Illuminating the History of the Bible

Apocrypha

What Are the Apocryphal Gospels?

These diverse ancient works expand upon the four canonical Gospels in creative and sometimes subversive ways.

The so-called “apocryphal” gospels are a subject of fascination among many today. How do they relate to the four canonical gospels? What are they and why did people read and write them? To start with a definition, the apocryphal gospels are a diverse collection of texts that expand and elaborate on the teachings and narratives of Jesus’ birth and life, ministry, death, and post-resurrection appearances as found in the canonical gospels. These noncanonical writings were produced from the second century onward and provide insights into the diverse and creative ways early Christians interpreted the traditions about Jesus.

The major types of noncanonical gospels can be divided into several categories, each with its own focus, including infancy gospels, ministry gospels, passion gospels, and post-resurrection dialogue gospels. These works not only reveal the vibrancy of early Christian imagination but also their theological, pastoral, and often esoteric concerns. We begin with a survey of the various types before returning to the question of why they were produced (and reproduced).

Infancy gospels

A depiction of Jesus bringing clay birds to life in St. Martin’s church, Switzerland. Encyclopædia Britannica

The infancy gospels address a gap in the canonical gospels by focusing on the early life of Jesus. The most famous of these is the Protevangelium of James, which situates Jesus’ birth within a larger narrative about Mary, his mother. This gospel includes popular traditions, such as the names of Mary’s parents (Joachim and Anna), and embellishes the biblical accounts with additional details like Mary riding a donkey to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus occurring in a cave. The text was well-received in early Christianity and continued to influence Christian piety in later centuries.

In contrast, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas presents a more episodic portrayal of Jesus’ childhood, often characterized by playful and even mischievous behavior. The gospel contains stories such as Jesus creating birds out of clay and bringing them to life, as well as his disputes with teachers over the meaning of letters. Unlike the Protevangelium, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas seems to have been more focused on entertainment than religious edification.

Both texts, though different in tone and content, reflect an early Christian desire to fill in the gaps of Jesus’ early life, which the canonical gospels leave largely unaddressed.

Ministry gospels

Several apocryphal gospels focus on Jesus’ ministry, often combining sayings and episodes from the canonical gospels with new material. For example, the Egerton Gospel (Papyrus Egerton 2 + P.Köln VI 255) presents fragments of a narrative that includes a dialogue about Jesus’ authority in comparison to Moses, a miraculous healing of a leper, and a dialogue about the emperor’s rule. These fragments suggest that the Egerton Gospel drew upon both Synoptic and Johannine traditions, creating a composite portrait of Jesus’ ministry.

A fragment of the ‘Egerton Gospel’ (P.Köln VI 255). Image source

Other fragmentary texts, such as Oxyrhynchus Papyri 840 and 1224, also provide tantalizing glimpses of second-century ministry gospels. These texts include dialogues and debates, sometimes featuring Pharisees or other Jewish authorities. For example, Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 840 contains a debate between Jesus and a Pharisee named Levi, focusing on purity laws. These gospels demonstrate the ongoing interest in Jesus’ teachings and actions, particularly as they related to Jewish religious practices.

In addition to these ministry gospels, certain texts categorized as “Jewish Christian Gospels” also emerged. The Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites are two such examples. These texts appear to have drawn heavily from the Gospel of Matthew, and their content includes familiar episodes such as Jesus’ baptism, the Last Supper, and his resurrection. However, they also contain unique material, leading some scholars to consider them distinct gospels, while others view them as recensions or revisions of Matthew.

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Passion gospels

The apocryphal passion gospels focus on the events surrounding Jesus’ death, often with theological or narrative innovations that distinguish them from the canonical accounts. The Gospel of Peter, for instance, presents a distinctive version of the passion narrative, emphasizing the guilt of the Jewish leaders and downplaying the role of Pontius Pilate. This gospel also features a dramatic and theologically rich resurrection account, in which Jesus emerges from the tomb accompanied by two angels, towering over the earth.

Other passion gospels, such as the Fayyum Fragment (Papyrus Vindobonensis G. 2325), offer only small portions of the passion narrative, such as Jesus predicting Peter’s denial. Although these texts do not provide a full passion account, they highlight the continued interest in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

One of the most notorious of the passion gospels is the Gospel of Judas, which presents a radically different interpretation of Judas’s role in Jesus’ betrayal. Far from being a simple traitor, Judas is portrayed as Jesus’ most trusted disciple, the one who understood his true nature and mission. This gospel, linked to Gnostic theology, presents a subversive reinterpretation of the passion story, challenging mainstream early Christian understandings of Jesus’ death and its salvific significance.

Post-resurrection dialogue gospels

The post-resurrection dialogues fill another gap in the canonical narratives, where the risen Jesus speaks little compared to his pre-resurrection ministry. These gospels often present a timeless Jesus in extended conversations with his disciples, revealing esoteric teachings or hidden wisdom. The Gospel of Thomas is perhaps the best-known of these texts. It consists of 114 secret sayings of the “living Jesus,” many of which parallel the Synoptic gospels, but others reflect a Gnosticizing interpretation of Jesus’ message.

The Gospel of the Lots of Mary (6th c.) is a miniature codex with 37 oracles attributed to Jesus’ mother. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Other post-resurrection dialogue gospels, such as the Gospel of Mary and the Apocryphon of James, emphasize Jesus’ communication with specific disciples, often Mary Magdalene or James, to whom he reveals special, secret knowledge. The Gospel of Mary portrays Mary as a key figure in understanding Jesus’ teachings, especially regarding the soul’s journey after death. The text suggests a spiritual hierarchy in which Mary has access to wisdom that even Peter and the other apostles do not.

In contrast, the Epistula Apostolorum (“Epistle of the Apostles”) offers a more orthodox portrayal of the post-resurrection period, emphasizing the collective witness of the apostles to the risen Christ. This text serves as a defense of the apostolic tradition, countering the more esoteric and individualistic post-resurrection dialogues found in other apocryphal gospels.

Gospel harmonies and Marcion’s ‘Euangelion’

In addition to composing original gospels, second-century Christians also engaged in the harmonization of existing gospels. The most famous example is Tatian’s Diatessaron, a gospel harmony that combined material from all four canonical gospels into a single continuous narrative. This project reflected a desire to synthesize the Jesus tradition, creating a unified account from the diverse and sometimes divergent canonical sources.

A little earlier in the second century, Marcion’s Euangelion (“Gospel”) represents a very different approach. Marcion accepted only Luke’s gospel and heavily redacted it, excising any references to Jewish prophecy or the Old Testament. His gospel reflects his theological agenda of separating the Creator God of the Old Testament from the Redeemer God revealed in Jesus. Marcion’s approach stands in stark contrast to the harmonizing tendencies of other early Christians, who sought to preserve the fullness of the Jesus tradition and its connection to the Old Testament.

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Why the Apocryphal gospels were written and read

When many Christians today learn about these Apocryphal Gospels, their first question is often Why? Why did people write these gospels and why did others read them? The proliferation of apocryphal gospels in the second century can be attributed to several factors.

First, these gospels allowed early Christians to fill in gaps left by the canonical gospels, especially regarding Jesus’ early life and his post-resurrection appearances. The Infancy Gospels and post-resurrection dialogues are prime examples of this. They have sometimes been characterized as an ancient form of fan fiction.

Second, the apocryphal gospels were read for entertainment and moral instruction. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, with its playful stories of the boy Jesus, likely entertained its readers while also offering lessons about Jesus’ divinity and humanity.

 These gospels often reflect theological and pastoral concerns specific to particular Christian communities.

Third, these gospels often reflect theological and pastoral concerns specific to particular Christian communities. For example, the Gnostic gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas, express a worldview that emphasized secret knowledge (gnosis) and rejected the material world in favor of spiritual enlightenment. These texts catered to the spiritual needs of communities that valued esoteric wisdom and saw themselves as possessing deeper insights into Jesus’ teachings. On the other hand, texts like the Epistula Apostolorum arguably were written by proto-orthodox authors in the service of canonical gospels, validating their apostolic authority and promoting their use as Scripture alongside the Old Testament.

Finally, the apocryphal gospels reveal the diversity of early Christian beliefs and practices. While the four canonical gospels became increasingly authoritative, other gospel compositions demonstrate awareness of them to various degrees and were often read alongside them. Diverse groups continued to produce and read augmented narratives or alternative sayings that aligned with their theological perspectives. In this sense, some apocryphal gospels served as a way for marginalized or heterodox groups to preserve their traditions and interpretations of Jesus.

That said, the historical evidence suggests that apocryphal gospels did not generate or sustain an independently viable alternative tradition either of Jesus’s life or of a rival collection to the fourfold gospel. Rather, they typically presupposed a widespread acceptance of the canonical gospels as the authoritative center of gravity for the Jesus tradition.

Apocryphal gospels did not generate or sustain an independently viable alternative tradition.

Conclusion

The apocryphal gospels represent a rich and diverse body of literature that expands upon the canonical gospels in creative and sometimes subversive ways. Whether filling in gaps, offering new theological insights, or harmonizing existing traditions, these texts reflect the vibrant and complex world of early Christian thought. Their composition and reception reveal not only the diversity of early Christian beliefs about Jesus but also the enduring, unparalleled influence of the four canonical gospels, which provided the foundation upon which much of this creative gospel writing was built.

Paul and the Septuagint Canon

What do the apostle’s quotations of the Septuagint tell us about his view of the Old Testament canon?

The apostle Paul quoted Scripture more than a hundred times in his thirteen canonical letters, but he never identified the version of Scripture that he used. Why bother?—you may think—everyone knows he used the Septuagint (LXX). He was obviously not quoting Scripture in the original language, because he was writing in Greek, not Hebrew, so he had to quote a translation. The LXX was the obvious choice.

There are problems with the simple statement that Paul quoted the LXX, however, and this essay focuses on one: did Paul know he was quoting the LXX?

The expanding definition of ‘Septuagint’

Whether Paul knew that he was quoting the Septuagint depends on what we mean by that term, Septuagint. Certainly, Paul knew that he was quoting Scripture in Greek and, if that’s all we mean by the term Septuagint, then Paul certainly did know. But “Septuagint” is also an ancient term associated with a particular origin story, and so we might ask whether Paul was familiar with the story and what he thought about it.

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Here is the story: King Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the early third century BC commissioned seventy—or, actually, seventy-two—Jewish scholars (six from each of the twelve tribes) to translate Jewish Scripture into Greek. The translation came to be called “the translation of the Seventy,” or “the translation of the Hebdomēkonta” (in Greek, ἑβδομήκοντα), or, in Latin, “the translation of the Septuaginta.” That explains the common abbreviation LXX, a Roman numeral.

Ancient sources for the term

We can be more specific: our ancient Jewish sources for the story all specify that the portion of Jewish Scripture translated for Ptolemy was the Pentateuch. These Jewish sources include:

  1. The Letter of Aristeas second century BC
  2. Aristobulus (frg. 3, preserved in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 13.12), second century BC
  3. Philo (Life of Moses 2.25–44), first century AD
  4. Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 12.11–118)
  5. Talmud, specifically b. Megillah 9a §11. The traditions of the Talmud are hard to date, but this type of tradition called a baraita has been dated as early as the first century AD.

Not all of these sources mention the number of translators; Philo does not. But each of them mentions Ptolemy and that the translation project involved the Torah alone. Modern scholars rightly discount this entire story as a later propagandistic fabrication designed to magnify the authority of the early Greek translation of the Torah, but that is not our concern here; we are interested in how ancient people thought about the LXX.

‘Septuagint’ before Christianity

Other portions of Jewish Scripture were also translated into Greek, but they were not incorporated into the story of the translation for Ptolemy. We do not have, for instance, a story about the translation of Isaiah or Samuel or Proverbs or the Psalter, but we do know that these works were translated into Greek at some point in the third through first centuries BC because we have the Greek texts and many of the books of Jewish Scripture were quoted by Greek authors.

The New Testament quotes most of these books, so the translations must have been largely complete by the lifetime of Jesus. Most scholars would say that many of the books were translated already in the second century BC, in part because the translator of the apocryphal book of Sirach in the late second century BC mentions in a general way the Greek forms of the law, the prophets, and other books. (This is in the prologue to Greek Sirach.)

These other works (Greek Isaiah, Greek Proverbs, etc.) were not considered a part of the LXX—at least, not by the ancient Jewish sources that mention the LXX. For instance, Philo did not consider Greek Isaiah to be a part of the translation for Ptolemy. He knew about the existence of the Greek translation of Isaiah, and he even quoted it on occasion. One example is at On Dreams 2.172, where he introduced a quotation of Isaiah 5:7 with the words, “I have the witness of one of the ancient prophets who under inspiration said…” But when Philo told the story of the translation for Ptolemy, he left Isaiah out of the account and made the story all about the books of Moses. Notice that the title of the work in which Philo told the story is Life of Moses.

What was true for Philo was true for Josephus, who also used the Greek translation of most books of Jewish Scripture but considered the LXX to be the Greek Pentateuch and nothing else. To repeat: all of our ancient Jewish sources limited the scope of the LXX to the Torah.

‘Septuagint’ in early Christianity

So, how did the “Septuagint” or LXX come to refer to more than just the Torah in Greek? It was Christians who expanded the scope of the translation to include all of Jewish Scripture in Greek. According to the first Christian to mention the translation—Justin Martyr in the mid-second century AD—the translators assembled by Ptolemy produced a Greek version of all of Jewish prophecies, not just the Torah. Justin told the story of translation in his First Apology (ch. 31).

Dr. Gallagher’s book explores the Septuagint’s reception in greater detail.

This expansion of the scope of translation aided Justin’s apologetics by allowing him to argue against the validity of Greek renderings that he found problematic. For instance, with regard to the “virgin birth” (Isaiah 7:14), Justin was aware of some Greek translations that failed to render the verse with the crucial word “virgin” (parthenos, παρθένος) but instead had “young woman” (neanis, νεᾶνις), against the testimony of “the translation of the Seventy” (Dialogue with Trypho 70–73). Justin argued that the newer version must be wrong because it departed from the authoritative translation produced by the Seventy sages for King Ptolemy.

Once the step had been taken, later Christians rarely found it problematic to attribute the translation of all the books of Jewish Scripture to Ptolemy’s court. Again, this aspect of Christian thought about the LXX served as a foundational element in defenses of the text of the traditional Greek Bible as opposed to newer Greek versions associated with the Jewish translators named Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion.

How could a Christian believer know that the traditional translation of Jeremiah (or whatever book) was preferable to the version of Jeremiah in one of these later translations? Because the Seventy sages at Ptolemy’s court produced the traditional translation. And why do we trust the Seventy sages? Already Irenaeus of Lyon in the late second century developed several arguments favoring the authority of the Seventy (see Against Heresies 3.21.1–3), of which one of the most important was that the Seventy were inspired by God.

The Inspiration of the Septuagint

Irenaeus did not completely invent the idea that the Seventy translators were inspired, but he did contribute to the evolving story. More than a century earlier, Philo had already insisted that the translators for Ptolemy did the impossible: they produced a perfect translation that matched the Hebrew both word-for-word and thought-for-thought. They were able to achieve such an amazing translation because God inspired them (Life of Moses 2.38). According to Philo, one who read the Greek Pentateuch alongside the Hebrew Torah (something Philo could not do) would see that they were identical (2.40). Before Philo, the Letter of Aristeas (§307) merely hinted at the involvement of God in the process of translation.

Irenaeus inherited from Philo the notion that the translators were inspired, and he attested a story that provided more color to this claim. According to Irenaeus, King Ptolemy decided to test the integrity of the translators by separating them into separate rooms, ordering each of the 72 translators to produce a Greek rendering of Scripture. When the 72 separate translations of Jewish Scripture were compared, it was discovered that all 72 translators had chosen the exact same wording all the way through—a sure sign of not only their accuracy but of their inspiration. This embellished origin story (of which there is a hint in Philo, Life of Moses 2.37) became the standard account of the translation among Christians, who were confident both that the translators were inspired and that they produced the traditional Greek version of all of Jewish Scripture.

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Not everyone was convinced. Jerome, for one, at the turn of the fifth century, challenged the traditional story of LXX origins. While he was producing his own Latin translations of the books of the Hebrew Bible that would become the core of the Latin Vulgate, he pointed out flaws in Christian thinking about the LXX. The Jewish sources—Jerome named The Letter of Aristeas and Josephus—limited the translation to the Pentateuch (Commentary on Ezekiel 5:12) and said nothing about the translators working in separate rooms (Preface to the Pentateuch). But Jerome was fighting a losing battle; the translation, in the minds of most Christians, continued to include all of Jewish Scripture. This leads us back to the Apostle Paul.

Paul’s Septuagint

The fact that Paul used the Septuagint is well-known, not only among New Testament scholars, but also among more educated general Bible readers (the type who read articles from the Text & Canon Institute). But this well-known fact about Paul raises several questions in terms of the identity of the Septuagint, questions of both text and canon. To briefly gesture toward the problem of text: not all of the apostle’s quotations align well with the traditional text of the LXX. Paul apparently sometimes used Greek revisions (something like the Theodotion text), sometimes quoted from memory, and sometimes paraphrased, sometimes adjusted the quotation to fit the point he wanted to make. The simple statement that “Paul quoted the LXX” disguises the complexity of his Scriptural texts.

Painting of St. Paul, ca. 1627–1729 by Jan Lievens. Image source

Even when he was quoting the LXX, did he know that he was quoting the LXX? Paul never mentioned the translation, nor the story of the translation, so we cannot really know if the apostle had ever heard about the translators gathered by Ptolemy. Maybe Paul simply used the Greek text available to him without knowing or caring about its precise origins.

If Paul did know about the translation for Ptolemy, what would he have thought about it? What books were included? As we have seen, all of our Jewish sources limit the scope of the translation for Ptolemy to the Pentateuch, even though some of these same sources also knew and used Greek translations of other books of Jewish Scripture. For Philo and Josephus, the Greek Isaiah did not count as LXX. Did it count as LXX for Paul?

As far as we know, the first person who treated a book outside the Torah as the LXX was Justin Martyr—a century after Paul. It is possible that the expansion of the scope of the LXX beyond the Torah as attested first by Justin had already happened in the days of Paul, but I cannot think of any evidence to suggest that it had. If Paul learned about the story of the translation—say, at the “feet of Gamaliel” (cf. Acts 22:3)—it would probably have been a story about the Pentateuch, not about other books of Scripture, books that were available in Greek but considered a part of a different translation project not made for Ptolemy.

The first person who treated a book outside the Torah as the LXX was Justin Martyr.

Paul and the Septuagint’s inspiration

Philo thought that the translators at Ptolemy’s court were inspired, that the translation itself was inspired in Greek. Later Christians, starting with Irenaeus, express the same belief. Did Paul share this conviction? If the apostle did consider the LXX inspired, presumably that belief would have applied only to the Greek Pentateuch—as it did for Philo. We should remember that Philo said that perfect translation is impossible without divine inspiration, and that such a thing had happened for the Greek Pentateuch. Philo said nothing about God’s involvement with the translation of Isaiah or Proverbs or Samuel (etc.), so evidently he would not have considered the translations of these books to be perfect.

We cannot say whether Paul shared Philo’s ideas on the inspiration of the LXX, but at least we can say that someone contemporary with Paul did express those ideas. The notion that all of Jewish Scripture was inspired in Greek, expressed first by Irenaeus, long post-dates Paul’s death, so there is less reason to think that Paul may have held it. But Philo’s views were not the only views on the LXX “in the air” in the first century; Josephus said nothing about the inspiration of the translators of the Greek Pentateuch.

Paul and the Septuagint canon

If this is what Paul might have thought about the LXX as a translation, what about the hitherto unmentioned “elephants in the room,” namely, the apocrypha, or the deuterocanonical books? It is often claimed by scholars that these books came to be accepted as Scripture among Christians because the LXX included them. Is it possible that the LXX already included these books in the first century? Since Paul quoted the LXX, did he also regard the apocrypha as not only a part of the LXX but a part of his Bible?

The biblical scholar R. Timothy McLay pursues this line of argument.

The fact that the OG/LXX text was cited in the NT, in contrast to the Hebrew Scriptures, demonstrates that the Greek Jewish Scriptures as witnessed to by the LXX were deemed to be Scripture for the Early Church…. The external evidence of our Greek codices, which contain the apocryphal/deutero-canonical writings, is a simple testimony to the authority of the Greek Scriptures exercised in the life of the Early Church.1R. Timothy McLay, The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 144.

I think McLay’s argument boils down to this: if the New Testament authors quoted the LXX, then they accepted as Scripture the collection of books in the LXX manuscripts of the fourth century. Do the quotations of the LXX in Paul’s letters mean that the apostle accepted the canonicity of the apocrypha?

The short answer is “no”—or, with a little more nuance, the available evidence suggests otherwise. The apocryphal books (e.g., Tobit, Judith, Maccabees, etc.) were available in Greek by the first century, and Paul had probably read some of these books. But what evidence suggests that anyone in the first century considered these books a part of the LXX, the translation made for Ptolemy? I know I am repeating myself, but … all of our sources before Justin Martyr considered the LXX to be the Greek Pentateuch.

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The apocrypha are included within the LXX today—whether we are talking about the Greek Orthodox biblical canon (which is not definitively settled) or the standard hand-edition of the Septuaginta that sits on the shelves of most biblical scholars. But what is true today was not necessarily true in the first century. It was Justin who first labeled as LXX a book outside the Pentateuch. Did Justin think that the Seventy translators also produced the Greek versions of the apocryphal books? He did not say. It was Epiphanius in the fourth century who first said something about the Seventy translators working on books outside the Jewish Bible (On Weights and Measures 5).

Yes, the full biblical manuscripts from the fourth century include some of the apocryphal books, but is the reason for this inclusion that the creators of these manuscripts thought that these books were translated by the Seventy? As far as I can tell, these early full-Bible manuscripts mention the Seventy only once, in the colophon to Genesis in Codex Vaticanus (Γένεσις κατὰ τοὺς ἑβδομήκοντα = “Genesis according to the Seventy”). Even if all of the books in the Old Testament portion of Vaticanus were considered LXX (which I doubt), we lack the evidence to back-date such a view three centuries. The use of the LXX by the New Testament authors has no bearing on what the apostles thought of the apocrypha.

The use of the LXX by the New Testament authors has no bearing on what the apostles thought of the apocrypha.

Conclusion

Did Paul know he was quoting the LXX? It’s impossible to say. He may have realized that (some of) his quotations of the Pentateuch would have been considered by some of his contemporaries (e.g., Philo, but not Josephus) as quotations of an inspired translation made for King Ptolemy. There is hardly any reason to think that Paul would have associated this view with the Greek Isaiah, and even less for the Greek Tobit. To the extent that the LXX was a concrete object in the first-century world of Paul, it was the Greek Pentateuch. The other books, including the apocrypha, were incorporated into the LXX only a century or more after the apostle’s death.

Notes

  • 1
    R. Timothy McLay, The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 144.

Putting the New Papyrus of Jesus’ Sayings in Context

While exciting and important, much about a recently published, headline-grabbing fragment is not unique.

Late last year, the Egyptian Exploration Society grabbed headlines when it announced the publication of a new cache of ancient papyri from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The 87th volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri contained several pieces of interest to scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity.

Among the newly published fragments were a vaguely “gnostic” speech attributed to Jesus (P.Oxy. 5576), part of an apocryphal dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdalene (P.Oxy. 5577), and the remains of several otherwise unknown ancient biographies. The only item to generate headlines, however, was a small papyrus containing a portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This fragment was no mere copy of Matthew’s Gospel. The papyrus now known to scholars as P.Oxy. 5575 is a combination of traditions about Jesus otherwise found in Matthew, Luke, and the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas.

The fragment’s significance

It’s this combination of diverse gospel materials that caught the attention of the wider-public. Upon the publication of P.Oxy. 5575, Michael Holmes, one of the fragment’s editors, explained its significance in this way:

What makes this a big deal? This is the first known occurrence of the weaving together of material similar to Luke and Matthew, on the one hand, and material similar to—and otherwise known only from—the Gospel of Thomas, on the other. In this significant respect, 5575 is unique among all known papyri.

“With a sharp enough scalpel,” it’s been said, “everything is unique.” And, certainly, no other fragment is exactly like P.Oxy. 5575. In a technical sense, Holmes is correct: There are no other papyri with precisely this combination of gospel parallels. But, in almost every other respect, this fragment is not unique at all. It seems to me that Holmes’s answer might leave readers with a misleading impression about the state of the evidence for other works that, like P.Oxy. 5575, combine traditions about Jesus without respect for canonical/non-canonical boundaries.

There are no other papyri with precisely this combination of gospel parallels. But, in almost every other respect, this fragment is not unique at all.

My goal here is neither to minimize the importance of this new piece of early Christian literature nor to exaggerate the evidence for similar works but, rather, to help the reader understand P.Oxy. 5575 by setting it into a larger comparative context. This new fragment of Jesus’ preaching is one of many early Christian compositions to bring together material about Jesus found in multiple gospels, including gospels beyond the canonical four.

Works that combine canonical material

The first set of helpful analogies are early fragments that combine some or all the canonical Gospels. Perhaps the best-known example is the Dura Fragment (P. Dura 10), a third century parchment from Dura Europos on the border of Roman Syria. The Dura Fragment contains only fifteen legible lines, written on one side of a parchment roll. These lines describe the women at Jesus’ crucifixion and introduce Joseph of Arimathea.

But the Dura Fragment doesn’t correspond to any known gospel. Rather, it carefully interweaves wording from the four canonical Gospels to produce a unique version of the story. For instance, one line reads “…there came a person (Matt. 27:57), being a councilor (Luke 23:50), from Erinmathea (sic), a city of Judea (Luke 23:51), his name was Joseph (Matt. 27:57), good and righteous (Luke 23:50), being a disciple of Jesus in secret because of his fear of the Jews (John 19:38) and he was expecting the kingdom of God (Luke 23:51).”

Almost every word of the Dura Fragment can be traced back to one of the canonical Gospels, but the result is an intricately interwoven tapestry of the four.

Similarly, the so-called “Fayyum Fragment” (P. Vienna G. 2325) combines elements from Matthew and Mark to produce a unique version of Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s denial. The Matthean phrasing, “I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered” (Matt. 26:31) is followed by the distinctively Markan phrasing, “Before a cock twice crows…” (Mark 14:27). Like P.Oxy. 5575, the wording of the Fayyum Fragment does not match any of the canonical Gospels exactly, but the parallels with multiple gospels are undeniable.

As the Dura Fragment and the Fayyum Fragment make clear, P.Oxy. 5575 is one of many early Christian works that re-combined and re-arranged traditions about Jesus.

Works that combine canonical and non-canonical material

These two examples are combinations of gospels now-considered canonical, whereas P.Oxy. 5575 combines the synoptics with material found in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas. In this respect, the Greek fragments of Thomas found at Oxyrhynchus provide a better analogy for the newly discovered gospel fragment. The only complete manuscript of Thomas contains 114 sayings of Jesus in Coptic. About two-thirds of these sayings appear to be drawn from the canonical Gospels.

For dozens of additional sayings, however, there are no canonical parallels. Probably, the compiler of Thomas composed some of these non-canonical sayings from scratch, but parallels between Thomas’s non-canonical sayings and other early Christian sources suggest that the compiler drew on additional non-canonical gospels in composing the Gospel of Thomas. P.Oxy. 654, for instance, contains a saying of Jesus (GThom 2) that Clement of Alexandria says belonged to the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews (Stromateis 2.9.45; 5.14.96).

Gospel of the HebrewsThomas 2 (Greek; P.Oxy. 654)Thomas 2 (Coptic)
The one who seeks will not stop until he finds. And when he finds, he will be amazed. And when he is amazed, he will reign. And when he reigns, he will rest.Let the one who seeks not stop [seeking until] he finds. And when he finds, [he will be amazed. And] when he is amazed he will reign. And [when he reigns over everything] he will rest.Let the one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. And when he finds, he will be troubled. And when he is troubled, he will be amazed and will become king over everything.

Probably the compiler of Thomas drew this saying of Jesus from the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews. And in P.Oxy. 654, this saying sits alongside Thomas 3, a version of the saying found at Luke 17:20–25. Side-by-side, this fragment preserves a combination of canonical and non-canonical gospel material. In this respect, P.Oxy. 654 is a close parallel to what we find in P.Oxy. 5575. 

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Other good analogies include P.Oxy. 4009 and the Egerton Gospel (BL Egerton Papyrus 2). The former is a fragmentary papyrus containing parallels to Matthew 10:16, Luke 7:36–50, and a non-canonical conversation between Jesus and Peter cited by the preacher of Second Clement. The Egerton Gospel, likewise, weaves together sayings of Jesus found in John 5 and 10, several synoptic stories, and a story about Jesus sowing seeds on the banks of the Jordan that has no canonical parallel. We do not know what ancient readers called these gospels, but fragmentary remains provide additional evidence of early Christians combining canonical and non-canonical materials about Jesus.

Further examples

If we look beyond the papyri, there is more evidence for the combination of canonical and non-canonical Jesus traditions. The Epistle of the Apostles, for instance, is an early second century, theologically-orthodox composition. It contains a summary of Jesus’ nativity, life, death, and resurrection. Most of this gospel-summary corresponds to one or more of the canonical lives of Jesus. However, the author also includes a scene of Jesus as a school boy, found only in the non-canonical Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The result is a gospel-like narrative that, again, weaves together strands from both canonical and non-canonical books.

In the second half of the second century, a Christian teacher named Tatian composed his own gospel by interweaving stories from earlier gospels. Later Christians called Tatian’s composition “The Diatessaron,” which translates to “the [gospel] through the four [gospels].” Although Tatian himself seems to have revised the content and wording of his sources, almost every line of the Diatessaron can be attributed to one of the four now-canonical gospels. There are, however, a few important exceptions, most notably a passage attributed to Tatian’s Diatessaron as found in the fourth-century Commentary on the Gospel by Ephrem.

Ephrem, Comm. 14.24Thomas 30 (Greek; P.Oxy 1)Thomas 30 (Coptic)
…when he said, Where there is one, I [am there], lest all those who are solitary be sad. Where there is one, I [am there].1Translation from Carmel McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron : An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).Jesus says, Where there are three, they are godless And where there is one-alone, I say I am with him.Jesus says, Where there are three gods, they are gods. Where there are two or one, I am with him.

This saying of Jesus, not found in any manuscript of any canonical gospel, appears in the Gospel of Thomas. Like P.Oxy. 5575, therefore, either Tatian or one of Tatian’s sources must have combined canonical Jesus traditions with a saying otherwise known to us only from a non-canonical gospel. 

There are, additionally, a few pieces of non-canonical material found in more-or-less complete manuscripts of the canonical Gospels. The copy of Matthew in Codex Sinaiticus, for instance, contains a version of Jesus’ “consider the lily” speech in Matthew 6:28 that says the lilies neither “card nor spin nor work,” precise phrasing otherwise only known from the Gospel of Thomas.

Related

Likewise, the famous story of the “Woman Caught in Adultery,” according to Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman’s study, was known from the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews. At some point in the second or third centuries, readers inserted this story into manuscripts of the canonical John. Of course, P.Oxy. 5575 seems to reflect a more thoroughly interwoven combination of diverse gospel traditions than what is found in anything preserved in the complete manuscripts from the fourth century. But these traces of gospel combinations show that some early readers were happy to bring together the words of Jesus as found in canonical and non-canonical gospels.

Conclusion

P.Oxy. 5575 is one of several pieces of early Christian literature that shows how some ancient readers collected and combined Jesus material otherwise found in canonical and non-canonical gospels.

All the analogies to P.Oxy. 5575 that we’ve considered above make up only a tiny fraction of our documentary evidence for early Christian gospel literature. The vast majority of Christian literary papyri are either readily identifiable with specific works (e.g., P.Oxy. 4) or clearly distinct from any known work (e.g., P.Oxy. 840). And the practice of harmonizing the text of the canonical Gospels is surprisingly uncommon in the papyri.

Still, P.Oxy. 5575 is one of several pieces of early Christian literature that shows how some ancient readers collected and combined Jesus material otherwise found in canonical and non-canonical gospels. In particular, this fragment is intriguing new evidence that some early Christians continued to re-write and re-arrange stories about Jesus in the same way that the authors of Matthew and Luke used earlier gospels. As I hope to have shown, P.Oxy. 5575 is not the only evidence for this practice. But it is important new evidence for this aspect of early Christian book culture.

Notes

  • 1
    Translation from Carmel McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron : An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Fiasco

Lessons from the headline-grabbing forgery that duped Harvard’s oldest endowed professor and enthralled the media

Dan Brown famously spun his Da Vinci Code yarn in which Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor, demonstrated that Jesus Christ actually married Mary Magdalene. In a tale stranger than fiction, Brown’s dream came true through the now-infamous Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, which ironically was promoted through a Harvard professor. Inscribed in Coptic, the ancient Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet, this papyrus fragment became the most recent in a series of spectacular fakes designed to shock faithful Christians and churn the mainstream media with fantastic headlines. This is the story of the attempted ruse and what we can learn from it.

The Story Breaks

In 2012, I attended the International Coptic Congress in Rome, Italy, a normally staid event tragically marred on this occasion by media sensation and disinformation about what came to be called the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife fragment. Public relations staff at Harvard University had coordinated a news blitz at our conference of two hundred scholars without first consulting the conference organizers. No scholar at the conference could produce a viable comparison for the fragment’s ugly writing in a known, authentic manuscript. Nobody wanted to defend its authenticity, and most people ridiculed the thing openly. The Vatican hosted several of our events, and the major theme of the congress suddenly became this obvious forgery of a Coptic fragment in which Jesus alludes to his wife. In English, the fragment reads:

… My mother she gave to me L[ife] …
… The disciples said to Jesus …
… denies. Mary is [not] worthy of it …
… Jesus said to them “My wife” …
… she will not be able to be a disciple to me and …
… Let a man the which bad let no T[?] …
… I myself am with her concerning …
… an image …

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife papyrus was written in a very crude Coptic script. Photo from Wikipedia

Because the forger did not employ a modern equivalent to ancient cedar oil, the ink lacked viscosity, running to-and-fro like a failed pastel painting from your childhood. Unlike real papyrus-inscribed text, which is made with reed pens, this writing resembled that of a paint brush. The character forms did not parallel ancient literary styles like one would find in a biblical manuscript or ancient documentary styles like a business document or private correspondence. The papyrus, which could easily have been purchased from eBay, seemed ancient, but the text had all the appearances of a cheap fake.

But why let facts get in the way of a good story!

None of the reporters seemed to care about our concerns, except to the extent that they had been prepped for a shocked response from religious conservatives. The expectation was that this discovery would potentially overthrow patriarchal views on celibacy and on women-in-ministry, and would further demonstrate that the orthodox tradition suppressed a distinctly feminist Christianity.

The expectation was that this discovery would … further demonstrate that the orthodox tradition suppressed a distinctly feminist Christianity.

Of the two hundred scholars at the conference, perhaps fifty specialized directly or indirectly in manuscripts and ancient writing. The reporters had not really come to hear our opinions, though, since their articles were already written, based solely on feedback from select sources. The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Smithsonian broke the story, highlighting the Harvard credentials of the lead scholar and the supposed vetting by various other experts. Not by accident, the announcement occurred a stone’s throw away from Vatican City, seemingly with the support of the gathered scholars.

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Problems Emerge for Jesus’ Wife

In reality, two world class specialists (Bentley Layton and Stephen Emmel) had already identified this papyrus as a probable forgery, formally rejecting an article submitted to the Harvard Theological Review weeks before the Rome conference. The journal editors simply ignored the peer reviewers’ opinions and pushed forward. Within days of the Rome announcement, however, the blogosphere caught on fire with specialized experts from Europe and North America tearing the forgery into metaphorical shreds.

Although the forger had not yet been identified, Andrew Bernhard, an independent researcher who had formerly studied at Oxford, created the “Patchwork Hypothesis,” demonstrating that the forgery had created the Gospel of Jesus’ text by using a 2002 PDF of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas he found online. In only a few weeks, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife debacle seemed to have imploded, and authenticity no longer seemed defensible.

Headlines from the initial announcement sensationalized the idea that Jesus had a wife.

For many, Christmas and Easter involve remembering Christ’s Advent and his resurrection. For the secular media, these seasons too often represent an occasion to float absurd theories about Jesus. The Harvard Theological Review partnered once again with the Smithsonian, The New York Times and The Boston Globe to resurrect Jesus’ wife fragment from the dead.

How, you might ask, could they do such a thing, when the papyrus had so conclusively been proven a forgery? In the context of a dedicated issue of the Harvard Theological Review as well as a professional webpage, Harvard PR executed a two-fold strategy. First, the publications completely and totally ignored the Patchwork Hypothesis just as they had previously ignored the peer reviewers. Second, the scholars used their various networks to produce a variety of scientific results which in retrospect were misconstrued to demonstrate authenticity. Two weeks before Easter, the world would see a Smithsonian documentary demonstrating that science had validated the scholarly opinions from Harvard.

Although carbon dating did place the papyrus roughly between 600–800 AD, skeptics had never argued that the papyrus material was anything other than ancient. Ultra-high resolution showed that the character Alpha which represented the my in “my wife …” was not altered, yet no scholar had ever suggested as much. Raman spectroscopy demonstrated chemical similarity between the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife ink and the ink on a Gospel of John fragment from the same collection. It showed the presence of soot (or graphite) in both inks, a feature expected in the case of a modern forgery.

Somehow, several pictures of this Gospel of John fragment, later known as the Harvard Lycopolitan John, appeared on the Harvard website, and, because of these pictures, Jesus’ Wife was once again proven a forgery.

Cracking the Related Case

Because I wrote my doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge on the Coptic versions of John’s Gospel, I’ve had a longstanding interest in this accompanying John fragment. Harvard did not respond to requests for an image of the Coptic John fragment which had been mentioned in the original presentation. The fragment would have been useful to a colleague of mine who was constructing a critical edition of the Sahidic Coptic gospel of John.

When the pictures appeared on the website, naturally my interest was piqued. The vowels were all wrong, immediately alerting me to the Lycopolitan dialect of the Coptic. Normally, one expects the Sahidic dialect in Coptic papyri, and only two papyri preserve John’s Gospel in Sahidic. The Qau Codex contains most of John’s Gospel and is easily accessible online, especially if one googles “earliest Coptic manuscript.”

An image of the Lycopolitan John papyrus fragment
The Lycopolitan John fragment showed even clearer signs of forgery. Image source

This new forgery, the Harvard Lycopolitan John, had been directly copied from the internet PDF of the Qau Codex, duplicating every line break and erring conspicuously at the turn of a digital page. Where the editor of the Qau codex had restored text with impossible suggestions, the forger reproduced these same impossibilities. The Harvard Lycopolitan John preserved the same ink and the same handwriting as the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.

None of this had occurred to the scholars affiliated with the Harvard publication, nor had they considered that Lycopolitan had disappeared no later than the sixth century. Lycopolitan should not appear on a piece of papyrus harvested in between 600–800 AD. If this second papyrus was a fake and used the same ink and scribe, then most papyri must be fakes. Other scholars rightly referred to this new discovery as the “smoking gun.” In 2016, Ariel Sabar identified the forger in an explosive piece for The Atlantic. His subsequent book tells the whole sordid tale in gripping detail.

Lessons Learned

According to satirical comedian Stephen Colbert, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Conservatives, the feeling sometimes goes, rely on pseudo-science and are skeptical of climate change, evolutionary theory, and big government’s role in solving society’s problems. Liberals, however, are thought to act as servants of reason and the envoys of human progress who advance their mission for the common good, even the good of those conservatives who tragically cannot accept reality. This is, at least, how some present the matter.

The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife story is a tragic tale of confirmation bias, this time on the liberal side.

Colbert’s notion arose as a joke at the 2006 Correspondent’s roast of President Bush, but today it has too often metastasized into overt policy at secular colleges in North America which are designed to exclude conservatives by painting them as beyond the pale. The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife story is a tragic tale of confirmation bias, this time on the liberal side. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of the larger echo chamber of liberal apologetics at secular private and public colleges that too often marginalize religious and social conservatives.

Why Are Protestant and Catholic Bibles Different?

Knowledge of the Bible’s history clears away the caricatures and misinformation swirling around this common question.

Why do Catholic Bibles contain more books than Protestant ones? Few questions provoke more curiosity (and angst) about the history of the Bible than why and how the two major western branches of Christianity have different books in the Book. The Roman Catholic Bible has 73 books, while the Protestant Bible contains 66.

Both groups claim the Bible functions as their authority for doctrine, though admittedly in different ways. That is, Protestants and Catholics claim the Bible is their canon or authority for faith and morals. Before we can understand how each group reads their Bible, we need to learn the differences between the bibles they read. To do that, we will detail the major differences, describe the history of the canon, and then show why the question matters.

The Differences

Catholics and Protestants have the same 27-book New Testament. Thus, the differences between their Bibles concerns the boundaries of the Old Testament canon. In short, Catholics have 46 books, while Protestants have 39. Thus, Catholics have seven more books and also some additions within shared books: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus / Sirach / Ben Sira, 1–2 Maccabees, Baruch, and the additions to Daniel and Esther.

Protestants call these books collectively, “the Apocrypha,” while Catholics refer to them as “the Deuterocanon.” Here, “Deuterocanon” does not mean second in authority but second only in reception in time. The Protestant Old Testament agrees with the narrower contents of the Hebrew canon (though not the ordering and numbering of books), while the Catholic Old Testament contains these same books plus the deuterocanonical books.

How the Different Canons Arose

At the start, several simplistic answers need to be avoided. These include the notion that Protestants removed books from the Bible or that Roman Catholics finally published their Bible pure and simple at the Council of Trent. As we will see, the Old Testament’s history from the beginning of the Christian era to the 16th century was quite complex. One must understand the early history of the relationship of the canon to these other books before making sweeping statements about what happened in the 16th century.

Early Christian History (100–400 AD)

Early Christians answered the question “What is the Old Testament?” differently as they recognized the voice of their Shepherd in the Jewish writings that remained. Jesus and the Apostles did not leave behind a list of authoritative books for the earliest church, and there were various spiritually significant books and different opinions about them. The complete Greek Bible codices of the fourth century (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus) contained many of the deuterocanonical books alongside the others. They were integrated alongside the rest of the Old Testament.

Christians were clearly copying and reading these books. Whether they considered them as having authority or not is a separate question, as we will see. Furthermore, in the third century, Christians began to cite the deuterocanonical books as “scripture.” Clearly, they considered these works important. Although the New Testament and second-century authors never cite the deuterocanonical books as scripture, they do allude to them, showing awareness of them. (See, for example, the allusion to the Jewish martyrs of 2 Maccabees 6–7 in Heb. 11:35.)

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But Paul’s statement in Romans 3:2, “the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God,” probably led many early Christians to conclude that the church’s Old Testament canon should match the Jewish canon. The earliest, second- and third-century lists of Melito of Sardis, Bryennios list, Origen of Alexandria, and the fourth-century Greek lists (e.g., Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus) omitted almost all of the deuterocanonical books (e.g., some still included Baruch as part of Jeremiah).1For these lists and more in original languages and English translation see Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

These Christians and others beside did not outright reject the deuterocanonical books. Rather, they considered them useful for believers to read for edification, but not authoritative for doctrine. That is, their first-tier-canonical books established doctrine for the church, while second-tier-readable books illustrated piety for believers. That is a crucial distinction that is sometimes lost today.

First-tier books established doctrine while second-tier books illustrated piety for believers.

However, in the Latin West, another development was underway. Instead of asking whether a book was part of the Jewish canon, some early Christians accepted a book into the canon if the churches read and received that book. Augustine of Hippo and Pope Innocent I, for example, clearly accepted the deuterocanonical books based on this consideration. But other Latin Christians such as Jerome of Stridon and Rufinus of Aquileia continued to promote the narrower canon, placing the deuterocanonical books in a secondary list of edificatory books that did not establish church doctrine.

Related

What this short survey shows is that fourth-century Christians were divided over the criteria for the Old Testament canon. Based on the canon lists, most Christians would have followed the Hebrew canon criterion for determining what belonged in their own. But others determined the Christian Old Testament by looking at what books the churches were reading in public and accepting. The two views agreed on the Hebrew canon but disagreed on the status of the deuterocanonical books with some relegating them to a secondary, edificatory status and others integrating them with the rest of the books. The issue was still debated in the early Reformation period and into the period of the Roman Catholic response in the Council of Trent (1546).

Reformation Period and Council of Trent

Although the Council of Florence around 1445 included a list of Old Testament books that incorporated the deuterocanonical books, the list did not have dogmatic definition. This means that Catholics before the Council of Trent were still debating the Old Testament canon in different ways. For example, Cardinal Ximénes (best known for his role as Grand Inquisitor), Cardinal Cajetan (known for his role as reviewer of Martin Luther’s teachings at the Diet of Augsburg in 1518), and the great Catholic scholar Erasmus would have probably agreed with the early Protestants on the contents of the Old Testament and the distinction between the canonical books and the edificatory deuterocanonical books. But other Catholic theologians were persuaded that Pope Innocent, Pope Eugenius, and the Council of Florence among others included the deuterocanonical books in the canon.

When the Council of Trent convened in 1546 to discuss the matter of the canon of scripture, they committed to printing the list of books of the Council of Florence, but they did not believe they were settling once and for all the debate between Augustine and Jerome—a live debate at the time between Humanist and Protestant scholars on the one hand and Catholics on the other.

But when the council published its decree on the canon, the text did not clearly reflect this live debate. Instead, it came with an unqualified list of books that included the deuterocanonical books on the same tier as the other books. But the minutes and papers of the Council of Trent’s meetings suggest a different story. They show that the theologians and church leaders believed they were not settling the long-held debate over the deuterocanonical books despite the fact that their decree published the wider list of books without any qualification or explanation. As one recent Catholic historian says, “In this case at least, the council itself must be held responsible for the misunderstanding.”2John W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 92.

From this point forward, Catholic apologists, who should have known better, began to defend this canon as part of Roman Catholic identity. For their part, Protestants also understood Trent’s decision as a way to include the deuterocanonical books that supported some of their doctrinal positions.

In 1566, Roman Catholic theologian, Sixtus of Sienna, coined the term “Deuterocanonical” to describe these books together with a few others that Christians would not call Deuterocanonical today (e.g., Revelation). By “Deuterocanonical,” Sixtus means second in time of reception—not second in authority and dignity. These books were slower to be received into the church’s canon of scripture, and therefore he called them deuterocanonical, while Protestants continued to call these books “Apocrypha,” clearly preserving the ancient distinction between them and the canonical books.

Do the Differences Matter?

As early as 1519, the differences between these canons could be felt. At a debate in Leipzig, Martin Luther and Catholic Johann Maier von Eck debated the doctrine of purgatory and the role of indulgences among other issues. As Luther questioned the scriptural authority for purgatory, he noted that 2 Maccabees 12:43–45 might offer some opinion, but “since Maccabees is not in the canon,” it is only effective for the faithful and does not furnish such authority. Only books in the canon could establish doctrine. If a book’s canonical status was disputed, as all the deuterocanonical books were, then it was not a sufficient authority. In this, Luther was appealing to Jerome’s view.

In 1547, one year after Trent’s decree on the canon, John Calvin in his Antidote argued that the leaders at Trent “provide themselves with new supports when they give full authority to the Apocryphal books. Out of the second of the Maccabees they will prove Purgatory and the worship of saints; out of Tobit satisfactions, exorcisms, and what not. From Ecclesiasticus they will borrow not a little. For from whence could they better draw their dregs?”3From Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters: Volume 3: Tracts, Part 3, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet (Edinburgh; Calvin Translation Society, 1851; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 68.

These early Protestants understood clearly that the Apocryphal books taught different doctrines than the canonical books, and once the Roman Catholic Church lent full authority to them, many of their teachings could then find full support too. Clearly, the differences between the two canons are not trivial. Canon means authority, and thus, an authoritative support for the church’s teachings.

Clearly, the differences between the two canons are not trivial. Canon means authority, and thus, an authoritative support for the church’s teachings.

Conclusion

Today, because of the different canons, Catholics and Protestants have different scriptural authorities. Opening up the history of the matter shows that Catholics at Trent did not think they were solving the canon debate or publishing the Catholic Bible once and for all, even if the decree had that effect.

Similarly, the history of the matter shows that Protestants were not removing books from the Bible, for their canon was not only traditional but, in so far as it cohered with the Hebrew canon, actually had the more ancient precedent. Knowledge of the Bible’s history clears away the caricatures and misinformation swirling around this question.

This article is also available in Polish.

Notes

  • 1
    For these lists and more in original languages and English translation see Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
  • 2
    John W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 92.
  • 3
    From Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters: Volume 3: Tracts, Part 3, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet (Edinburgh; Calvin Translation Society, 1851; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), 68.

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