MA, I have spent many years studying Jesus, his teachings, and his ministry. As a critical thinker, rather than someone who depends on faith, I have read many sources of early Christianity including the Bible (NRSV because it is the most inclusive of any version), "Jesus, A Revolutionary Biography", by John Dominic Crossan, "Honest to Jesus", by Robert W. Funk, "The Complete Gospels" edited by Robert L. Miller which includes the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke as well as the Signs Gospel (considered the source for most of the narrative of John and possibly the earliest written account of the deeds of Jesus), the sayings gospel Q (a source for much of the teachings of Jesus in Matthew and Luke), the Gospel of Thomas, the Secret Book of James and the Dialogue of the Savior, the Gospel of Mary, the Infancy Gospels of Thomas and James, the Gospel of Peter, the Egerton Gospel and the Oxyrhynchus Gospels 840 and 1224, the Secret Gospel of Mark (excerpts from a variant edition of the Gospel of Mark and may represent distinctive ways in which Jewish Christians interpreted the Jesus tradition), all retranslated by a panel of 19 religious scholars from the earliest sources written in Greek, Coptic, Latin, Aramaic, or Hebrew.
I have been interested in this topic for many years and it is my personal belief that modern-day Christianity as it is presented to the faithful is a created version that satisfied the demands of the Emperor Constantine when, according to Funk ,
Quote: "he summoned the leaders of the church to Nicea, a suburb of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), to adjudicate controversies among warring factions in the ecclesiastical world. He presided at that council himself, although not yet a Christian. The first form of the Nicene Creed (it was later explanded), which contained the formulations of the council, was intended to unify the various parties. Constantine saw to it that the vote was unanimouse by banishing the bishops who did not put their signatures to the creed. There was now an official statement of correct beliefs, an orthodoxy, to which everyone had to subscribe. those who did not became "heretics" - dissenting parties."
Funk further explains about the concept of Bible and book as something that wasn't available until the invention of the printing press around 1454. He states,
Quote:The earliest of the papyrus manuscripts of the New Testament can be dated to the second century CE, the latest to the eighth.... The New Testament is a canon of scripture <which means> "a critical standard or criterion." In the case of the NT, the canon includes those books accepted as genuine and inspired scripture by the community forming the canon. But that is a purlely formal definition. What we will need sbusequently is a historical definition, one that depicts how and when an authoritative collection of sacred writings was actually formed... In the early centuries, what was considered "canonical" varied from region to reguion and was actually determined largely by regional ecclesiastical officials rather than by popular assent: most members of the Christian movement would not have possessed copies of any of the books, and manuscripts of a complete Bible did not yet exist.. Books of the NT first circulated individually; they were later collected into groups.
From the time of the council at Nicea until well after the printing press had been invented, the Church was the main source of written materials. Only those materials which subscribed to the canon were reproduced and distributed by the Church. It was not until the discoveries of the Nag Hammadi library and the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s that scholars began to renew the quest for the historical Jesus and the full story of his ministry, although Albert Schweitzer wrote, "The Quest of the Historical Jesus" in 1906.
MA, I know you are a person of great faith. I have no desire to attempt to discount that faith and I will not attempt to provide you with sufficient proof to shake your unshakable foundation. My religion requires that I undertake "A free a responsible search for truth and meaning". As such I have studied Christianity (in its many forms), Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, earth-centric religions of Native Americans, Wiccans and other pagans, and Hinduism. I'll keep searching for my truth because for me the spiritual journey *is* the search. So far the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha (who studied Jesus extensively) make the most sense to me. Not the Jesus of the Christian Bible, but the Jesus who preached nonviolence, tolerance, acceptance, and justice for all.
If you are interested in reading a non-canonical gospel and a spiritual guidebook for that gospel, I highly recommend, "The Gospel of Thomas: Annotated & Explained", by Stevan Davies and "The Gospel of Thomas - A Guidebook for Spiritual Practice", by Ron Miller.
The gospel of Thomas would do nothing to shake your faith, MA. It's about living the life of Jesus.
