Why are the gnostic gospels are avoided from the regular Bible?

Question

Why is it that the gospels written by Thomas, Mary, James and the similar ones like that are avoided from a regular Bible? Is it due to Heretical reasons? Or because their authenticity has not been proven ? Please give me a detailed explanation. Or anyone can contribute.

Ive read that Gnostic Gospels were written after the generation in which Jesus lived had already passed away. Then that would mean that all of them were false scriptures written by some others using the names of the disciples. Is it really a proven fact ? If they are not written by the original authors then that means there is no point in believing in them? But personally i find them amazing and feel that it is just what Jesus would have said if He had really said so.

Answer 1

The canon came together after Constantine ordered some Bibles. Some text was left out, and some was kept in based on the ideals of th time. Those who put the books together didn't like the Gnostics, so it was kicked out. Thomas, Mary, and gospels of the like are just as "authentic" as the ones attributed to John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke. It's just that the religious leaders of the time didn't like them, and the church isn't going to redact the text after all of these years because they hold onto tradition. However, people can redact their own Bibles: Thomas Jefferson did.

Answer 2

The Bible is a compellation of different books. The proofs used on whether to exclude or include books of the bible are:

-Was it used by the early church – Obviously the early church who had seen and been instructed by Jesus and had the inspiration of the Holy Spirit would be more accurate than the church in the middle ages.

-Does it disagree with the Bible? Do this say that Jesus was a ghost or something. Obviously a book that did would disagree with the bible.

-Redundancy – There is no point in having books that were written later but say the same thing as books that we KNOW the early churched used.

There are some other ones, but these are the majors. Also, the dead sea scrolls has proven that the bible we have today is accurate, so you can trust what it says. The dead sea scrolls were older by 1,000 years or more than our oldest texts and the difference between the Book of Isaiah that we have today and the dead sea scroll copy was like NIL.

There was a working canon of scripture in the 1st century. The Bible was not commissioned by Constantine, although he did commission bibles (commission means he paid for them to be made). AS I said, there was already a bible when Constantine came to power, it is just that most Da Vinci Code readers are no spouting this terribly researched book as fact.

The Gnostic gospels are dated later and teach a heretical position. That is why they were no included in LATER editions of the bible.

Answer 3

Canonization was not an arbitrary selection process, as some in this string seem to suggest.

Imagine living just after the time of a person like Jesus, and hearing stories of him everywhere: in rumors and letters and historical accounts (such as Josephus). Some churches have access to one set of writings, and other churches don't have access to all of them, and so differing traditions are built that last for hundreds of years--this is fact. So if you wanted to form a uniform standard of which books to include in a library, how would you decide which authoritative documents to include?

So, by the time the churches all got together and decided which books they would consider authoritative (canonize), the books you list in your question (and many, many more) either did not exist or had already been rejected by church tradition (that is, they never gained acceptance).

Some books were rejected by this council for various (justifiable) reasons. After deciding to put away these books, they called them the "apocrypha," or "hidden." (The root word is the word we get "crypt" from.) These books are not so hidden anymore since they were reintroduced to the Catholic canon at the time of Augustine, and can be found in Catholic Bibles today.

In your Additional Details, you asked why "the gospels written by Thomas, Mary, James...." There is something to consider, which is: How do we even know these were written by the people they say they are? What evidence exists that they were even written while these people still lived? There is another entire collection of writings that are not at all authorative called "pseudepigrapha," which basically means, "false author."

So, to answer your questions to the best of my knowledge, any books that are outside of the accepted canon are either false or simply unnecessary. Because the four accepted gospels can be traced back to the first century, it is impossible for any other writings to meet that standard. Specifically, I understand that there is no evidence that the gospel of Thomas existed in the first century, and I also understand that there are a few statements within it that seem to be heretical, so it cannot be authoritatively accurate.

In the final analysis, just because someone finds a thousand year old book in the desert sands doesn't mean it was written by any follower of Jesus or can be trusted as a source of spiritual health. Because the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are thorough first and secondhand accounts of Jesus life and teachings that have been around and distributed and accepted for two thousand years, I trust them historically.

Is that detailed enough for you? You can't say you didn't ask for it..... :)

Answer 4

The New Testament Gospels are the earliest records of the life of Jesus, written when witnesses of the events could collaborate or contradict the writings. Scholars date the Gnostic gospels in the 2nd century or later--long after the witnesses would have died. Therefore, when they disagreed with the earlier accounts, they were deemed unreliable as historical documents.

The first Christians (including the 11 disciples) accepted and circulated the New Testament Gospels but not the Gnostic gospels.

The earliest "Apocryphal gospels," included in the Catholic Bible but not Protestant Bibles, were written decades after the New Testament Gospels. Most were written centuries later. They also were not accepted or circulated as Scripture by the earliest Christians.

So one of the major tests of whether or not a gospel was included is this: What did the first Christians (the apostles, those believers who witnessed the events of Jesus' life, and those who lived soon after) have to say about the writing? Did they accept and use it? or did they see as fanciful stories and legends?

Answer 5

Dear SergiaMary: I, too, have read through much of the Gnostic Gospels. It is my understanding that they are written up to 300 years or more AFTER the Ascension of Jesus.

There are wonderful thoughts for contemplation found in SOME of them. Others are taken more lightly.

The Synoptic Gospels have some Agreement with each other - that is their strong point. That is why they are accepted as the "Gospel."

Gnostic Gospels do not tie in with each other, in particular, and so it is a collection of writings no one has CERTAINTY about. Also, being written so long after His Ascension, makes it questionable. The scholars have dated some of them.

I do not have knowledge of them being considered heretical. Many clergy have looked through them also and studied them.

Also, it is interesting to note, back in that era of Christ living in the flesh, and the ensuing next several hundred years (and this may have continued still longer), it was the STYLE of the times to write anonymously, and to select a name that was well known to the people - and use that name. Therefore, the names the Gospels are written in - are not necessarily those actual people.
This is a known truth by scholars who have studied that era.

I hope this gives to you some ideas to contemplate.

Answer 6

They are considered spurious. None of them can pass the test of canon. They were never part of Scripture. Most were written after 450 A.D. The authors are not, Thomas and James the apostles, or any one of the Mary's mentioned in Scripture. They all died in the 1st century. Basically they are all fake.

Answer 7

A number of reasons - first, when the bible was assembled, not all the books were available. Some were found later. Later, churches (especially the Roman Catholic church) found it inconvenient to add books to the bible where they were clearly separate accounts of the life of Jesus - it was easier to exclude them or just categorize them as fakes.

You have to remember that the bible was put together to support the Roman Catholic church, and not as a historical record of all accounts of the life of Jesus. Some of those manuscripts are now forever buried in the Vatican vaults, and are unlikely ever to see the light of day again.

Answer 8

because a group of men got together and decided what they wanted in the bible - the gnostic gospels didn't make it. I don't know why people think the bible is the word of god, it is the word of men

Answer 9

They were written several centuries after Christ, and never were accepted as scripture because they were written to prove a heretical point.

Answer 10

The Bible is really just a compilation of stories that ancient "editors" put together...basically those men only chose stories that they felt would adhere to and propagate (spelling?)their religious beliefs, anything contrary was left out...