Why Were Other Gospels Excluded from the New Testament?
There is solid historical and textual evidence to support the New Testament’s accounts of Jesus and the apostles. But many wonder why other so-called gospels aren’t included. Two of the most discussed writings that people wonder about are the Gnostic Gospels and the Gospel of Barnabas. We’ll look at the Gnostic Gospels first.
Are There Secret Writings About Jesus?
In 1945 a discovery was made in Upper Egypt, near the town of Nag Hammadi. Fifty-two copies of ancient writings, called the Gnostic gospels were found in 13 leather-bound papyrus codices (handwritten books). They were written in Coptic and belonged to a library in a monastery.
A few Gnostic scholars have gone so far as to assert that these recently discovered writings are the authentic history of Jesus instead of the New Testament.
But does their faith in these documents square with the historical evidence? Let’s take a deeper look to see if we can separate truth from fiction.
Secret “Knowers”
The Gnostic gospels are attributed to a group known as the Gnostics. Their name comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “knowledge.” These people thought they had secret, special knowledge hidden from ordinary people.
As Christianity spread, the Gnostics mixed some doctrines and elements of Christianity into their beliefs, morphing Gnosticism into a counterfeit Christianity. However, for their system of thought to fit with Christianity, Jesus needed to be reinvented, stripped of both his humanity and his absolute deity.
In The Oxford History of Christianity John McManners wrote of the Gnostics’ mixture of Christian and mythical beliefs.
Gnosticism was (and still is) a theosophy with many ingredients. Occultism and oriental mysticism became fused with astrology… They collected sayings of Jesus shaped to fit their own interpretation (as in the Gospel of Thomas) and offered their adherents an alternative or rival form of Christianity.1
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