Thomas In India? History Of Christianism In India

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This is good for information on Gnostic Christianity:
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/triumph_...cholarship.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Gnostic Christians, who developed in the first century, who were the first Christians in Egypt and elsewhere, did think Jesus brought salvation — but not by dying on the cross. [Christian] Gnosticism's Jesus saved by bringing sacred wisdom.

<b>Only the sect of Christianity founded by Paul developed the Christ myth of the dying resurrected savior.</b> Paul was a diaspora Jew, raised in Pagan Tarsus, who never met Jesus.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->( http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2b.htm )

From http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2b.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Gnostic Christians</b>
Christian Gnosticism was a later branch of Gnosticism. For instance, <b>Eugnostos the Blessed</b> was a non-Christian Gnostic treatise which was later used to create Gnostic Christian material.

<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> One of the most powerful and widespread kinds of early Christianity was [Christian] gnosticism.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The gnostic Christians ...used the Gospel of Thomas [which was] another mid-first-century collection of Jesus sayings. And again, no mention of Jesus death or resurrection.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->The Gospel of Thomas was one of the main Gospels of the Christian Gnostics.<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The gnostic Gospel of Thomas never mentions Jesus' saving death.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The gnostics believed Jesus saved not by his dying and resurrection. The gnostics believed Jesus saved by the sacred wisdom he taught.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->From: http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/scholars...ense_first.html,
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/triumph_...cholarship.html<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->[About Dr. Bauer's book <b>Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity</b>:]
For hundreds of years <b>everyone assumed that the earliest Christians were orthodox New Testament Roman Christians, and "heretical" Christianities — like Gnosticism and Marcionism — developed later</b>, branches off the original orthodox trunk.
Then in the 1930s ...Walter Bauer decided to actually look at the evidence. ...What he discovered was that pretty much everywhere he looked — Syria, Palestine, Egypt, etc. — <b>the "heresies" weren't branches off any trunk, they were the original local Christianities</b>. And they weren't small marginal sects, they were the <b>main local Christianities</b>.

The evidence shows that all around the Mediterranean, outside Rome, <b>the orthodox New Testament Roman Christianity was a secondary sect, a sect that became dominant only after the conversion of Constantine gave it the advantage of Roman swords.</b>
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/triumph_...cholarship.html
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Nestorianism was an offshoot of 'New Testament Roman Christianity'. It was a 5th century christian branch, whereas the sects of Gnostic christianity developed much earlier on, from <b>prechristian Gnosticism</b>.