Not Sacred, but still Scripture? Apocryphal Gospels: Can they teach us anything

[Maynoothman]

Apocryphal Gospels: Can they teach us anything.

These texts many of which have emerged from sites such as Nag Hammadi and Oxyrincus can be read as remnants of early Christian beliefs who differed on certain areas of doctrine with what would become the established Church, the most prolific in terms of writing being the Gnostics.

As the Gnostic teachings are widely divergent from what was to be adopted into canon some consider them to be useless pieces of propaganda. . .

The question however is: Are they totally useless and irrelevant or are they useful in ANY way?

Im curious what people here think

 

[mdgspencer]

Some of these “gospels” have been known for 100 years or more. I haven’t found anything in Christian Biblical studies that has drawn any insight from these. I would think that if worthwile insight could come from them it would have been found by now. It is enough to read something like the “Gospel of St. Thomas” to dismiss them. That particular Gospel for example shows the child Jesus casually performing miracles and slaying people. The people who wrote these Gospels used them to promote their oddball beliefs.

 

[thistle]

Apocryphal Gospels: Can they teach us anything.

These texts many of which have emerged from sites such as Nag Hammadi and Oxyrincus can be read as remnants of early Christian beliefs who differed on certain areas of doctrine with what would become the established Church, the most prolific in terms of writing being the Gnostics.

As the Gnostic teachings are widely divergent from what was to be adopted into canon some consider them to be useless pieces of propaganda. . .

The question however is: Are they totally useless and irrelevant or are they useful in ANY way?

Im curious what people here think

As the Gnostics were heretics, everything written by them is useless and irrelevant.

 

[Maynoothman]

The origins of the Christian gospels is a very interesting case study and upon inspection one can easily find an argument which affords a certain amount of respect for the apocryphal texts.

A standard theory in scholarly scriptural circles claims there to be a proto gospel of sayings, called Q from which the gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were aware of and used as a template, a gospel of sayings not dissimilar to the gospel of Thomas which begins the phrase

“These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down”.

not saying that this was the case. . .but is it not something worth thinking about?

 

[mangy_dog]

As the Gnostics were heretics, everything written by them is useless and irrelevant.

I have them but I don’t promote them. I don’t even make reference to them to anyone when speaking, teaching or preaching. A certain spiritual maturity is necessary to realize that they were not accepted as canonical for a reason and the Holy Spirit directed the Catholic Magisterium to accept some books and exclude others. When in doubt, default to the Sound Doctrine. They are beautiful to read just like I read Paradise Lost or The Divine Comedy. While they seem to offer certain elements of truth and concordance to catholic teaching, they are not canonical. And so I glean what is noble, beautiful…what is worthy, and filter out what I know clashes with my catholicity. When in doubt default to the Sound Doctrine.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum.

 

[inthecloud]

I bought a compliation of them them in a Catholic Library for research purposes. They are insane!
But some parts of Thomas might have been talken from Jesus actual sayings.
And the fragment of Jesus saying, probably parts of Q? are good.
About the Dead Sea Scrolls:
The canonical OT books resemble the Septuagint more that the Masoretic text. And there is a complete Samuel 1,11. The one Flavius Josefus quoted from.
The apocaliptic and noncanonical text are insane too but some give us ideas on things like the Nephilim tale for example. And some passages of Cronicles, Oseas, Miqueas, the Gospels and Paul can be interpreted better in light of the administrative and Jewish polemics documents found.

 

[Spirithound]

I bought a compliation of them them in a Catholic Library for research purposes. They are insane!
But some parts of Thomas might have been talken from Jesus actual sayings.

Any part of the gnostic “gospel” of Thomas that truly quotes Jesus was copied from the real Gospels.