Reflection Paper – The Lost Gospels

Having watched the documentary “The Lost Gospels” presented by Anglican priest Peter Owen Jones have certainly caught my interest and brought me to analyzing certain possibilities in relation to the composition of our Bible. The documentary basically questions the reason why many Christian texts, that could possibly be included in the New Testament, have not made their way to our Bible. The succeeding paragraphs would tackle these different “lost gospels”, their stories and basically how I think of their content and how I think they would affect our religion today if they were included in the Bible.

The first lost gospel discussed can be found in Egypt, which is known to many Egyptians as the gospel of Thomas. It was said that this gospel has the possibility to even be the first ever manuscript that was written about Jesus and it was something that is even widely read. Most of the lines read by an expert were mostly mysterious. The first line of the gospel mainly states that whoever finds the correct interpretations of the secret saying in the Bible will never die or will have eternal life. In my opinion, this is a very strong statement since we all believe that all of us are entitled to an eternal life through our strong faith in God. I think this line brings so much confusion to everyone of us and I personally don’t believe in it. Also, there is this other line that says that women are not worthy of life and Jesus will lead the women to become male for them to be a living spirit like the male. Going back to the line in the gospel of Thomas, I think it was evidently shown especially back in the day that men possessed more rights and power than women. But this writing practically opposes the idea that will be discussed later which says that female were even more dominating back in the day.

The next gospels that were discussed were the gospels of Philip, Mary Magdalene and Acts of Tekla which had the idea that women are the one who took the center stage at churches and in the years of Jesus’ life women are more involved in the life of His mission. This evidently opposes the idea that was written in the gospel of James that was discussed earlier. The contents of the gospel of Philip was further elaborated having it said that Mary Magdalene had a key role in the life of Jesus, even stating that there had been an intimate physical relationship with the two. My opinion to this is a bit similar to Jones’ because I think that there is nothing wrong for Jesus to have a relationship with a someone and in this case Mary Magdalene. I mean, it would just change what we first believed in that Jesus had no any relationship with anyone, but I think it won’t affect all in all my perception of Jesus as our Savior.

There was also this gospel of Mary Magdalene in Oxford that was heavily damaged and divided in a small piece, which could give little details such as revealing itself as a gospel of Mary Magdalene. However, there were speculations that Mary Magdalene continued to exert huge influence even after the death of Jesus, which I think is just normal since she has been with Jesus and the apostles in their journey. This also led to the question that how come the writings of the said-to-be most important apostle to Jesus had gone missing and left all of us wondering what it contains. With this matter, I think the gospel of Mary Magdalene wants to remain a secret, whether it may bring us further confusion or enlightenment.

The last gospel was the gospel of Peter, who is also known as the head of the apostles, stated that Jesus did not die, and there were text that claims that as Jesus was crucified he was silent. This surprised me in a way since we’ve always had this belief that He was both human and divine. As for myself, I don’t believe in what Peter had written and would rightfully stick to what I believe in. After all, we do not have any certainty or assurance that it was really Peter who wrote it.

Other parts of the documentary was about the beliefs of a well known person back in the day which I personally think would just make the issue longer. I mean people would always have their say, and I choose not to complicate my thoughts more. He even stated that there were two persons in Jesus, which for me has no rightful basis unlike those writings of the people like Peter and others who have been really with Jesus all throughout his journey.

In conclusion, there may be these lost gospels that could inherently affect our faith or on the other hand enhance it. In my opinion, questions will continue to be asked, issues may continue to be raised, but it is really up to us what to believe in, because after all everyone is entitled to his/her opinion and at the end of the day, it all boils down to our faith to the Supreme Being.