A large number of New Testament apocryphal writings are called apocryphal gospels. These writings include stories about Christ and some of his teachings. Because many of them contain unrealistic or imaginary stories, they were never accepted as part of the Bible canon (the official list of books that are considered Scripture).
Types of Apocryphal Gospels
The apocryphal gospels can be divided into three main categories:
Texts similar to the Synoptic Gospels: These include the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Egyptians, and papyrus fragments like Oxyrhynchus 840 and Papyrus Egerton 2. Other collections of sayings also sound similar to the canonical Gospels.
Gnosticism was a belief system from the second century AD that focused on secret or special knowledge (gnosis) about the universe and human nature. These gnostic gospels are often written as conversations between Jesus and his disciples. Examples include the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, the Apocryphon of John, the Wisdom of Jesus Christ, and the Dialogue of the Redeemer. Some also claim to come from all twelve apostles, such as the Memoirs of the Apostles.
Infancy and Passion gospels: Infancy gospels tell legendary stories about the earliest years of the life of Jesus. Passion gospels also fit into this category. These writings were often created to satisfy curiosity about the early or final events of the life of Jesus, but they go beyond what the New Testament teaches.
The New Testament does not provide much information about the early years of Jesus. The "infancy" gospels tried to fill that gap with stories that sound like miracles but are not historically reliable. For example, in the Gospel of Thomas, someone accuses five-year-old Jesus of breaking the Sabbath day by making clay sparrows by a stream. When his father Joseph comes to see him, Jesus claps his hands, and the clay birds come to life and fly away.
"Passion" gospels were written to add details to the biblical accounts of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. These writings sometimes aimed to support Christian teaching, but they often introduced ideas that went beyond what the New Testament teaches. Stories that tried to tell what happened during the parts of Jesus’s life that the Gospels do not talk about do not come from true gospel tradition. Some writings also described the final judgment of unbelievers in ways that go far beyond what the New Testament says.
Purpose and Use
In several cases, authors connected with Gnostic groups intentionally spread false teachings (teachings that did not agree with the faith of the early church). They claimed to have received these ideas from apostles or other early followers of Jesus. One example is the Gospel of Thomas, discovered around 1945 in Nag Hammadi near the Nile River in Egypt. Its author tried to spread unusual sayings and false ideas by presenting them as the words of Jesus, hoping that people would believe and share them widely.