Forbidden gospels and epistles

Free book for forbidden gospels and epistles.

Several Gospels and Epistles were considered not suitable to be included in the Canon of Scripture. These texts are fascinating writings, offering theological and social insights.

The Epistle of Barnabas is a Greek epistle containing twenty-one chapters, preserved complete in the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus where it appears at the end of the New Testament. It is distinct from the Gospel of Barnabas.

The Gospel of Barnabas is a non-canonical “gospel” purportedly written by the Apostle Barnabas, a narrative account of the life of Jesus told, uniquely, from a Muslim perspective (although not precisely theologically congruent with either Christianity or Islam). Evidenced by two known texts (in Italian and Spanish, the latter only available via a partial transcript), scholars generally place its date of composition around the 14th century A.D. and view it as an original work incorporating earlier materials that are, interestingly, derived from sources other than the Latin Vulgate most commonly in use at the time.

The two texts are largely congruent, and the translation here is based on the Italian ms., as translated by Lonsdale and Laura Maria Roberts Ragg in 1907, which includes chapter headings for the first 27 chapters (the manuscript itself appears to be complete textually, but with surrounding material, including a preface, still in the process of composition).

The app offers the user the ability to randomly select an individual saying for contemplation, as well as the ability to choose an individual saying by title, to search the full text of the document for sayings containing a particular word, and of course, view the full text of the document.

To uphold the "right of private judgment," and our "Christian liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free;" to add fuel to the fire of investigation, and in the crucible of deep inquiry, melt from the gold of pure religion, the dross of man's invention; to appeal from the erring tribunals of a fallible Priesthood, and restore to its original state the mutilated Testament of the Saviour; also to induce all earnest thinkers to search not a part, but the whole of the Scriptures, if therein they think they will find eternal life;

Dispute the authority of those uncharitable, bickering, and ignorant Ecclesiastics who first suppressed these gospels and epistles; and I join issue with their Catholic and Protestant successors who have since excluded them from the New Testament, of which they formed a part; and were venerated by the Primitive Churches, during the first four hundred years of the Christian Era.

To ensure these Gospels and Epistles an unprejudiced and serious attention, which they are entitled to, equally with those now patronized by Church authority, I will briefly refer to that disgraceful epoch in Roman Ecclesiastical Annals, when the New Testament was mutilated, and priestly craft was employed for excluding these books from its pages.