In the early days of Christianity, the religion was far from the rigid canon of 39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament books which make up the Christian bible today. No, early Christianity was something of a tornado of competing sects, of hundreds and even thousands of different texts and interpretations.
For centuries after the death of Jesus, church authorities argued over scripture, disagreed on direction, cast their opponents as heretics, and sought to promote their own interpretations. From this diversity was forged uniformity – an official Christian canon.
The question is, if the Christian bible is now 39 Old Testament and 27 New Testament books, what happened to the other hundreds and thousands of texts which were part of early Christian traditions?
More importantly, why were these books censored and banned from the bible? What did they say that church authorities did not want in the official canon? What mysteries did they reveal?
Read below for 8 mysterious books banned from the bible.
The Gospel of Judas
We may as well start with history’s greatest villain, Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus.
In 1970, an ancient text was discovered in Egypt which told a decidedly different story. Known as the Gospel of Judas, the text described Judas not as the betrayer who delivered Jesus to authorities for money, as in the canonical gospels, but as Jesus’s closest confidant, a man who turned Jesus in because Jesus asked him to.
But why would Jesus ask to be given over to authorities? The answer is given when Jesus tells Judas that, “You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”
Here, Jesus is speaking of liberating his spiritual self from the physical body which entraps him. This sounds less like Jesus’s official biblical teachings, and more like the Buddha teaching about enlightenment. In fact, one might be reminded of the Zen Buddhist saying, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!”
Perhaps the real reason that the Gospel of Judas has been banned from the bible is not Judas, but Jesus … a Buddhist Jesus.
Notably, this is not the only occasion this takes place …
The Gospel of Mary
While a more Buddhist Jesus appears throughout books banned from the bible, particularly the gnostic gospels discovered at the Nag Hammadi library in 1945, it is the Gospel of Mary, discovered in 1886, which presents perhaps the most ostentatious example.
Within the gospel, Jesus teaches, “Attachment to matter gives rise to passion against nature. Thus trouble arises in the whole body,” which sounds eerily like when the Buddha proclaimed, “The root of suffering is attachment.”
When Jesus says, “If you are out of balance, take inspiration from manifestations of your true nature,” it seems to overlap with when the Buddha said, “The True-Self is the beloved and with the right effort it can be brought forth into harmonious being.”
Of course, Buddhist Jesus is not the only reason the book of Mary was removed from the bible. More famously, the apostle Matthew opines of Jesus and Mary within the gospel, “he has loved her more than us.” Many have suggested that this implies Jesus and Mary were romantically involved.
Could this be true?
Well …
The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife
In 2012, a small papyrus fragment with a few lines of Coptic text scrawled on it appeared containing a truly mind-blowing passage.
It read, “Jesus said to them, My wife …”
The mysterious text was dubbed the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife. Unsurprisingly, the Vatican immediately called it a “forgery,” yet, by 2014, “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife had undergone—and passed—more state-of-the-art lab tests, inch for inch, than almost any other papyrus in history.”
So, was it real? Did Jesus have a wife?
This is not the only place the concept appears. The gnostic Gospel of Philip, itself banned from the bible, contains the line, “The Lord loved Mary more than all the disciples and often used to kiss her on the mouth.” There is also The Ecclesiastical History of Zacharias Rhetor, an ancient manuscript which appears to tell the story of Jesus and Mary getting married and having children.
Put it this way, if Jesus did have a wife, and even kids, it would not be the only groundbreaking thing we can learn about him from books banned from the bible …
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
If there is one thing the official Christian bible is missing, it’s details on the early life of Jesus. In fact, the canonical gospels contain no information on Jesus between his being circumcised at 8 days old and baptized at the age of 30, save for a brief mention of his preaching in the temple of Jerusalem at age 12. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas fills in the blanks, presenting an account of the life of Jesus between the ages of five and twelve.
One might think that since the bible doesn’t have these details anywhere else, the church would surely want this in its official canon. So why is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas banned from the bible?
Well, to start, the gospel describes a series of childhood miracles performed by Jesus – making clay birds and bringing them to life, healing people who had been injured or poisoned, even resurrecting multiple people who had died. Kid Jesus’s performance of these miracles directly contradicts official bible canon, which says that Jesus’s first miracle was turning water into wine as an adult, and further, that he performed but seven miracles in his entire life.
However, there’s more to it than that.
At the age of 5, Jesus gathers water from a brook into small ponds. When another child uses a willow branch to break these ponds, Jesus swiftly strikes him dead, proclaiming, “Behold, now also thou shalt be withered like a tree.”
Later, when another child bumps into Jesus on the street, Jesus declares, “Thou shalt not finish thy course,” and again the child drops dead.
When the parents of one of these children complain to Joseph, Jesus tells him, “for thy sake, I will hold my peace: but they shall bear their punishment,” before blinding the parents.
As Joseph puts it, “all they die that provoke him to wrath.”
A tyrannical kid Jesus doesn’t really line up with the image of the pure savior. So, no wonder the Infancy Gospel of Thomas was banned from the bible.
However, this is not the only book banned from the bible in which Jesus’s supernatural powers far exceed those presented in the official doctrine …
Saint Cyril’s Lost Book
In 2013, an ancient manuscript written in the name of 4th century Saint Cyril of Jerusalem was translated for the first time. In the manuscript, Cyril discloses that a lost book has been found in Jerusalem containing writings of the apostles. Extraordinarily, he claims that this lost book revealed why Judas used a kiss specifically to identify Jesus to authorities when he turned him in.
The reason? Because Jesus was a shapeshifter. As Cyril quotes directly out of the lost book,
“Then the Jews said to Judas: How shall we arrest him, for he does not have a single shape but his appearance changes. Sometimes he is ruddy, sometimes he is white, sometimes he is red, sometimes he is wheat colored, sometimes he is pallid like ascetics, sometimes he is a youth, sometimes an old man …”
With this in mind, one might read parts of the official bible differently, such as in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus speaks with two of his followers yet “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Had they failed to recognize him because he’d changed his appearance?
Either way, it’s not just Jesus who displays supernatural powers which have been censored out of biblical canon …
The Acts of Peter
As one of the early leaders of the Christian church, Peter is well mentioned in the official bible. One thing that’s missing, however, are details of Peter’s crucifixion and death. The Acts of Peter provides these details, so why is it not in the bible?
One reason might be a story contained within it about a conflict between Peter and a man named Simon Magus.
A public contest is arranged between the two men after Simon shows up in Rome and starts stealing converts from Peter. During this contest, Simon kills a slave by doing nothing more than speaking a word in his ear, then Peter spectacularly brings the man back to life.
In response, Simon begins levitating, then flying over the shocked crowd. But as he does, Peter prays, “oh lord let him fall from a height and be disabled,” at which point Simon plummets from the sky and breaks his legs. The crowd, then recognizing Simon to be an imposter, stones him to death.
Wait … was this type of thing really happening back then? Are these types of powers within the realm of human ability, a knowledge which has been lost, perhaps suppressed by the church?
To answer, one might have to go back further …
The Testament of Solomon
King Solomon appears prominently in both the Christian and Hebrew bibles, the son of David and king who built the First Temple in Jerusalem 957 BCE. The Testament of Solomon, however, is an ancient text ascribed to Solomon but not accepted by Christians or Jews.
In the text, one of Solomon’s workers receives visits from a demon called Ornias, who takes half his wages and sucks energy from his thumb. King Solomon prays to God for help, at which point the archangel Michael shows up and gives Solomon a magic ring which allows him to summon every demon into his presence and force them to reveal their name, their purpose, and how to subdue them. With this knowledge, Solomon makes the demons build the First Temple in Jerusalem for him.
What’s interesting is that the Testament of Solomon is only one part of the larger narrative of a King Solomon with seemingly supernatural powers. In numerous ancient myths, stories, and historical accounts, Solomon is said to be a great magician and alchemist.
In fact, even though it was banned from both Christian and Hebrew bibles, the Testament of Solomon, with its detailed recording of the names and roles of demons and how to subdue them, provided a framework for magical beliefs for centuries.
But speaking of a framework for alternative beliefs …
The Book of Enoch
Discovered amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946, the Book of Enoch provides an entirely different account of the events leading up to the Great Flood than the Old Testament.
It tells a story of the Watchers, so-called fallen angels sent to earth to watch over humans. Far from merely watching humans, however, these Watchers became infatuated by human women, and began to engage in depraved sexual acts with them. The Book of Enoch tells of the children born through this interbreeding between Watchers and humans, called the Nephilim, and described as “supernatural, man-eating giants” that “endangered and pillaged humanity.” Angered with what the Watchers had done, the gods decided that the earth must be punished. Of course, the punishment would be a great flood.
It is interesting to note that for centuries, the Book of Enoch was an important part of both Christian and Jewish religious traditions. Many sects accepted the book as scripture. Yet in modern times the Book of Enoch has been banned from both bibles.
Perhaps this is because the Book of Enoch not only tells a different story of the flood, but because it challenges the very foundations of human history.
There are some who have suggested that The Watchers were not angels at all, but extraterrestrial visitors to earth, that the Book of Enoch in fact tells the story of ancient astronauts and their cross-breeding with humans.
Could this be possible?
Learn more about Enoch, the Nephilim, and the origins of humanity here.