Is Your Bible Missing Some Gospels

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Is Your Bible Missing Some Gospels?

• Comparing the Apocryphal and New Testament Gospels

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What do you mean, Apocryphal?

• Apocrypha means hidden but came to mean books
  that did not belong in the canon.
• The word canon means the standard or rule of
  faith found in the books that belong in the Bible.

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Kinds of Apocryphal gospels

• Ebionite Jewish-Christian books denying the
  deity of Jesus Christ
• Docetic Gentile-Christian books overemphasizing
  the deity of Christ
• Gnostic Gentile-Christian books claiming secret
  knowledge about Christ

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Major Gnostic Gospels

• Coptic Gospel of Thomas (114 sayings of Jesus)
• Gospel of Truth(rewrite of Johns doctrine)
• Gospel of Mary(Mary Magdalenes secret knowledge
  from Jesus)
• Gospel of Philip(no virgin birth, resurrection)

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Comparing Gospels

• How reliable is the text? (manuscript evidence)
• How early was it written?
• Are they what they claim?
• How close is it to Jesus culturally (is it
  Jewish?)
• How deeply is it rooted in time and space history?

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Manuscript evidence

• We have hundreds of copies of each of the NT
  Gospels in Greek and several copies from the
  second to fourth centuries.
• We have one fourth-century Coptic translation of
  the Gospel of Thomas and a few Greek fragments
  (this is typical for all the Gnostic gospels).

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When were they written?

• All four of the NT Gospels were written in the
  first century (even most liberals agree).
• The Gnostic gospels were written in the second
  century or even later.

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Are they what they claim?

• The NT Gospel writers do not identify themselves
  or give false names.
• Only the Gospel of John claims to be written by
  an eyewitness (2124).
• Evidence shows that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were
  based on eyewitness accounts.

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• No scholar thinks Thomas, Mary, or Philip wrote
  the Gnostic gospels bearing their names.
• With the possible exception of a few sayings in
  Thomas, nothing in the Gnostic gospels not
  already in the NT is historically reliable.

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The Jewishness of Jesus

• Jesus was Jewish, as were his original disciples.
• The NT Gospels contain numerous quotes or
  allusions to the Old Testament.
• The NT Gospels refer constantly to Jewish feasts,
  rituals, heroes, and traditions.
• The worldview of the NT Gospels is thoroughly
  Jewish.

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Basics of the Jewish Worldview

• There is one God, who created the world.
• The key to salvation is a living trust (faith) in
  God.
• God will raise the dead and judge all human
  beings at the end of history.

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The Non-Jewish Gnostic Jesus

• In the Gnostic gospels, Jesus rarely if ever
  quotes the Old Testament or refers to Jewish
  institutions or cultural references.
• The Gnostic Jesus has a very different
  worldview from that of mainstream first-century
  Judaism.

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Basics of the Gnostic Worldview

• There are divine and semi-divine beings and
  powers between humanity and the absolute God.
• The key to salvation is secret knowledge
  (gnosis).
• Salvation consists in spiritual union with the
  divine.

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Jesus in Space and Time

• The NT Gospels are filled with references to
  places, times, peoples names, and other elements
  of historical context.
• The Gnostic gospels are all nearly entirely
  lacking in these ways.

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Conclusions

• The NT Gospels are earlier, their text better
  attested, their worldview more culturally
  apropos, and their narrative more historically
  grounded, than the Gnostic gospels.
• The early church rejected the Gnostic gospels
  because they were inferior, not for political
  reasons.

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For more help in defending the Christian faith,
please visit the following web sitewww.4Truth.n
etNorth American Mission Board