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...
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...
Scripture in the Early Church: The 2017 Ligonier Winter Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to join R.C. Sproul, Michael Haykin, and Stephen Nichols for the Ligonier 2017 Winter Conference. The theme was “Scripture in the Early Church.”
There were a number of great sessions on a variety of topics related to early Christianity, such as “Preaching God’s Word in the Early Church,” “Living God’s Word in the Early Church,” and “Heresy in the Early Church.”
My session was on “God’s Word in the Early Church,” where I explored the unique qualities of our four gospels over against apocryphal texts like the Gospel of Thomas. You can watch here:… Continue reading...
10 Misconceptions about the NT Canon: #6: “In the Early Stages, Apocryphal Books Were as Popular as the Canonical Books”
This is the sixth installment of a blog series announced here.
One of the most common claims by some critics of the NT canon is that apocryphal writings, particularly gospels, were as common and as widely-used as the NT writings. Helmut Koester is a good example of this trend. He laments the fact that the terms “apocryphal” and “canonical” are even used by modern scholars because they reflect, according to him, “prejudices of long standing” against the authenticity of these apocryphal texts.[1] Koester then argues, “If one considers the earliest period of the tradition, several apocryphal gospels are as well attested as those which later received canonical status.”… Continue reading...