Tag Archives: historical jesus

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What Are the ‘Lost’ Gospels and Were They Left Out of the Bible?

In 1945, fifty two papyri were discovered at Nag Hammadi in Lower Egypt and some of these texts had the word ‘gospel’ in the title. Now Scholars have known about these and other 2nd – 4th century documents for a long time, but only recently has the general public been introduced to them. This has caused quite a bit of controversy and speculation. Why?

Our culture is generally skeptical of authority and enjoys a good conspiracy theory; sprinkle in some high definition documentaries around Easter and Christmas with titles like ‘Banned Books of the Bible’ and the recipe for confusion is complete. Was there a cover up by the Church? Were we lied to about Jesus?

These so called ‘lost gospels’ fall into two categories: (1) New Testament Apocrypha (2) Gnostic writings.

Apocrypha means ‘hidden things’. These writings tried to fill in the gaps about two periods of Jesus’ life—his childhood and the three days between his death and resurrection. The motivations for these works ranges from entertainment to the comprehensive redefinition of the Jesus revealed in the 1st century writings of the New Testament.

The first time I heard about these ‘lost gospels’, it honestly made me nervous…until I read them. The juiciest of the apocryphal writings is probably the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Here are some things I discovered about Jesus’ childhood: he called a child an “unrighteous, irreverent idiot” (3:1-3). Another child bumped into Jesus, which aggravated him so much that Jesus struck him dead (4:1-2). Evidently those who provoked childhood Jesus fell dead a lot (14:3). No, I’m not making this up.

Then there are the Gnostic writings. Gnosticism can get kind of complicated, so here is a chart to help give you the basics of how different it was from the worldview of the New Testament (the Greek word gnosis means ‘knowledge’).

Orthodox Christianity

Gnosticism

Only One God and Creator

Multiple Creators

The World, Body, Soul, and Spirit are Good

The World and Body are Evil. Only Spirit and Soul are Good

Jesus is Fully Human and Fully Divine

Jesus Only Appeared Human; He Was Only a Spirit Being

Jesus Came to Restore Relationships Broken by Sin

Ignorance, not Sin is the Ultimate Problem

Faith in Christ Brings Salvation (available to all)

“Special Knowledge” Brings Salvation (available to only a few)



The two most popular examples of Gnostic writings are the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas (yes, that Judas). Scholars are still debating Judas’s role in the betrayal of Jesus in this new gospel, but it is clear that he gets special access to some secret revelation from Jesus that the other disciples did not have.

The Gospel of Thomas wins the most scandalous passage award: “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life.’ Jesus said, ‘I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven’” (Saying 114). Again, not making this stuff up. Both of these documents were written long after the time of Jesus and his earliest followers.

The bottom line. These gospels were not lost to the early church; early Christians knew about them and rejected them for good reasons (cf. Irenaeus in A.D. 180). While historically interesting, these so called ‘lost gospels’ offer us nothing significant about the historical Jesus. The writings in the New Testament are still the earliest and most reliable witnesses to the words and works of Jesus.

For more on this and other issues exploring the truth of Christianity, see:

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The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach by Michael Licona

Here is a thoroughly researched and extensively documented new book on the Resurrection by Michael Licona that needs to find a home in your library if you are a pastor, apologist, or teacher.

Book Description:

The question of the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection has been repeatedly probed, investigated and debated. And the results have varied widely. Perhaps some now regard this issue as the burned-over district of New Testament scholarship. Could there be any new and promising approach to this problem? Yes, answers Michael Licona. And he convincingly points us to a significant deficiency in approaching this question: our historiographical orientation and practice. So he opens this study with an extensive consideration of historiography and the particular problem of investigating claims of miracles. This alone is a valuable contribution. But then Licona carefully applies his principles and methods to the question of Jesus’ resurrection. In addition to determining and working from the most reliable sources and bedrock historical evidence, Licona critically weighs other prominent hypotheses. His own argument is a challenging and closely argued case for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Any future approaches to dealing with this “prize puzzle” of New Testament study will need to be routed through The Resurrection of Jesus.


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Jesus on the Bible

One of the biggest reasons you can trust the Bible is that Jesus did. He affirmed the writings of the OT (Matt 5:17-18; John 10:34-36; Luke 24:25-32) and promised what would become the NT (John 14:26; 16:12-14). And if Jesus is who he claimed to be and God did in fact raise him from the dead, then his testimony is powerful evidence that the Bible is truly God’s word to us (2 Tim 3:16-17 cf. 2 Pet 1:20-21). Trusting the Bible is not a blind leap of faith, it is an entirely reasonable thing to do.

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A Book Unlike Any Other

“The Bible is not a book like any other. It makes a claim that God spoke and speaks through its message. It argues that as his creatures, we are accountable to him for what he has revealed. The trustworthiness of Scripture points to its authority as well. Scripture is far more than a history book, as good and trustworthy as that history is. It is a book that calls us to examine our lives and relationship to God. Beyond the fascinating history, it contains vital and life-transforming truths about God and us.” – Darrell Bock

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Is being “open-minded” a good thing?

Only if the point is to stay open long enough until you find something reasonable to close your mind around. As we live in the era of “new tolerance” we find ourselves being pushed to be open to everything and committed to nothing. As the late University of Chicago Professor Allan Bloom put it so well:

“Openness used to be the virtue that permitted us to seek the good by using reason. It now means accepting everything and denying reason’s power.”

Christians should be openminded in the sense of not exalting ignorance. But we should avoid the cultural peer pressure to say with a smile that everyone’s values, religion, and morality are equally valid. This path only leads to self-contradiction and ultimately despair. Jesus offers a better way and has the authority to make it available to all who would take him at his word. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)

Are the students in your life ready to embrace the challenges and opportunities of college life? They can be. I wrote Welcome to College for just this reason. Please consider putting a copy in their hands.