Question 32 – Why aren't other writings a part of the Bible?
Revealing the Apocrypha and Secret Gospels
Another question arises: did the church leaders perhaps subtract or, conversely, add something to the Bible that, colloquially speaking, "fit/did not fit their narrative"? Is the historical Jesus identical to the one described in the Bible used by Christians? Particularly those who lean more towards the esoteric and the occult criticize the current form of the Bible for the absence of many concealed and hidden ancient texts (so-called apocrypha). They believe that the original Christians included only what suited them and what did not contradict their version of the truth, whereas other "more enlightened" and "truer" texts with hidden messages of Jesus were intentionally excluded. A typical example is the belief that the doctrine of reincarnation was systematically erased from the Bible (I address this misunderstanding in question no. 45).
Before we delve deeper into the issue of the Apocrypha, let us first briefly outline the basic principles according to which books were included in the biblical canon. The Apocrypha do not meet these points to varying degrees.
- Was the book written by a divine prophet, or in the case of New Testament books, an apostle? Even in cases where this condition was not met (as in the New Testament with the Gospels of Mark and Luke), the authors were close associates of the apostles, which is why their writings were accepted with divine authority.
- Was this person confirmed by God through miracles and wonders? Hebrews 2:3–4 shows us the reality that we can expect God's confirmation behind His people. From Moses through Jesus to His apostles, we observe this reality.
- Does the text reveal the truth about God? It is important that no text or revelation contradicts previous divine revelations (they build on and complement each other). This principle can be most easily illustrated by the many false prophets of the modern age who come with a "new message from God" that completely contradicts previous revelations.
- Does the text bear divine power? Any text that does not carry divine power to transform a person is not from God (see Hebrews 4:12).
- Was the book accepted and used by the first Christians? Were the texts used within church practice by the early Christians and universally accepted by them?
What are the Apocrypha?
Apocryphal literature can be simply characterized as historical writings similar in nature to biblical texts (or which claimed divine inspiration), but on whose credibility and authority there was no consensus within the church. They often directly contradicted the fundamental pillars of Jesus' teachings. Sometimes, the Bible does reference other historical sources (which is logical since no one claims that believers throughout history wrote only biblical texts); however, God did not, for some reason, intend to inspire these for the benefit of future generations.
The same applies, for instance, to certain letters of the Apostle Paul, which he clearly wrote to some church congregations, but which are not part of the Bible. God chose to use and preserve some of his letters, while others he did not.
Among the most famous New Testament apocryphal books are the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of John, the Secret Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Mary, the Acts of Peter, the Apocalypse of Paul, etc. We do not have the space to examine all these writings and comment on them individually, but allow me a few examples to illustrate why Christians do not regard them as divinely inspired texts.
The Secret Gospel of Mark is considered by some critics to be an uncensored version of the biblical Gospel of Mark that contains secret information only for the initiated. Others infer from it that Jesus was a magician or that many early Christians practiced homosexuality. Theology Professor Dr. Gregory Boyd commented as follows:
"You see, we don't have Secret Mark, he said. What we have is one scholar who found a quote from Clement of Alexandria, from late in the second century, that supposedly comes from this gospel. And now, mysteriously, even that is gone, disappeared. We don't have it, we don't have a quote from it, and even if we did have a quote from it, we don't have any reason to think that it has given us any valid information about the historical Jesus or what early Christians thought about him. On top of that, we already know that Clement had a track record of being very gullible in accepting spurious writings. So Secret Mark is a nonexistent work cited by a now nonexistent text by a late second-century writer who's known for being naive about these things. The vast majority of scholars don't give this any credibility. Unfortunately, those who do get a lot of press, because the media love the sensational." [2]
Another example could be the quite well-known Gospel of Thomas, which is heavily influenced by Gnosticism (a non-Christian religious movement of the 2nd to 4th centuries A.D.). In one place, it allegedly has Jesus saying:
"For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." [3]
You do not have to be a theologian or a Christian to sense that something is amiss here. This statement fits neatly into Gnostic thinking but sharply contradicts the message and personal profile of Jesus Christ.
Finally, we have The Gospel of Peter or The Acts of John, which were not actually written by the Apostle Peter or John, as might initially appear, but by someone many years later. That person "borrowed" their names and authority to spread their own (then-known) heresies. Today we would call such tactics forgery and deceit [4].
We could continue with similar analyses and would find that they are not compatible with general Christian thinking or the personal profile of Jesus Christ, or they are direct fabrications. This is not to say that the apocryphal books might not contain bits of truth or be interesting historical literature in some cases. Nonetheless, Christians rightly (I believe) reject the claims of these writings to divine inspiration, and there are plenty of important arguments for why they do so.
Several general reasons why the Apocrypha do not belong in the Bible:
God Has the Power to Protect the Bible – One of the fundamental logical arguments against the theory of a distorted Bible is the reality that if God exists, He logically has the power to protect His work from any destruction, alteration, and forgery. Those who believe that some concealed true gospels exist are effectively saying by their stance that humans thwarted the omnipotent God whose plan to convey is His message to humanity. According to them, God is either not powerful enough to ensure the dissemination of His message or does not wish to do so.
The Bible itself warns of such writings – It's essential to understand that the existence of "competing" writings and "truths" attacking the Bible is a sheer necessity. We would expect nothing less if Satan truly exists, striving by all means to destroy God's message and work. The Bible contains many warnings against false teachers, and some New Testament books are direct responses to similar heresies trying to distort Jesus' message. The Apostle Paul confirmed this in these words:
"For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds." (2 Corinthians 11:13–15)
In another place in the Bible, it says:"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:6–9)
Here, "gospel" is not meant as a book but as a message ("good news"). We can easily identify that there were people who wanted to distort the true message of Jesus. As a Christian, it does not surprise me that there are many attacks on the credibility of the Bible.
The Bible Was Forbidden – It is often argued in relation to the Apocrypha that the historical church did not want people to know the truth, which is why it excluded certain critical writings. This argument is indeed valid, but not to the Bible's disadvantage.
The historical (especially Roman Catholic) church did everything possible to keep the traditional content of the Bible (its current version) as far away from people as possible. The Bible accused them of many false doctrines and often pointed out the corrupt behavior of the church leadership. Broadly speaking, the Reformation eventually put a stop to this by propagating the dissemination of the Bible to society. The claim that the church created its own Bible is thus somewhat illogical, as its message often attacks many of its practices and teachings.
Frequent Mythology – Many of the apocryphal books have an obvious mythological character. Indeed, many also regard the current composition of the Bible as a collection of myths and legends. However, consider this: the Gospel of Peter contains a narrative where Jesus rises from the grave as a gigantic figure reaching above the heavens, and behind him emerges a talking cross. The Bible has no such mythological descriptions.
Problems with the Biblical Canon
If I were to claim that the traditional composition of the Bible was accepted without any doubts, I would not be speaking truthfully. Most writings and books were accepted without much discussion and doubt. However, there were a few cases where there was some doubt about whether to include a particular book in the biblical canon. Here are examples from a total of the seven New Testament books over which there was debate [4, p. 153].
- The Epistle to the Hebrews – Although the book had authority, the authorship was unclear. Many believe it was the Apostle Paul. The unclear authorship created a question mark over its inclusion in the canon, which is why the book was initially debated.
- The Epistle of James – There was confusion due to the apparent conflict with Paul's teaching of salvation by faith whereas James emphasizes the importance of works. When readers understand that works are the fruit of true faith, the apparent contradiction disappears.
- 2 Peter – A question arose due to the different writing style compared to the first epistle of Peter. The problem is resolved when we realize that in one instance, Peter used a scribe and did not write it himself.
- The Revelation of John (the Apocalypse) – Hesitations arose concerning the teaching of the millennial reign of Jesus, which a certain sect professed. However, this book had already been accepted by church fathers earlier.
In conclusion, I want to point out that even among Christians a Bible that includes several (Old Testament) books in addition to the Bible typically used by Protestant Christians was in circulation. These are the so-called deuterocanonical books, used by the Roman Catholic Church, for example. There is no space here to delve deeper into this area, but it is important to note that these books were essentially not accepted into the Jewish canon, and neither the Jews nor early Christians considered them part of the inspired Scriptures. Additionally, in some cases, these books themselves do not claim to be the word of God [1].
Summation
Apocryphal literature can be an intriguing historical reality. However, it cannot be accepted as a text bearing authority from God for various reasons.In many cases, it involves fraud or an attempt to include false teachings about God in it, and which the Bible, including Jesus Himself, strongly warns against.