What's up with the "lost books of the Bible"?

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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Cecil’s article of September 4, 1992 (link)

A few questions arise from this article.

Are there “Gospels” of other people?
Several of the books of the Bible, lost or otherwise, are known as “Gospel”, e.g. The Gospel of Thomas. Are the works self-titled, or were the titles “Gospel” applied after we discover the work is about Jesus? Either way, are there any “Gospels” of anyone else? Was Jesus a special subject of these special biographies?

Is it appropriate to consider the word “Gospel” similar to “biography”. I know the former means “good news” and the latter means “life story” If it was not for the religious aspect, would historians have treated these unearthed documents as historical? Have other documents like these been discovered describing other people for which there has not been a continuum of religious celebrity?
Are there objective criteria for Gospel inclusion
I am totally unclear on how canon came to be decided, but it seems the chief consideration is whether a candiate book was “heretical” or not, i.e. it was tossed if it didn’t jive with the current (and arbitrary) consensus of theology at the time (what time? I don’t think the Nicean Council had a vote and that was that, but what do I know?)

But aside from the theological notion of “canon”, by what criteria would a historian*, say, reject one book and include another when compiling the biography of Jesus?

I imagine an important consideration is timing. If book B was dated 100 years after book A, we would consider the possibility B was less likely to be “accurate”, more likely to be corrupted by cultural “telephone” as it were. Do we have an idea of when each of the candidate Gospels were actually created?

Cecil says the Gospels were “based on oral traditions collected after Jesus’ death” Do we have any way of knowing how long after his death the oral tradition began? What I mean is, does the creative effort (which eventually got written down) begin with Jesus’ contemporaries or did it begin a significant time after? Was it a burst of creativity, or a trickle which accumulated over the years (and how many years?). Said another way: Imagine each detail of Jesus’ story was timestamped the moment it was conceived. If we sorted all details from all of the ancient Gospels (canon and non), would we see a cluster of details over a short period of time, or a slow and steady stream over a long period of time - each period of time ending with the freezing of the creative effort by writing down a final product?

Of course a more important consideration is corroboration from credible sources. I’m not interested (in this discussion) on ascertaining the historicity of Jesus - more on the “Gospels” and why we consider some of them “better” than others.

(analogy to the considerations of Star Trek “canon” and extra-canon works deleted)

  • or anthologist
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Rather than “lost” I think it more accurate to say “not included.” Your questions require a book or at least a major essay. Most Gospels I know of are named for their reputed authors or someone connected to Jesus. The word Gospel suggests that this isn’t just info about, but something that is good for you to know. The Gospel of Thomas has little about Jesus’ life, rather it’s teachings. Most claim some kind of authority. (note: moderns are tempted to put their own names to someone else’s words; ancients claimed authority by putting a famous name to their words.) Traditionally, Mark’s Gospel was based on the Apostle Peter’s memories. Luke claims to have researched among the material at hand, and used Mark’s Gospel plus a collection of sayings; as did Matthew. The impetus for writing was the deaths of the first generation. When I was in seminary John was thought to date to 200-250 a.d., now it’s considered 100 or before. Canon began when the heretic Marcian published a list, leaving out those works he didn’t like. The approved list began with those works found helpful and thus used and saved more often. Geographical and theological varieties occurred, as might be expected. The Egyptian works are Docetic, meaning God “seemed” or pretended to be human, but wasn’t. (Some New Age people like this version of Christianity better than orthodoxy.) People use literary criticism, like applied to other works, in attempts to understand scripture and judge its historicity. I am just as happy that the story of the boy Jesus forming a pigeon of clay and having it fly off is not in the canon.

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Why?
Powers &8^]

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For the Early Church Fathers, the main criterion for canonicity was whether the Gospel was ‘of Apostolic origin’, that is, based on the eye-witness of people who actually knew Jesus. Even the Early Church Fathers realized that Mark and Luke weren’t apostles and it wasn’t Matthew himself that wrote that gospel, but it was important that the people who wrote the gospels knew the apostles and were recording the memory of the apostles.

Because of this John almost didn’t make the canon because the material is clearly reworked into speeches for which it was unlikely anyone was transcribing or would be able to remember word for word (unlike the short sayings and parables of the other three Gospels). Also, John was unlike the other three which were indeed very much like each other (as pointed out above, Lk and Mt copied from Mk and also drew from another list of common sayings of Jesus). And John was theologically suspect because of language similar to Dualism and Gnosticism (which are heresies). But in the end, the Church accepted that John was indeed based on an apostolic witness, even if written by that apostle’s followers a generation later, and that having language similar to Dualism and Gnosticism was not the same as being Dualistic or Gnostic.

But, as mentioned above and in Cecil’s columns, John has the latest date of the gospels about 100-120 AD. Anything written after that would have a very shaky claim to being based on apostolic witness. And the other ‘lost gospels’ when dated by reputable scholars who publish in peer-review journals, wind up with a much later date, e.g. well into the 200s and later. And that’s why they were universally rejected by the overwhelming majority of Early Christian communities, scholars, and bishops; and thus, not in the official canon.

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How the bible was compiled, who decided which books and why, can be found (in summary) here: Who wrote the Bible? (Part 5) - The Straight Dope