the Gospels

I've always been fascinated with the various gospel manifestations. When I was a teenager I read a book on The Religions of the World. I've long since forgotten all that ... but the fascination remains: the Gospels the Qur'an In 2006, the National Geographic Society announced that the Gospel of Judas* had been translated. Like several others, this "Gnostic" gospel (meaning it covers the teachings of Jesus), is not one of the canonical gospels of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There are also gospels of Thomas, Philip, Peter, Truth and Mary ... and many are only fragments. In 1870, an Aramaic manuscript, Gospel of the Nazirenes, was found and (more recently) translated. I couldn't help meself: I had to read about it, then write about it here: gospel of the Nazirenes. (I always get the spelling of Nazarenes Nazerines wrong!) Since many of the stories are similar (indeed identical) to the canonical gospels, it is thought that there is some mysterious, hypothetical "gospel Q" from which many of the teachings of Jesus were taken. After all, many of these gospels were written centuries after the death of Jesus. None were written by the apostles. Of course, Dan Brown's book helps to renew one's interest, eh? * In the Gospel of Judas, Judas Iscariot (who, in the canonical gospels, betrayed Jesus) is seen as obeying instructions from Jesus. He was asked (by Jesus) so that Jesus might be released from his human constraints.