The New Testament, Episode 18: The Gnostic Gospels

You will certainly hear multiple talking heads on documentaries or semi-educational programming talking about how the 27 books of the New Testament were chosen "arbitrarily," and that there are hundreds of books that were "erased" or "removed" from the New Testament canon, with the implication being that the Christianity that emerged from the first 3 centuries was really just the survivor of a no holds barred grudge match of multiple Christianities, and that there is no reason to believe that "orthodox Christianity" is the correct one. Needless to say, I do not think much of this hypothesis. Indeed, these other books that were "removed" from canon were never considered to be real contenders as orthodox documents, and for good reason. In this podcast, we will discuss the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, and the Gospel of Judas as we look at the history of Gnostic writings and their rediscovery in the 19th & 20th Centuries.