Tag: Hidden Gospels

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The Hidden Gospels - Part 5: Gospel of Judas

Judas is an unusual historical figure. For the last 2000 years he has been considered the most hated man in history, yet we know almost nothing about him. Even the manner of his death is disputed. Matthew’s gospel has him die by his own hand. Acts finds him falling over in a field and bursting his intestines. Some historians even suggest that Judas never actually existed.

The Hidden Gospels - Part 4: Gospel of Philip

“The companion of the Saviour is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth”.¹ It’s the most famous quote from the Gospel of Philip courtesy of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”. Interestingly the scene plays differently in the movie. Arch-conspiracy theorist Leigh Teabing gets cut off with the final “mouth” not yet upon his lips. The reason for this discrepancy goes back to the ancient text itself. Apparently parts of the only existing copy of “The Gospel of Philip” got gnawed away², meaning that, at best, we can only speculate as to where exactly Jesus was supposed to have planted one on Mary Magdalene.

The Hidden Gospels - Part 3: The Gospel of Thomas

Perhaps the most famous of the hidden gospels is the Gospel of Thomas. We've known about it ever since it was written, but it has only been more recently when we discovered what it actually said. In 1945 a copy of Thomas' Gospel turned up in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, amongst a collection of other ancient documents, and closer study revealed that a few fragments from it had already been found 50 years earlier.

The Hidden Gospels - Part 2: Gospel of Mary

If a gospel is all about good news then it appears that the Gospel of Mary is barely a gospel at all. There’s no sacrificial death, in fact, there are not even any ideas on how to make the world a better place, at least, not in the parts of the book we have.

The Hidden Gospels - Part 1

If you had had asked anyone twenty years ago how many gospels there were, almost everyone would have given you the same reply – “four”. These days things are very different. Dan Brown’s religious conspiracy theory novel, “The DaVinci Code” opened the eyes to millions of people to the fact that there were whole bunch of gospels that they had never even heard of. Suddenly all kinds of people were claiming that there was all sorts of information about Jesus that the general public never knew existed.

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