The many faces of Christ : the thousand-year story of the survival and influence of the lost gospels

337 Pages·2015·5.23 MB·English

THE MANY FACES OF CHRIST
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THE
M A N Y FACES
OF CHR IST
The Thousand-Year Story of the
Survival and Influence of the Lost Gospels
Philip Jenkins
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
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Copyright © 2015 by Philip Jenkins
Published by Basic Books
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of
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Designed by Pauline Brown
Typeset in 11.5 point Adobe Caslon Pro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jenkins, Philip, 1952– author.
Th e many faces of Christ : the thousand-year story of the survival and
infl uence of the lost gospels / Philip Jenkins.
ages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-465-06692-6 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-465-06161-7
(e-book) 1. Apocryphal Gospels. 2. Christianity—Origin. I. Title.
BS2851.J464 2015
229’.8—dc23
2015028753
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To Byron Johnson
With thanks and appreciation
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CONTENTS
Note on Terminology ix
1. Gospel Truths: 1
Th e Myth of the Lost Gospels
2. Christ’s Many Faces: 27
Th e Survival of the Old Gospels in a
Wider Christian World
3. Th e Isles of the West: 55
How Irish and British Churches Kept
Ancient Christian Cultures Alive
4. Old Gospels Never Die: 73
Ancient Gospels Th at Gave the Medieval Church
Its Best-Known Images of Christ
5. Two Marys: 95
How Alternative Gospels Continued
to Present the Feminine Face of God
6. Th e New Old Testament: 125
Tales of Patriarchs and Prophets Th at
Became Christian Gospels
7. Out of the Past: 157
Th e Heretical Sects Th at Preserved Ancient
Alternative Scriptures for a Th ousand Years
vii
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viii CONTENTS
8. Beyond the Horizon: 191
Muslim and Jewish Versions of
the Earliest Christian Traditions
9. After Darkness, Light: 217
How the Reformation Era Drove the
Ancient Gospels from the Churches
10. Scriptures Unlimited? 241
Th e Place of Alternative Scriptures in Christianity
Glossary 255
Acknowledgments 257
Notes 259
Index 309
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NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY
H
istorians vary in their presentation of dates. Th e tradi-
tional system of bc/ad has a Christian bias, as it explicitly refers
not just to Christ but “the Lord,” and many writers prefer the term
“Common Era,” ce, instead of ad. Yet the basis for Common Era
dating is still the supposed date for Christ’s birth. As it is still the
most familiar usage, this book will use bc and ad.
Also problematic is the term “Old Testament,” the Christian
term for what Jews call simply the Bible or the Tanakh. Although
a neutral term should properly be used, none is easily available.
“Hebrew Bible” is unsatisfactory because of the importance of some
Greek versions of particular books. In this work, there are special
reasons for using the “Old Testament” label, because I will often
refer to alternative scriptures attributed to patriarchs and prophets
such as Enoch and Ezra. Most modern scholars classify such works
under the title “Old Testament pseudepigrapha.” With due aware-
ness of the issues, then, I use “Old Testament” throughout.
Th ere is one other unwieldy term for which it is diffi cult to fi nd
an alternative. Th roughout Christian history, there have been mul-
tiple churches, some of which rejected the Christian credentials of
others. I often mention the mainstream institution of the ancient
and medieval world that was allied with the Roman Empire and
had its great centers at Rome and Constantinople. When I refer to
that church before the later split between the Eastern and Western
traditions, I call it “Orthodox/Catholic.”
ix
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