The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities

THE MISSING GOSPELS

PRAISE FOR

THE MISSING GOSPELS

Darrell Bock has written a timely and valuable study for anyone curious about the question of lost or missing gospels. Cutting his way through a great deal of hype and misinformation, he provides a solid, scholarly grounding to the early history and development of the gospel traditions. In the process, he makes nonsense of theories that Gnostic texts in any sense represented the suppressed core of Christian truth, concealed by a sinister institutional church. A breath of sanity!

— PHILIP JENKINS

Professor of History and Religious

Studies, Pennsylvania State

University

This is not another lame Christian paperback whose chief purpose will be to steady a wobbly table. No! This is first-rate scholarship translated into clear, readable prose. It is classic Bock.

— JAY SMITH

Assistant Professor of New

Testament Studies, Dallas

Theological Seminary

A necessary book that corrects many still fashionable but even more questionable hypotheses about the origin of the Gospels, the Nag Hammadi texts, and the development of Christian theology in the first two centuries AD.

— PROF. DR. MARTIN HENGEL

Professor Emeritus of New

Testament and Ancient Judaism,

University of Tübingen, Germany

Every generation has its hawkers of wondrous new discoveries that amazingly everyone else has missed, but which, thanks to a few enlightened individuals, will dramatically rewrite history. But the vast majority of these headline-grabbing fancies evaporate under more sober scrutiny. Darrell Bock’s careful book shows why recent sensationalist claims based on the Gnostic gospels are no different.

— RIKK E. WATTS

Associate Professor of New

Testament Studies, Regent

College, Vancouver, BC

Darrell Bock follows up here his informed critique of the recent frenzy about The Da Vinci Code with an equally informed and readable discussion of the variety of beliefs and writings of early Christianity. Those who don’t want their prejudices disturbed will want to avoid this book. Those with an open mind and readiness to learn from scholarship . . . read with profit.

— LARRY HURTADO

Professor of New Testament

Language, Literature, and

Theology, University of

Edinburgh, Scotland

Jesus and the origins of Christianity are the subjects of extensive media coverage and everyday conversations—a New Testament scholar’s dream! Yet Jesus is demoted from God to guide, and the early church is said to have been hopelessly divided, even confused, as to whom Jesus was. In his superb book, Darrell Bock patiently, and accessibly, sifts through all the relevant issues and offers much-needed guidance to those who want to discern fact from fiction. If you read only one book on this issue, this is it!

— ANDREAS J. KÖSTENBERGER, PHD

Editor, Journal of the Evangelical

Theological Society, Professor of

New Testament and Greek,

Southeastern Baptist Theological

Seminary,Wake Forest, NC

Darrell Bock has produced a much needed antidote to the sensationalist claims made by those touting the discovery of lost gospels. He demolishes the frequently encountered argument that these Gnostic gospels represent the original Christianity and that orthodoxy is only a late development that suppressed earlier viewpoints. Bock’s presentation is not a matter of faith against scholarship, but of better scholarship against inferior scholarship. In a non-technical and accessible way, he provides solid evidence that reveals how inflated and ill-founded these current hypotheses are. This book deserves to be read widely and needs to be put in the hands of unsuspecting readers who are being hoodwinked by what some highly recognized scholars are saying.

— DONALD A. HAGNER

George Eldon Ladd Professor of

New Testament, Fuller Theological

Seminary, Pasadena, CA

Darrell Bock provides an informed and scholarly critique of the new perspective on Gnosticism and the recently discovered texts from Nag Hammadi. Although he rightly highlights the new scholarship’s shortcomings, he also has the grace and wisdom to underscore the notable contributions that the new perspective has made to our understanding of early Christianity. Bock’s insight into the relevant literatures from antiquity, moreover, is particularly well demonstrated by his claim that most of the alternative texts (e.g., the Nag Hammadi tractates) are less countercultural than the traditional teaching (e.g., the New Testament and early patristic writings); indeed, if the implications of that insight alone are given the attention they deserve, Bock’s study could have a salutary impact not only on scholarly debate but also on contemporary Christian theology, ethics, and political practice.

— TODD KLUTZ

Senior Lecturer in New Testament

Studies, University of Manchester,

England

Who were the Gnostics, and what did they teach? And was second-century Christianity a mass of contradictory teachings, none of which can claim to truly represent the minds of Jesus and His first followers? Darrell Bock guides the reader clearly through the maze, providing a helpful summary of Gnostic theologies, arguing for the wide spread of the orthodox traditional teaching about Jesus, and showing that attempts to rubbish its claims to authenticity and to relativize its significance are not successful. Theological students, in particular, will be grateful for this careful assessment of early alternative forms of Christianity, based as it is on detailed assessment of the new sources that have come to light over the past half-century or so.

— I. HOWARD MARSHALL

Professor Emeritus in New

Testament, University of

Aberdeen, Scotland

A welcome alternative to sensational hype and fictional novels. Here is a clear and readable account on just what these missing gospels are and their real relationship to Christianity.

— CRAIG A. BLAISING

Executive Vice

President and Provost, Southwestern Baptist

Theological Seminary, Fort

Worth, TX

Darrell Bock is what theologians should be, accessible. This book tackles a complicated subject matter in an accessible way. The New Testament is simply summarized: Jesus calls us into an intimate union and relationship with Him; then Jesus sends us into the world. The world to which we are sent is different than the one that confronted our parents. With Postmodernism the dominant ideology, Dr. Phil the ever present counselor, Hollywood dabbling in theology and the occult, and Gnosticism making a comeback, we need to tread carefully and learn wisely. Bock’s treatment of the texts found at Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic gospels, the claims of Walter Bauer and the new school of theological thought, and facts surrounding the sources of Christianity is fair, clear, thorough, and . . . accessible. Having read it, I am better equipped to engage a confused and drifting culture, and I’m protected against becoming a confused drifter myself.

— PETE BRISCOE

Senior Pastor, Bent Tree Bible

Fellowship, Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

In his Breaking the Da Vinci Code, Darrell Bock has already exposed the allegedly factual portion of that novel’s story of Christian origins for the fiction it really is. But what are we to make of the various Gnostic Gospels that never made it into the Christian canon? Are there sound historical and theological reasons for judging them to be later, inferior, and even distorted versions of the original traditions emanating from Jesus? Or was it all a political power play so that history is just the perspective of the winners? In this volume, Bock answers all these questions, conclusively demonstrating the real nature of Gnostic Christianity, which often doesn’t even support the avant-garde convictions of its modern proponents the way they make it out to do. A must-read for anyone caught up in the debate!

— CRAIG L. BLOMBERG

Distinguished Professor of New

Testament, Denver Seminary

The Missing Gospels provides a meaty overview of the so-called Gnostic works, as compared with the real message of the earliest Christian writings. This volume will be a unique resource for those who wish to respond to the new school with accuracy and confidence.

— FREDERICA MATHEWES-GREEN

National Public Radio’s Morning

Edition Commentator

Darrell Bock has provided an antidote to the misleading and sensationalist claims about alternative early Christianities. His work is informed, fair, and convincing and offers a good introduction to the literature and thinking of both traditional and alternative early Christianities. This work needs to be placed both in the hands of students and in the libraries of churches.

— KLYNE SNODGRASS

Paul W. Brandel Professor of New

Testament Studies, North Park

Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL

Darrell Bock’s new book provides a much needed critical review of the non-New Testament gospels that have gained a great deal of attention in recent years. Although most of these writings and the dubious theories that go with them have received trenchant criticism in scholarly literature, no work has yet appeared that makes sense of all of this for the laity and beginning students of Bible and Christian origins. The Missing Gospels is just the book that has been needed. Here at last, non-experts have a reliable guide!

— CRAIG A. EVANS

Payzant Distinguished Professor,

Acadia Divinity College, Nova

Scotia, Canada

The challenge today to traditional orthodox belief as the center of the Christian message is not from the voices who contend that the Gospels are not reliable or that the Apostle Paul invented Christianity, but that the orthodox faith was but one voice in a virtual cacophony of voices—voices that differed on who Jesus was, what salvation was, and who God was. Bock’s book patiently examines the resurgence of such voices, demonstrates that the evidence cannot support the modern resurgence, and offers in their place a supporting voice for the historical reliability of the orthodox faith as the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

— SCOT MCKNIGHT

Karl A. Olsson Professor in

Religious Studies, North Park

University, Chicago, IL

© 2006 by Darrell L. Bock

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Scripture taken from the NET Bible®, © 1996–2006 by Biblical Studies Press L.L.C. from http://www.bible.org. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Maccabees quotations noted RSV are from the REVISED STANDARD VERSION of the Bible. © 1946, 1952, 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission.

Text quoted from The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and Translations, ed. Michael Holmes, 1999, is used by permission of Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Texts quoted from the Coptic Nag Hammadi Library are used with kind permission of Koninklijke Brill, originally published in The Coptic Gnostic Library: A Complete Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, Vol.1–5, edited by James M. Robinson.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bock, Darrell L.

The missing Gospels : unearthing the truth behind alternative Christianities / Darrell L. Bock.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 222).

ISBN 978-0-7852-1294-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-7852-8906-7 (trade paper)

1. Nag Hammadi codices—Theology. 2. Gnosticism—Relations—Christianity.

3. Christianity and other religions—Gnosticism. 4. Theology, Doctrinal—History—Early church, ca. 30–600. I. Title.

BT1391.B63 2006

270.1—dc22

2006001318

Printed in the United States of America

07 08 09 10 11 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

AN INVITATION TO YOU

The human intellect demands accuracy

while the soul craves meaning.

History ministers to both with stories.

— Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob

Telling the Truth About History

(New York:W.W. Norton, 1994), 262

Explorers of the past are never quite free. The past is their

tyrant. It forbids them to know anything which it has not

itself, consciously or otherwise, yielded to them.

— Marc Bloch

The Historian’s Craft

(New York: Random House-Vintage Books, 1953), 59

Words are weapons, often the most dangerous

types of weapons . . .

In the end we assure ourselves, the truth will prevail.

But what about in the meantime?

— Conyers Read

at the Presidential Address for

the American Historical Society, 1949,

cited in That Noble Dream by Peter Noviak

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 318

History springs from the human fascination with self-

discovery, from the persistent concern about the nature

of existence and people’s engagement with it.

— Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob

Telling the Truth About History, 306

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Foreword: Dr. Edwin M. Yamauchi

Introduction: Do New Discoveries

Mean Christianity Needs a Makeover?

1. Making a Scorecard:

The Periods and Players of Early Christianity

2. Discussion of a Key Alternative View:

About Gnosticism and Its Definition

3. Dating the Origin of Gnosticism

4. Early Christianity’s Diversity

and Historical Judgments

5. The Claims of Walter Bauer

and the Roots of the New School

6. The Nature of God and Creation, Part 1

7. The Nature of God and Creation, Part 2

8. Jesus: Divine and/or Human? Part 1

9. Jesus: Divine and/or Human? Part 2

10. The Nature of Humanity’s Redemption:

Spiritual or Also Physical? Part 1

11. The Nature of Humanity’s Redemption:

Spiritual or Also Physical? Part 2

12. Jesus’ Death: Knowledge, Sin,

and Salvation, Part 1

13. Jesus’ Death: Knowledge, Sin,

and Salvation, Part 2

14. Conclusion: The New School,

the Missing Gospels, Alternative

Christianities, and Orthodoxy

Appendix 1: List of Extant Texts

Beyond the Four Gospels

Appendix 2: List of Key Texts

in the Apostolic Fathers

Bibliography

PREFACE