The Gnostic Gospels of Thomas, Mary, and John

Gnostic gospels are gospels that were never approved for inclusion in the 'official' version of the Bible. The Gospel of Thomas consists of 144 sayings of Jesus. They do not occur in any order or any category. Some are sort of familiar, some not.

The Gospel of James the Righteous is, in places, pretty much like the Bible. In other places the sayings just seem outright wrong for one reason for another.

There is a Greek Gospel of Thomas, like the above one, but there are only fragments of the full work. The Gospel of Mary is another gospel that is missing a lot including the first 6 chapters. It's a very interesting gospel, especially when two of the apostles get on her case, basically for being a woman and therefore unreliable, but she ends up defended by one of the other apostles.

The Gospel of John I found somewhat strange, especially early on when he's in a pagan temple and has a lot of non-Christians gather and then threatens to kill all of them if they don't destroy their idols. This I find to be really upsetting as it amounts to murdering anyone who doesn't believe what you do and we see enough of this in today's world with religious extremists and their acts of terror.

He also does a lot of raising the dead and often before he does something he prays. On and on and on, so much so that it's surprising no one just said 'get on with it.'

Further, his death scene is really weird. He has a trench dug, removes his clothes and lays down in the trench and dies. I'd expect that of Monty Python but of a real religious figure? It just doesn't seem right.

This is, of course, and example of just how different the Gnostic gospels and other early writings are and how they vary considerably in quality and believable. Anyhow, the book gives the ready a good selection of these to go through.