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New Testament apocrypha From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from New Testament Apocrypha) New Testament Apocrypha Apostolic Fathers 1 Clement · 2 Clement Epistles of Ignatius Polycarp to the Philippians Martyrdom of Polycarp · Didache Barnabas · Diognetus The Shepherd of Hermas Jewish-Christian Gospels Ebionites · Hebrews · Nazarenes Infancy Gospels James · Thomas · Syriac · Pseudo-Matthew ·History of Joseph the Carpenter Gnostic Gospels Judas · Mary · Phillip · Truth · Secret Mark ·The Saviour Other Gospels Thomas · Marcion · Peter · Barnabas Apocalypse Paul · Coptic Paul Peter · Gnostic Peter Pseudo-Methodius · Thomas · Stephen 1 James · 2 James Epistles Apocryphon of James Epistula Apostolorum Corinthians to Paul · Pseudo-Titus Peter to Philip · Laodiceans Seneca the Younger · 3 Corinthians Acts Andrew · Barnabas · John · the Martyrs Paul · Paul & Thecla Peter · Peter & Andrew Peter & Paul · Peter & the Twelve Philip · Pilate · Thomas · Timothy Xanthippe, Polyxena, & Rebecca Misc Diatessaron Questions of Bartholomew Resurrection of Jesus Christ "Lost" Books Bartholomew · Cerinthus · Basilides · Mani Historical Edits Decretum Gelasianum Nag Hammadi library V T E The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with the books generally regarded as "canonical" but Christian denominations disagree on which writings should be regarded as "canonical" and which are "apocryphal". Contents [hide] 1 Definition 2 History o 2.1 Development of the New Testament Canon o 2.2 Modern scholarship and translation 3 Gospels o 3.1 Canonical gospels o 3.2 Infancy gospels o 3.3 Jewish Christian gospels o 3.4 Non-canonical gospels o 3.5 Sayings gospels o 3.6 Passion gospels o 3.7 Harmonized gospels 4 Gnostic texts o 4.1 Dialogues with Jesus o 4.2 General texts concerning Jesus o 4.3 Sethian texts concerning Jesus o 4.4 Ritual diagrams 5 Acts 6 Epistles 7 Apocalypses 8 Fate of Mary 9 Miscellany 10 Fragments 11 Lost works 12 Close candidates for canonization 13 Evaluation 14 See also 15 References 16 External links Definition[edit] The word "apocrypha" means "things put away" or "things hidden" and comes from the Greek through the Latin. The general term is usually applied to the books that were considered by the church as useful, but not divinely inspired. As such, to refer to Gnostic writings as "apocryphal" is misleading since they would not be classified in the same category by orthodox believers. Often used by the Greek Fathers was the term antilegomena, or "spoken against", although some canonical books were also spoken against, such as the Apocalypse of John in the East. Often used by scholars is the term pseudepigrapha, or "falsely inscribed" or "falsely attributed", in the sense that the writings were written by an anonymous author who appended the name of an apostle to his work, such as in the Gospel of Peter or The Æthiopic Apocalypse of Enoch: almost all books, in both Old and New Testaments, called "apocrypha" in the Protestant tradition are pseudepigrapha. In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, what are called the apocrypha by Protestants include thedeuterocanonical books: in the Catholic tradition, the term "apocrypha" is synonymous with what Protestants would call the pseudepigrapha, the latter term of which is almost exclusively used by scholars.[1] History[edit] Development of the New Testament Canon[edit] Main article: Development of the New Testament canon That some works are categorized as New Testament Apocrypha is indicative of the wide range of responses that were engendered in the interpretation of the message of Jesus of Nazareth. During the first several centuries of the transmission of that message, considerable debate turned on safeguarding its authenticity. Three key methods of addressing this survive to the present day: ordination, where groups authorize individuals as reliable teachers of the message; creeds, where groups define the boundaries of interpretation of the message; and canons, which list the primary documents certain groups believe contain the message originally taught by Jesus (in other words, the Bible). There was substantial debate about which books should be included in the canons. In general, those books that the majority regarded as the earliest books about Jesus were the ones included. Books that were not accepted into the canons are now termed apocryphal. Some of them were vigorously suppressed and survive only as fragments. The earliest lists of canonical works of the New Testament were not quite the same as modern lists; for example, the Book of Revelation was regarded as disputed by some Christians (see Antilegomena), while Shepherd of Hermas was considered genuine by others, and appears (after the Book of Revelation) in the Codex Sinaiticus. The works that presented themselves as "authentic" but that did not obtain general acceptance from within the churches are called New Testament Apocrypha. These are not accepted as canonical by most mainstream Christian denominations; only the Ethiopian Orthodox Church recognizes the Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement, Acts of Paul, and several Old Testament books that most other denominations reject, but it should be noted that this church does not adhere to an explicit canon.[citation needed] The Syriac Peshitta, used by all the various Syrian Churches, originally did not include 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation (and this canon of 22 books is the one cited by John Chrysostom (~347-407) and Theodoret (393-466) from the School of Antioch).[2] Western Syrians have added the remaining five books to their New Testament canons in modern times[2] (such as the Lee Peshitta of 1823). Today, the official lectionaries followed by the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church and the East Syriac Chaldean Catholic Church, which is in communion with the Bishop of Rome, still only present lessons from the 22 books of the original Peshitta.[2] The Armenian Apostolic church at times has included the Third Epistle to the Corinthians, but does not always list it with the other 27 canonical New Testament books. This Church did not accept Revelation into its Bible until 1200 CE.[3] The New Testament of the Coptic Bible, adopted by the Egyptian Church, includes the two Epistles of Clement. Modern scholarship and translation[edit] English translations were made in the early 18th century by William Wake and by Jeremiah Jones, and collected in 1820 by William Hone's Apocryphal New Testament.[4] The series Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8, contains translations by Alexander Walker.[5] New translations by M. R. James appeared in 1924, and were revised by J.K. Eliott in 1991, The Apocryphal New Testament. The "standard" scholarly edition of the New Testament Apocrypha in German is that ofSchneemelcher,[6] and in English its translation by Wilson (1991). Tischendorf and other scholars began to study New Testament apocrypha seriously in the 19th century and produce new translations. The texts of the Nag Hammadi library are often considered separately but the current edition of Schneemelcher also contains eleven Nag Hammadi texts.[7] Books that are known objectively not to have existed in antiquity are usually not considered part of the New Testament Apocrypha. Among these are the Libellus de Nativitate Sanctae Mariae (also called the "Nativity of Mary") and the Latin Infancy gospel. The latter two did not exist in antiquity, and they seem to be based on the earlier Infancy gospels.[citation needed] Gospels[edit] Main articles: Gospel and List of gospels Canonical gospels[edit] Four gospels came to be accepted as part of the New Testament canon. Gospel according to Matthew Gospel according to Mark Gospel according to Luke Gospel according to John Infancy gospels[edit] The rarity of information about the childhood of Jesus in the canonical gospels led to a hunger of early Christians for more detail about the early life of Jesus. This was supplied by a number of 2nd century and later texts, known as infancy gospels, none of which were accepted into the biblical canon, but the very number of their surviving manuscripts attests to their continued popularity. Most of these were based on the earliest infancy gospels, namely the Infancy Gospel of James (also called the "Protoevangelium of James") and Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and on their later combination into the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (also called the "Infancy Gospel of Matthew" or "Birth of Mary and Infancy of the Saviour"). The other significant early infancy gospels are the Syriac Infancy Gospel, the History of Joseph the Carpenter and the Life of John the Baptist. Jewish Christian gospels[edit] Main article: Jewish–Christian gospels The Jewish–Christian Gospels were gospels of a Jewish Christian character quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Jerome and probablyDidymus the Blind.[8] Most modern scholars have concluded that there was one gospel in Aramaic/Hebrew and at least two in Greek, although a minority argue that there were only two, Aramaic/Hebrew and Greek.[9] None of these gospels survives today, but attempts have been made to reconstruct them from references in the Church Fathers. The reconstructed texts of the gospels are usually categorized under New Testament Apocrypha. The standard edition of Schneemelcher describes the texts of three Jewish–Christian gospels as follows:[10] 1) The Gospel of the Ebionites ("GE") – 7 quotations by Epiphanius. 2) The Gospel of the Hebrews ("GH") – 1 quotation ascribed to Cyril of Jerusalem, plus GH 2–7 quotations by Clement, Origen, and Jerome. 3) The Gospel of the Nazarenes ("GN") – GN 1 to GN 23 are mainly from Jerome; GN 24 to GN 36 are from medieval sources. Some scholars consider that the 2 last named are in fact the same source.[11] Non-canonical gospels[edit] Other documents entitled "gospels" came into existence in the second and third Christian centuries.
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