The so-called "lost gospels"

The next chapter in Jonathan Morrow's book Questioning the Bible is an intriguing one: "Why Were Some Gospels Banned from the Bible?" Today we hear comments that early Christians suppressed some Gospels and that there were early Christianities with various viewpoints about Jesus. After a struggle only one story was allowed to continue – the one we see in the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But is this revisionist history true? Nope.

The author starts by giving us a background of discovered Gospels. In 1945, fifty-two papyri were discovered at Nag Hammadi in lower Egypt. Some of these had the word "gospel" in their title. These have caused quite a bit of controversy and speculation. People began to wonder if there had been a cover-up by the church. These so-called "lost Gospels" were made up of New Testament Apocrypha and Gnostic writings. The apocryphal stories dealt with the childhood of Jesus and the three days between death and resurrection, the parts of his life not covered by the four gospels we have today. For example, one apocryphal work is called the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in which we find a story about Jesus getting angry at a child and striking him dead.

Most people are unfamiliar with the idea of Gnosticism, which is seen in many of these newly-found documents. Gnostics said there were multiple creators, the world and body are evil, only spirit and soul are good, Jesus was a spirit being rather than a human being, ignorance rather than sin is the ultimate problem, and special knowledge brings salvation. The most famous example of Gnostic writings is the Gospel of Thomas, which is made up of sayings of Jesus rather than a chronology of his life. Here's one of them: Simon Peter wants Mary to leave the group because he believes women are not worthy of life. Jesus says in response, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." How's that for a sexist remark?

Here's the bottom line. These Gospels were not lost to the early church. Instead, Christians knew about them and rejected them for good reasons. We learn nothing significant about the historical Jesus. In addition, these writings are dated long after the time of Jesus and his earliest followers. Even Bart Ehrman, a famous skeptical critic of the New Testament, admits that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John provide the earliest and most reliable witnesses to the words and works of Jesus. Here is what he says: "The oldest and best sources we have for knowing about the life of Jesus are the four Gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is not simply the view of Christian historians; it is the view of all serious historians of antiquity of every kind, from committed evangelical Christians to hard-core atheists."

OK, more from the book next week.

More from Questioning the Bible

In Questioning the Bible, author Jonathan Morrow examines skeptical challenges to the Bible's authority, especially the New Testament. In this blog I want to cover what he has to say about how the early message of Jesus's resurrection and other core doctrines were transmitted among early Christians.

Keep in mind, he says, that the ancient world was predominately an oral culture. Today we wonder how it's possible for such a culture to transmit reliable history. We often think of the telephone game, but it was certainly not like that at all. Disciples of a rabbi were required to memorize his sayings, and people are capable of memorizing a tremendous amount of material. Some Muslims have memorized the entire Koran, for example.

There were four S's used by early followers in order to maintain true history and correct core doctrines until they were written down. The first is Scriptures – Christians sought continuity in what God had done in the Old Testament and what God was doing now through Jesus the Messiah. So they read the Hebrew Scriptures of public worship services. Therefore, the foundational documents of the earliest Christians were the Hebrew Scriptures acting as a theological baseline. Second were summaries, or what we would call creeds. Early Christians memorized and recited doctrinal summaries alongside the Hebrew Scriptures when they gathered for worship. This made it easy for people to remember key elements of doctrine and history. Third was singing. When Christians gathered, they sang their theology and hymns to show their devotion to Jesus (see Philippians 2:5-11 as an example). Finally, the last "S" has to do with sacraments. Baptism and the Lord's supper were practiced on a regular basis, and they both pictured the basic elements of the salvation story as core theology. These creeds, hymns, and practices predated the writing of the New Testament documents.

How early was Jesus being worshiped as God? We see from Paul's letter to the Philippians that Jesus was being worshiped as God within 20 years of his crucifixion. We also see that belief within early Christian hymns. It is also found in early Christian summaries – note 1 Corinthians 8:4-6. This is a powerful passage because Paul has taken the famous Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 and included Jesus as part of the divine nature. Outside the Bible, Morrow notes that a Roman governor, Pliny the younger, wrote: "They [the Christians] were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang an alternate versus a hymn to Christ, as to a God." Then there's the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, which I mentioned in the last blog. This statement may go back to within one year of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

What's the point of all of this? Many skeptics say that exalted beliefs, proclamations, and even worship of Jesus emerge gradually over time. But the truth is far different. Devotion to Jesus as divine erupted suddenly and quickly among his first-century followers.

More to follow.

More from Questioning the Bible--Jesus a copycat myth? How early was his story told?

I am continuing to go through an important book called Questioning the Bible by Jonathan Morrow. Last time I was covering his information about what we can really know about Jesus. I want to continue that this time with a new challenge raised against the Bible.

Years ago some critics charge that Christianity was a copycat religion that had borrowed from earlier myths. The same challenge is back, thanks to movies like Zeitgeist. But the author believes there are three reasons why the copycat myth is false.

First, look at what Christianity came out of in the first century. The Jewish people were committed to one and only one God. Their belief was monotheistic and exclusive. It's doubtful they would want to use stories of other gods.

Secondly, the Jesus story is not like the other myths. When you look at the specifics of each myth, you see that there are huge differences. A dying and rising Jesus is not a meaningful parallel with crops coming to life in the spring only to die off again in the winter. There is no sound evidence of overlapping details between other myths and the story of Jesus.

Probably the most important reason to believe the copycat myth is false has to do with dating. All of the myths date after the birth of Christianity, so if anything, mystery religions were copying from and being influenced by Christianity in the first two centuries because they had to compete to gain new converts and survive.

Morrow takes on another challenge having to do with whether Christianity was invented. He asks if the New Testament contains what the earliest Christians really believe about Jesus from the beginning. For example, how early was the proclamation of the message that Jesus was raised from the dead? The four Gospels were written in the late first century, which is still considered very close to the original events when compared to other ancient manuscripts dealing with other historical figures. But we can get even closer to the time of Jesus by looking at Paul's letters. One of the main text concerning the proclamation of the resurrection message occurs in 1 Corinthians 15, which was written around A.D. 55. Many critics believe the message Paul has included there is part of a creed written within one year of the time of Jesus. Let me repeat that--within one year of Jesus, people were saying he died and was resurrected; he was deity. So, it appears there never was a time when the message of Jesus's resurrection was not an integral part of the earliest apostolic proclamation.

That's powerful information. Let's stop here to digest that.