The gospels not included in the bible. (Jesus Christ, ritual, Earth)

[Rex]

I know of :

Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Mary
Gospel of James

Do you think they should be included or not just b/c they were not cannonized?

[Runt]

I am certainly no expert on the subject, not even being Christian, BUT one of my Christian friends says that the reasons they may have been left out are because they:

A) Are a retelling of material already included
B) Were determined to be false
C) Covered a part of Jesus's life (age 12 to 35) in which he really wasn't DOING anything worthy of note and thus didn't need to be included (I personally think this is a dumb idea... if it wasn't important, why would there have been THREE books written on it?)
D) Potentially contained information that the early Church, seeking to gain power, did not WANT revealed.

Any other ideas?

[Rex]

Some of them were not found untill after the cannonization of the bible.

Some say the Gospel of Thomas was the earliest found writings about Jesus but that is another debate.

[Runt]

Supposedly the Pistas Sophia (Book of Sophia?) was one of the missing books. However, I'm getting this from a very biased source, so I'm not sure how legitimate it is, but I will quote.

"It was the theologians who created the Greek canons of the Fifth Council, further expounding the Doctrine of Rebirth as a teaching of Jesus Christ, but also as a universal law governing the lives of all humankind:

The savior answered and said unto his diciples: 'Preach ye unto the
whole world, saying unto men, 'Strive together that ye may recieve
the mysteries of light in this time of stress and enter into the kingdom
of light. Put not off from day to day, and from cycle to cycle, in the
belief that ye will succeed in obtaining the mysteries when ye return
to the world in another circle."

I have a theory regarding this "missing book".

(BEWARE: They might go against mainstream Christian thought, so if you are sensitive to other opinions, don't read on!)

HERE IT IS: Jesus really did preach about reincarnation, but the early Church knew that the only way to control their new followers was through fear. The easiest way to generate fear was to make people fear the afterlife so much that they were required to become godly people, supporting the Church and all it stood for, or go to Hell. However, allowing the notion of reincarnation to exist would undermine this fear. Why fear going to Hell for your sins when you believe you will have a second chance to be better in the next life, and will only go to Heaven when you have learned the spiritual truths God intends for you to learn and EARNED your right to be with Him? So, the Church decided that when Jesus said before his death that he would return to the earth one day, he REALLY meant that he would return in the body he was in before he died, which he could do because it would be a miracle of God made possible because Jesus was God's son (or God, depending on your view). And that he would NOT be reincarnated and return that way. Then, to further squash any belief in reincarnation, they neglected to add the Pistas Sophia into the Bible and banned the notion of reincarnation at the Council of Constantinople in 553 C.E. with the words:

"Whosoever shall support the mythical doctrine of the pre-existence of the Soul, and the consequent wonderful opinion of its return, let him be anathema."

(This last really was said... it does not come from some book nobody has ever heard of but from the actual Council of Constantinople.)

[Master Hoomer]

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/apo/index.htm

the apocrypha....

then there's the gnostic Gospels......
naghammedi and dead sea scrolls

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...206190-9327205

here my fave left out of the bible quotation from the 1 page only left in extant ..the gospel of eve...

"It is I who am you: and it is you are me,And wherever you are,I am there. And I am sown in all; and you collect me from wherever you wish. And when you collect me, it is your own self that you collect" (Jesus)

Personally I think most of it is politics....
Rome desicrated much and "re wrote history"...

fort example the destruction of adam and eve images....of originals still in extant...there are but a hanful......

Politics, its the killer in any religion

[RavenRose]

The Dead Sea Scrolls were identical to the Bible except for 16 tiny instances and are said not to make any difference.

According to my Apologetics teacher, he likes to say the other Books were written long after the events they talk about.

[Master Hoomer]

Originally Posted by RavenRose

The Dead Sea Scrolls were identical to the Bible except for 16 tiny instances and are said not to make any difference.

According to my Apologetics teacher, he likes to say the other Books were written long after the events they talk about.

I am no bibe expert either....but werent they written after the events anyway the Gospels I mean....I know John which where "The Passion" leans heavily from was written well after the event.....supposedly...

just 2 cents.... :shock:

[RavenRose]

There is debate about who wrote the four Gospels. Some say it was actually Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; others say it wasn't.

There is evidence either way. There is no real solid proof on either side. Like I said though, I need to read a book on the Bible.

So, as one side would have it, the four Gospels were written during the first century. Now what I say when I mean the other books were written long after the events... it would mean like hundreds of years by people who had no real idea because they weren't there. I can't say.

[Stained_Class]

Matthew: 37 C.E. (or AD, whichever you prefer)
Mark: 57 C.E.
Luke: 63 C.E.
John: 85 C.E.

The Gospel of John acted as a synthesis of the other three, and is often referred to as the "Gospel of Gospels", and was the last one written before the Jewish/Christian sometime in the 80's (history hath indeed become cloudy on these details)

[RavenRose]

I believe the Temple fell in 79(or 70?) AD/CE?