Counterfeit Gospels
Here's an argument against Christianity. Stop me if you've heard this one.
The Bible as we know it was assembled by Constantine at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD. He hand-picked the books he liked and disregarded the rest. In fact, there are many other gospels written by other disciples of Jesus, like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, even the Gospel of Jesus, that was never included in the New Testament. This only shows that the books that are included are suspect. We can't believe the authority and truth claims of the Bible because the process of assembling it was fraught with corruption.
Ha! Gotcha!
Actually, no you don't.
So I've heard this a lot, and when I was a non-believer I may have even spouted this dreck. It's so easy to hear a thing one time and latch on to it because it aligns with your own way of thinking. Most conspiracy theories are that way. They appeal to a certain emotion and make it very palatable for the consumer.
Let's address these notions one at a time. First, the canon of New Testament scripture was well established by the beginning part of the Second Century AD. That's the early 100s. At least 24 of the 27 commonly accepted books of the New Testament were widely accepted by then and were circulating among the churches. Constantine had nothing to do with it. In fact, the Council of Nicea had nothing to do with it. Instead, Nicea was assembled to address heresies that had arisen in the church and the result was the drafting of the Nicene Creed, a concise statement of faith that most Christians today still adhere to.
So what about those "other" gospels, the ones that were left out. Most of them were written in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD and are questionable as to who authored them. The Gospel of Thomas, for example, was written by a Gnostic community and was used to support the Gnostic theology of a secret knowledge needed for salvation. I'm not sure how the Gospel of Judas would be written by Judas, considering he killed himself after he saw that Jesus was going to be crucified.
What we are left with are reliable eyewitness accounts by those who were there (John and Matthew) and the people who knew them (John-Mark and Luke). It's settled scholarship that Mark was the first written gospel and that Matthew and Luke came later, borrowing some material from Mark. Paul quotes from Luke in his first letter to Timothy, which most scholars agree was probably written about 54 AD, and Paul referred to Luke's gospel as "scripture." (See 1 Timothy 5:8). This means the three gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all existed and were accepted as scripture as early as 54 AD, just 20 years or so after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul often wrote of the eyewitnesses who were still alive. Very early on, the Christian community had a collection of writings that they held in high regard, as high as the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures).
So why do these counterfeit gospels exist? Certain individuals wanted to assert their own agenda and what better way than to write a "gospel" account and pass it off as someone else's work, someone who was intimately acquainted with Jesus Christ himself?
But here's the thing: The existence of these counterfeit gospels in no way devalue the canon of scripture, and let me explain why.
Let's say that I have two $20 bills on the table. One I know is authentic. One I know is counterfeit. I know which bill is counterfeit. Does that devalue the authentic bill? Not one penny. (Inflation does that). The existence of the counterfeit, if anything, only reinforces the notion of the value of the authentic bill. After all, why go to the trouble of making a counterfeit of something that is worthless?
The counterfeit gospels are the same. They only affirm the value of the true gospels, because if the true gospels had no value, there's no sense in trying to make a cheap copy.
We have a great deal of reason to believe in the authenticity and truth of the Bible. These pointless attacks should in no way distract us from the truth of the gospel of Christ - that Christ died and rose again in accordance with the scriptures, and that he lives today to save lost sinners from their sin.
S.D.G.