Were the lost gospels really lost?

NOT SO MUCH: Were the lost gospels really lost? The myth that alternative gospels were suppressed by empire and only recently rediscovered is too good to be true (Philip Jenkins, The Christian Century).

We also need to be very skeptical about claims that all those ancient visions of an alternative Jesus were lost until very modern times—indeed, until the 1970s. In fact, any educated person in 1900 had access to a substantial library of texts and translations that told you all you needed to know about the “Gnostic Jesus,” and new finds continued steadily throughout the early 20th century.

Professor Jenkins has published a book and many essays (the latter especially at the Anxious Bench Blog) on this topic. PaleoJudaica has linked to some of his essays and to related articles, but a reminder is alway in order.

For those past links, which cover in detail many point raised in this short article, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

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