The Thirteenth Gospel?

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Does anyone know what this is? The husband of a friend of mine and I were talking (super informally–basically he was doing all the talking about the corruption of True Faith and the sins of the “organization” the Catholic Church) and he referred to something called the thirteenth gospel that the Church supposedly has suppressed and keeps hidden from everyone to justify…??? --you name it–The Church is guilty of it–especially he referenced in great detail the sex abuse scandal in proving his “point” (which I’m not sure there was a point)! Now I know his info is amazingly skewed because he even referenced the “Pope Joan” garbage and the slaughter of innocents in the inquisition in the Church’s efforts to control the people–and on and on–I couldn’t get a word in–it was quite a rant but it wasn’t angry–he was just spewing–(he’s a lawyer–no offense to any jurists out there!) and all I could do was keep trying to emphasize the Church has sinners in it, but that the Church is more than the human beings who call themselves Catholic and that his understanding of Catholicism is deeply flawed. (I was very patient and didn’t get angry–actually, I was a bit dumfounded)…you get the point that it was a mess!

Anyway–when I said I had no idea what he was talking about when he referenced the “thirteenth gospel” he was genuinely surprised I’d never heard of it (but he did say that I certainly have swallowed all the propaganda of the Church).

So–does anyone know what that is? or what he might be referring to? The basic gist of the rant was that “church” is the people and not anything “organized”–and I think that idea may have something to do with it.

Any ideas?

Oh–his familiarity with Christianity is about nil–he does not practice any religion, but he was brought up Muslim, but I don’t think devoutly–if that has any bearing…
 
If he was brought up Muslim he was probably filled with a bunch of nonsense. I am not sure if this is what he was talking about, but the only reference to “The Thirteenth Gospel” I could find online was something written in 1997! The author decided that any documents which referenced the truth of Jesus must have been lost or destroyed, and that the traditional gospels must be biased creations of early Christians, so he decided to write his own based on his knowledge of what was probably happening historically at the time. If this is what this fellow is talking about, then he is so full of nonsense it’s ridiculous lol… No good atheist or skeptic would even think of using something written in 1997 to try to disprove Christianity. Further, the Church certainly couldn’t have surpressed something that was written only a few years ago,

If he is talking about something else, it is almost certainly a wild conspiracy theory that not even the most biased atheist would believe. I have spent a lot of time reading apologetics and I have never once heard of anything called the thirteenth gospel. If you search the internet, you’ll find all sorts of crazy ideas (we didn’t land on the moon, every government in the world is being controlled by a secret organization from the Druids called the Illuminati, aliens assasinated JFK to start a war and divide and conquer the earth, etc.) This sounds to me like it’s no more credible than any of those, but I’m not sure.
 
There are only four Gospels. How did we get to a 13th? What about the Fifth through the Twelfth Gospel? (I might be sorry I asked…)
 
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DavidFilmer:
There are only four Gospels. How did we get to a 13th? What about the Fifth through the Twelfth Gospel? (I might be sorry I asked…)
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Yeah…:rotfl: I was wondering that myself! But, as I said–he hardly took a breath in the diatribe so I didn’t get the opportunity to ask–the best I could interject was “What are you** talking** about?”

You know–thirteen is unlucky because of the the Pope tortured and murdered the Knights Templar on that date…:nope: (Whatever…) That’s probably were he got that.
 
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Lazerlike42:
the only reference to “The Thirteenth Gospel” I could find online was something written in 1997! … This sounds to me like it’s no more credible than any of those, but I’m not sure.
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Yeah…that was the only thing I found when I googled it, and that looked like a rant as well–only written–so I wasn’t up to reading the whole thing.

Here’s the deal–he’s an “educated” dude…he’s a lawyer and should know how to evaluate credible sources should he not? That’s why I’m flabbergasted that he’s so misinformed.

Okay–he’s the type of guy who is going to think about this and realize he was ranting and I KNOW he’s gonna come back meekly and apologize and try to smooth things over (which, as I said–it really didn’t make me angry, but he’s gonna assume I am and feel awful–it’s just how he is–rant and then meek…I’ve seen it before…).

What’s the best thing I can say to him to maybe give him a nudge in the right direction? Not to long–not too preachy–maybe a tad assertive, but mostly friendly–remember–he’s my good friend’s husband.

Thanks for any help!
 
Oh…his major focus was corruption of the hierachy and evil popes. I did get in that Jesus built his “church” on Peter and Hell would not prevail…He barely knows who Peter is…but then he said something like, “so that gives them the justification for hiding pedofiles and moving them from place to place to abuse more little boys and still respect the priest.” I threw in more than enough agreement that the abuse was horrific and unjustifiable, but he wouldn’t hear me say anything that explained that the Church is a mystical body and that the sins of individuals in the church…well I never got that far…
 
Sounds like this person subscribes to the type of garbage that is in the Da Vinci Code.

I also did some checking. Other than the usual conspiracy sites, there was a link to a review of a movie out recently called Stigmata that used a “13th Gospel” as the basis for its story.

PF
 
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WanderAimlessly:
I also did some checking. Other than the usual conspiracy sites, there was a link to a review of a movie out recently called Stigmata that used a “13th Gospel” as the basis for its story.

PF
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He did reference a movie but couldn’t remember the name of it…I bet that’s it–I’ll check it out. Thanks! If that’s his basis…whew…I’m so unimpressed and again flabbergasted that Hollywood could be his source:eek: ! I thought he was trying to reference some sort of documentry…
 
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st_felicity:
He did reference a movie but couldn’t remember the name of it…I bet that’s it–I’ll check it out. Thanks! If that’s his basis…whew…I’m so unimpressed and again flabbergasted that Hollywood could be his source:eek: ! I thought he was trying to reference some sort of documentry…
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Don’t you know? Hollywood is the High Temple of the Secular Moral Relativism. What they say must be taken as the “gospel” (I used the small “g” instead of the capital “G”). That is why, for the most part, they are out to malign Christianity.

PF
 
Oh my…THIS sounds very familiar to what he was raving about…I am so disappointed–it’s so skewed and UNREASONABLE! How do I accept his inevitable apology , say anything to him on the topic and not come off like I’m calling him an idiot for basing his opinion on the twisted notions of Hollywood!!!

www-tech.mit.edu/V119/N46/Stigmata.46a.html

"Well what do you know, Paige suffers from stigmata. Historically, only those who are the most religious develop signs of five wounds – the same wounds Jesus experienced during his crucifixion. Devouts like St. Francis de Assisi and Frankie Paige. She needs help. She’s an innocent irreligious girl with stigmata and our priest skeptic scientist is the principle investigator. She unwittingly writes ancient Aramaic, the supposed language of the historical Jesus, on her living room wall. It is an excerpt from a gospel written by Jesus – his true Word. The Vatican has known about the lost gospel for years, but has been trying to keep it under wraps since it can undermine the Church. The gospel states that “His Kingdom is inside of you.” Therefore a church which requires it’s own zip code within Rome is quite unnecessary. The possessed Frankie is enraged because someone is trying to stop the true word of God. "
 
I suspect he was refering t the “Gospel of Thomas”, It is known as the “fifth” Gospel-not the Thirteenth. You can find this “gospel” and all sorts of commentary about it at earlychristianwritings.com/thomas.html

It has been the focus of several movies, all claiming it was hidden by the Church(it has not-its been available for about 2,000 years) and always claiming it supports whatever pet cause the movie wants to push. Likewise your friend attributes to it support for his pet causes -none of which are supported by the “gospel” itself
 
If it says the church is inside of us, then it’s very likely the Gospel of Thomas, which is a gnostic work.
 
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st_felicity:
Does anyone know what this is? The husband of a friend of mine and I were talking (super informally–basically he was doing all the talking about the corruption of True Faith and the sins of the “organization” the Catholic Church) and he referred to something called the thirteenth gospel that the Church supposedly has suppressed and keeps hidden from everyone to justify…??? --you name it–The Church is guilty of it–especially he referenced in great detail the sex abuse scandal in proving his “point” (which I’m not sure there was a point)! Now I know his info is amazingly skewed because he even referenced the “Pope Joan” garbage and the slaughter of innocents in the inquisition in the Church’s efforts to control the people–and on and on–I couldn’t get a word in–it was quite a rant but it wasn’t angry–he was just spewing–(he’s a lawyer–no offense to any jurists out there!) and all I could do was keep trying to emphasize the Church has sinners in it, but that the Church is more than the human beings who call themselves Catholic and that his understanding of Catholicism is deeply flawed. (I was very patient and didn’t get angry–actually, I was a bit dumfounded)…you get the point that it was a mess!

Anyway–when I said I had no idea what he was talking about when he referenced the “thirteenth gospel” he was genuinely surprised I’d never heard of it (but he did say that I certainly have swallowed all the propaganda of the Church).

So–does anyone know what that is? or what he might be referring to? The basic gist of the rant was that “church” is the people and not anything “organized”–and I think that idea may have something to do with it.

Any ideas?

Oh–his familiarity with Christianity is about nil–he does not practice any religion, but he was brought up Muslim, but I don’t think devoutly–if that has any bearing…
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There were other gospels. I believe 13 was the number of gospels that were floating around in early Christianity. Only four of them were included in the Canon of Scripture the others (however many there were) were rejected for various reasons but mainly because they were from unknown sources.
 
I haven’t seen the movie Stigmata, but I believe it refers to a “Gospel of Jesus”, even though the quote about the kingdom of God being inside you does come from the Gospel of Thomas. I found a nice site about the development of the NT canon and all the ancient texts that were considered authoritative by both Christian writers and heretics/gnostics at ntcanon.org/table.shtml .

Interestingly, there were 12 ancient texts that went by title Gospel: the 4 canonical ones, and 8 rejected from the canon (some of which were more heretical/gnostic than others). So in the movie, the one “secret” gospel surpressed by the Vatican would be number 13 (though its only “guote” in the movie is from Thomas). But this 13th one is fictional – it was invented by the makers of Stigmata.
 
So, though his source may be Hollywood and a movie called Stigmata, the concept of “thirteen” gospels may have some validity because that is the number of gospels considered by the council that determined the canon of which only four “gospels” were chosen M,M,L,&J, because the sources of the other nine were found to be questionable.

So–a person seeking to support the claim that the Catholic Faith was corrupt from the beginning could chose to claim that the decision to disallow some or all of those nine other gospels was to censer information that might call their power into question.

What’s the smoking gun to that claim that I can express to him in a couple of sentences? Like maybe the historical council that decided the canon and their process and rationales for considering a work inspired…:confused:
 
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st_felicity:
So, though his source may be Hollywood and a movie called Stigmata, the concept of “thirteen” gospels may have some validity because that is the number of gospels considered by the council that determined the canon of which only four “gospels” were chosen M,M,L,&J, because the sources of the other nine were found to be questionable.

So–a person seeking to support the claim that the Catholic Faith was corrupt from the beginning could chose to claim that the decision to disallow some or all of those nine other gospels was to censer information that might call their power into question.

What’s the smoking gun to that claim that I can express to him in a couple of sentences? Like maybe the historical council that decided the canon and their process and rationales for considering a work inspired…:confused:
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The other eight were questionable. The “ninth” (of the non-canonical) or “thirteenth” (of all gospels) (Gospel of Jesus) is a fictional creation of Stigmata, and there is no credible, historical evidence that it exists. The four canonical Gospels are agreed by scripture scholars to be the most ancient (c. 65 AD for Mark to 90 AD for John). Certainly they were all known and quoted by the beginning of the second century, some of them by the end of the 1st c.

All of the non-canonical Gospels date from much later (c. 150 AD to as late as 300 AD or later). No Early Church Father quoted any of them with approval before 200 AD (and that was only Clement of Alexandria and only the Gospels of the Egyptians and of the Hebrews), whereas, as early as c. 180 AD Irenaeus of Lyon and Tertullian had limited the Gospels to the canonical four. The only writings disputed into the 4th c. (when councils set the present canon) were some NT letters and the Book of Revelation.

The non-canonical writings have been known in fragments (preserved by Catholic authors such as Irenaeus) or as whole works for centuries. If someone wants to believe them, there is nothing stopping them, and there have always been fringe groups who have. If someone wants to believe there are secret writings no one knows about, and the Vatican is in a conspiracy to keep them secret, no evidence can disprove such an unfounded claim. The burden of proof is on the conspiracy theorist, though, to show that such documents exists. The lack of evidence is not evidence of a cover up.

An excellent book on the subject is Philip Jenkins, Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way (Oxford 2001).
 
There are, depending on how you count, somewhere between 20 and 40 known “gospels” – some of which were written as late as 800 AD. I say “depending on how you count” because some are known only through the writings of ancient authors, and others are so fragmentary it’s difficult to know if some “gospels” are really separate documents, or merely the same “gospel” under a different name.

Examples include:

The Gospel of Thomas
The Infancy Narrative of Thomas
The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene)
The Gospel of Bartholomew
The Gospel of Truth
The Gospel of the Egyptians
The Gospel of the Hebrews
 
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aridite:
The other eight were questionable. The “ninth” (of the non-canonical) or “thirteenth” (of all gospels) (Gospel of Jesus) is a fictional creation of Stigmata, and there is no credible, historical evidence that it exists. The four canonical Gospels are agreed by scripture scholars to be the most ancient (c. 65 AD for Mark to 90 AD for John). Certainly they were all known and quoted by the beginning of the second century, some of them by the end of the 1st c.

All of the non-canonical Gospels date from much later (c. 150 AD to as late as 300 AD or later). No Early Church Father quoted any of them with approval before 200 AD (and that was only Clement of Alexandria and only the Gospels of the Egyptians and of the Hebrews), whereas, as early as c. 180 AD Irenaeus of Lyon and Tertullian had limited the Gospels to the canonical four. The only writings disputed into the 4th c. (when councils set the present canon) were some NT letters and the Book of Revelation.

The non-canonical writings have been known in fragments (preserved by Catholic authors such as Irenaeus) or as whole works for centuries. If someone wants to believe them, there is nothing stopping them, and there have always been fringe groups who have. If someone wants to believe there are secret writings no one knows about, and the Vatican is in a conspiracy to keep them secret, no evidence can disprove such an unfounded claim. The burden of proof is on the conspiracy theorist, though, to show that such documents exists. The lack of evidence is not evidence of a cover up.

An excellent book on the subject is Philip Jenkins, Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way (Oxford 2001).
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SUPER!!!:clapping:

This has helped me immensely!!! I’ll let y’all know how it turns out!
 
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