For Christians who are students of the Bible and disciplined about using Bible reference resources and reading books about the Bible, there are times authors and scholars will refer to non-biblical sources in their discussions. Three of the most common sources referenced are the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocrypha, and the Gnostic writings. Here I give a brief introduction to each of these ancient sources.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Finding the Dead Sea Scrolls is arguably the most important biblical studies discovery of the 20th century—some would even argue the providential nature of their discovery. They were found in an area called Qumran near Jerusalem in 1947. A shepherd, searching for his goats, threw a rock into a cave and heard a clay pot shatter. When he went in to look, he discovered several pots containing ancient documents. In the years that followed, 972 documents from eleven different caves were obtained, including over 200 Old Testament writings from 300 BC to 70 AD. These documents were likely hidden in these caves by the men living in Qumran to protect them from destruction by the Romans and others.
In some cases, these manuscripts are more than 1000 years older than previously known Hebrew documents. They included parts of every Old Testament book except Esther. Scholars have used these writings to confirm the carefully disciplined copying methods used by Jewish scribes producing a very high level of accuracy between these early copies of Old Testament books and the later copies that were being used for translating the Hebrew Bible into other languages.
Of all the manuscripts discovered, Isaiah was the most plentiful. This may indicate the popularity of this book during the New Testament era and may provide insight into why the book of Isaiah was quoted so often in the New Testament. Jesus himself chose a passage from the book of Isaiah when he stood to read in the synagogue at Nazareth, choosing that passage to identify himself as the Messiah (Isaiah 61:1-2).
Prior to this discovery, some scholars argued a later date for several Old Testament books because of the accuracy with which prophecies contained within them proved to be fulfilled by Jesus. After the discovery of the Dead Seas scrolls, however, these handwritten copies that clearly existed prior to the time of Christ confirmed their prophetic accuracy.
For more than seven decades, scholars have continued to glean more insight from these manuscripts, enhancing our understanding of the Old Testament texts and the community responsible for copying these manuscripts in the first place.
The Apocrypha
The Apocrypha, sometimes called the Deuterocanonical Books, are found in Catholic Bibles and are used by some Protestant traditions, as well. The term apocrypha means “hidden.” These books were written during the intertestamental period that took place from approximately 400 BC until the birth of Jesus. The most common books included in the Apocrypha are 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, the Prayer of Manassa, and 1 & 2 Maccabees. There are also additions to the books of Esther, Daniel, and Psalms.
The Apocrypha is not quoted by Jesus in the Gospels, nor by the authors of the other New Testament documents. Within Judaism, these books are considered important but were never included in any version of the Hebrew Bible. Because of these facts, early church leaders did not consider them inspired either. Jerome, who first translated the Bible into Latin, considered the books of the Apocrypha to be non-inspired and did not include them as part of the Bible.
Many Catholics accepted the Apocrypha as biblical quite early on, nevertheless, they were not officially added to the Catholic Bible until the council of Trent in the mid-1500s—this was primarily in reaction to the Protestant reformers and their rejection of these books. From the Apocrypha came many Catholic doctrines and traditions that are not held by Protestants. It is the evangelical position that these books should be held as important for historical reasons but should not be considered sacred in the same sense of Old Testament and New Testament books.
The Nag Hammadi library
The collection of Gnostic writings called the Nag Hammadi library were found in Egypt in 1945 by a local farmer. The codices were buried under a boulder near the town of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. This collection of manuscripts was composed mostly between the 2nd and 4th century AD. These manuscripts included writings such as the Gospel of Philip, the Apocalypse of Paul, the Gospel of Mary Magdelene, and others—the library includes over 50 titles, with the earliest generally listed as the gospel of Thomas written in the 2nd century. Many of these works had been unknown to modern scholars until their discovery.
Gnostics were people who practiced a religion and philosophy that emphasized secret knowledge and the salvation of the soul. The term “Gnostic” comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means “knowledge.” Gnostics believed that the human spirit was good but was trapped in an evil body.
They believed that salvation came from discovering secret knowledge and that this knowledge would provide release from this corrupt world that was created by a being who was not the true God. The goal of their faith was to free the spirit from the body and return to the Parent-Spirit.
A significant difference between the gnostic gospels and the New Testament gospels is their time of composition. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the other books of the New Testament, were written during the lifetimes of the apostles and other leaders of the first century. The gnostic gospels, on the other hand, were written after eyewitnesses of Jesus and the Apostles had died. They are not “lost” gospels, as some claim, but were known and rejected as uninspired writings—many of the gnostic writings were mentioned and condemned by early Christian leaders who lived near the time they were composed.
Many books and movies draw material from the Gnostic writings, the most well-known of which may be “The Da Vinci Code.” Dan Brown drew many concepts for his story from these texts, especially the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which present alternative interpretations of Jesus’ life, including the idea that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, a central theme in the novel; however, scholars widely criticize the book for misrepresenting these ancient texts for fictional purposes.
Though Gnostic writings are not on par with the New Testament documents for many reasons, they are historically interesting for the study of early Christianity—they provide insights into many significant theological issues that were of concern in the early church. For the student of church history they are worth investigating, however, it will become immediately obvious the bizarre nature of these ancient documents.
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© 2025 D. Edwin Cohea/Coheasive Christianity.