All the Gospels in The Bible

[The Mists Of Time]

What if all The Gospels including The Gnostic Gospels had been cannonized into The Bible?

Most of The New Testament scriptures are Saint Paul's letters. But other apostles left scriptural type writings, or have scriptural writings attributed to them. What if they had been cannonized into The Bible as well?

How different would our view of Christianity have been over the years and how different would it be today?

[King Gorilla]

Could this possibly lead to a living bible, that gets some teachings added by a particular sects favored leader every century or so (or for that matter expunge those texts their sect disagrees with)?

[Smaug]

Imo, the King James Bible is ruined. I'd love to read it in its original text, but he did a number on it, just sayin

[DuQuense]

Well the Geneva Bible--The Bible of the Pilgrams, and the American Founding Fathers [ie the Protastant Bible] containted a lot more Books than King Jame's [Defender of the Faith] Catholic Bible.

Before the early 1600's and the move to secular language bibles, the Church athorities controled the entire Message. Even More and/or different Books, wouldn't change this.

[Wendell]

Some of the Gnostic works, unless I'm confusing them with another early sect, were rather antisemitic. That could impact the Church.

[Smaug]

Originally Posted by Smaug

Imo, the King James Bible is ruined. I'd love to read it in its original text, but he did a number on it, just sayin

this was sorta an Apochrypha(?) reference, not that I'm a biblical scholar by any stretch. I'm just somewhat disallusioned by a secular ruler deciding whats in, and whats not. Of course, this kind of talk could go on for an hour or two at least

[zoomar]

Originally Posted by King Gorilla

Could this possibly lead to a living bible, that gets some teachings added by a particular sects favored leader every century or so (or for that matter expunge those texts their sect disagrees with)?

I tend to think the result would be an "anything goes" document. From the orthodox perspective, one benefit of the various councils which decided the canonical new testament is that they created a fairly consistent record which did not include too many outright inconsistencies. It has definite answers. If all writings from early Jewish-Christian sects were accepted and included in the Bible, as well as the testimonies of later prophets and preachers (like Joseph Smith and even Mohammad), we would have a wonderfully inclusive document which "anwered" no basic questions about God, Christ, and the Meaning of Life. We'd also probably have fewer wars, pogroms, and inquisitions as well, but that's another topic.

[Tom Veil]

Originally Posted by Wendell

Some of the Gnostic works, unless I'm confusing them with another early sect, were rather antisemitic. That could impact the Church.

I recall that as well. At first I thought I read it in If Jesus Had Never Been Born, but that doesn't look like my actual source. Since I don't have the docs, I'll just say that the theory as I recall it was that the Gnostics were the ones who suggested blaming the Jews for Jesus's death.

[Tom Veil]

To answer Mist's original question, btw, if this society does reach the Age of Enlightenment, then it can be expected to have a huge crisis of faith. The current 4 Gospels are fairly consistent with each other. The Gnostic Gospels, at least those that have survived, are marked by disturbing changes to the underlying facts. Maybe the Gnostics were the correct ones, who knows, but I think that the Cardinals did a world of good for the concept of internal consistency by keeping them out.
Of course, this society may never reach the Age of Englightenment. The theological crisis might happen very early on, and the result could be a dogmatic belief that some things are inherently contradictory, and God wants it that way. Such a belief would deeply wound the growth of science.

[The Mists Of Time]

I recently saw something on TV about the recently translated Gospel of Judas. According to that report or TV special, the four gospels that are in The New Testament were put there in the year 180 AD by a Bishop Irineus.
It was a time when Christianity was illegal and there was turmoil within the Church, and a lot of discussion of which writings and gospels should go in The Bible.

Of course most people were illiterate and had to have The Bible, the gospels read to them. But Bishop Irineus chose the four gospels that most people enjoyed and wanted to have read to them. Basically what decided which gospels would go in The Bible was a popularity contest, and Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John won the popularity contest.

The other gospels including the gnostic gospels give us an interesting look at early Christianity and at the diversity of thought within the early Church.

[Wendell]

What will the impact be on Islam?

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

Originally Posted by Wendell

What will the impact be on Islam?

No Islam. Butterflies and all that. There were plenty of Judaic and Christian Arabs at the time of Muhammad*, so there really is no historical necessity for them to found a new monotheistic religion. Neither the Ethiopians nor the Armenians did. The fact that they did is one instance of a Great Man changing the course of history.

*There were also some "old wise men" who were monotheists without belonging to either religion, I'm not sure how they were called but Muhammad respected for them IIRC. You could say he was one of them before founding Islam.

[Verence]

Originally Posted by Wendell

Some of the Gnostic works, unless I'm confusing them with another early sect, were rather antisemitic. That could impact the Church.

You might be thinking about Marcion of Sinope who founded what went on to be a major heresy. His writings started that the God of New Testament was a completely differe creature to that of the Old Testament and that although the Old Testament god was a the Creator he was also evil. Then there some writings which try to rehabilitate Pilate which result in most, if not all of the blame for the death of Jesus being shifted onto the Jews

[Verence]

Originally Posted by Verence

You might be thinking about Marcion of Sinope who founded what went on to be a major heresy. His writings started that the God of New Testament was a completely differe creature to that of the Old Testament and that although the Old Testament god was a the Creator he was also evil. Then there some writings which try to rehabilitate Pilate which result in most, if not all of the blame for the death of Jesus being shifted onto the Jews

Speaking of Pilate he is actually a saint in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church

[Redem]

I saw the same tv show as him, they also said. the 4 gospel we have know were the "comprensive" and "popular" (IIRC) as they were 30(!) gospel back then (some of the gnostic gospel are very "cryptic" even at a religious book standard)

[Tom_B]

Originally Posted by Redem

I saw the same tv show as him, they also said. the 4 gospel we have know were the "comprensive" and "popular" (IIRC) as they were 30(!) gospel back then (some of the gnostic gospel are very "cryptic" even at a religious book standard)

I too wonder if Mists of Time is under the misleading impression from all the Gospel of Judas hype that there were only a few Gnostic Gospels.

And not all the Appocrypha was Gnostic.

I could see a canonical New Testament which included Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas and one of the infancy Gospels (none of which has more than a whiff of Gnosticism) but I don't think something like Valentinus' convoluted Gospel of Truth would get included.

[Weapon M]

You have to go back, way back to The Council of Nicea to get a lot more books included.

Maybe there is no such thing as "heresy"? Instead they view differing interpretations as just that, interpretations of the same, wonderful, divine thingie.

[The Mists Of Time]

I'm of the understanding that there are something like 34 gospels altogether and that quite a number of them are gnostic. I'm not sure how many are gnostic but I understand a number of them are, more than just a few.

It's hard to imagine the Gnostic Gospels being cannonzed into the New Testament, but that's the idea as stated in the opening post.

It would make a much larger Bible, and some of the Gospels would be in conflict with each other. Some of the gospels that are not in The Bible in OTL especially the gnostic ones take a very different view of Christianity. If all the Gospels had been included, it would be interesting to see how the differences and the conflicts between them would have been handled over the years by the Christian religion as a whole and by the various denominations.

Something the non-cannonized Gospels including the Gnostic Gospels show is the wide range of thinking, theology, and philosophy there was in the early Christian communities and in the early Church.

I'm planning to get and read several of the non-cannonized Gospels including some of the gnostic ones, also The Gospel Of Judas. I just think it would be interesting to read them and to study their approach to Christianity.

[Verence]

Originally Posted by The Mists Of Time

If all the Gospels had been included, it would be interesting to see how the differences and the conflicts between them would have been handled over the years by the Christian religion as a whole and by the various denominations.

Something the non-cannonized Gospels including the Gnostic Gospels show is the wide range of thinking, theology, and philosophy there was in the early Christian communities and in the early Church.

How about having Christianity divide into three competing faiths much earlier. You could have something like the Ebionites (pro-Jewish Christians) on one side, the Marcionites (anti-Jewish Christians) on the other and something in the middle. They would each have their own Bible and have very few 'books' in common.

[Nicole]

With the discussion on the Christian Apocrypha, I thought this website I found might be interesting: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/