All Gospels Are Not Created Equal: My Wall Street Journal Review of “The Apocryphal Gospels”
Most people have never read one of the “apocryphal” Gospels—that is, a gospel that was not included in our Bibles. For that matter, most people have never read one of the canonical Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Perhaps they’ve read snippets here and there, but very few have read them straight through.
Even so, there seems to be no shortage of opinions about the nature of ancient Gospels and how they functioned in the early church. Dramatic claims—typically filtered through blog articles and internet lore—are the order of the day. There were hundreds of “other” Gospels in the early church, we are told. No one knew which Gospels they … Continue reading...
Jesus in the Canonical and Apocryphal Gospels: Simon Gathercole to Give Harold O.J. Brown Lectures at @RTSCharlotte
For our annual Harold O.J. Brown Lectures at RTS Charlotte, we are pleased to Welcome Dr. Simon Gathercole, professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Cambridge University.
On March 22, 11AM-2PM, Dr. Gathercole will be giving two lectures (with a provided lunch in between) on the theme of “Jesus in Canonical and Apocryphal Gospels.”
Certainly this lecture will be of great interest to all who want to understand what makes our gospels unique as opposed to the variety of apocryphal gospels in existence. I am particularly interested in this topic myself as I did my Ph.D. research on an apocryphal gospel fragment, P.Oxy. 840 (see my book, The … Continue reading...
What About the “Lost” Books of the Bible?
In modern studies of the NT canon, there is a lot of discussion (maybe even obsession!) with so-called ‘lost’ books of the Bible. So, we have recent book titles like Lost Scriptures, Forgotten Scriptures, and The Lost Bible.
In fact, scholar Philip Jenkins even wrote a whole book documenting (and critiquing) the academic community’s fascination with this theme: Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way.
So what do we with these other books of the New Testament? A few quick thoughts.
First, most of these books weren’t really ‘lost.’ The early church fathers were very much aware of these other books. Indeed, they … Continue reading...
Apocryphal Gospels, Conspiracy Theories, and the Mainstream Media
One thing that I have observed over the years is that major media outlets love apocryphal gospels. Whenever the person of Jesus is discussed–usually at Easter and Christmas–there is always a discussion about how the real story of Jesus has been suppressed and can only now be found in these lost gospels.
Sweeping claims are then made about how there was no agreement on much of anything in the first four centuries of the faith and that other stories of Jesus circulated by the thousands. Only after Constantine came along does the church decide which books to accept (and then subsequently denies all other books admission to the club).
When … Continue reading...
Five “Fake News” Stories That People Believe about Early Christianity
There’s been a lot of chatter about “fake news” in recent months. Some stories, even though they have no basis in fact, are told so often, and with such conviction, that large numbers of people end up believing them anyway.
And some of these fake news stories even dupe legitimate political figures who repeat the story without realizing it is false. And, of course, once a mainstream political figure repeats a story then it becomes even more entrenched in the national psyche.
While some of these fake news stories are rather harmless, others have become quite dangerous. Most famous perhaps is the “Pizza Gate” incident in 2016 where … Continue reading...