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14 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Cats and rabbits and AN APE? COME ON!, March 19, 2004
By A Customer
A potential buyer should read this:"...there are numerous problems with the work. It quotes from all four of the gospels and from the letters of Paul; it contains references to rituals from the later church, and to the "trinity" (a word that never occurs in the New Testament); it also contains references to such non-Biblical species as cats, rabbits, and an ape. And in fact, the real origin of the work is not hidden very far. In an early twentieth century edition published in London, an "Explanatory Preface" precedes the text. Ouseley's name has been removed, and the Preface is signed "The Editors of the Gospel of the Holy Twelve" (though evidently a similar explanation appeared in earlier English-language versions of the book, with Ouseley's name at the bottom). Here is part of what this Preface says: Their "Gospel of the Holy Twelve" was communicated to the Editors, in numerous fragments at different times, by Emmanuel Swedenborg, Anna Kingsford, Edward Maitland, and a priest of the former century, giving his name as Placidus, of the Franciscan Order, afterwards a Carmelite. By them it was translated from the original, and given to the Editors in the flesh, to be supplemented in their proper places, where indicated, from the "Four Gospels" (A. V.) revised where necessary by the same. To this explanation, the Editors cannot add, nor from it take away. By the Divine Spirit was the Gospel communicated to the four above mentioned, and by them translated, and given to the writers; not in seance rooms (where too often resort the idle, the frivolous and the curious, attracting spirits similar to themselves, rather than the good), but "in dreams and visions of the night," and by direct guidance, has God instructed them by chosen instruments; and now they give it to the world, that some may be wiser unto Salvation, while those who reject it, remain in their blindness, till they will to see. From this passage, it is clear that no manuscript in Aramaic has ever been seen, or is claimed to have been seen, by Rev. Ouseley. Rather, it is Swedenborg, Maitland, Kingsford, and Placidus (all having died, some very recently, by the time Ouseley received this work) who received the gospel, and who simultaneously translated it into English, and then communicated this to Ouseley and his associates in some miraculous manner. So whenever and however Ouseley received it, it was already in English. Presumably, although this information is not spelled out, the fact that the manuscript is in Tibet in some monastery was also communicated to them by Swedenborg, Maitland, Kingsford, and Placidus. No one has every discovered any such manuscript, in Aramaic or any other language, in any Tibetan monastery.
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