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Non-canonical works of the Christian faith

Sherman Bay

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I've been reading about the "books" that didn't make it into the Christian Bible, like 3 Corinthians, the Infancy Gospel, and there are many others. It seems like inventing tall tales was a cottage industry long ago, forcing the religious authorities to separate the "true" fiction from the "false" fiction.

I think gathering these non-canonical works in one place could be interesting. Or boring. Anyone know of such a collection, in English?
 
There are many collections of New Testament apocrypha. This one is oldish (and written in KJV style), but it's only $3.95 for the Kindle edition.
 
Thanks, JayUtah, for the reference. I had not heard of Elaine Pagels.

I wonder if her Gnostic Gospels collection is comprehensive. I guess what I am looking for (or thinking of creating) is an all-encompassing collection, ideally with commentary and contrast of each. What is their source, and why haven't they been included in the "standard" Christian canon (any of them)?

My ultimate goal would be to show that the King James Bible (or any other contemporary Bible) is a quite arbitrary assemblage, selected from many possibilities. Unless you claim that God was guiding the hand of the selectors down to specific words and phrases, it makes the final result suspiciously human and therefore subject to criticism.
 
Sherman Bay said:
I wonder if her Gnostic Gospels collection is comprehensive.
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No, but it is representative. And Pagels is a well-respected commentator.

I guess what I am looking for (or thinking of creating) is an all-encompassing collection, ideally with commentary and contrast of each.
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That I can't help you with. I'm not sure one exists.

My ultimate goal would be to show that the King James Bible (or any other contemporary Bible) is a quite arbitrary assemblage, selected from many possibilities.
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Gnostic Gospels is a good enough cross section to get you started. But I understand that the more comprehensive the survey, the stronger the case. The Gospel of Thomas reads very much like any of the other NT gospels. Then there are some really off-the-rails apocryphae. You read those and you see how tame John's apocrypha is. But you also realize it's off the rails enough to make it out of place. Which is to say, you realize it belongs with all that other strange nonsense and not with the sober efforts of others trying to codify Christian doctrine.
 
This looks like what I am looking for, but there seems to be a technical problem. And even at $.99, if I have to buy a Kindle to read it -- the only option -- that would be a very expensive choice.
 
Sherman Bay said:
This looks like what I am looking for, but there seems to be a technical problem. And even at $.99, if I have to buy a Kindle to read it -- the only option -- that would be a very expensive choice.
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You don't have to buy a Kindle. There is a free app for Android and Apple products. You can also read Kindle books on any computer.

ETA The Hone edition is available for free here and here.
 
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Lucian said:
You don't have to buy a Kindle. There is a free app for Android and Apple products. You can also read Kindle books on any computer.

ETA The Hone edition is available for free here and here.
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Thanks, but I don't have an Android or an Apple anything (and never will). I only read paper products, which have a longer life-span. I'll check out the "Hone" edition, however.
 
Lucian said:
You can also read Kindle books on any computer.
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Google Chrome has an integrated Kindle app, but the same experience can be had effectively on practically any browser. I use it extensively, as I've also put quite a bit of my professional library on Google Books as uploaded PDFs, and I dedicate a monitor at work to that.
 
JayUtah said:
... The Gospel of Thomas reads very much like any of the other NT gospels.
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Not quite, in my view. The Gospel of Thomas contains only sayings of Jesus. No "biography".

It has been noticed since the nineteenth century that the later Synoptic Gospels, Matthew and Luke, agree when they are saying things found in Mark: therefore Mark is one of their sources. They have other passages in agreement, which are not in Mark. Where the criterion "things that Matt and Luke have in common which are not in Mark" is used as a sieve, the resulting product consists almost entirely of sayings of Jesus. We may therefore propose that Matt and Luke had two sources in common: Mark, and a collection of Jesus' sayings unknown to Mark. That collection, which is known as Q, from German Quelle = "Source", presumably resembled the Gospel of Thomas. There are many sayings common to both Q and Thomas.

Where Matt and Luke relate matters not in Mark or Q, they disagree very radically. In details of Jesus' birth and resurrection stories, for example. There are no such stories in Mark. They hadn't been invented yet. And it indicates that Matt and Luke are independent compositions, with a couple of sources in common.
 
Craig B said:
Not quite, in my view.
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Agreed. I was thinking of "look and feel," whereby I contrasted the gospels with the apocryphas. Despite the differences you note, and with which I agree without reservation, I think a modern Christian could read Thomas and come away with the notion that it wouldn't seem out of place were it to be included in the NT. Whereas I think a modern Christian reading some of the apocryphal apocryphas would have to resist the urge to throw the book across the room and then take a bath in boiling holy water. The apocryphas that aren't John's have a very alien feel to them, in my opinion. And then having said that, you go back and read the Apocrypha of John (i.e., The Revelation of St. John in the NT) and see that it probably doesn't belong in the NT even if Christianity has grown to accept it.
 
JayUtah said:
Agreed. I was thinking of "look and feel," whereby I contrasted the gospels with the apocryphas.
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Yes, Thomas resembles a component source of two Gospels, more than it resembles any Apocryphal material, without doubt.
JayUtah said:
the Apocrypha of John (i.e., The Revelation of St. John in the NT) ... probably doesn't belong in the NT even if Christianity has grown to accept it.
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Very slowly, it grew to accept it. Without looking it up, I think that the Eastern Orthodox churches were very late in accepting it. Probably they did so under Western influence, to which (in this matter) they should never have submitted.

ETA I did look it up. I can't resist such activities.

In the fourth century CE, when the canon of the Bible was assembled from among the approximately 50 gospels and hundreds of epistles then in use by the Christian movement, Revelation was only reluctantly included. "To this day, Orthodox churches do not use Revelation for scripture readings during worship."​
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_ntb5d.htm
 
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Sherman Bay said:
Thanks, but I don't have an Android or an Apple anything (and never will). I only read paper products, which have a longer life-span. I'll check out the "Hone" edition, however.
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I hear you. I was a librarian in high school, for a specialized academic library. Despite owning, having owned, or having used practically every kind of computing device there is, I had to be talked into an e-reader. I have a huge paper library that includes rare and first editions. I have a 1936 edition of Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus, for example. That one wouldn't be as fun in electronic form. You can have my dead trees when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers. But the convenience of e-readers won me over for at least some purposes.
 
JayUtah said:
Whereas I think a modern Christian reading some of the apocryphal apocryphas would have to resist the urge to throw the book across the room and then take a bath in boiling holy water.
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I'm thinking of opening a spa. Take a bath in Hot Holy Water; cleanse your sins; wash your mind and body! Refreshing to all! Weekend rates...
 
Craig B said:
ETA I did look it up. I can't resist such activities.
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Thanks, that illustrates nicely what I had been taught about the historicity of that book. For the OT, still trying to figure out what Song of Solomon is doing there. Study that book sometime with someone who speaks Hebrew and is familiar with Hebrew poetry. Say what you will about the Bible, but any holy book whose editors can sneak in some porn deserves a second glance.
 
JayUtah said:
Agreed. I was thinking of "look and feel," whereby I contrasted the gospels with the apocryphas. Despite the differences you note, and with which I agree without reservation, I think a modern Christian could read Thomas and come away with the notion that it wouldn't seem out of place were it to be included in the NT. Whereas I think a modern Christian reading some of the apocryphal apocryphas would have to resist the urge to throw the book across the room and then take a bath in boiling holy water. The apocryphas that aren't John's have a very alien feel to them, in my opinion. And then having said that, you go back and read the Apocrypha of John (i.e., The Revelation of St. John in the NT) and see that it probably doesn't belong in the NT even if Christianity has grown to accept it.
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Do you mean "apocalypse(s)?"
 
JayUtah said:
Agreed. I was thinking of "look and feel," whereby I contrasted the gospels with the apocryphas. Despite the differences you note, and with which I agree without reservation, I think a modern Christian could read Thomas and come away with the notion that it wouldn't seem out of place were it to be included in the NT. Whereas I think a modern Christian reading some of the apocryphal apocryphas would have to resist the urge to throw the book across the room and then take a bath in boiling holy water. The apocryphas that aren't John's have a very alien feel to them, in my opinion. And then having said that, you go back and read the Apocrypha of John (i.e., The Revelation of St. John in the NT) and see that it probably doesn't belong in the NT even if Christianity has grown to accept it.
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I think the Apocalypse of Paul (Visio Pauli) is less weird than Revelation. I mean, I don't get the same feeling that the author was licking brightly-colored toads for inspiration.
 
Sherman Bay said:
I think gathering these non-canonical works in one place could be interesting. Or boring. Anyone know of such a collection, in English?
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Sherman Bay, the excellent earlychristianwritings website contains a list of the apocrypha, with English translations and further information on the texts.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/apocrypha.html

The main website contains nearly all Christian writings up to about the Third Century CE:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/index.html

The website also include links to Gnostic, early Jewish and other writings (see links at top of the page)
 
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