Gnostic and Other non-New Testament Writings

Texts that were later called “apocryphal gospels” were not considered divinely inspired, such as the “Protoevangelium of James.” Another is the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas.” This book contains stories of wonders supposedly worked by Jesus as a young boy. However, many of these stories are so fantastic and even unbecoming to Jesus—in one, a child dies after the boy Jesus rebukes him for accidentally bumping into him—that this “gospel” was rejected as an unfaithful account of Jesus’ early life.

These writings, most of them coming down to the present day in fragments, have been known and studied from early Christian times. Between 1945 and 1947, a library of seemingly Christian texts was uncovered in Egypt and came to the attention of scholars. Almost all of these texts were unknown until this discovery. Some of them are now known as the “Gnostic gospels.” (These writings should not be confused with the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” texts belonging to the Jewish sect of the Essenes, which were discovered around the same time.)

While these “gospels” may have similarities to Christian teaching, they also reflect the beliefs of Gnosticism, a religious movement that derives its name from “gnosis,” the Greek word for “knowledge.” Central to Gnosticism was belief in a saving knowledge that was not available to everyone but was only for an intellectual and spiritual elite. Gnosticism was originally thought to be a Christian heresy. Scholars now consider it a religious movement of its own, having a number of sources in the restless religious environment of the ancient world. Some of its branches absorbed elements of Christian belief that were treated very freely. As a result, early Church leaders opposed these “Christian” Gnostics.

Generally, the “Gnostic gospels” contain collections of sayings. They are very unlike the New Testament gospels in that they have little or no narrative about Jesus’ life or about his Passion, death, and Resurrection. While some of the sayings may be similar to those found in the New Testament and ancient in origin, most scholars agree that these “gospels” were, on the whole, written significantly later than the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and may even depend on one or more of them. Some of these writings may have been intended to challenge the authority of the New Testament writings.Despite the similarities, the way to view these texts is neither as “alternatives” nor as supplements to the Christian gospels.They are writings in which Christian persons and beliefs are filtered through the lens of a religious philosophy that, in many important ways, differs from the Christianity of the New Testament.