Evidence for God from Science

While visiting my local libary today I came across the gospel of Mary Magdalene. Written by Jean Yves Leloup.
On investigating on the net when i got home i found a thesis that asked if Mary was the author of the fouth gospel (gospel of john)
You can read it here http://members.tripod.com/~Ramon_K_Jusi ... alene.html

leaves me with the question how many books are left out of the bible?
I have also heard of the Gospel of Thomas I think it is.
and why where so many writings from desiples of jesus not included in the bible. the Gospel of John is said to be written by the person who knew Jesus best. Some believe this was Mary Magdalene.

I'm really interested, but holy cow that article is long!! Can you sum it up for us lazy types ?

um no cause as a baby christian I don;t know what to think lol.

Um, I can't remember the name, but watch out with that French guy, because it was a French conman who made up some bull that the DaVinci Code uses as a source (vague I know, but my memory is crap).

I didn't swear I don't know why the four astericks are there.....

The OT canon contains the same books as the Hebrew Scriptures, except that they were divided into the law, prophets and writings, unlike minor/major prophets, poetry etc. The NT canon was decided by church councils. Here's a random website I found http://www.drury.edu/ess/values/christi ... tures.html

There is nothing missing from the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We know the beginning and the end. So, I would be uncomfortable with further additions to the complete message of the Bible.

AttentionKMartShoppers wrote:I didn't swear I don't know why the four astericks are there.....

c-r-a-p is a swear word. Right Mastermind

bizzt wrote:

AttentionKMartShoppers wrote:I didn't swear I don't know why the four astericks are there.....

c-r-a-p is a swear word. Right Mastermind

lol yea I had that problem

aye

I thought someone might be interested in what my paster had to say on the subject.

Hi Deborah,
The question you wrote on the communication slip on Sunday was passed on to me.
There are a number of books called the Apocrypha that were written around the time of the other NT literature but were left out of the New Testament because they failed the test for inclusion in the NT canon. They usually had material that is seen to be inconsistent with the rest of the NT or Jesus teaching. I would think the Gospel of Mary would fall into this category.
On another matter, you asked me a few weeks ago about Baptism. Our next Baptism will take place on Easter Sunday 27th March. Let me know if you are interested in being bapstised then.
regards,
Brad Lewin
Senior Associate Pastor

um just ignore the baptism part lol

I have read many of the books that did not make it into the New Testament. Read "Lost Scriptures" by Bart D. Ehrman. Most if not all of them were written well after the NT that we have today. The "Gospel" of Mary was written in the late second century. The "Gospel" of Thomas in the Greek form was written around 150-200AD and the Coptic version somewhere around 350-400AD. The Coptic is slightly different than the Greek. Many of these books are Gnostic.

Craig L. Blomberg (Ph.D., University of Aberdeen) is Associate Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary. He is the author of "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels," "Interpreting the Parables"; "Matthew" in the New American Commentary series, and "1 Corinthians" in the NIV Application Commentary series.

Quote from Blomberg: "The Gospel of Thomas is an important historical source—but for Gnosticism, not for Christianity. Or, more precisely,

"It is probably our most significant witness to the early perversions of Christianity by those who wanted to create Jesus in their own image. Thus, it stands, like Lot's wife, as a new but permanently valuable witness to men's desire to make God's revelation serve them. Ultimately it testifies not to what Jesus said but to what men wished he had said."

After much study, I feel quite comfortable that we can have faith in the books of the NT and that nothing was "left out" that should have been included.

There was a criteria for accepting the books of the NT. The non-canonical books didn't meet the criteria and I think anyone who reads them will know why.

God bless.

Just to add something else. One important standard for a book being added to the Biblical canon was that it had wide acceptance amongst Christians. Therefore it isn't like there could be a missing book, or that any particular human authority had free reign over which book was accepted and which rejected. It was essentially accounting for what had already come to be accepted as authoritative amongst Christians.

Kurieuo.