The Bible Nerd

“Winners write history their way.”  I will always remember this quote from a leading author on the Gnostic Gospels.  Several years ago, there was a craze of interest in the Gospel of Thomas.  It was in movies, magazines, and books, so I figured I better check this thing out (downside of those pesky student questions… can’t they just accept everything I say?)  After talking about how the Gospel of Thomas represents more accurately early Christianity, the author finished with this conclusion as an explanation of why Thomas was out, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John made it in.  That male dominated, agenda laden, early church leadership decided that the Gospel of Thomas’s teaching didn’t advance their agenda of maintaining control and power over the church.

Hmmmm….. While I would heavily challenge the assertion that Thomas was the more authentic view rather than a minority of false teachers, I do appreciate the question of how some books got in and others did not.  Even more entertaining was the movie based on Dan Brown’s book that had that cool video montage of how it was Constantine and the Roman Empire that decided what would be in the Bible.  Well, Brown has never hidden that his books are works of FICTION.  Once again, before I dig into the history of the canon (how the Bible came together), I have to make the same statement as with the authority of Scripture.  In the end, either you have faith that God’s sovereign hand was over the process of the Bible coming together or you don’t.

You can spend a lot of time looking at things like the Dead Sea Scrolls and church history, and if you do, you will be amazed at the story of the creation of the Bible.  You will, however, still not be able to PROVE that God picked the exact books He wanted in the Bible, while leaving the others out.  There was intense debate in the early church councils starting in the 300’s A.D., about what books were to be included.  Some of these disputed books were Hebrews, Revelation, 2 Peter, Jude, and Esther to name a few.  I can’t imagine a Bible without Hebrews or Revelation (no offense to Jude, but I’ll have to bow to God’s wisdom on that one choice).

The early church made the New Testament canon choices based on apostolic authorship and content.  Either the author needed to be an apostle (Paul, Peter, etc…) or someone known to be approved and/or trained  by the apostles (Mark, Luke, etc..).  Once authorship was approved, the content had to agree with the content of established New Testament books and the Old Testament.  That is the double whammy that hit books like the Gospel of Thomas.  Early church leaders didn’t believe that the actual Thomas the apostle had written the book, but rather that it was a work of early 2nd century Gnostic false teachers.  Also, the content was a radical departure from the other four established Gospels.

Though it makes for a great conspiracy theory, there is no evidence that the Gospel of Thomas was suppressed by Constantine or the church leaders of the 4th century.  The truth is that by that time, the church at large (with established, international leadership) had rejected Thomas as being false.  The Gnostic teaching that produced it had fallen out of popularity, and no one was bothering to copy it and preserve it for future generations.  Other than the ones found in Egypt, there has been a serious lack of other locations where copies have been located.  I can’t find any!  Yes, they are OLD copies that date to our oldest copies of the 4 Biblical gospels, but that doesn’t negate the fact that by the time of the canon, they had vanished like a bad fad (think Hammer pants).

Rats, I just ruined a lot of good movies and books if you were banking on the Gospel of Thomas being the real deal.  I still enjoy Star Wars, even though I am pretty sure we haven’t found any Wookies yet.  Though there isn’t enough evidence for Wookie faith, I am rock solid in my faith on the canon of the Bible.  I do believe God worked through church fathers to make sure the exact 66 books that God wanted ended being in, and the Gospel of Thomas and Shepherd of Hermas were out.