Random Newly Discovered Bible Passages Church Doesn't Want You To Read (15 items)

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  (#2) The First Apocalypse Of James Was Refuse Found At An Egyptian Dump

  In the Summer of 2017, two scholars working in the Oxford archives pieced together a groundbreaking piece of papyrus – the oldest-known copy of "The First Apocalypse of James," an apocryphal story not included in the official Christian Bible. The remnants of ancient Greek text the scholars could reconstitute were part of a 19th-century find at an Egyptian trash dump, and they were likely penned in the 5th or 6th century.

  The Gnostic Gospels were omitted from the Bible because of their controversial portrayal of Jesus, and "The First Apocalypse of James" is no exception. In the story, Jesus describes the world as the prison of an angry God – to his brother. According to one of the scholars who pieced the papyrus together, Jesus also "reveals that the world is guarded by demonic figures called archons, who are blocking the path between the material world and the afterlife."

  Given all of the accepted conventions this statement – and the book as a whole – contradicts, it's little wonder the Church didn't include The First Apocalypse of James in the official story of Jesus, only child and Son of God.
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  (#9) Mary May Not Have Actually Been A Virgin

  Most people know the story of how Mary, an alleged virgin, gave birth to the Son of God through the power of immaculate conception. This famous account is contradicted, however, by the writers of the Gnostic Gospels.

  The translation of the Gospel of Philip explicitly clarifies that she could not possibly have been a virgin, and that she is repugnant to the Jews:

  "Some say the holy spirit inseminated Mary. They are wrong and don’t know what they are saying."

  Despite this certainty, the writers of the Gospel of Philip seem to directly contradict themselves later on in a passage subtitled "Virgin Births:"

  "Adam came into being from two virgins:
  from the spirit and from the virgin earth,
  and Christ was born of a virgin to heal the initial fall."
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  (#1) The Testimony Of Truth Retells The Fall Of Man From The Serpent's Perspective

  One of the first stories in the orthodox Bible is the tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In the Bible, this story is that of the couple's fall from grace, occurring after Eve disregarded God's warning not to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

  In the Testimony of Truth, however, the story is told from the perspective of the conniving serpent who convinces Eve to eat the fruit:

  "[In the Testimony of Truth,] the serpent, long known to appear in Gnostic literature as the principle of divine wisdom, convinces Adam and Eve to partake of knowledge while 'the Lord' threatens them with death, trying jealously to prevent them from attaining knowledge, and expelling them from Paradise when they achieve it."
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  (#11) When Jesus Was A Child, He Blew Up A Snake

  One story in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas claims that young Jesus and James – most likely Jesus' brother – were out gathering wood when James was bitten by a viper. Since the snake was extremely poisonous, James was going to die very quickly.

  To save him, Jesus blew on the bite and James was instantly healed. Immediately after that, "the animal burst apart."
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  (#7) The Gospel Of Philip Claims That Jesus Invented Bread

   

  The Gospel of Philip is a philosophical collection of poems and musings; one of the more interesting passages claims that before Jesus came to Earth, there was no bread. The author states that humans were "nourished like animals," and when Christ came to the Earth he introduced bread to create a more "human" diet.

  "Before Christ came there was no bread in the world,
  just as paradise, with its Adam, had many trees
  for nourishing animals but no wheat for humans.

  Once we nourished ourselves like animals,
  but when the perfect Christ came,
  he carried bread down from heaven
  so we could eat like humans."

   
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  (#13) The Holy Spirit Is A Woman

  In addition to asserting that Mary, mother of Jesus, wasn't actually a virgin, the Gospel of Philip makes yet another controversial claim by stating that the Holy Spirit is a female entity.

  In reference to Mary, the text states, "Whenever has a female been impregnated by a female?"

  The notion of a female Holy Spirit may have been an attempted balance for the male energies of God and Jesus; a mother figure to go along with the father figure, according to New Republic.

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