Why the Gnostics Rejected Yahweh

For years, I dismissed the Gnostics as eccentric heretics who claimed that the god who created this world was in fact the Demiurge—a false and flawed being. At first glance, the claim seemed so absurd that I never thought it deserved serious contemplation. But a nagging question remained: if their ideas were so obviously wrong, why did they gain such traction in the first and second centuries, becoming one of the most influential strands of early Christianity? Only when I began carefully piecing together their arguments did I start to see how and why they arrived at such radical conclusions.

In this article, I will attempt to reconstruct the Gnostic case: how they argued that the God preached by Jesus stood in stark contrast to Yahweh of the Old Testament. My purpose here is not to endorse their theology but to understand it on its own terms.

Henothism & The Old Testament

The Gnostics did not simply discard the Hebrew scriptures as false or irrelevant, as their opponents often claimed. Instead, they read those same texts through a radically different lens—one that compelled them to search for hidden truths buried within the very tradition they inherited. Where the emerging orthodox Church saw the Old Testament as the seamless revelation of the one true God, the Gnostics saw contradictions, shadows, and double meanings that pointed to a deeper reality. They believed the scriptures contained truth, but that truth had to be unlocked by discerning which voice belonged to the jealous Demiurge and which hinted at the higher God of light. In this way, the very passages used to justify Yahweh’s supremacy became, in the Gnostic reading, evidence of his limitations and flaws.

One of the most striking examples comes from the opening book of the Bible itself. A plain reading of Genesis and other early passages in the Hebrew scriptures suggests that Israel’s religion was not originally monotheistic in the strict modern sense but henotheistic—that is, it acknowledged the existence of many divine beings while reserving worship exclusively for Yahweh. The very language of “other gods” in scripture implies their reality, even if Israel was commanded to renounce them.

Genesis itself preserves traces of this worldview. In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” The plural language—us and our—suggests a heavenly audience, often interpreted as the divine council of spiritual beings surrounding Yahweh. Later, in Genesis 3:22, after Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge, Yahweh declares, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Again, the plural points to other divine beings with knowledge and power comparable to Yahweh.

In Genesis 6:1–4, we find the cryptic account of the “sons of God” (bene ha’elohim) taking human women as wives and producing the Nephilim—giants or mighty men of old. This passage assumes a category of divine or semi-divine beings distinct from Yahweh, who nevertheless interact with humanity in ways that blur the boundary between heaven and earth.

Even in the patriarchal narratives, there are hints of a broader divine landscape. When Jacob flees Laban, Rachel steals her father’s household gods (Genesis 31:19, 34), and the text never portrays these idols as imaginary but as rival spiritual powers. Jacob later demands his household to “put away the foreign gods that are among you” (Genesis 35:2), reinforcing the idea that these beings were real, but their worship was to be renounced in favor of exclusive devotion to Yahweh.

Taken together, these examples show that the Genesis narrative itself assumes a world populated by multiple spiritual beings—some subordinate to Yahweh, others in rivalry with him. Only much later theological reflection would flatten this into strict monotheism.

The Divine Council

Several passages explicitly describe a heavenly court where Yahweh presides among other divine beings:

• 1 Kings 22:19–23 – The prophet Micaiah describes a vision of Yahweh seated on his throne “with all the host of heaven standing beside him.” One spirit volunteers to deceive King Ahab, and Yahweh authorizes it.
• Psalm 82:1 – “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.”
• Daniel 7:9–14 – A vision of a heavenly courtroom where the “Ancient of Days” presides and “one like a son of man” approaches with authority.
• Isaiah 6:1–8 – The prophet beholds Yahweh on his throne, surrounded by seraphim, receiving a commission to prophesy.
• Job 1–2 – In the heavenly court, “the sons of God” present themselves before Yahweh, and Satan appears among them. A dialogue ensues where Satan challenges Job’s integrity, and Yahweh grants him permission to afflict Job—first by taking his possessions and children, and later by striking his health.

These scenes reflect a worldview where Yahweh is a king presiding over a pantheon of divine beings—messengers, rulers, or “sons of God”—who serve as his council and administrators.

The Sons of God in Scripture

Another important thread that reveals a henotheistic worldview is the recurring phrase “sons of God” (bene ha’elohim). These beings are not mere metaphors, but members of a heavenly council distinct from Yahweh himself, often described as divine rulers, watchers, or angelic governors.

• Job 38:7 – At the creation of the world, Yahweh reminds Job that “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Here, a host of divine beings is present at the beginning of creation, celebrating alongside Yahweh rather than being identified with him.
• Genesis 6:1–4 – In one of the most enigmatic passages of the Bible, the sons of God take human women as wives, producing the Nephilim, “the mighty men of old, men of renown.” The text presents them as distinct from both Yahweh and humanity—spiritual beings who cross into the earthly realm. Their actions provoke Yahweh’s displeasure, suggesting they wield power independent of him.
• Psalm 82:1, 6–7 – “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment… I said, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.’” This striking passage depicts Yahweh presiding over a council of other divine beings, who are called both “gods” (elohim) and “sons of the Most High.” Their mortality is a punishment, implying they are real beings subject to judgment, not imaginary idols.
• Psalm 89:5–7 – “The heavens will praise Your wonders, O Lord; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the sons of God is like the Lord? A God greatly feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him?” The psalmist does not deny the existence of these other divine beings, but instead exalts Yahweh’s superiority among them.

Jealousy and Exclusivity

According to this viewpoint, Yahweh’s repeated insistence that “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3) makes sense only if other divine beings were thought to exist. Henotheists argued that the phrase “no god beside me” does not necessarily deny their reality, but asserts Yahweh’s unrivaled supremacy—similar to saying “there is no city like Rome.” In this light, the command is not an expression of ontological monotheism but of rhetorical dominance: allegiance must belong to Yahweh alone. His title as a “jealous God” (Exodus 34:14) presupposes rival claimants to loyalty. This reading gains further support from Genesis and the Psalms, where the “sons of God” appear alongside Yahweh, and from Job, where Satan himself takes his place in the heavenly council.

Fallen Beings and Rebellion

Other passages hint that some of these spiritual beings rebelled. The Watchers in Daniel and Jewish tradition were exalted beings who defiled their stations. 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 both allude to angels who sinned and were cast down into chains of darkness. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, though addressed to the kings of Babylon and Tyre, were later understood as veiled references to a proud spiritual power—a heavenly being exalted and then humiliated for arrogance.

The Book of Enoch, a work widely read among Jews and early Christians, fills in many of these details. Its account of the Watchers elaborates on Genesis 6, describing how heavenly beings descended to earth, took human wives, and fathered the giants who spread violence across creation. These Watchers also taught humanity forbidden knowledge—weaponry, sorcery, astrology—corrupting the order God intended. As judgment, they were bound in chains beneath the earth, awaiting final condemnation.

What makes Enoch significant is not only its content but its status. Although excluded from the later Jewish and Christian canons, it was highly influential in the centuries surrounding Jesus. The Epistle of Jude (verses 14–15) explicitly quotes 1 Enoch, and early church fathers like Tertullian accepted it as inspired. Its popularity shows that the idea of multiple divine beings—some loyal, some rebellious—was not fringe speculation but part of the shared worldview of many who also revered the Hebrew scriptures.

This reinforces the point: the biblical world was not a flat, modern monotheism but a layered spiritual hierarchy where Yahweh ruled among other divine beings, some of whom rebelled. For the Gnostics, texts like Enoch only strengthened the suspicion that Yahweh himself might not be the supreme, transcendent God, but rather one powerful ruler within a crowded and contested spiritual cosmos.

Creation and Chaos

Even Genesis itself carries echoes of an earlier struggle behind the opening verses of the Bible. Genesis 1:2 describes the earth as tohu va-bohu—“formless and void”—with darkness over the face of the deep (tehom). Rather than presenting a serene beginning, the text opens with imagery of disorder, chaos, and watery depths that had to be subdued before life could flourish.

This has led some interpreters to propose what is called the Gap Theory: that Genesis 1 is not describing creation ex nihilo (out of nothing), but rather the aftermath of a cosmic catastrophe. According to this view, some prior rebellion or conflict left the earth in a ruined state, and Genesis 1–2 records God’s act of re-creation—a restoration or reboot. In this light, the language of separation, ordering, and division in Genesis 1 reads less like original creation and more like a re-establishing of boundaries in the wake of collapse.

The prophet Jeremiah uses the very same phrase, tohu va-bohu, in a strikingly similar context. In Jeremiah 4:23–26, describing God’s judgment on Judah, he writes: “I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light… I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.” Here, creation is not beginning but unraveling—ordered life collapsing back into chaos under divine wrath. The parallel with Genesis suggests that tohu va-bohu was understood by the biblical writers not as a neutral description of “nothingness,” but as a return to a ruined, cursed state.

This imagery resonates with ancient Near Eastern creation myths, where order emerges only after cosmic struggle. In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, the god Marduk battles the chaos-dragon Tiamat, splitting her body to form heaven and earth. The Hebrew tehom—the deep—shares the same linguistic root as Tiamat, hinting that Genesis may be engaging with and reshaping these older traditions. Unlike Marduk, Yahweh does not slay a rival deity in Genesis 1, but the chaotic waters are present nonetheless, suggesting an inherited memory of cosmic conflict.

For the Gnostics, these echoes of chaos and re-creation carried profound implications. If Genesis 1 describes not a pristine creation but a repaired ruin, then Yahweh is not the perfect Creator of all things but a craftsman laboring to patch up a broken cosmos. The God of Genesis appears less like the transcendent source of all being and more like a demiurgic figure ordering chaos he did not fully control. In this reading, the very first verses of the Bible already hint at a flawed creation and a flawed creator.

Implications for Gnostic Interpretation

All of this sets the stage for Gnostic suspicion. If Yahweh is one among many divine beings, presiding over a council of spirits—some loyal, some rebellious—then it is not unthinkable that he himself might be one of the flawed or fallen rulers. His jealousy, anger, and demands for sacrifice could be read as the traits of a being competing for dominance, rather than the character of the ultimate, unchanging God.

Where Platonism envisioned a supreme, transcendent Good with “middle management” beneath it, the Hebrew Bible depicts Yahweh in exactly such a role: a god of power, rulership, and passion, but not necessarily the one true God of pure goodness. For the Gnostics, this was not blasphemy—it was the plain conclusion of reading scripture against itself.

The Gnostic Interpretation

Based on these observations, the Gnostics questioned: what if Yahweh of the Old Testament, whom millions worship as the Almighty Creator, is not the source of love and light, but a jealous tyrant masquerading as divinity?

According to the Gnostics, the Old Testament’s portrait of Yahweh presents a figure who commands genocide, demands blood sacrifice, and punishes disobedience with merciless severity. Entire nations are slaughtered at his word, children are struck down in his wrath, and worship is enforced through fear rather than freely given devotion. If these acts were committed by any human ruler, we would call him a dictator. Yet when attributed to Yahweh, believers are told to revere them as divine justice.

Not all early Christians accepted this without question. Yet, the Gnostics concluded that Yahweh was not the true God at all, but a lesser and malevolent being—a Demiurge—who forged the material world as a prison for human souls. In their eyes, Jesus was not Yahweh’s emissary but his challenger, sent to awaken humanity to a higher reality of spirit and love beyond this flawed creation.

Yahweh’s Disturbing Portrait in the Old Testament

The Hebrew Bible repeatedly portrays Yahweh as a figure whose actions inspire more fear than love. Far from embodying the qualities of mercy, compassion, and justice, he often appears as a warlord ruling by terror, violence, and blood.

An infamous example is the tenth plague of Egypt in Exodus 12. After nine rounds of devastation against the Egyptians, Yahweh escalates to his most horrific judgment: the death of every firstborn son in the land. From Pharaoh’s heir to the child of a prisoner, even down to the firstborn of cattle, none are spared. Scripture describes a great cry rising from Egypt, “for there was not a house where there was not one dead.” These children were not guilty of oppressing Israel. They had no say in Pharaoh’s decisions. Yet Yahweh kills them all to make a point, using their deaths as leverage in his contest with Egypt’s ruler. To punish innocents for the sins of another is not justice—it is cruelty, and it even stands in direct contradiction to other passages of scripture, most notably Ezekiel 18.

Several other passages paint an equally troubling picture: Yahweh so overcome with rage that Moses himself has to talk Him down from destroying Israel. Consider the aftermath of the golden calf incident in Exodus 32. Enraged at Israel’s idolatry, Yahweh instructs Moses to command the Levites: “Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.” Three thousand Israelites were slaughtered that day—not by foreign enemies, but by their own kin in obedience to God’s decree.

Again in Numbers 14, when the people grumble in the wilderness, Yahweh threatens to strike them with pestilence and annihilate them, but Moses intercedes, arguing that such an act would make the nations think Yahweh was powerless to bring His people into the land. In each of these episodes, Yahweh is depicted as quick-tempered and vengeful, while Moses plays the role of mediator, reasoning with God not to act rashly.

The book of Numbers records an even darker command. Yahweh orders the Israelites to annihilate the Midianites: “Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” (Numbers 31:17–18). Genocide, mass murder of children, and the sparing of virgins for the soldiers—acts we would unequivocally condemn if committed by any human general—are here depicted as divine will.

Another one of the most unsettling episodes appears in 2 Kings 2:23–24. The prophet Elisha, successor of Elijah, is mocked by a group of boys who jeer at him, saying, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” In response, Elisha curses them in the name of Yahweh. Immediately, two she-bears come out of the woods and maul forty-two of the children. What kind of god endorses such disproportionate vengeance? The laughter of children—an act of immaturity, not malice—is met not with correction or mercy, but with brutal death. A loving Creator would teach and guide, not slaughter. Yet Yahweh answers mockery with carnage, leaving behind a trail of broken bodies as a warning against even minor disrespect.

In 1 Samuel 15, Yahweh’s command is chilling in its scope: “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” Infants and animals alike are wiped out, not for their deeds but as tokens of total obedience to Yahweh’s wrath.

Even when no war is at stake, Yahweh’s punishments appear disproportionate and cruel. When Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, offer “strange fire” in worship, they are consumed instantly by fire from Yahweh (Leviticus 10). When Uzzah reaches out instinctively to steady the Ark of the Covenant, he is struck dead on the spot (2 Samuel 6). In Genesis 6, Yahweh’s disappointment in humanity culminates not in reform or teaching, but in global annihilation—drowning every living being on earth save Noah’s family.

What emerges is a consistent pattern: the Yahweh depicted in many passages of the Old Testament does not guide through love but coerces through fear. His justice is not restorative but destructive. His holiness demands sacrifice upon sacrifice—whether animal blood, human life, or the devotion of terrified followers. By any honest standard, these are not the traits of a benevolent Creator but of a jealous ruler obsessed with domination.

The Gnostic Response: Yahweh as the Demiurge

Faced with these troubling scriptures, some early Christians refused to accept the contradictions at face value. By the second century, a movement known as the Gnostics arose, offering a radical answer: Yahweh was not the true God at all, but a pretender.

The Gnostics called this false god the Demiurge—a lesser, arrogant being who fashioned the material world not as a gift of love but as a prison for souls. They believed that the true God was far greater, existing beyond the physical universe in unapproachable light and spirit. This higher God was not jealous, wrathful, or bloodthirsty but pure goodness itself—utterly unlike the Yahweh of Israel’s scriptures.

Gnostic texts discovered in the twentieth century, such as the Apocryphon of John from the Nag Hammadi library, vividly describe this worldview. In one passage, Yahweh is depicted declaring: “I am God and there is no other.” To the Gnostics, this was not a statement of divine authority but of delusion and arrogance—the mark of a tyrant pretending to be absolute. True divinity, they argued, would never need to assert its supremacy through fear or violence.

Other Gnostic writings, like The Hypostasis of the Archons, expand on the creation story, portraying Yahweh and his powers—the archons—as flawed rulers who deliberately keep humanity ignorant of its higher origin. The physical world itself, with all its suffering, decay, and death, was viewed not as the masterpiece of a perfect Creator but as evidence of the Demiurge’s imperfection.

Yet the Gnostics did not stop at criticism. They offered a counter-vision: within every human being exists a spark of the true God, a divine light buried beneath the weight of the material world. Yahweh’s greatest crime, they taught, was his attempt to suppress this light—to blind humanity with fear, obedience, and false worship so they would never awaken to their true nature.

The task of salvation, then, was not to obey Yahweh’s commands but to awaken to the higher reality that transcends him. This awakening—what they called gnosis, or knowledge—was liberation from the Demiurge’s prison.

Jesus vs. Yahweh: Two Different Voices

If Yahweh was truly the one God, then the teachings of Jesus should have reinforced his laws. Yet the New Testament reveals a strikingly different picture. Far from upholding Yahweh’s system of vengeance and sacrifice, gnostics argued that Jesus openly contradicted it—line by line, command by command.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges one of Yahweh’s central statutes: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also.” (Matthew 5:38–39). The law of retaliation originates directly from Exodus 21:24—yet Jesus overturns it entirely. Where Yahweh demanded justice through equal harm, Jesus offered forgiveness and radical love.

A similar clash occurs in John 8, when religious leaders bring to him a woman caught in adultery. According to Yahweh’s law, the punishment is clear: death by stoning (Leviticus 20:10). But instead of endorsing the execution, Jesus challenges the accusers: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” One by one, they drop their rocks and walk away. Finally, Jesus says to the woman, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” In that moment, Yahweh’s demand for blood is denied, and mercy triumphs.

Perhaps most telling is John 8:44, where Jesus confronts the Pharisees—men devoted to enforcing Yahweh’s law. “You are of your father the devil,” he tells them. These were not pagans or idolaters, but the most faithful guardians of Yahweh’s commandments. For Jesus to identify them with the devil is no small insult; it is an unveiling. Their loyalty to Yahweh’s system of fear and punishment was, in truth, allegiance to something dark and deceptive.

Even Jesus’ vision of God’s kingdom diverges radically from Yahweh’s. In John 18:36, he declares: “My kingdom is not of this world.” But Yahweh’s kingdom is precisely this world—the physical creation he rules through law and sacrifice. Jesus points instead to a higher reality, one untouched by jealousy, violence, or death.

This tension surfaces most starkly in the temptation narrative. In Matthew 4:8–9 and Luke 4:5–7, the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain and shows him “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” He offers them to Jesus if only he will bow down in worship, adding, “for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.” The claim is chilling: the dominion of earthly power, empire, and glory does not belong to God but to the devil. And Jesus does not dispute the premise—he simply rejects the offer. If Satan’s boast were false, the temptation would hold no weight. Instead, it reveals a worldview in which the systems of this world—the very structures Yahweh claimed as his inheritance—were in fact under darker dominion.

The contrast is unavoidable: Yahweh demands sacrifice, but Jesus denies it. Yahweh commands vengeance, but Jesus abolishes it. Yahweh enslaves through fear, but Jesus liberates through love. If the two are the same being, then Jesus appears to be dismantling his own laws. If they are not, then the Gnostics were right: Jesus was not sent by Yahweh but sent to free humanity from him.

The Gospel of Judas: Betrayal or Liberation?

Few figures in Christian history are as vilified as Judas Iscariot. For two millennia he has been branded the ultimate traitor, the disciple who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Yet a suppressed text discovered in the Egyptian desert—the Gospel of Judas—presents a radically different story.

In this text, Judas is not a villain but the only disciple who truly understands Jesus’ mission. While the other apostles cling to Yahweh’s world, worshiping a god they do not truly know, Judas perceives the deeper truth. He recognizes that Jesus’ crucifixion is not a tragedy to be prevented, but the very means of escape from the Demiurge’s prison.

Jesus tells Judas in this gospel: “You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” The “man that clothes me” refers to Jesus’ physical body—the material form crafted under Yahweh’s dominion. By delivering Jesus to death, Judas was not destroying him but liberating him from the prison of flesh. In this telling, Judas becomes the trusted agent of salvation, carrying out the hidden plan that none of the other disciples could comprehend.

The implications are staggering. If Judas’ so-called betrayal was in fact obedience to Jesus’ command, then the crucifixion was not a defeat but a victory. The Resurrection was not the triumph of Yahweh’s world but the great act of rebellion against it. Judas, far from being the Church’s great villain, emerges as the one disciple who saw through the illusion of the Demiurge’s authority.

The Gospel of Judas also contains one of the most provocative moments in early Christian literature: Jesus laughs at the disciples when he catches them praying to Yahweh. He tells them plainly, “You are praying to your god, you do not know who you are.” To the Gnostics, this was confirmation of their most dangerous claim—that even Jesus’ closest followers were still deceived, worshiping the false creator instead of the true God of light and spirit. Only Judas grasped the truth.

This gnostic reinterpretation of Judas did not survive by accident. It was buried because it was dangerous. To consider Judas as a hero is to admit that Yahweh is no savior but a jailer, and that the crucifixion was not submission to him but escape from him. For the orthodox Church, such an idea was intolerable, for it struck at the very foundation of its power: Yahweh’s identity as the one true God.

Silenced Voices: How the Church Buried the Gnostic Viewpoint

The Gnostics were not fringe outsiders inventing wild ideas. They were among the earliest followers of Jesus, wrestling with the contradictions between his teachings and the violent portrait of Yahweh in the Hebrew scriptures. Their claim—that Yahweh was not the true God but a tyrant, and that Jesus came to reveal a higher reality—was radical, but it grew with such force in the second century that it threatened to split Christianity itself.

Marcion of Sinope, one of the most influential Christian teachers of that era, openly declared that the God of the Old Testament could not be the Father Jesus preached. To Marcion, Yahweh was a lesser deity obsessed with law, punishment, and control, while the true God was revealed only in Christ as love, mercy, and freedom. For a brief moment, Marcion’s teachings spread widely, winning adherents across the Mediterranean.

But such challenges to the core ideology of the Jewish faith, which Christianity was founded on, could not be tolerated by the emerging institutional Church. The response was expected. Gnostics and Marcionites were branded as heretics. Their writings were banned, burned, and buried. Their followers were excommunicated, hunted, and erased from official memory.

History, as the saying goes, is written by the victors—and in this case, the victors were the bishops who insisted that Yahweh was the one true God and that Jesus must be interpreted in continuity with the Hebrew Bible. The “orthodox” canon of scripture was curated accordingly, preserving texts that reinforced Yahweh’s supremacy while suppressing those that questioned it.

For centuries, the Gnostic voice survived only in fragments, preserved almost exclusively in the writings of their opponents. Church Fathers like Irenaeus (d. c. 202 CE), Tertullian (d. c. 220 CE), and Eusebius (d. 339 CE) produced lengthy treatises against them, often quoting substantial portions of Gnostic texts—but only to distort, ridicule, or strawman their ideas. Over time, the great libraries of hidden gospels and mystical writings themselves disappeared into the sands of history, buried or deliberately destroyed in campaigns of suppression. To the wider world, it appeared as though the dangerous idea—that Yahweh was not God at all—had been silenced forever.

However, in the twentieth century, discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library unearthed long-buried writings, giving voice once again to those whom the Church had tried to erase. Their testimony, preserved against all odds, reveals a story the victors wanted forgotten: Yahweh as a jealous Demiurge, and Jesus as the liberator sent to free humanity from his grip.

The Rediscovery of Buried Writings

For nearly two millennia, the Church’s effort to silence dissent seemed successful. The voices of the Gnostics, Marcionites, and other challengers to Yahweh’s authority were buried under layers of doctrine, orthodoxy, and carefully edited scripture. But in the last century, the sands of time gave up their secrets, and the buried ideology began to resurface.

In the 1940s, two monumental discoveries shook the academic world. The first was the Dead Sea Scrolls, a vast collection of ancient Jewish writings hidden in the caves of Qumran. Among them was the War Scroll, which depicts Yahweh not as a god of peace but as a commander of cosmic violence, leading his chosen people into a final apocalyptic battle. Far from a God of universal love, Yahweh emerges as a warlord obsessed with vengeance and domination—a portrait that echoes the Gnostic critique.

Just a year later, another discovery in Egypt unearthed the Nag Hammadi Library, a cache of early Christian texts long thought lost. Among these were writings like the Apocryphon of John, The Hypostasis of the Archons, and the Gospel of Thomas. These works reveal a startlingly different Christianity—one in which Yahweh is exposed as the arrogant Demiurge and the material world as his flawed creation.

In the Hypostasis of the Archons, Yahweh is portrayed not as the supreme Creator but as one of the “rulers” who enslave humanity through deception and fear. The true God, by contrast, remains beyond the material world, pure and transcendent. The Apocryphon of John even records Yahweh declaring, “I am God, and there is no other beside me”—a statement the Gnostics interpreted not as divine authority but as the boast of a tyrant.

Perhaps most provocative is the Gospel of Thomas, in which Jesus’ teachings emphasize self-knowledge over obedience to law: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” Salvation here is not submission to Yahweh’s demands, but the awakening of the divine spark within—the very thing the Demiurge sought to suppress.

Together, these discoveries confirmed what orthodox Christianity had tried to erase: that many early Christians viewed Yahweh not as the true God but as a deceiver, and saw Jesus not as his servant but as his liberator.

The Divine Spark and Humanity’s Liberation

At the heart of the Gnostic message is a different vision of who we are and what salvation means. Where Yahweh sought to reduce humanity to frightened servants, the Gnostics proclaimed that within every human being lies a fragment of the true God—a divine spark waiting to awaken.

This spark, they taught, is eternal. It does not belong to the material world, nor is it bound by the Demiurge’s laws of sin, sacrifice, and death. It is the radiant light of the higher God, planted in the soul as a reminder of our true origin. To the Gnostics, the greatest deception of Yahweh was not simply his violence or jealousy, but his determination to blind us to this matter. By demanding endless worship, sacrifices, and obedience through threat of retributive punishment, he kept humanity trapped in ignorance, never realizing that we were already connected to a greater source of life and love.

Jesus’ mission, in this view, was not to reconcile us with Yahweh but to awaken us from the illusion. He came as a revealer, not a lawgiver—pointing beyond the material prison to the God of pure spirit. His sayings in texts like the Gospel of Thomas take on new meaning when read this way: Salvation is not obedience to Yahweh’s laws or rituals—it is knowledge (gnosis) of our divine identity.

The Serpent & Gnosis According to Gnostics

In this light, the Garden of Eden story is transformed. Yahweh, the Demiurge, forbids Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of knowledge, warning they will die. But the serpent—the figure Christians have long feared—becomes the liberator who tells them: “Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods.” When they eat, they do not die; instead, they awaken. For the Gnostics, this was humanity’s first act of rebellion against Yahweh’s prison, and Yahweh’s punishment was not justice but retribution against their awakening.

The serpent reappears later in Israel’s history in a strange and revealing episode. In Numbers 21, when the Israelites complain against Yahweh during their wilderness wanderings, he responds by sending venomous serpents among them. As the people cry out in agony, Yahweh offers a peculiar cure: Moses is instructed to fashion a bronze serpent, mount it on a pole, and lift it up before the people. Whoever gazes upon this serpent is healed and lives. The very image of the creature associated with deception and curse becomes the source of salvation, not through Yahweh’s mercy, but through an act that symbolically inverts his punishment.

According to Gnostics, this episode is later echoed in the New Testament in startling ways. The Gospel of John records Jesus saying, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him” (John 3:14–15). In other words, the same paradox that once saved Israel—life through looking upon the cursed serpent—is fulfilled in Jesus’ crucifixion. Paul even underscores this irony in Galatians 3:13: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” By being crucified, Jesus takes on the position of the serpent, bearing the curse of Yahweh’s law, yet transforming it into the very means of liberation.

From a Gnostic perspective, this parallel is profound. The serpent of Eden opened humanity’s eyes to knowledge, and the serpent on the staff became the cure for Yahweh’s own venom. Likewise, Jesus, nailed to the tree, turns the curse of the Demiurge upside down, transforming death into freedom. What Yahweh intended as humiliation and destruction becomes the pathway of awakening, revealing once again that salvation does not come through Yahweh’s wrath but through the inversion of it.

The implications for the Gnostics were revolutionary. If the true God is within us, then salvation does not come from priests, sacrifices, or submission to a jealous deity. It comes from awakening to the divine light already present in our being. Yahweh’s power depends on fear; the true God’s power is revealed in love. Yahweh enslaves; Jesus liberates. Yahweh demands worship; the true God invites awakening.

The Gnostic Conclusion

For Gnostics, believers have been taught to see Yahweh as the one true God and to accept actions attributed to him—genocide, sacrifice, wrath, and punishment—as divine justice. But when examined honestly, these traits resemble not the love of a Creator but the tyranny of a ruler consumed by jealousy and control.

The Gnostics, among the earliest followers of Jesus, dared to confront this contradiction. They declared what orthodoxy would not: that Yahweh was not God, but the Demiurge—a flawed and arrogant being who forged the material world as a prison for souls. Against this tyrant, they set the vision of the true God: infinite, radiant, and beyond this broken reality.

Jesus, in their eyes, did not come to reinforce Yahweh’s laws but to dismantle them. His teachings of forgiveness, mercy, and radical love directly opposed the violence and vengeance of the Old Testament. His message was not submission to Yahweh’s rule but liberation from it. Even the much-maligned Judas, in the Gospel that bears his name, is recast as the trusted disciple who helped Jesus shed the prison of flesh and return to the higher God.

The suppression of these ideas was ruthless. Heretical movements were crushed, libraries destroyed, and scripture edited to erase the voices that exposed Yahweh’s true nature. Yet the rediscovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi library, and forgotten Gospels has reopened a conversation the Church thought it had silenced: Was Yahweh ever the God of love, or was he the deceiver all along?

For the Gnostics, the answer was clear—and their message remains as radical now as it was two thousand years ago. For them, each of us carries within a spark of the true God, a divine light Yahweh cannot extinguish. Salvation is not found in fear, ritual, or blind obedience, but in awakening to who we truly are. That beyond this world of suffering and death lies a God of pure love, and that the light of that God already shines within us.

Final Thoughts

The Gnostics were not fools. They were some of the first to honestly wrestle with the disturbing portraits of God that appear throughout the Old Testament—portraits that many still struggle to reconcile. In challenging these depictions, they forced the early Church to grapple with questions that could not be answered simply by appeals to tradition or blind faith. On this point, I believe they were right: the God revealed in Jesus does not look like the jealous, wrathful ruler who demands blood, vengeance, and fear.

But where I part ways with them is in their solution. The Gnostics concluded that these contradictions meant Yahweh must be a different being altogether—a Demiurge, flawed and false, opposed to the higher God of love. Yet perhaps there is another way of looking at the problem. What if these troubling passages are not evidence of a rival god, but distortions of the truth—reflections of human misunderstanding, cultural context, or even theological projection onto God?

In this light, the previous scriptures can still be taken seriously, but not always at face value. The qualities of the true God must be discerned not by forcing every text into harmony, but by filtering them through what we know of our Creator: that He is loving, merciful, forgiving, and desires the best for all His creations. If a portrayal of God contradicts these qualities, then it is not the true image of God but a distorted one.