Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way

by Philip Jenkins

This incisive critique thoroughly and convincingly debunks the claims that recently discovered texts such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, and even the Dead Sea Scrolls undermine the historical validity of the New Testament.
Jenkins places the recent controversies surrounding the hidden gospels in a broad historical context and argues that, far from being revolutionary, such attempts to find an alternative Christianity date back at least to the Enlightenment. By employing the appropriate scholarly and historical methodologies, he demonstrates that the texts purported to represent pristine Christianity were in fact composed long after the canonical gospels found in the Bible. Produced by obscure heretical movements, these texts have attracted much media attention chiefly because they seem to support radical, feminist, and post-modern positions in the modern church. Indeed, Jenkins shows how best-selling books on the "hidden gospels" have been taken up by an uncritical, drama-hungry media as the basis for a social movement that could have powerful effects on the faith and practice of contemporary Christianity.

Genres: History, Religion, Church History, Nonfiction, Theology, Philosophy, Christianity

260 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

John Philip Jenkins was born in Wales in 1952. He was educated at Clare College, in the University of Cambridge, where he took a prestigious “Double First” degree—that is, Double First Class Honors. In 1978, he obtained his doctorate in history, also from Cambridge. Since 1980, he has taught at Penn State University, and currently holds the rank of Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of the Humanities. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion.

Though his original training was in early modern British history, he has since moved to studying a wide range of contemporary topics and issues, especially in the realm of religion.

Jenkins is a well-known commentator on religion, past and present. He has published 24 books, including The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South and God's Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe's Religious Crisis (Oxford University Press). His latest books, published by HarperOne, are The Lost History of Christianity and Jesus Wars (2010).

His book The Next Christendom in particular won a number of honors. USA Today named it one of the top religion books of 2002; and Christianity Today described The Next Christendom as a “contemporary classic.” An essay based on this book appeared as a cover story in the Atlantic Monthly in October 2002, and this article was much reprinted in North America and around the world, appearing in German, Swiss, and Italian magazines.

His other books have also been consistently well received. Writing in Foreign Affairs in 2003, Sir Lawrence Freedman said Jenkins's Images of Terror was “a brilliant, uncomfortable book, its impact heightened by clear, restrained writing and a stunning range of examples.”

Jenkins has spoken frequently on these diverse themes. Since 2002, he has delivered approximately eighty public lectures just on the theme of global Christianity, and has given numerous presentations on other topics. He has published articles and op-ed pieces in many media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New Republic, Foreign Policy, First Things, and Christian Century. In the European media, his work has appeared in the Guardian, Rheinischer Merkur, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Welt am Sonntag, and the Kommersant (Moscow). He is often quoted in news stories on religious issues, including global Christianity, as well as on the subject of conflicts within the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, and controversies concerning cults and new religious movements. The Economist has called him “one of America's best scholars of religion.”

Over the last decade, Jenkins has participated in several hundred interviews with the mass media, newspapers, radio, and television. He has been interviewed on Fox's The Beltway Boys, and has appeared on a number of CNN documentaries and news specials covering a variety of topics, including the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, as well as serial murder and aspects of violent crime. The 2003 television documentary Battle for Souls (Discovery Times Channel) was largely inspired by his work on global Christianity. He also appeared on the History Channel special, Time Machine: 70s Fever (2009).

Jenkins is much heard on talk radio, including multiple appearances on NPR's All Things Considered, and on various BBC and RTE programs. In North America, he has been a guest on the widely syndicated radio programs of Diane Rehm, Michael Medved, and James Kennedy; he has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air, as well as the nationally broadcast Canadian shows Tapestry and Ideas. His media appearances include newspapers and radio stations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Brazil, as well as in many different regions of the United States.

Because of its relevance to policy issues, Jenkins's work has attracted the attention of gove

Reviews

[[Name Redacted] · Rating 4 out of 5]

FINAL REVIEW: Roughly ten years ago Philip Jenkins wrote an exceptional work, arguing that the academic equivalent of "special interest groups" had hijacked the scholarly study of early Christianity and its associated texts. Whether conservative or liberal, feminist or anti-Semite, the people associated with these movements have, Jenkins argued, shoehorned their own prejudices, agendas and hang-ups into the field in an attempt to turn what should be an objective examination of existing evidence into a vehicle for their own wish-fulfillment and social engineering. In writing this book, Philip Jenkins was actually voicing much of what scholars like Lawrence Schiffman and Frank E. Peters (and myself!) have been saying for the last 30 years. Far from seeking to uncover the historical Jesus or the historical early Christianity, these groups have been on a quest to uncover an "acceptable Jesus", one whose teachings and followers reflect the wishes of these modern groups. This is why the Jesus & early Christianity they "discover" are conveniently devoid of Jewishness and heirarchies and supernaturalism and judgment and traditional gender norms - and why both are so amenable to Western Buddhists/Hinduists, neo-pagans, anti-war protesters, feminist theologians, survivalist movements, conspiracy theorists, anti-Catholics and anti-Semites.

This is a brilliant analysis of the trends in popular culture and academia which have given birth to a popular belief that the four "canonical" gospels are actually later confabulations -- a movement championed by the so-called "Jesus Seminar" and numerous other pseudo-academic organizations. Jenkins carefully analyzes the history of the scholarship alongside the history of the public's fascination with that scholarship and demonstrates how, more often than not, what the public is told to believe by scholars reflects neither the evidence nor even the academic consensus, but rather the ideological biases of the most vocal or sensationalist members of the academic fringe.

The fact of the matter is that the earliest Christian documents we presently possess are some of the writings of Paul (aka: Saul of Tarsus) and the earliest "gospels" we presently possess are the four currently in the New Testament. This is what all of the evidence, including that within the texts themselves and from extra-"canonical" contemporary sources, clearly demonstrates. The so-called "Q" Gospel does not actually exist -- it is a thought-exercise, a hypothetical which subsequent generations of scholars reified, despite there being no copy of it in existence, nor references to it in contemporary sources, and despite the fact that most modern reconstructions have been the products of internecine conflicts in an academic community more interested in justifying modern philosophies than uncovering historical facts. The Gospel of Thomas which we posses is itself clearly a Gnostic text, uncovered in a collection of Gnostic documents from the third-to-fourth century at the earliest. And the portrait of Gnosticism which most audiences are given nowadays is an idealized, romanticized vision constructed largely out of certain scholars' desire to create an alternative Christianity which better reflects their own modern beliefs and attitudes. The deep-seated elitism, anti-Jewishness, misogyny, anti-historicism and sexual-repression which characterized so much of ancient Gnosticism gets brushed aside because it does not fit what some modern scholars are looking for. And those two ("Q" and Thomas) are the BEST CANDIDATES when it comes to competing with the antiquity and historicity of the four canonical gospels -- every single other "gospel" or analogous text that has been uncovered has been much later than those two (and therefore MUCH later than the big four) and far less relevant to the study of early Christianity. This dating is important, as Jenkins notes, because the conclusions certain scholars are asking us to draw are the functional equivalent of saying "Well, that 1992 romance novel about the 1754-1763 French & Indian War MUST be more accurate than this memoir from a soldier who fought in that War." If you've heard otherwise, that's because you've been misinformed and the source of that misinformation can usually be traced back to a scholar with a pet theory he/she values so much that it erases his/her objectivity.

What is more, much of the popular scholarship on the New Testament has actually been motivated by the bitter resentment some of these scholars have been bringing with them from their personal lives -- and the scholarship in general is STILL influenced by anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic sentiments.

Likewise, the media has itself contributed to the misrepresentation of ancient history and the academic consensus, and Jenkins takes them to task for this. He does not attribute it to some nefarious plot against religion or Christianity (in fact, he is openly contemptuous of that claim), but rather to the simple fact that members of the media exist to further their own existences. Journalists exist to sell subscriptions and move copy, just as publishers exist to sell books; these groups are simply pushing what sells best, and are more often than not completely ignorant of everything that is going on in the academic world. Many reporters and publishing houses may actually believe that the representatives of the academic fringes are in fact the representatives of mainstream academia! It's not necessarily their fault that people want to buy/read/hear/watch things which are sensationalistic and erroneous, just as it is not necessarily their fault that some scholars are more interested in having their own ideas accepted by mainstream society than in having ideas which reflect the evidence at hand. His only real criticism of the media is its willingness to present ANYTHING given to it regarding religion -- including tales that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained Chinese characters, that Jews/Catholics/scholars were holding up the translation & publication of the Scrolls because they feared "shocking" revelations contained therein, or that the entire New Testament is actually a coded manual on mushroom consumption and masturbation -- as factual and historically accurate. An atheist acquaintance of mine, who is now working on her doctorate in religious studies, assured me twenty years ago that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained accounts of Jesus' bisexual activities. The fact that the complete translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls were, by then, readily available at any bookstore, did not prevent the media's early presentation of conjecture and fable from firmly taking root in her mind. Thus Jenkins, like so many of us, argues that publishers (especially the major publishing houses) need to hold writers on religion to the same standards to which writers on history or science are held.

Jenkins also does a remarkable job of explaining where the boundaries between personal ideological bias and legitimate cultural/academic/theological inquiry exist -- for instance, he is highly critical of feminist theologians' attempts to super-impose their beliefs back onto ancient Christianity by erroneously claiming antiquity for documents which are demonstrably recent, but not of their assertions that the contributions of ancient Christian women have been dismissed or marginalized over the last fifteen hundred years, nor of their claims that ancient documents could shed light on the actual status of women in early Christianity. And while he criticizes the political and social liberal ideologues who seek to "reinterpret" the evidence to fit their own agendas, he is equally critical of political and social conservatives for the same thing, and urges both to separate their beliefs from the evidence at hand.

These are all things most of us in the field of religious studies have been arguing for decades, and there is so much more to the work than the elements which I have described. Jenkins has simply distilled them into a single statement and articulated them masterfully.

Where Jenkins fails is in his inexplicable focus on Mormons and Mormonism. Does it make sense to include a comment on or a reference to Mormon beliefs in a book on extra-New-Testamental "gospels"? Absolutely! Does it make sense to include a comment on or a reference to Mormon beliefs in EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER, regardless of relevance to the subject at hand? No. No it does not. And what makes even less sense is for a scholar who spends 9 chapters indicting (quite successfully!) other scholars for their poor scholarship, and for letting their ideological prejudices influence their work, to then GET HIS INFORMATION ABOUT MORMONS WRONG! In one baffling example, Jenkins uses Shakers and "nineteenth century Mormons" as examples, contextually implying that both groups had died out -- and while the Shakers had (at the date this book was written) a single-digit membership, Mormons numbered in the millions. A far better analogue would have been the Oneida Community or the Millerites (though even the Millerites had their successors).

Jenkins clearly has an axe to grind and views Mormons (here I am speaking of every religious sect which claims descent in some form from the religious organization founded by Joseph Smith Jr., especially The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) with a particular and intense loathing. No other sect receives as much attention (or acrimony) from Jenkins as does Mormonism, and groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Christian Scientists, and the Shakers all receive little more than a passing mention. There was even one comment he made which included a footnote referencing, not actual Mormon doctrines or scholarly articles about Mormonism, but well-known non-academic anti-LDS activists! He wound up falling into one of the same traps he so successfully points out to others -- that of assuming to be accurate and objective whatever is on a bookstore/library shelf. Several of the statements/comments he makes are, as a result, fallacious and these weaken the integrity of his work and the force of his argument.

If he had been able to swallow his clear antagonism towards Mormons, this might have been a five-star book. As it is, the rest of it constitutes an exceptional analysis of the problems plaguing modern scholarship on early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism. I may be assigning this to my students next year, though I'll have to include a caveat -- and that caveat alone lost this book a star.




INITIAL REVIEW: Jenkins' work feels, so far, like something I might have written. One of my main problems with the field of Religious Studies is the tendency of scholars to champion their own beliefs and prejudices behind a pretense of objectivity; I've often described myself as a champion of the corrective as a result. This is why I enjoyed Rodney Stark's "Cities of God", especially his exposure of the contradictions in modern scholarship on Gnosticism (Fagels' willful ignorance of Gnosticism's profound misogyny is called out in both Stark and Jenkins' books).

The first chapter of Jenkins' book ably demonstrates the ways in which the current "quest" to uncover the historical Jesus is really just a reflection of the thoughts, feelings and opinions of very modern, very biased Western academics who are either blind to their own subjectivity or are feigning blindness because they care more about their own interpretations than verifiable historical fact. So far he is not saying that these thoughts/feelings/etc. have no place in discussions of religion -- he merely feels that they are more akin to sectarian and religionist writings, out of place in serious, academic examinations which are supposed to require objectivity. He sees the "quest" academics as engaged in a marketing campaign rather than intellectual inquiry, and I cannot disagree with him.

My only issue so far is his apparent decision to make frequent reference to "Mormonism" when drawing parallels to modernity, and even this wouldn't bother me if he had bothered to do a better job of researching "Mormon" history, theology, etc. His mistakes are small, but significant, as when he brings up the 1980s Mark Hofmann forgery case in an attempt to demonstrate anti-Catholic sentiment in popular culture. His decision to omit important information from his description of the case, misrepresent other elements, and then interpret the events based on his omissions and misrepresentations, makes me question HIS commitment to objectivity. If he brings up Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. I feel I'm going to have to do more research to make sure he isn't fudging facts relevant to THEM either.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philip Jenkins' HIDDEN GOSPELS is an examination of the current fads of presenting non-canonical gospels as exciting, illuminating finds. Everyone has heard before, usually about the Gospel of Thomas found at Nag Hammadi in 1947, that some recently found document will show us what Jesus really taught, and how traditional Christianity bears little resemblance to the faith. The work might be seen as a complement to Luke Timothy Johnson's similar work THE REAL JESUS (San Francisco: Harper, 1997); where Johnson sought to reassure readers that the canonical gospels and epistles are trustworthy historical sources, Jenkins aims to show how the non-canonical writings are not.

Jenkins begins by explaining earlier waves of non-canonical mania, noting that the same views held today by groups like the Jesus Seminar were briefly entertained by earlier scholars but ultimately discarded just to rise again at the end of the 20th century. He also explains exactly what these non-canonical sources are. Since the Gospel of Thomas is the darling of the Jesus Seminar crowd, it takes a central place in his discussion. Many points of the Gospel of Thomas, he says, may in fact be authentic, and find corroboration with the hypothetical source of the synoptic gospels, Q. However, it was undoubtedly completed as a very late date (end of the 2nd century) and is filled with gnostic additions.

Having already brought up the subject of Gnosticism, Jenkins then gives a history of the movement, and makes the prudent conclusion that, whatever it was, it was not the original authentic Christianity. Using sources like the Pauline epistles and the writings of Polycarp and Ignatius, Jenkins says it is obvious that the liturgical, repentant church that came to shine as Christian orthodox was in fact the continuation original movement started by Jesus. Gnosticism, on the other hand, shows up only in the 2nd century and its leaders bend over backward to prove they have any claim to historicity.

Why are these claims so popular, that the non-canonical gospels tell the true story and maybe Gnosticism was the real deal? Jenkins notes the current influence of feminism on scholarship; some academics don't feel orthodox Christianty treats women correctly, and so it is out to show that heterodox traditions--which supposedly asserted the equality of the sexes--is the right way. And a rejection of tradition spread from these discontented academics to the public by way of a media that loves scandalous news.

My only real complaint about the work is that it is full of truths the public needs to hear--next time you hear a friend talking about how the evil patriarchal Catholic Church squashed Jesus' real teachings, this is the antidote--but it may be too brainy for laymen. Academics, on the other hand, will find the book far too lightweight. Perhaps we are still in need of a guide showing the waywardness of non-canonical sources that can be fearlessly given out to any fellow on the street.

[Steve Wiggins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Philip Jenkins' work. He often has keen insights into various topics of religious history. This book is an exploration of how early extra-biblical gospels have been treated by some biblical scholars. The qualification in that previous sentence is one of my cautions about this book; although the views that concern Jenkins do have a significant following, they are not nearly so damaging as he suggests, I opine. Part of this comes down to knowing how biblical scholars work, and as a former biblical scholar I know a little bit about this.

Hidden Gospels raises the question of whether ancient gospels that didn't make it into the Bible should be given modern credence. He argues that the early church had good reason for excluding these later writings and that they (the writings) should not be used as a basis for reconstructing the historical Jesus. The problem with the scenario is that the dating of ancient manuscripts is a fraught enterprise. Simply because Gnostic texts, as we have them, are later doesn't mean that earlier copies couldn't have existed. Survival of any documents from the first century is not an assured factor.

The question of bias is also present because of the persistence use of "orthodoxy" and "heresy" as viable categories. To the church that historically survived, yes, these documents contained "heresy." We have little way of assessing what the other side thought, beyond the documents that survive—the living tradition isn't there to take sides.

I have no idea whether these "other gospels" contain factual information, at least in part. It seems they should be given the benefit of the doubt, however, since they managed to survive against great odds, from ancient times. Some further thoughts about this can be found on my blog: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World.

[Garrett Costi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super informational. This book SLAPS

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jenkins's book is a corrective to and a rebuke of such cutting-edge scholars as the Jesus Seminar, who claim usually that the various Gnostic gospel discoveries shed more light on the historical Jesus than we had previous known and than that is available in the canonized New Testament writings. Jenkins is skeptical of such claims and more or less defends conservative religious views on the subject of how we should know who Jesus is and which books we should accept as "historical." While he makes a number of excellent points, he largely defends academic positions that place the writings of the Gospels fairly late (post-Temple destruction), which in my view compromises the authority the canonized Gospels have. After all, if it took fifty years to get around to actually writing about Jesus, then by then it seems like a good deal of mythologizing would have taken place. Thus, why could not these other gospels, not accepted, have been just as legitimate points of view that were mostly banished by the growing power brokers within the early church? Furthermore, he largely sees current doctrine as an accurate reflection of real church teachings of the first century, only faintly acknowledging the influence of Gnostic teachings on it.

Jenkins shows quite convincingly why such scholarship has proliferated and received so much attention. On the former score, the increase in academic programs in religion in recent years has meant that more graduate students have had to find fodder for original research. Gnostic gospels, Qumran scrolls, and other newly discovered documents are prime candidates for such study, since there has been less written about them. Add to that the agenda that many scholars have--for example, writing from a feminist perspective (or a Marxist one or a deconstructionist one, etc., depending of the critical school one wants to apply)--and there is ample desire then to enlarge the canon to include works that support one's point or to interpret them in such a way that they do. Finally, media, looking for good stories on religion, as it does, gravitates toward the controversial. Hence, even though 90 percent of the scholars might have conservative views on Christian faith, it's the 10 percent claiming that Jesus wasn't believed to be divine among the first two generations of followers or Jesus was a Cynic philosopher or Jesus was never crucified and in fact had a regular family, and so on, who get the attention.

Jenkins points out that many of the claims being made today by such scholars are actually quite old--that is, they have been made since the 1800s and in some cases even made only generations after the foundation of the Christian movement. Many of the newly discovered documents are merely new manuscripts of works of which we already have preserved copies. There is not much "new" to much such "new scholarship." In many cases, the agenda that such scholars have is actually subverted by the works they point to with such aplomb. Gnostic views, as Jenkins points out, were not generally so feminist, so egalitarian, so antiauthoritarian, as such scholars portray. Many were more misogynistic than anything seen in the accepted Bible. And they were very much focused around establishing some as better than the vast majority of people. Indeed, the simplicity with which Gnostic views are presented was usually anything but, with levels of gods (aeons) separating us from the divine, such that there was a great deal of knowledge to be gleaned before one could even claim to be truly informed.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is definitely somewhat dated with its focus on the Jesus Seminar and the various media practices and specials of the day, but I found it to be nonetheless effective for demonstrating that it is the cultural zeitgeist that makes "alternative" versions of Christianity so appealing. His tone gets a little shrill and he seems to be writing a screed at times, especially when writing about the influence of feminism, but for the most part I find it to be well presented.

The most helpful chapter for me Chapter 2, "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten." Jenkins documents that there was in fact varied knowledge and interest in heretical movements prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library, and that impressions that suggest these were all but unknown before then are misleading. The Nag Hammadi library and Walter Bauer certainly shifted the field, but they weren't quite so revolutionary.

It's not the most amazing insight, but Jenkins highlighted an aspect of many critical scholars is honestly not all that surprising:

"In understanding such dedicated attacks on traditional Christianity, it is difficult to avoid observing that the scholars in question are often struggling (and perhaps overreacting) against their own fundamentalist backgrounds, and thus have a natural sympathy for the most liberal perspectives. Among the more radical New Testament critics, we often find similar stories: Mack was a minister in the conservative Church of the Nazarene; Spong often writes about his strictly fundamentalist upbringing in the North Carolina of the 1940s and 1950s; Robinson's own background was conservative and evangelical; Crossan is a former Catholic priest. Funk himself had been not only a fundamentalist, but a preacher who led revivals in rural Texas. These personal histories may explain the group's natural preference for a religious style based on seeking, rather than dogmatic authority, and their rejection of a narrowly defined canon of inspired scriptures. This interpretation adds a pointed irony to the Jesus Seminar's warning to scholars, "Beware of finding a Jesus entirely congenial to you," since that is conspicuously what Funk, Mack, Crossan, and the others have been doing." (p. 168).

To this list we could add Bart Ehrman, who very often refers to his own Fundamentalist background.

So while the book is overall dated and no longer fully speaks to current zeitgeist, it is a helpful snapshot that helps explain how we got to where we are today.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clearly articulated attack on the arguments of the Jesus Seminar, notably that newly found gospels have undermined traditional Christianity. Reading the book 20 years after it was written, it's striking how poorly the Seminar's views have fared, though their underlying worldview seems to linger on.

[Russell Sigler · Rating 3 out of 5]

An approachable overview of apocryphal/gnostic views of Jesus, and the effort of some scholars to recreate the historical Jesus without the canonical Gospels.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Discussion of the dating of "Gospel of Thomas" and implications of that. Also how institutional inertia and media affect intellectual acceptance