Acts of Andrew?

[Gastro]

Why were New-Testament apocryphoral works, such as the Acts of Andrew, and the Gospels of Peter and Thomas, not considered part of Scripture? These aren’t like the Shepard of Hermas…

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[NotWorthy]

*According to the following web-site, maplenet.net/~trowbridge/actsand.htm

• The Acts Of Andrew
  

      c. 200-225 C.E.

“The Acts of Andrew continue the encratite traditions begun in the Acts of Peter and John, and might well be by the same author, though scholars tend to date Andrew slightly later. However, these Acts are not as clearly Gnostic as, for example, the Acts of John; The importance of martyrdom is stressed throughout, which is not in line with Gnostic philosophy.”

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I hope this doesn’t sound smart alecky, but the answer is: Because they weren’t considered divinely inspired, or “God breathed” as some of our Protestant brothers and sisters would call it. Good literature, perhaps, but divine–no. Not all of Paul’s, or Peter’s, writings were divine scripture. . .the Holy Spirit enabled the Church to authentically and infallibly discern exactly which works from the Jewish tradition (Old Testament) and which works of the apostles (New Testament) were divinely inspired Scripture, and which were not.

The works you give were NOT divine Scripture. Roma locuta est.

 

[awalt]

I am confused - is there a double meaning to Gnostic? It says Andrew was not as Gnostic as John, but I always thought Gnostic meant this:

the thought and practice especially of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis

which was really a cult in earl Christian days that believed that knoweldge of Christianity was secret and only the in-people were priveleged to know the truths (lousy explanation but you get the idea I hope) – the Gospels speak to the people about this.

What am I confused about on this?

 

[Gastro]

So did Andrew really write it? It just seems strange that the Apostles would be spreading Gnostic doctrines.

Andrew

 

[NotWorthy]

You can find a bunch of the early church writings at the following link: earlychristianwritings.com/alphabetical.html
In it, they’ll often show why it was not considered inspired writing. For instance, in Peter’s Gospel, it implies that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, instead he was lifted up into heaven bodily. I assume that would have added a few extra topics on these dicussion threads!!! And, yes, the authors of many of these books, both inspired and not inspired, are not always who you may think. I’ve heard (and I may be wrong, yet again) that the Gospel of John was written by his successors, as many as 2 or 3 different people.