Wesley Huff shares how embellishments found in the Gnostic gospels make it clear that the authors of the New Testament Gospels were concerned with recounting fact, not fiction.

Transcript

Wes: When we think of Gospels, especially if we grew up in a Christian environment, we think of a Gospel as a story that chronicles Jesus’ birth (we have that in two of the Gospels), his life, his death, and his resurrection. But that’s not true with a lot of these other gospels. In fact, a lot of them are very brief. Some of them are just sayings gospels. For example, Thomas is referred to as a “sayings gospel.” It has lines. It has questions. Thomas asks Jesus this. Jesus answers. Peter asks Jesus this. Jesus answers. Other gospels are trying to tackle specific issues. The Gospel of Peter is trying to address the question “What did the resurrection look like?”

If you read the biblical Gospels, the women show up, and the tomb’s already open, and it’s empty. So, you have a post-resurrection event chronicled. Some of the accusations against the Bible are that it has all these miracles. It’s too fanciful…until you read the Gnostic gospels. Then you find out no, no, no, no. The biblical Gospels are actually very matter-of-fact.

The Gospel of Peter has the event of the resurrection happening. It tells you what it would have looked like. And, actually—this is a fact that I think is often missed in the discussion of the Gospel of Peter—I actually think it’s trying to address an apologetic against women being the first eyewitnesses because it has all the right people in the right place. It has the Jewish and Roman officials camping out in front of the tomb, and I think that’s because this group that we now refer to as the Gnostics—Docetics—who wrote this, I think they were embarrassed by the fact that the first witnesses were women. And so, they said, “You know, we can do a little better than that. Let’s have all of the right people—all of them—literally just pitching tents out in front of the tomb and waiting for this thing to happen.”

We call this group of Gnostics “Docetics” because there’s this Greek word “dokein,” which means “to seem” or “to appear.” The Gnostics believed in this idea—which was actually pretty common in the ancient world—that the physical is bad and the spiritual is good. Nowadays, we have trouble convincing people Jesus is God. In the ancient world, they didn’t have as much trouble convincing people Jesus was God. They had more trouble convincing people that Jesus was a man.

So, the Docetics, swallowing this idea that the spiritual is good and the physical is bad, went, “Jesus is God? No problem with that. But if he’s God, he can’t be physical because physical is bad. So, we’re going to make him a super-god, and every instance Jesus appears, he’s just doing that—he’s appearing.” So, he’s on the cross. He’s all chilled out. He’s not feeling any pain.

You know that great poem that you see sometimes framed about walking on a beach with Jesus—the “Footprints in the Sand”? There’s one set of footprints there because Jesus is carrying you. There’s a similar story in one of these Docetic stories. And it’s not that there’s only one set of footprints because Jesus was carrying the disciple. It’s because Jesus wasn’t even there; he just appeared to be. He was floating.

Tim: That would help explain the walking on water, wouldn’t it?

Wes: It would. Yeah.

But, when the Gospel of Peter records the event of the resurrection, it has Jesus coming out of the tomb, and he’s a giant Jesus. His head is in the clouds. There are angels that are coming, flanking him on either side, and then the cross comes out of the tomb. Nobody tells you how the cross gets in the tomb, but the cross comes out of the tomb, and it’s prophesying about Jesus.

Tim: Walking. Talking.

Wes: So, it’s very fanciful. It’s full of a lot of embellishment. And this is the stuff that the early church was reading. In fact, there’s an interesting story about the Gospel of Peter, in particular, because there was a guy—I think his name was Serapion of Antioch, if I’m remembering the story correctly—and he was a bishop. So, he was this important figure in the early church—second century. This church contacts him and says, “Hey, we have this book. It’s called The Gospel of Peter. Should we be reading it?” And he kind of goes, “Sure.” Now, I think he says “sure” without looking into it too much further because he doesn’t think it’s Scripture to begin with. But he says, “Sure.” And then he gets his hands on it and immediately writes the church and says, “No. Read this, but it’s heretical.”

Tim: So, you have the embellishments, but then there’s this inconsistency with the teachings, right? When you read through something like the Gospel of Peter or the Gospel of Thomas, there are teachings in there that don’t line up with what we get in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the writings of Paul.

Wes: Definitely. And if you read through some of these, I think you’ll realize why the early church looked at it and said, “This is strange.”

Part of that is that a lot of these groups were Gnostics. “Gnosis” is a Greek word that means “knowledge,” and the idea was that there was this secret knowledge. So, Gnosticism was an Eastern mystic religion that sort of predates the first century, but then it starts to bleed into the Middle East, and it incorporates aspects of other religions. It includes Jesus in sort of its divinity pantheon. And when it starts to do that, the idea is not just that Jesus is divine, but that you are divine. Historical Christianity pretty clearly states that salvation is something outside of you that’s imparted to you by the finished work of Christ on the cross, but in Gnosticism, salvation is something that’s inside of you, and you realize it by understanding and knowing the secret knowledge that not only is Jesus divine, but you’re divine, and you can unlock that divinity.

So, a lot of the Gnostic gospels are nonsensical, and nonsensical on purpose. And they’re nonsensical on purpose because the idea is, if you understand them, then it’s because you understand the secret knowledge. If you don’t understand them, it’s because you don’t understand the secret knowledge. Sometimes you’ll read through these, and you’ll think, “What on earth is being talked about?” That’s almost on purpose because they’re not meant to be understood. They’re not meant to be clear.

Let me just look at a section from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene for you to illustrate this.

“The first is darkness. The second, desire. Then, ignorance, fear of death, power of the flesh, foolish reason, and self-righteous materialism. These are the powers of anger and doubt. And ask, ‘From where did you come, killer of men? Where are you heading, slayer of space?’ My soul replied, ‘What bound me is dead. That enveloped me has been vanquished. My desires are over, and ignorance is no more. In this life, I was freed from the world and the chains of forgetfulness. From now on, I will rest in the eternal now, for this age, this Aeon, and its stillness.’ Mary fell silent, for this was the truth Jesus had revealed.”

Now, the Gnostic gospels always try to pit a disciple who understands against a disciple who doesn’t understand. Usually, the ones who don’t understand are the ones that, sort of, the Christian church—the orthodox church—establishes as apostles.

So, here you have Andrew. “Then Andrew spoke: ‘Say what you like about what Mary has said, but I don’t believe Jesus would tell us such strange notions.’ Peter said, ‘Did he really speak with Mary, a woman, without our knowing? Are you to listen to her? Did he favor her more than us?’”

And this is a common theme. Guys like Peter, Andrew, and Matthew are pitted against guys like Thomas and Mary. And that’s on purpose to create tension between the orthodox Christian church and the Gnostic church—to say, “No, no, these other guys, these background characters, they’re the ones who actually get it.”

And then it ends, “‘Let’s be patient and don the robe of the perfect man and make him one with ourselves as he taught. Let’s proclaim his word, not make more laws bound those ordered.’ This disciple then abandoned and disbanded and began to teach his gospel.”

It’s confusing on purpose, and even the disciples don’t get it. Andrew is like, “I don’t think Jesus would say these things because they’re too wild.” And Mary’s like, “No, you don’t get them because you’re not in the know—in the gnosis. You don’t understand these things.”

So, they’re super strange. And if you read them and then just go, say, back to the Gospel of John or the Gospel of Mark, you’ll think, “Wow. These biblical gospels, they’re very matter-of-fact. They’re just laying it out like it is.”