5.01.2011

Why You Can Trust the Biblical Gospels

WHAT was all the excitement about?  The magazine was commenting on the recent popular interest and activities centered on a collection of pseudo gospels, epistles and apocalypses discovered in the mid-20th century in Nag Hammadi and elsewhere in Egypt.  These and other documents of this type have generally been referred to a Gnostic or Apocryphal writings.

Was There a Conspiracy?

In an age when people generally are cynical about the Bible and orthodox religions, the Gnostic or Apocryphal writings seem to have struck a responsive chord.  These writings have had a great influence on the way many view the teachings of Jesus Christ and Christianity itself.  As one magazine stated:  "The Gospel of Thomas and other Apocryphal [works] speak to the heart of a group of people that continues to grow in modern times:  those who are eager for spirituality but distrust religion."  It has been calculated that in Brazil alone "there are at least 30 groups whose beliefs are based on the Apocrypha."

The discovery of these documents has popularized the theory that in the fourth century C.E., the Catholic Church conspired to cover up the truth about Jesus, that some accounts of his life presented in the Apocryphal, writings  were suppressed, and that the four Gospels found in modern Bibles were altered.  Elaine Pagels, professor of religion put it this way:  "We now begin to see that we call  Christianity-and what we identify as Christians tradition-actually represents only a small selection  of specific sources, chosen from among dozens of others."

In the opinion of scholars like Pagels, the Bible in not the only source of Christian faith;  there are other sources, such as the Apocrayphal writings.  For example, a BBC program entitled Bible Mysteries,  The Real Mary Magdalene as "a teacher and spiritual guide to the other disciples.  She's not just a disciple; she's the apostle to the apostle to the apostles."  Commenting on the supposed role of Mary Magdalene, Juan Arias writes in the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo:  "Today everything leads us to believe that the early Christian movement, founded by Jesus, was profoundly 'feminist,' since the first domestic churches were women's houses, where they first officiated as priest and bishops."

For many, the Apocryphal sources seem to carry far more weight than the Biblical source.  This preference, however, raises some important questions:  Are the Apocryphal writings a legitimate source of Christian  faith?  When they contradict clear Bible teachings, which source should we believe -the Bible or the Apocryphal books?  Was there really a conspiracy int he fourth  century to suppress these books and alter the four Gospels to exclude important information about Jesus, Mary Magdalene and others?  For answers to these questions, let us consider one of the four Biblical Gospels, the Gospel of John.

Next time: Evidence From John's Gospel

Watchtower, 2010

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