"Lost Gospels" are to the Gospels as Sci-Fi is to Shakespeare

Yesterday, I began to discuss the so-called Lost Gospels, those second and third century writings claiming to be Gospel accounts by Apostles like Peter, Thomas, and Judas. As I noted, the Apostles names applied to these writing are clearly forged. The writings themselves are too late to come from those living at the same time Jesus ministered, unlike the four recognized Gospels of the New Testament. However, that doesn't stop some skeptics from trying to promote the idea that these documents are somehow on par with the canonical Gospels.

In his book Lost Christianities, Bart Ehrman makes the claim that there was some kind of competition between the four Gospels we know and these other writings. He states:

The Gospels that came to be included in the New Testament were all written anonymously; only at a later time were they called by the names of their reputed authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But at about the time these names were being associated with the Gospels, other Gospel books were becoming available, sacred texts that were read and revered by different Christian groups throughout the world: a Gospel, for example, claiming to be written by Jesus' closest disciple, Simon Peter; another by his apostle Philip; a Gospel allegedly written by Jesus' female disciple, Mary Magdalene; another by his own twin brother, Didymus Judas Thomas.1

Ehrman then claims "Someone decided that four of these early Gospels, and no others, should be accepted as part of the canon," and then asks "How can we be sure they were right?"2

Obfuscating the Late Composition of the Gnostic Texts

As a New Testament scholar, Ehrman is being extremely disingenuous here. First, notice the phrasing of the sentence "about the time these names were being associated with the Gospels, other Gospel books were becoming available." It is written tom mislead readers that the Gnostic accounts are nearly contemporaneous with the Gospels. That isn't true. The Gospels were well known and circulated from the first century onward. As I've shown here and here, early church fathers named the authors of all four of the Gospels by 100 AD and no other candidates were ever seriously advanced. The Gnostic texts weren't even written until the second and third centuries, and that's when the church began making lists of what counts as Scripture and what doesn't. Thus, when Ehrman claims that "other Gospel books were becoming available," he means other Gospel books were being written. And when he claims this happened "about the same time these names were being associated with the Gospels" he means the Church put down on paper a list of Gospels bearing the names Matthew. Mark, Luke, and John.

But what of Ehrman's other claim that these texts were considered sacred, revered and worthy to be considered as part of the Christian Scripture? Internet skeptics make similar assertions all the time. However, these Gnostic texts, although labeled by their forgers as "Gospels" don't hold a candle to the real Gospels. In fact, all it takes is a quick read of them to show they are about as similar to the Gospels as a pulp science fiction novel is to one of Shakespeare's plays. Let's take a look at a few snippets to get a flavor.

Gospel of Peter

Ehrman points to the Gospel of Peter as a potential candidate for Scripture. Yet, in the Gospel of Peter, Pontius Pilate becomes free of all guilt because he washed his hands, thus flipping John's account on its head. It was the unwashed Jews and Herod that are supposed to take the blame for Jesus's death:

But of the Jews no man washed his hands, neither did Herod nor any one of his judges: and whereas they would not wash, Pilate rose up. And then Herod the king commanded that the Lord should be taken into their hands, saying unto them: All that I commanded you to do unto him, do ye.3

Such a re-envisioning of Herod's washing as a good thing is remarkable enough, but what's worse is how the account of the resurrection portrays Jesus coming out of the tomb on Sunday morning accompanied by two angels. All three of them have elongated necks and there a floating cross that answers God the Father! The passage reads:

They saw again three men come out of the sepulchre, and two of them sustaining the other and a cross following, after them. And of the two they saw that their heads reached unto heaven, but of him that was led by them that it overpassed the heavens. And they heard a voice out of the heavens saying: Hast thou (or Thou hast) preached unto them that sleep? And an answer was heard from the cross, saying: Yea.4

Certainly, the Gospel of Peter does not hold the same historical weight as the Gospel accounts.

Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas was another account that Ehrman mentions. This text is interesting because it is probably the earliest of the Gnostic texts written sometime in the early or middle second century. But to call it a Gospel is to malign the term. First of all, it isn't a narrative of Jesus' ministry. It is only 114 verses long and is a collection of supposed sayings or teachings of Jesus. About a third of these are copied from the existing Gospel accounts. About a third are teachings not necessarily incompatible with Christian doctrine, but we don't know if Jesus said them. The last third, though, are completely Gnostic.

For example, take verse 22, which is comprised of double-speak :

 When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].5

Or verse 30, which is not only confusing but seems to reject monotheism:

Where there are three deities, they are divine. Where there are two or one, I am with that one.6

Finally, Thomas ends with a disturbing bit of Gnostic ideology where Jesus states only men can get into heaven and Mary Magdalene must be turned into a man to enter the Kingdom:

Simon Peter said to him, "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.7

I could go on, but I think my point is made. The so-called Lost Gospels are nothing of the kind. They weren't lost, they were rejected. And they weren't Gospels, because they are devoid of the Good News of salvation. Of course, people can spiritualize anything; that's why a significant number of people in England and Wales identified themselves as holding to the Jedi faith.8 Holding that the Gnostic texts were serious candidates as Gospels falls into the same category as believing Obi-Wan Kenobi is a religious scholar. It makes me wonder in what way Dr. Ehrman watches Star Wars.

References

1. Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. New York: Oxford UP, 2003. Print. 4.
2. Ehrman, 2003. 4.
3. Gospel of Peter, I.1-2. Translated by M. R. James. The Gnostic Society Library. The Gnostic Society Library, 1995. Web. 28 May 2015. http://www.gnosis.org/library/gospete.htm.
4. Gospel of Peter,XI.38-42.
5. Gospel of Thomas. 20. Translated by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer. The Gnostic Society Library. The Gnostic Society Library, 1994. Web. 28 May 2015 http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html
6. Gospel of Thomas, 30.
7. Gospel of Thomas, 114.
8. "'Jedi' Religion Most Popular Alternative Faith." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 11 Dec. 2012. Web. 28 May 2015. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religion-most-popular-alternative-faith.html.

Why There's No Such Thing as a Lost Gospel

Are there really "lost" Gospel texts that were eliminated from the Bible? The claim has been circulating for many decades now, with specials on television that highlight the Gospel of Judas or books such as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Yet, simply because someone calls a writing "Gospel" does that mean it should be considered as a candidate for Scripture alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? I don't think so.

There are a number of reasons why the texts that are collectively known as the "lost" Gospels are nothing of the kind. First of all, they were written much later than the canonical Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were all penned in the first century, within 30 to 60 of Jesus's ministry. However, scholars have dated the vast majority of the Gnostic Gospels to originate in the second or third centuries. Scholars who are both liberal and conservative agree that the Gnostic accounts were created after the apostolic age.1 That means Gnostic works bearing the name of Thomas or James or Peter or Judas are definite forgeries.

Gnostic Texts Rely on the Canonical Gospels

Although the Gnostic Gospels are forgeries, the reason why they use the names of well-known apostles is interesting. The writers knew that for their writings to have any credence at all, they would have to bear the name of recognized figures during Jesus's ministry. Thus, the names of Thomas, James, Peter, and Judas are used to try and give these writings an air of authority.

Martin Hengel makes the point that unlike the original four Gospels, these Gnostics were written with the name attached to them from the very beginning. He notices that there are no competing claims nor are there any discussions about the author attribution for the Gnostic texts as there was for the canonical Gospels. He then concludes, "The uniformity of this unusual form of title strongly suggests that the titles "were not secondary additions but part of the Gospels as originally circulated. . . . [T]hese superscriptions were not added to the Gospels secondarily, long after their composition . . ."2

The question one should ask next, though, is how did those reading the Gnostic texts know these names of the apostles? The answer is simply that the four canonical Gospels were not only already in existence, but accepted as authoritative. In fact, by the middle of the second century, all four of the Biblical Gospels have been quoted as authoritative by Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenaeus, and included in the Diatessaron, a book that sought to harmonize all the Gospel accounts.

Further, throughout the Gnostics accounts, familiar portions of the canonical Gospels are leveraged. We read of Pilate washing his hands and of Jesus being buried in a tomb in the Gospel of Peter. About a third of the Gospel of Thomas are sayings of Jesus that steal from the canonical accounts.3 Ben Witherington concurs, writing "One of the key indicators that Gnosticism is a later development is that it depends on the canonical Gospels for its substance when it comes to the story of Jesus. Even more tellingly, the Gnostic texts try to de-Judaize the New Testament story."4

Gnostic Texts Seek to Usurp Gospel Accounts

Witherington's last point is not to be missed. The Gnostic texts set themselves apart from the canonical texts in both their theology and their claims to be the truth while the established Christianity of the church fathers was false. The term gnostic is based on a Greek word for knowledge, and the Gnostics continually preached that they had secret knowledge others didn't. The Apocalypse of Peter clearly sets the Gnostics against the Christian church leaders when it proclaims, "And there shall be others of those who are outside our number who name themselves bishop and also deacons, as if they have received their authority from God. They bend themselves under the judgment of the leaders. Those people are dry canals" (emphasis added).5 The Testimony of Truth proclaims "They do not have the word which gives life." 6

It is clear that the Gnostic Gospels are not on par with the canonical Gospels with regards to their sources. They are forgeries that were written too late, they relied on the existing four Gospels for at least some of their content 9thus tacitly endorsing Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as properly authoritative), and they set themselves up to be competitors to the teachings of the church that were handed down from the apostles. These so-called Gospels were never lost; they were simply rejected as poor imitations of what true scripture would look like.

References

1 Scholar Darrell Bock in his book The Mission Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Pub, 2006), points to the work of Rebell, Ehrman, Klauk, Lapham and White to support these dates.
2. Hengel, Martin. The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity International, 2000. Print. 50.
3. One such example is Thomas 20 which reads, "The disciples said to Jesus, 'Tell us what Heaven's kingdom is like.' He said to them, "'It's like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.'"
4. Witherington, Ben. The Gospel Code: Novel Claims about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Da Vinci. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004. Print. 22.
5. "The Apocalypse of Peter." Translated by James Brashler and Roger A. Bullard. The Nag Hammadi Library. Web. http://gnosis.org/naghamm/apopet.html
6. "The Testimony of Truth." Translated by Søren Giversen and Birger A. Pearson. The Nag Hammadi Library. Web. http://gnosis.org/naghamm/testruth.html

Does a Fertilized Egg Have a Soul?

A recent article in the British publication Premier Christianity asked the question, "Does individual life really begin at conception?"1 David Instone-Brewer argues conception is too early to consider the embryo or zygote a person, pointing to the fact that cells are undifferentiated and the embryo could split into twins. He notes that prior to the 14 day mark, cells are undifferentiated, therefore "the number of nerve and brain cells in the human embryo is zero, and it has less complexity than the simplest microscopic worm."

Instone-Brewer doesn't rest his argument on biology, however. He's more fair than that. He offers a theological argument as to why 14 is the magic number. He continues:

For a completely different reason, theologians might also regard 14 days as a significant starting point for individual life. This is the date before which the cell-bundle could split into identical twins or larger multiples. We don't know if God injects a fully formed spirit at some point (like Plato imagined) or whether our spirit develops while our body develops. However, we can be sure that God does not give an individual spirit to a bundle of cells before 14 days because if those cells did subsequently split into identical twins, they would have only half of a human spirit each. Theologically speaking, therefore, individual spiritual life cannot start before 14 days after conception.

What Makes a Living Thing Alive?

Here is where I think Instone-Brewer goes wrong. While it is true that a single embryo will infrequently split into multiples, Instone-Brewer seems to offer a stunted definition of what the soul is. In his explanation above, he tries to separate the soul from the growing embryo as something that God perhaps adds to the entity. Yet, he doesn't take into account what is the thing that causes the embryo to be considered a living thing at all.

Regardless of whether our soul is fully formed or develops with the body, there is something that is unique about an embryo in that it is a living entity. It is different from a rock or a piece of wood. It is even different from a human corpse. The embryo is alive. The Bible has traditionally taught that the thing that separates a living being from an inanimate object is the soul.2 In Genesis 2:7 we read, "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." The word used for God's breathing and the word used for being are both forms of the Hebrew word nephesh which is the primary word for soul. In the Genesis passage, God fashions the body—that is, all the parts are there and read to work—but the body doesn't become alive until the soul is given to it by God.

There are several other passages that illustrate the soul as being the distinctive element separating life and death. Genesis 35:18, which recounts Rachel's death, describes her passing by recording her soul's departure from the body. Also, Elijah when raising the widow's dead son in 1 Kings 17:21 prayed "Let this child's life (nephesh) return to him."

The Difference between a Being and Tissue

Of course, someone may offer an objection at this point, asking "What about cells such as skin cultures they keep alive in Petri dishes? Certainly, those don't have a soul, do they?" Well, I would argue no. First, a soul is a single entity that relates to the entire being. Instone-Brewer is right in noting that an embryo splitting into twins would leave each with half a soul. Similarly, a sperm cell and an ovum don't each have half a soul that fuses together when they unite. This is equating the immaterial aspect of the soul with the material aspect of the cells themselves. The soul encapsulates and animates the entire person.

Because the soul supervenes upon the entire person, it can be said that the soul provides the guidance or teleos for the body to operate properly. In other words, one's body is like an assembly of musicians and one's DNA is the sheet music. However, without a conductor to regulate the system, a symphony would never be produced. An embryo and even a zygote (fertilized egg) have that conductor in the soul, which animates the organism with forward progress. It builds a body.

Contrast that with cells in a dish. There is no telos there; the cells simply continue in a mechanical fashion as long as. In fact, one can compare them to the organs of an organ donor. If you are an organ donor, you have allowed certain body organs to be taken from you after you die and transplanted into another person. The organs are not removed until you are really dead, yet certain organs can for a limited time and with intervention stay viable for longer periods. While the cells of these organs are still operational, they will also die unless they are placed within a living being where their purpose may be fulfilled.

Embryos are not like an organ simply because the telos of an embryo is to create an independent entity. One may realize this doesn't happen in 14 days (or even nine months; it takes many years before a human being can be considered fully independent), but it marks a clear distinction between that which is a living being and cells that are mechanically operational.

On the question of where the soul of the twin comes from, you can read the excellent reply Peter D. Williams writes here. However, by ignoring the theology about what makes a human being alive, I think Instone-Brewer's answer is too short-sighted.

References

1. Instone-Brewer, David, and Peter D. Williams. "Does Individual Life Really Begin at Conception?" Premier Christianity. Premier Christian Media Trust, 14 May 2015. Web. 26 May 2015. http://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2015/June-2015/Does-individual-life-really-begin-at-conception.
2.. Although I offer some examples here, a much fuller argument for the soul as that which gives life may be found in J.P. Moreland and Scott Rae's Body & Soul: Human Nature & the Crisis in Ethics. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), pages 26-40.

Is Morality Grounded in Nature, Utility, or God?

Just as there are three possible sources for moral obligations (determined, designed, or discovered—see previous video), there are three competing ideas offered today for the grounding of morality. Can one derive objective moral principles from naturalism or utilitarianism or must moral law be grounded in God alone? In this last of a four-part series, Lenny discusses the problems with both naturalistic and utilitarian view of morality and shows why moral values and duties are rooted in God and his laws.

Os Guinness Says "We Are All Apologists Now"

I recently received an advanced copy of Os Guinness' forthcoming book Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion. While I haven't yet read the whole thing, Guinness is a solid scholar and a stalwart author who takes both cultural engagement and the defense of the faith seriously.

In this contribution, Guinness doesn't offer another catalog of answers so much as he offers keen insight into the method of communication Christians need to develop in order to be heard in our increasingly noisy society. I'll review the entire book at a later date. For now, I'll leave you with the opening lines of the introduction, which should whet your appetite for more.

We are all apologists now, and we stand at the dawn of the grand age of human apologetics, or so some are saying because our wired world and our global era are a time when expressing, presenting, sharing, defending and selling ourselves have become a staple of everyday life for countless millions of people around the world, both Christians and others. The age of the Internet, it is said, is the age of the self and the selfie. The world is full of people full of themselves. In such an age, "I post, therefore I am."

To put the point more plainly, human interconnectedness in the global era has been raised to a truly global level, with unprecedented speed and on an unprecedented scale. Everyone is now everywhere, and everyone can communicate with everyone else from anywhere and at any time, instantly and cheaply. Communication through the social media in the age of email, text messages, cell phones, tweets and Skype is no longer from "the few to the many" as in the age of the book, the newspaper and television, but from "the many to the many" and all the time.

One of the effects of this level of globalization is plain. Active and inter­active communication is the order of the day. From the shortest texts and tweets to the humblest website, to the angriest blog, to the most visited social networks, the daily communications of the wired world attest that everyone is now in the business of relentless self-promotion—presenting them­selves, explaining themselves, defending themselves, selling themselves or sharing their inner thoughts and emotions as never before in human history. That is why it can be said that we are in the grand secular age of apologetics.

The whole world has taken up apologetics without ever using or knowing the idea as Christians understand it. We are all apologists now, if only on behalf of "the Daily Me" or "the Tweeted Update" that we post for our virtual friends and our cyber community. The great goals of life, we are told, are to gain the widest possible public attention and to reach as many people in the world with our products-and always, our leading product is Us.1

I completely agree with this passage. Everyone seek self-promotion these days, sometimes in ways that are more subtle than others. People feign expertise in subjects they really know nothing about, appearing smarter than they are. The advent of the Google scholar, where people believe the first three hits from a search term are enough to make one knowledgeable about a subject has the effect of chilling conversation and therefore chilling the true accumulation of knowledge. Therefore, Christians do need to be wise as serpents but gentle as doves in their interaction with others. Fool's Talk would be a good start.

The book will be released July of 2015. You can pre-order on Amazon here.

References

1.Guinness, Os. Fool's Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion. Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity, 2015. Print.15-16.