EPISODE 5
Agrapha
Agrapha are sayings of Jesus that are not in the canonical
gospels but found in other New Testament or early Christian writings. The first
known use of agrapha was in 1890.[ii]
The various sources for agrapha can be credited to Christian and Jewish sources,
Muhammadan literature, the New Testament outside of the Gospels, Gospel
manuscripts and VSS, Apocryphal Gospels and an early collection of sayings of
Jesus, liturgical texts, patristic and medieval literature and the Talmud.[iii]
In early Christian literature, especially in the writings of
Clement of Alexandria, it was used of oral tradition; and in this sense it was
revived by Koerner in a Leipzig Program issued in 1776 under the title De
sermonibus Christi agraphois. For some time, it was restricted to sayings of Christ
not recorded in the Gospels and believed to have reached the sources in which
they are found by means of oral tradition.[iv]
Agrapha means “unwritten” or “unrecorded.” Since they are
not found in a single, unique work, but are rather sayings taken from various
sources—including oral tradition, medieval liturgies, and Muslim literature—it
is challenging to say whether or not all the agrapha are canonical or
consistent with Scripture. We must look at each saying individually and
evaluate it with Scripture.[v]
The agrapha can be divided into few general categories.[vi]
1.
Sayings that are not found in the gospels but
are nonetheless attributed to Christ in other parts of the Bible. For example,
in Acts 20:35 Paul’s quote is not found in the gospels yet the book of Acts is
a part of scripture, the saying of Jesus can be regarded canonical and trustworthy.
2.
Sayings attributed to Christ but which are
really just summaries of teachings from the gospels. For example, Clement of
Rome wrote in his first epistle, “For thus He spoke: ‘Be ye merciful, that ye
may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you; as ye do, so shall
it be done unto you; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged; as ye are kind, so shall
kindness be shown to you; with what measure ye mete, with the same it shall be
measured to you’” (chapter 13). This seems to be a summary of some of the
teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. Although, Clement’s paraphrase is not
canonical, it is consistent with the teachings of Christ, being, as it is, a
summary and condensation of some of Christ’s words from the canonical gospels.
3.
Supposed sayings of Christ that are at least
“harmonious” with Scripture which are not summaries or paraphrases of what
Jesus actually said, but, at the same time, they do not conflict with
Scripture. For example, this saying from the Coptic Apocryphal Gospels contains
no erroneous doctrine: “Better is a single footstep in My Father’s house than
all the wealth of this world.” We have no way of being certain whether such
sayings were spoken by Christ or composed later and attributed to Him. If there
is no conflict with Scripture, then agrapha of this type is, by definition,
consistent with the Bible. But, since we have no proof such sayings are the
actual words of Christ, we cannot consider them canonical.
4.
Sayings inconsistent with Scripture and which
can therefore be rejected as actual sayings of Jesus. For example, the Gospel
According to the Hebrews has Jesus making reference to “my mother the Holy
Spirit”—words that are obviously incongruent with canonical revelation.
Some further classification can be:[vii]
1.
Sayings to be excluded:
i.
Mere parallels or variants
ii.
Made up of two or more canonical text
iii.
Incapability of tracing to an early source
iv.
Suspicious sayings
2.
Sayings within New Testament
3.
Sayings in Manuscripts and versions
4.
Sayings from the Fathers
Tom Rapsas has written an article entitled ‘10 Jesus quotes
hidden by the Church—and what they reveal’ in https://www.patheos.com/blogs/wakeupcall/2018/10/10-jesus-quotes-hidden-by-the-church-and-what-they-reveal/amp/.
Regarding the Gnostic gospels, Rapsas says the subjects covered include
everything from creation mythology to the feminine side of God to wild tales of
a coming apocalypse—but most interesting, and perhaps most controversial, are
the passages that directly quote Jesus.
Rapsas selected 10 short passages from the Gnostic texts and
then grouped them by theme into three categories. He believed they reveal
extraordinarily important messages that Jesus only hinted at in the Bible. In
total, they inform us we can skip the priest or middleman, because each of us
can have a direct and personal relationship with God.
Theme 1: The first step to knowing God is to know yourself.
Theme 2. All the answers you seek can be found within.
Theme 3. You can find God here on this earth.
When you read those verses, it is more probable to feel
unusual rather than accepting them as what Jesus might have taught. Some are
too close towards Biblical teaching whereas some are far beyond the premise.
You can also visit https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-versions-and-translations/the-gospel-of-thomas-114-sayings-of-jesus/
for 114 saying of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas. These sayings of Jesus will
really blow your mind!
The reasons given for rejecting lost gospels or apocrypha are
compelling. The main criticisms of these gospels and their authors: the
Jesus they depict is not recognizable as the Jesus known in the Bible Gospels;
they skew God’s nature; they contain errors on important Christian basics like
sin, holiness, ethics, and redemption; and they can’t be proven to have origins
among Jesus’ earliest followers. The date of a manuscript is key to determining
the authenticity of writings outside the canon. Most weren’t written until the
2nd century and beyond.
Too, these “lost gospels” have Gnostic overtones.
Gnosticism, which seriously threatened the early church, was dedicated to
searching for “enlightenment” from secret and hidden wisdom among Christ’s
teachings. Gnostics view Jesus only as a “teacher of wisdom,” not as “Savior.”[viii]
Ø
Gospel of Thomas: One among collection of
codices discovered in Egypt in 1945. Three fragments of it has been known to be
already discovered n Egypt in 1890s with the earliest fragments dated around AD
200.
It consists of 114 sayings, mostly of Jesus
but the overall picture of Jesus is not the same as depicted in the four
gospels. Jesus seminar, formed in 1980s with the aim of investigating actual
saying and deeds of Jesus, takes a high view of this gospel than Biblical
gospels. However, they viewed Jesus as a normal mortal man and Bible not
inspired. They color coded Jesus’ saying in the gospels on basis of probability
of whether the particular saying is exactly from him.
However, historical investigation turns the
dice just opposite to their biased work. Writes Craig L. Blomberg, of the
Christian Research Institute, “In that process of oral tradition, [Christ’s
words] were paraphrased, abbreviated, combined together in small collections,
applied to a wide variety of situations in the early church, and ultimately put
in the form in which we now find them by the writers of the Gospels themselves.
However, we believe that all of this took place under the superintendence of
the Holy Spirit, and through His inspiration the writers accurately reported
exactly what He wanted them to represent of the life and teachings of Jesus.”
Ø
Gospel of Peter: In the winter of 1886-1887,
fragments of a gospel were found in a tomb in Egypt, in a codex. In the 1970s
and 80s more fragments were published, believed possibly to be portions of the
Gospel of Peter, which may have been written in the latter half of the second
century. Though attributed to the disciple Peter, scholars do not believe he
was the author, in part because of the dating of the text.
The Gospel contains many similarities with
the New Testament Gospels, including Jesus’ trial, crucifixion, burial, and
resurrection. But it also contains fanciful elements — such as giant angels
escorting an even larger Jesus from the tomb, followed by a cross that speaks.
The text also exonerates Pontius Pilate of
all responsibility for Jesus’ crucifixion, and implies that Jesus neither
suffered pain nor died. This sounds like Docetism, an early Christian doctrine
that asserted that Christ appeared after His resurrection not in human form,
but in a spirit body. This view robs the crucifixion of its power. If God was
only “play acting,” then His gift to us was simply smoke and mirrors.
Historical Errors and Embellishments in the
gospel, as listed by apologist Ryan Turner:
i.
Seven seals are used to seal the tomb of Jesus.
ii.
A crowd from Jerusalem comes to see the sealed
tomb of Jesus.
iii.
The Jewish leaders camp out at the tomb of Jesus
overnight.
iv.
The Jewish leaders fear the harm of the Jewish
people. This does not describe the
historical situation of the Jews before the destruction of the Jewish temple in
70 A.D.
v.
The Resurrection story actually describes how
Jesus exited the tomb with two giant angels, a super-sized Jesus, and a talking
cross.
Ø
The Gospel of Mary: A fragment of the Gospel of
Mary, which tells the story of Mary Magdalene recalling to the disciple’s
teachings Jesus had given to her privately, was discovered in the late 19th
century; another two Greek fragments surfaced in the 20th century. No complete
copy of the Gospel of Mary exists, and the three overlapping fragments comprise
at most half of the gospel. Scholars don’t generally believe Mary wrote the
text, nor can they agree on its date, though its gnostic view is characteristic
of the later 2nd or early 3rd century.
The fragments suggest that Mary shares her
teachings from Jesus with Andrew and Peter, who both find what she says to be
highly skeptical. Namely, Mary’s gospel rejects Jesus’ suffering and death as
the path to eternal life, exposes the erroneous view that Mary was a prostitute,
legitimizes women’s leadership, offers a utopian vision of spiritual
perfection, and asks readers to rethink the basis for church authority.
Modern writings, including the novel The Da
Vinci Code, speculate that Jesus and Mary were lovers. This idea is fueled in
part by the Gospel of Mary, which says that Mary was “much loved by the Savior,
as no other woman,” though it doesn’t actually say they were married. In no
other early Christian sources is there any reference to Jesus being married or
having a wife.
Ø
The Gospel of Judas: This “lost gospel,” a
3rd-century Gnostic text translated by the National Geographic Society over
five years, was discovered in Egypt in the 1970s.
In this secret account, written by an
unknown source, Jesus has conversations with Judas, who is depicted not as His
betrayer, but as His most trusted disciple. In the text, Jesus tells Judas,
“Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom.
It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. For
someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve may again come to
completion with their god.”
Judas is “enlightened” via revelation, as
Jesus tells him that he will be exalted over all the other disciples if he
betrays Jesus. Why? Because in doing so he will help Jesus be freed from the
confines of His earthly body. The “Judas kiss” then, in this text, is not a
betrayal, but an act of loyalty toward Jesus. Scholars who view this account as
plausible, therefore, see Judas’ actions as heroic.
April D. DeConick, a professor of biblical
studies at Rice University, says the positive spin the National Geographic
Society puts on the document isn’t even supported by the documents itself.
Prior to the discovery of this text, the only
reference to this gospel was in the writings of Irenaeus, a Christian who lived
in the 2nd century. Irenaeus basically wrote that the Gospel of Judas was the
“invented history” of a long line of heretics and rebels against God.
Now, evaluating these false gospels, just like
extra-biblical sources I discussed in earlier series, they do not really make a
way to know true Jesus of the Bible. I agree with this concluding paragraph ‘Scholars
with a Gnostic view would have us believe that Jesus was simply a “revealer of
wisdom and knowledge,” who can lead us to an “inner knowing.” Clearly, this
Gnostic slant is why these lost gospels have not been included in the Bible. As
the four Gospels of the Bible clearly tell us, Jesus was not interested in
“secret” messages that only an “enlightened” few were able to comprehend. He
wanted His message of forgiveness and grace and acceptance spread far and wide,
to any who would hear and listen and accept its truth. Modern scholars can’t
change that.’[ix]
When we are confronted with any saying of Jesus that comes
from a source outside of Scripture, it is always wise practice to imitate the
Bereans, who “received the message with great eagerness and examined the
Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11).[x]
Consequently, we cannot be certain that we have any authentic saying of Jesus
in writings that are found outside of the New Testament. The best that can be
done is to say that some of these sayings may have come from Jesus. We cannot
go beyond that. The four gospel writers were eyewitnesses to the life of Christ
or they recorded eyewitness testimony. The sources for these other sayings are
unknown.[xi]
Sometimes, these fascinating sayings of Jesus leads us to
devastating theological or doctrinal accident. Jesus outside the Bible is all
over the world in different pictures. Our secular friends and neighborhoods are
becoming captive of these counterfeit Jesus. The best tactics is to provide
tremendous evidence of historical Jesus is indeed the same Jesus depicted in
the four gospels. Far from the Biblical accounts, any sort of sayings or deeds
of Jesus cannot be trusted and used. They need to be tested and verified tracing
back their original sources, background and context.
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