Humble:

Her own…

Hal Taussig:

Yes. So that’s such a great question. I think I kind of have an idea, although I’m glad I said I didn’t know. But it feels to me as if this is a person, I also sometimes say persona, that is, there is personness there, but it seems like this personness sometimes fades into another personness. So she gives glory to the father and she dwells within those who are blank within fullness. And she beholds the fullness with all of those “shes”, the fact that she seems to kind of – she speaks, so that seems like a person, but it feels to me also like she merges with other divine realities. So for instance, the father, I think we would say the father is a person in this text.

I like your question as an answer. It looks to me like she’s sometimes a person and sometimes she is just a fullness. And sometimes she is just that part of the father that is giving glory. So let me suggest again, if we can get outside of some of our old boxes, I would want to say this is very much like the way the new testament talks about Jesus. In other words, sometimes,  when you hear the word, “Christ” or “Jesus” in the text, it seems like it’s a spirit. So, for instance, when the gospel of John has Jesus talking. He literally says, “I’m kind of in the Father”. And then, on the next page, it sounds like he’s talking to his friend, Mary. So, in other words, I think this is very much the same kind of language that the Christ people used when they thought, “Man, Jesus is so amazing. I can hardly figure out how to talk about it.”

Sue Humble:

Great answer. Thank you.

Hal Taussig:

I want to jump to one other thing, and I’m sorry we’re going… I wish we had like three hours to talk about Norea. Some of you may not. But, I want to talk about Celine Lillie’s book and the story there in the other text that we are talking about the Reality of the Rulers. And there it’s much more of a story. And again, please read or please listen to professor Lillie’s,  piece on Shirley’s,  website because it’s amazing. So I have to say very quickly then, the Reality of the Rulers has a story. And the story, at least a part of it, that’s more about Norea is this, that Eve was a kind of divine figure along with Adam that got beat up by the rulers of the universe who were the bad rulers of the universe. And those rulers actually raped Eve. And those bad rulers of the universe, raped Eve, but she sort of got away from them in the act of rape, in that she turned into a tree while they were raping her body.

You didn’t know that there was all this kind of stuff going on in the early Christ movement, did you? But anyway, from that rape, Eve bore Cain and Abel. And then she renewed herself, came out of the tree – and it’s a tree of good and evil. She comes out of the tree of good and evil, and she recovers from the terrible rulers. And she joins Adam, who she had been married to anyway, but she and Adam then, have two other children who are the children of their love. Whereas the Cain and Abel are the children of her rape, Seth and Norea are the children of Adam and Eve’s love. Then, Eve becomes the mother of all humanity in a loving way.

Eve then goes to the side and the bad rulers attack Norea. And they say, we’re goning to rape you, just like we raped your mother. And Norea says, ‘No, you are not. And my mom came out of you, out of the terrible thing that happened, to her. And she became the mother of all humankind. And then an angel from heaven comes and stands with Norea, and together they beat all of the bad rulers. So that’s Norea in a story. Notice here also, that Norea, in the story is a good person, a powerful person, even though she’s the daughter of Eve. Eve also was a divine figure. And so Norea has divinity in her as well. So that’s the quick part of how she is in the Reality of the Rulers.

And if we had 40 more minutes, it’d be really good, Shirley. But, let’s see what you need to protest about, or think about, or ask questions about, this part of Norea. That’s a big mouthful. So I’m going to give you another long silence to think in just a minute. Let me say that these two texts together are not exactly the same, but they, it feels to me like, their character is the same. That this is a divine power that makes life for humans better, makes God more full and more available. What we’re quite clear on, of course, is that you couldn’t have this character being spoken of this way unless there are a whole bunch of other texts that we don’t have. So, other things to protest, or think about, or ask.

Marie:

Hi, there, this is Marie. Hi. And what you just said about not having the other texts reminded me of the Gospel of Thomas.

Hal Taussig:

Yes.

Marie:

In that gospel, we see a very different character than what we’re given in the canonical gospels. So there’s no doubt, I mean, you’ve thrown us a huge paradigm shift

Hal Taussig:

Yes.

Marie:

So I’m sure that’s what the silence is about, that we’re having to digest.

Hal Taussig:

Yes. Thank you so much, because of course, we do this every fourth Monday with a different text each time. And so, for instance, next time we’re going to look at the book of Hebrews, which is in the New Testament, but it turns out, if anybody’s read Hebrews, it’s at least as confusing as this — and I think at least as beautiful and innovative as this. But nobody pays attention to Hebrews. So what we’re trying to do is get a sense of what I would call the bigger family of texts from the first two centuries.

Marie:

Will you give us a teaser on Hebrews, as to who may have authored that?

Hal Taussig:

Yes. Well, no, in my usual case I’ve only got six ancient languages and 45 years of study on me, but I have no clue who. I do know that since I was for at least 30 years, taught that it was Paul. I think almost everybody who stays with Hebrews is fairly sure that that’s from a very different place than Paul. Okay. Again, those of you who’ve been with us on the fourth Mondays know that we like protests and hard questions. So we’ve got at least three more minutes.

Alexis:

Hi, this is, well this is actually Alexis with Carol. I was just wondering what you mentioned, is it ‘Adamas’ or ‘Adamas’? Which way is it pronounced?

Hal Taussig:

Oh you know I know Coptic and Greco Coptic, but I don’t know because it’s so old, but I say, ‘Adamas’.

Alexis:

Well, where else is that used?

Hal Taussig:

That is, I would say, in about 20 other texts. None in the New Testament. I think what the translation that I used the second time through, tonight, I think it means super Adam. That is, it means the male father of humanity, really big. What you can see in this text is that it’s very imaginative and creative with its language. It doesn’t think that there’s only one way to talk about God. In fact, it seems like to me, here, it’s clearly it’s saying isn’t Norea so great, but it’s as if, “Let me count the ways that Norea is great”.

Shirley Paulson:

Yes. Well, I want to just say that there’s another question that came in related to this and we’re running out of time. But, do you think we could pursue these questions on the Facebook and let you answer more questions on the Facebook conversation page?

Hal Taussig:

Sure.

Shirley Paulson:

The question that still is not answered is that Helen is asking is, “If you could talk about the relationship between Adamas and Paul’s new Adam.” So maybe you can talk about that.

Hal Taussig:

Yes, I mean I can give like, 35 seconds on that. So Adam, in the early Christ communities, Adam is a big character. And so the fact that the way Paul talks about him and that this text … there are a whole bunch of ways in which Adam is the beginner. Adam is the way we all began. And therefore, that it in and of itself, in some texts, shows the flaws of the beginning of humanity, but also in others it shows the divine character of it in which it’s bigger than just a human.

📸 Look at this post on Facebook https://earlychristiantexts.com/norea-eves-first-daughter/?fbclid=IwAR2BaOftnVO7Dthzo62KhZxVLPvFX_MXtXLdsuEpGnQuskCq25gxvgFgI3c_aem_ARo-deaL9YWLgHQ_ngLPRWWkSpvRO9-5bUXjz2FsJgPRlFvKHJrX3gZvv6E_O59F18w#transcript