There are four gospels in the Christian Bible as we know it; the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They tell of the events leading up to, including and immediately after the death of Christ.
However, i have heard of rumors of a fifth gospel, allegedly the gospel of someone referred to as Nicodemus the Jew. This gospel apparrently tells the same story as the rest, exceptit claims that after rising from his tomb Jesus did not ascend into heaven, but travelled secretly to Spain, where he settled and began a family, away from those who would kill him.
According to what I heard, this fifth gospel exists, filed away in the archives of the Vatican, but, because of its disagreement with the other four gospels, was not included in the Bible when is was compiled, 1500 - odd years ago.
So; have any of you Teemers heard of the missing gospel, and if so, how many more accuonts could there be out there, not considered suitable for the Bible?
There are lots of apocryphal gospels which disagree big time with the four canonical gospels, which don’t agree with each other too well in the first place. There is an apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, but it is very late. Anything it says is fanciful fiction. The description on the website says nothing about a flight to Spain. It is not suppressed by the Catholic church, nor would it need to be, since it is so clearly inferior to the four canonical gospels in terms of historicity and legitimacy. Furthermore, many other gospels exist which are not in the canon which contradict the official gospels but which the church has not censored. One gospel, whose name escapes me for the present, relates a conversation between Jesus and John and James 555 days after his resurrection. According to Luke, Jesus had long since ascended to Heaven by that time.
Scholars believe that at one time there were as many as 85 extant gospels of Jesus, of which only 18 remain. Of those that we know of which are not in the Bible, most are very late and of little historical value. The exceptions to this are the gospel of Thomas, the infancy gospel of James (I think), and possibly the gospel of Peter. Among non-extant gospels, or ones extant only in fragments, the secret gospel of Mark, Q, the Egerton gospel, the gospel of Signs (or Miracles), the gospel of the Hebrews, the gospel of the Egyptians, and possibly the gospel of the Ebionites are early enough to contain some historical value.
I remember that the first time that I had ever heard of the APOCRYPHA was back in the 60s, reading about Edgar Cayce. Even as a LAPSED Catholic I was startled.
Anyway----Two of my books come to hand—
THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS—by Elaine Pagels and THE NAGHANNADI LIBRARY–by James M. Robinson.
