These are just excerpts from
a few of the non-canonical sources



Not all of these sources say all of these points and they may have different theological takes on them. But none of them ever deny that basic outline and all affirm some parts of it.I don't have time to point out language that is identical or similar to that of the canonical or to show where verses are found, but I'll point out in a general way and hope that most of you are familiar enough that you will recognize the similarity.Now similarity is important because it means agreement, but differences in the wording are important to because that indicates that it is not just a copy of the canonical but comes form a different text. That a passage is from a different text than the canonical Gospels but agrees with them is crucial, since it indicates that the story is widely accepted, the versions dot' differ significantly and it is not just being copied from the canonical Gospels. You will see this is very widespread.

Observe this source, the emboldened passage is contradiction to what Turtonm said about it, that this work denies the resurrection.


Apocryphon of JamesJesus of Nazerath in early Christian Gospels:

Andre Bernard (visited May 22 '01)

Link

From Ron Cameron, The Other Gospels (Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1982), as quoted in Willis Barnstone, The Other Bible (Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1984Risen from Dead

quote: "Now the twelve disciples were sitting all together at the same time, and, remembering what the Savior had said to each one of them, whether secretly or openly, they were setting it down in books. And I was writing what was in my book - lo, the Savior appeared, after he had departed from us while we gazed at him. And five hundred and fifty days after he arose from the dead, we said to him: "Have you gone and departed from us?"

Acknolwedges the cross[he also said that it doesn't mention the cross]

quote: And I answered and said to him: "Lord, do not mention to us the cross and the death, for they are far from you." The Lord answered and said: "Truly I say to you, none will be saved unless they believe in my cross. But those who have believed in my cross, theirs is the Kingdom of God. Therefore, become seekers for death, just as the dead who seek for life, for that which they seek is revealed to them. And what is there to concern them? When you turn yourselves towards death, it will make known to you election. In truth I say to you, none of those who are afraid of death will be saved. For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who have put themselves to death. Become better than I; make yourselves like the son of the Holy Spirit."

Dialouge of the Savior

Ibid.

trans Stephen Emmel

Selection made from James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library, revised edition. HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1990.

quote: "So when you offer praise, do so like this: Hear us, Father, just as you heard your only-begotten son, and received him, and gave him rest from any [...] You are the one whose power [...] your armor [...] is [...] light [...] living [...] touch [...] the word [...] repentance [...] life [...] you. You are the thinking and the entire serenity of the solitary. Again: Hear us just as you heard your elect. Through your sacrifice, these will enter; through their good works, these have saved their souls from these blind limbs, so that they might exist eternally. Amen.

[take note of this next source it mirrors much that is in the canonicals and basically lays out the general outline of the whole canonical Jesus story]


EPISTLE OF THE APOSTLES


From "The Apocryphal New Testament" M.R. James-Translation and Notes Oxford: Clarendon Press,

quote: Intro:The authorities for the text are: (a) a Coptic MS. of the fourth or fifth century at Cairo, mutilated; (b) a complete version in Ethiopic (c) a leaf of a fifth-century MS. in Latin, palimpsest, at Vienna. The only edition which makes use of all the authorities is C. Schmidt's 19]9. The Ethiopic was previously edited by Guerrier in Patrologia orientalis under the title of Testament of our Lord in Galilee. A notice of this text by Guerrier in the Revue de l'Orient Chretien (1907) enable me to identify it with the Coptic text, of which Schmidt had given preliminary account to the Berlin Academy. As to the date and character of the book, Schmidt's verdict is that it was written in Asia Minor about AD 160 by an orthodox Catholic. The orthodoxy has been questioned (see a review by G. Bardy in Revue Biblique, 1921.) No ancient writer mentions it, and very few traces of its use can be found: the (third?)-century poet Commodian seems to use it in one place.Ethiopic version:We, John, Thomas, Peter, Andrew, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Nathanael, Judas Zelotes, and Cephas,[same principle players as always]write unto the churches of the east and the west, of the north and the south declaring and imparting unto you that which concerneth our Lord Jesus Christ: we do write according as we have seen and heard and touched him, after that he was risen from the dead: and how that he revealed unto us things mighty and wonderful and true.

3 This know we: that our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ is God the Son of God, who was sent of God the Lord of the whole world, the maker and creator of it, who is named by all names and high above all powers, Lord of lords, King of kings, Ruler of rulers, the heavenly one, that sitteth above the cherubim and seraphim at the right hand of the throne of the Father: who by his word made the heavens,[note similairity to John 1:1]and formed the earth and that which is in it, and set bounds to the sea that it should not pass: the deeps also and fountains,that they should spring forth and flow over the earth: the day and the night, the sun and the moon, did he establish, and the stars in the heaven: that did separate the light from the darkness: that called forth hell, and in the twinkling of an eye ordained the rain of the winter, the snow (cloud), the hail, and the ice, and the days in their several seasons: that maketh the earth to quake and again establisheth it: that created man in his own image, after his likeness, and by the fathers of old and the prophets is it declared (or, and spake in parables with the fathers of old and the prophets in verity), of whom the apostles preached, and whom the disciples did touch. In God, the Lord, the Son of God, do we believe, that he is the word become flesh: that of Mary the holy virgin he took a body, begotten of the Holy Ghost, not of the will (lust) of the flesh, but by the will of God: that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in Bethlehem and made manifest, and grew up and came to ripe age, when also we beheld it.[very close confimation form John 1:1, with the word become flesh but clearly not following the text of that Gospel]

[It goes on to speak of Jesus' healing and riasing the dead, the marrage in canna incident is recounted,the loaves and fishes and feeding of the multitude but the language is quite different from that of the canonicals, indicating that it follows a different text but gives the same information. It also follows the text of the cononicals in mentioning many pereicopes.]

Coptic version:

Resurrection9 Concerning whom we testify that the Lord is he who was crucified by Pontius Pilate and Archelaus between the two thieves (and with them he was taken down from the tree of the cross, Eth.), and was buried in a place which is called the place of a skull (Kranion). And thither went three women, Mary, she that was kin to Martha, and Mary Magdalene (Sarrha, Martha, and Mary, Eth.),[always the same principle players, same women at the tomb, never any different ones]and took ointments to pour upon the body, weeping and mourning over that which was come to pass. And when they drew near to the sepulchre, they looked in and found not the body (Eth. they found the stone rolled away and opened the entrance).10 And as they mourned and wept, the Lord showed himself unto them and said to them: For whom weep ye? weep no more I am he whom ye seek. But let one of you go to your brethren and say: Come ye, the Master is risen from the dead. Martha (Mary, Eth.) came and told us. We said unto her: What have we to do with thee, woman? He that is dead and buried, is it possible that he should live? And we believed her not that the Saviour was risen from the dead. Then she returned unto the Lord and said unto him: None of them hath believed me, that thou livest. He said: Let another of you go unto them and tell them again. Mary (Sarrha, Eth.) came and told us again, and we believed her not; and she returned unto the Lord and she also told him.

[bascially rigt in line with the canonicals but not following the text of it because the language is different, and yet many phrases are barrowed from it]

[next one is higly abstract and esoteric gnostic work]
Gospel of Philip

quote: Those who say that the Lord died first and then rose up are in error, for he rose up first and then died. If one does not first attain the ressurrection will he not die? As God lives, he would already be dead. Christ came to ransom some, to save others, to redeem others. He ransomed those who were strangers and made them his own. And he set his own apart, those whom he gave as a pledge in his will. It was not only when he appeared that he voluntarily laid down his life, but he voluntarily laid down his life from the very day the world came into being. Then he came forth in order to take it, since it has been given as a pledge. It fell into the hands of robbers and was taken captive , but he saved it. He redeemed the good people in the world as well as the evil.

[Some skeptics have said that that the GPhil dneies the resurrection. But as we have just seen its deniel is a very esoteric maxim that is not necessarily a deniel but a spiritualized theology. The second statement might seem to confirm the actual historical resurrection.]

The Gospel of the Ebionites

is known only by the quotations from Epiphanius in these passages of his Panarion: 30.13.1-8, 30.14.5, 30.16.4-5, and 30.22.4. The following selection is excerpted from Montague Rhode James in The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1924), pp. 8-10.

Link

quote: In the Gospel they have, called according to Matthew, but not wholly complete, but falsified and mutilated (they call it the Hebrew Gospel), it is contained that 'There was a certain man named Jesus, and he was about thirty years old, who chose us.[confirmation of basic story outline,got his age in agreement with others]And coming unto Capernaum he entered into the house of Simon who was surnamed Peter, and opened his mouth and said:

As I passed by the lake of Tiberias, I chose John and James the sons of Zebedee, and Simon and Andrew and Thaddaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the Iscariot: and thee, Matthew, as thou satest as the receipt of custom I called, and thou followedst me. You therefore I will to be twelve apostles for a testimony unto (of) Israel. And: John was baptizing, and there went out unto him Pharisees and were baptized, and all Jerusalem. And John had raiment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat (it saith) was wild honey, whereof the taste is the taste of manna, as a cake dipped in oil.

That, forsooth, they may pervert the word of truth into a lie and for locusts put a cake dipped in honey (sic). These Ebionites were vegetarians and objected to the idea of eating locusts. A locust in Greek is akris, and the word they used for cake is enkris, so the change is slight. We shall meet with this tendency again. And the beginning of their Gospel says that: It came to pass in the days of Herod the king of Judaea (when Caiaphas was high priest) that there came (a certain man) John (by name),baptizing with the baptism of repentance in the river Jordan, who was said to be of the lineage of Aaron the priest, child of Zecharias and Elisabeth, and all went out unto him.

[The borrowing from St. Luke is very evident here. He goes on:] And after a good deal more it continues that: After the people were baptized, Jesus also came and was baptized by John; and as he came up from the water, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Holy Ghost in the likeness of a dove that descended and entered into him: and a voice from heaven saying: Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased: and again: This day have I begotten thee. And straightway there shone about the place a great light. Which when John saw (it saith) he saith unto him: Who art thou, Lord? and again there was a voice from heaven saying unto him: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And then (it saith) John fell down before him and said: I beseech thee, Lord, baptize thou me. But he prevented him saying: Suffer it (or let it go): for thus it behoveth that all things should be fulfilled. And on this account they say that Jesus was begotten of the seed of a man, and was chosen; and so by the choice of God he was called the Son of God from the Christ that came into him from above in the likeness of a dove. And they deny that he was begotten of God the Father, but say that he was created as one of the archangels, yet greater, and that he is Lord of the angels and of all things made by the Almighty, and that he came and taught, as the Gospel (so called) current among them contains, that, 'I came to destroy the sacrifices, and if ye cease not from sacrificing, the wrath of God will not cease from you'.

G of Hebrews

quote: The Gospel called according to the Hebrews which was recently translated by me into Greek and Latin, which Origen frequently uses, records after the resurrection of the Savior: And when the Lord had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, he went to James and appeared to him.[begining of the legeond of the Shourd?]

For James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which he had drunk the cup of the Lord until he should see him risen from among them that sleep. And shortly thereafter the Lord said: Bring a table and bread! And immediately it added: he took the bread, blessed it and brake it and gave it to James the Just and said to him: My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of man is risen from among them that sleep. (Jerome, De viris inlustribus 2)


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Rebuttle to Peter Kirby's diatribe againgst this argument