The Lost Gospels [4/9]

The Lost Gospels, presented by Anglican priest Pete Owen Jones, is a fascinating exploration into the huge number of ancient Christian texts that didn't make it into the New Testament. Shocking and challenging, these were works in that presented a Jesus who didn't die, who took revenge on his enemies and who kissed Mary Magdalene on the mouth. This Jesus is unrecognisable from that found in the traditional books of the New Testament.

Pete travels through Egypt and the former Roman Empire looking at the emerging evidence of a Christian world that's very different from the one we know. He discovers that in addition to the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, there were over 70 gospels, acts, letters and apocalypses circulating in the early Church.

Through these lost Gospels, Owen Jones reconstructs the intense intellectual and political struggles for orthodoxy that were fought in the early centuries of Christianity, a battle involving different Christian sects, each convinced that their gospels were true and sacred.

The worldwide success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has sparked new interest about the origins of the Christian faith. Pete Owen Jones sets out the context in which heretical texts like the Gospel of Mary emerged. He also strikes a cautionary note: if these lost Gospels had been allowed to flourish, Christianity may well have faced an uncertain future, or perhaps not survived at all.

The documentary, although a great feat of scholarship falls short of exploring some other important manuscripts such as the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Barnabas. It also fails to eplore the evidences in the gospels of the other possibility of Christ's nature: that he was entirely human.

However, the question that really needs to be asked is: isn't God himself supposed to decide what comprises of his book?

Category:

Education

Tags:

• thomas
• mary
• magdalene
• peter
• jesus
• christianity
• bible
• new
• testament
• islam
• muslim
• qur'an
• quran
• allah
• muhammad
• sunnah

[CaptainGrimes1]

Why dont they publish the lost gospels as a seperate bible?

[eleutheromaniac]

Imagine if the papacy was the mamacy; how would catholicism have evolved?

[koteshub]

if ants ate part of writing - think us need not know what it said

[MumblesOg]

@Gazdo01 There are plenty of examples to refute that. The holy trinity wasn't doctrine until the third century or the idea of "limbo" which was even refuted and gotten rid of. (God must have just been "kidding")

[MumblesOg]

@Gazdo01 Is there a difference between doctrine and dogma? When the Catholic changes its positions on things or introduces new things like "limbo" then redacts on them, is that considered a change? You attack @CaptainGrimes1 for saying that the church developed its doctrine as it went on, but to my knowledge its gotten together multiple times to develop its ideas and stances from the first council of Nicea to Vatican I and II etc

[Gazdo01]

@CaptainGrimes1 Doctrine existed WAY before any writing. The Church's pillar is the Apostollic Succession.

The Bible was produced by Apostollic Tradition, not otherwise.

There is a reason why Apostles appointed bishops, who themselves appointed others. There is a reason why they called the Church CATHOLIC, even before the Gospels were written!

There is a reason why the bishops had to be in communion with Rome: so that the Orthodox Faith, recieved directly from the Apostles, could prevail!

[Gazdo01]

@CaptainGrimes1 Lol you seem to suggest that "doctrine" was merely invented as the Church aged.

You seem to think that the Canon was assembled on a weekend afternoon, around a couple of drinks, by men who were preoccupied by their made up doctrine not being contradicted...

Are you serious???

Your suggestion of gnosticism prevailing is in itself totally absurd, and shows you don't understand anything about Church history. The reason why gnosticism was defeated was because bishops opposed it!!

[Gazdo01]

@CaptainGrimes1 I never claimed the Gospels are science, I was just drawing a comparaison.

The Apocrypha were not written in the first century, but rather some in the second, most in the third, and other in the 4th and even 5th century.

There is a reason why the Church Fathers assembled the Bible. Realising the emergence of such forgeries, they canonized the books that corresponded to the Apostollic Faith they themselves had recieved, and which was alive in the Church.

[CaptainGrimes1]

@Gazdo01 There is no reason why it can't be labelled as a seperate bible as the only reason they weren't kept in the bible was because they didnt ally with the doctrine of the time - if a seperate doctrine such as gnotiscim had prevailed over catholicism than those apocrypha would now be considered true gospels and those that are currently considered true gospels would have become apocrypha

[CaptainGrimes1]

@Gazdo01 The bible isnt true science either! These lost gospels are no more or less authentic than the gospels that made it into the bible - they are all 1st-3rd century documents written after Christ's death. It has nothing to do with science nor did I mention science anywhere in my first post. I come at it from a literary point of view - the lost gospels are not forgeries anymore than the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are forgeries in the sense that they are authentic pre Constantine

[Gazdo01]

@CaptainGrimes1 Why don't they publish creationist books and sell them for science classes?

Because it's NOT TRUE SCIENCE.

Same here. Those books are apocrypha. They are made up forgeries that pretend to be authentic.

The lost "gospels" are available for the curious mind to read... but they certainly can't be labelled as a "separate Bible".

[theP3rSonhuRocks]

How Could Christ have an intimate relation with a woman, if he is to be married to the Church?

In the other Gospels it is mentioned that Christ's body was made that he wouldn't be attractive to people.

This documentary is one sided, these "Gospels" are also contradictory to themselves, and were discarded by Early Christians, not only because they were not written by actual witnesses but by Authors looking to discredit or supplant their own belief in a global movement in a religious aspect.