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To sum, the Bible is the Word of God, perfect and true. But over the last century, other ancient texts have been found. Lost or long forgotten buried in caves or desert sands that tell different versions of biblical stories. Things that were translated as part of the Bible that aren't part of our Bible. Written centuries ago by anonymous authors, copied and embellished by succeeding generations, the texts that contain some very unorthodox ideas. Sex is evil. The body is evil. The Word is evil. Judas is not the villain of the story. He's the hero. This text certainly does seem to have some homerotic undertones. These are the ancient texts that were banned from the official kennel. Stories that may shed new light and challenge everything we think we know about the Bible. Some time around the year 30 AD, a crowd gathers in a small village near a lake called Ganesarith. Here the Jewish residents of this Roman province of Judea witnessed a mirror. But as the story is told in the Gospel of Luke, some in the throng are fearful. They accuse the healer of casting out demons in the name of Biel's up. They demand a sign. Some proof that this work is done in the name of God. Their suspicion provokes a rebuke from the healer known as Jesus of Nazareth. This is an evil generation. They seek a sign and their shall no sign be given it except the Son of Man. Then Jesus makes a mysterious statement. He compares his own power to that of one of the Bible's great patriarchy. The queen of the South shall rise up for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold a greater than Solomon is here. He says this in the middle of an exorcism of demons. Jesus says for behold someone greater than Solomon is here. What is he say greater than King David? No, greater than Solomon. What does Jesus mean? What does Solomon, the wise king of the Old Testament, have to do with expelling demons? I think it's clear from the New Testament writings that Jesus and his apostles and the authors of the Gospels. New and quoted scripture freely. Some scholars believe that Jesus is referring to a story that is not told in the Hebrew Bible, but in another text, the Testament of Solomon. In this book, Solomon is not only the wisest of man, but a master of demons. Jesus is making an oblique reference to a story that was already well known in ancient Judea and which apparently people accepted. That's true. Called the Testament of Solomon, it is written in the first person and describes how King Solomon conjured up an army of demons. There came before my face 36 spirits with faces of ascends, faces of oxen and faces of birds. I wondered and I asked them who are you? Jesus who is said to have argued scripture with the temple rabbis at the tender age of 12 have access to different sacred stories than those we read in the Old Testament today. The Hebrew Bible which Christians call the Old Testament is actually divided into three distinct parts. Though two parts were already well established by the time of Jesus, there was one that may still have been in flux. The first portion of the Bible was set in the Persian period, 500, 400 BC. That is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the penitute, the so-called five books of Moses. The Jewish tradition understands the five books from Genesis to Deuteronomy as the highest most direct degree of revelation from God to Moses. And there is a second category in the biblical canon, those are the prophets, and then there is a third category of the writings. It is this portion, the writings, considered sacred, but less integral than the other two sections of the Hebrew Bible, which changed the most over the centuries. It would not be fully established until long after the crucifixion of Christ. It's strange for us to imagine, but there were probably not alternative Bibles, but Bibles that had alternative books that were considered sacred. We know this from some Greek remnants that have come down to us, things that were translated as part of the Bible that aren't part of our Bible, and also from what we found that that's He scrolls, things that that community considered part of the Bible that we don't. The Jesus and His followers know and cite sacred stories not found in the Bible today? What did they know that modern readers don't about the Bible's famous patriarchs, Joseph, Daniel, Adam, and Eve, and what about Son, whom Jesus enigmatically invoked during an exorcism in the Gospel of Luke? It is found nowhere in today's Bible, rejected by both Jews and Christians. It would become a coveted document by practitioners of alchemy and covalism. Called the Testimative Solomon, a concerns a little known side of Solomon's character, that of a sorcerer, a master of demons. The Solomon that we know from the Bible is a man of a men's wisdom. In fact, one of the things that set of him is that he has the wisdom of the people from the East, or the Chaldeans, and the wisdom of the Egyptians, which means that his wisdom includes astrological lore. It includes magic as we'll find in the Testimative Solomon. Multiple copies of the Testimative Solomon written in Greek and preserved by the early Greek orthodox church have been found in Christian libraries in France, England, Greece, and Israel. The fact that they all date to the 15th and 16th centuries, led some to believe it had been written around this time. But many scholars working in the early 20th century suspected the origin of the story was far older. Those suspicions were confirmed in 1945 when an Egyptian farmer made an astonishing discovery in a place called Nag Hamad. Buried in the earth where ancient manuscripts stored in clay jars, unseen for nearly 1,600 years. Dating his far back is the second century. They included several passages that seemed to refer directly to the traditions outlined in the Solomon text. We can know for sure about when the Testimative Solomon might have been written, is it had to have been before the year 400? Because another text from that date, sites it. The Testimative tells a different story of Solomon than the one in the Bible. Everybody is aware of the story of the two women who bring their baby to King Solomon, and he decides how to fight it in two since both of you claim it. At which point the real mother says, no, no, please just give that child to the other woman, and hence he knows which is the real mother, and of course never really intended to divide the child in half. The alternative narrative in the Testimative Solomon concerns his other great feet, the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple is built supernaturally through supernatural agency. The Solomon is God's agent. The Solomon is not only the archetypal wise man, but the archetypal duer of supernatural deeds. In the Test, Solomon explains that he was given a ring of great power by the Archangel Gabriel. With it, thou shall block up all demons of the earth, and with their help thou shall build up Jerusalem. There's also a lot of toe-kinesh imagery here. One ring of power, one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them. Using this ring, Solomon summons Biel's above himself in order to enslave a host of demons. And I questioned him, and he promised to bring me in bonds, all the unclean spirits. And by one, he puts them to work building the foundations of his temple. So what's the idea here that if you can somehow tap into the good side of the force, you can use that to subdue the dark side, and even to cause the dark side to work for good. I think we can see the use of demons is actually a way of saying that the temple is of divine origin. It wasn't a bunch of stone cutters and brick layers that built the temple. It was these divine beings that Solomon was able to control and force to spin the hemp and cut the marble and put bricks on top of one another. The testament of Solomon, as it exists today, is filled with Christian references as the demons themselves for tell the crucifixion. And the demons said, we shall lead astray the inhabited world for a long season until the sun of God is stretched upon the cross. But recent scholarships suggests that despite its Christian trappings, the traditions behind the story may be far older. A lot of the material in it suggests, who has that there's an early Jewish core perhaps from the first century CE and that it's later reworked by Christians, and then of course preserved and circulated by Christians. It is a view seemingly confirmed by a description of an exorcism found in the works of the Greek historian, Flavius Josephus, written in the first century. The manner of the cure was this, he put a ring. One of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demon eye, after which he drew out the demon. Josephus Flavius who lived in the first century of the common era, wrote in Greek, but he was from the land of Israel. So even though the testament of Solomon, as we know it, is a later text, the tradition the story was there centuries before the text that's come down to us. As Josephus contends, the traditions described in the testament of Solomon, were part of the Jewish right of exorcism. Does that explain why Jesus, in the Bible's Gospel of Luke, mentioned Solomon's name during an exorcism? If so, it shows that the text, once thought to have been written in medieval times, actually has roots in the time of Christ. It was known and understood that Solomon was the archetypal, expelor of demons, the great exorcist as it were. I have no doubt that Jesus is making reference to this story, especially when you combine it with the evidence of Josephus. If the testament of Solomon was once part of Jewish tradition, those texts have since been lost. In the Middle Ages, this saga of sorcery was popular with medieval Christian readers. They were more comfortable with the magic of content than some of their Jewish counterparts might have been. There is within Judaism a sort of tension between the rationalistic elements of the tradition, those which follow law, reason, common sense, and the more fantastic elements of the tradition, not just angels, demons, and magic, but even the supernatural powers of prayer. The mystical path is fraught with danger. There's no doubt about that. And according to the mystics, the cobbleist, one is not allowed to enter the mystical orchard unless one is at least 40 years old and has a full belly, which means full of knowledge and wisdom of the Torah because it is so very dangerous, fraught with danger, you can be let astray, you can even lose your sanity. This is the fate of Solomon, according to this excluded text. But it is not demonic forces that cause Solomon to lose his grip on reality. Solomon can definitely handle demons with no trouble. It's women. That's his problem. And then of Solomon's wives is a pagan, and he makes a token sacrifice to her gods to appease her. He listens to his pagan wife who, of course, is worshiping foreign gods, and his heart is drawn away from the true God of Israel, and what happens as a result, he loses the very wisdom that may engry. He begins to speak gibberish, no one understands him anymore, and he becomes a laughingstock. The testament of Solomon with its emphasis on both the building of the Temple of Jerusalem and the coming of Christ proved too much of a hybrid to fit in either Jewish or Christian canon. This is not an Hebrew Bible, therefore it's not Old Testament, and it's not about Jesus, so it's not New Testament either, so it's going to fell through the cracks. Other biblical texts would also vanish into this void only to be rediscovered centuries later. A month that would be a strange tale that claims to predate the story of Adam and Eve, one rarely discussed inside a church or synagogue due to the taboo subjects it raises in fantasize, feminism, and demonic sex. You're watching Band From The Bible 2, here on The History Channel. All the world knows the story of Adam and Eve as told in Genesis, but few know the story that is not found there, that of Lilith, the mysterious first wife of Adam. After God created Adam, he said, it is not good for man to be alone. He then created a woman from the earth, as he had created Adam himself and called her Lilith. Two texts excluded from the Bible tell her story in detail. The first is called the Zohar, also known as the Book of Splendor, most likely a 13th century creation. The other called the alphabet of Ben Cira is a collection of texts compiled in the Middle Ages. Though both are medieval, they are said to rest on traditions dating back to antiquity. According to these traditions, Lilith was the first wife of Adam created before Eve. At the very beginning, it wasn't just Adam who was created from the dust of the ground. Adam and his mate, his partner Lilith, were co-created from the same ground at the same time, separate and equal. Unfortunately, Adam didn't quite see it that way, and the time came when he began to insist that Lilith be subservient to him. Lilith, he said, she refused that the reason Lilith was rejected as Adam's wife was because she insisted on equality. To pronounce the divine name, four letters in Hebrew, which spell the name of God, you would pay, revolve, pay, which are never to be vocalized or pronounced. But when she pronounced them, this gave her such great power that she flew away into the heavens. According to Ben Cira, three angels are dispatched to bring Lilith back to No avail. Said the Holy One, if she agrees to come back, it is good. If not, she must permit 100 of her children to die every day. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. With Lilith gone, these alternative texts have God presenting Adam with a second wife. Adam's second wife, who we now demands from God, Eve is taken from his rib, not created from the ground at the same time. So he is allowed to say, submit to me, wife, and she is supposed to do it. Lilith cast out of the garden is now a demon, doomed to lose 100 of her own offspring each day for her defiance, but she will take her revenge on the descendants of Adam and Eve. She would henceforth afflict the children of Adam's second wife to afflict pregnant women, to afflict newborns, and even to molest young men who sleep alone, thereby spawning her race of demonic children. It is this reference to Lilith as a demon that provides a clue as to the origin of these texts. Lilith herself appears to be an ancient monster dating to prehistoric times. Ancient carvings found in Egypt, Greece, Babylonia and Sumeria are thought to portray her. There's reference to it in an ancient Babylonian relief sculpture that pictures a woman with bird talons flanked by owls who is connected with an ancient goddess known as Lilith, or Lilith. The roots suggest night. The Hebrew word Laila means night, so there's an idea that she is a night demon, perhaps a blood sucking night demon of some kind. She is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and in some translations of Isaiah in the Old Testament. There are two Lilith's shall recalls and find a place to rest. There shall the owl nest and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow. That's the solitary mention of Lilith in Isaiah. She's part of a list of various characters, Hall of Huma and the Ferris, Hall of Huma and the Ferris, Hall of Huma, and the people that you'd want, godly people to associate with. If they had back stories, we've since lost them. But how did Lilith get from Isaiah into the center of the story of Adam and Eve? The answer lies in an ancient Jewish tradition called Midrush. When you read the Bible, you find missing pieces in characters you know well, and you find also names that have no story at all. When the rabbis come across an unidentified person in the Bible who has no history, they always try to relate it to something else in the Bible. Rabbinical scholars in the ancient world would pour over the sacred writings, looking for clues or coded references to fill in these mysterious gaps. And sometimes it's the coincidence of two similar words being used in the same place, or two similar incidents. Sometimes we don't see the basis because we don't read the text in the original with the care that they did, but they never believe that God just drops in someone and says nothing about them. The rabbinic traditions that fill in the gaps in the Bible are called Midrush, and Midrush comes from a Hebrew word that means to root out or to investigate. It was an apparent discrepancy in Genesis that first led ancient rabbinical scholars to expand the story of Lily through Midrush. In it there are two different versions of God's creation of woman. The first suggests a simultaneous formation with man. So God created man in his own image, male and female he created them. The second comes a few pages later. God caused a man to fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping he took one of the man's ribs and the Lord God made a woman. There are two stories of how a woman is created in the Bible. Rabbinic traditions are the first story as the creation of a different woman. Sometime in antiquity, rabbinical scholars tried to reconcile the two versions of Genesis. They wanted to know just who this unnamed first woman was. Eventually they linked her with the female demon mentioned in Isaiah and created a sacred text that connected the two. Human beings have a powerful creative impulse. And if you say to them, here's this story and it's done. The first thing they want to do is say, no it's not them. I have a great idea about a way in which it could be continued. We're reading the artwork, the masterworks of ancient Jewish writers who needed to express themselves. It was Lily Thay wrote, who rejected both Adam and God's will to become this demon. A creature of the night, the devourer of sexual and natal essences. It was this tradition of midrush that the Zohar and Ben Sira would draw and expand upon. They would paint Lily Thay as the suckuous, the seducer in the night. She would come to be blamed for the nocturnal emissions of unsuspecting men. Lily Thay was said, could kill an infant in the room or in the cradle. These are ancient fears linked with legends that were old even when the Bible was first written. Stories about a Lilith type character always existed from the first fire sides. Lilith takes the mythological space of the evil woman, which is a space that exists in almost every series of mythologies. Part of it is that discomfort with sexuality and part of it is the human imagination creating devils, demons, all sorts of difficulties to explain evil in the world. Whatever fear people had about death of children, which was very common in the ancient world, that got put on Lilith also because clearly that wasn't God's will, it had to be some malign evil force that was taking their children away. Throughout history, Lilith would be feared, especially in covalistic and orthodox circles, where amulets of protection are still worn to guard against her. But her story, that of an evil but powerful woman, would find no place in either the Jewish or Christian cannons. When made in particular male religious leaders so uncomfortable about Lilith was that she was associated with seduction, and also that she was associated with full equality. For thousands of years, there was no equality between male and female religious figures and religious leaders. In Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, any established religious tradition. But another law's text will show that even a submissive woman can be too much for the Orthodox canon. Especially if she is a pagan priestess obsessed with one of the greatest patriars of the Bible. Joseph, when he marries a daughter of an Egyptian priest, that's going to send up a red flag for a lot of people. Why did Joseph marry a shiksa? This isn't quite kosher. The Bible is a great honor to be here. You're watching Band from the Bible too, here on the History Channel. We hear her name only once in Genesis. We are told that Pharaoh himself gave her to Joseph, he of the code of many colors, who would go on to save his people from famine. She is part of his reward for interpreting Pharaoh's prophetic dreams. And he gave him to wife Oceneth, the daughter of Pentafres, priest of Heliopolis, then Joseph went out to the land of Egypt. This is all today's Bible says about her, as to how and why she was chosen for Joseph, it is mysteriously silent. Joseph is of course one of the most beloved figures of the Hebrew Bible. He's the one who was sold into slavery by his brothers, taken down to Egypt, became a slave only to rise to the very top, and save the rest of his family, his tribe, and bring them to prominence down in Egypt before the final Exodus. Joseph's predecessors, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, all married women about whom we know a great deal. And it's inconceivable to the reader of the Bible that Joseph, all of a sudden, goes and marry somebody about whom we know nothing. And so it almost seems to demand that there be a backstory here so that we can understand who this woman is and why she deserves to marry Joseph. One of the things we find in biblical narratives is that they're often very terse, very short. Now, often behind those terstories, there are legends that are circulating. What led to this unorthodox marriage, who was this non-believer who would help found a Jewish dynasty? As our answer in an ancient text called Joseph and Asineph, but no one is sure exactly when it was written or by whom? Some theories place its origin in the first century, BC in Alexandria, Egypt, a city known for its library and population of scholarly Jews. In form, it resembles a midrush, a sacred document written to explain issues left dangling in the Bible, one that may have evolved from an older oral tradition. People expand on these stories often because there's something problematic in it. Joseph, when he marries a daughter of an Egyptian priest, that's going to send up a red flag for a lot of people for him. They're wondering how is this sort of intermarriage possible between a Hebrew and a daughter of not just an Egyptian, but an Egyptian priest. So, one of the reasons that people might tell a story like this is to explain how it is that happened and they might add details and shadings that make the story more palatable to them. The text of Joseph and Asineph begins in Helleopolis, the Egyptian city of the Sun, where Joseph has been sent to collect corn for storage during a time of plenty. It is here he meets a priest named Pentafreis. And Pentafreis had a virgin daughter of about 18 years of age, more beautiful than any other virgin in the land. Asineph has rejected many suitors, including Pharaoh's own son. Finally, Pharaoh decrees that she will become Joseph's wife as a reward for his loyal service. But for Joseph, bound by his religious traditions, it would have been an impossible gift to accept, even at Pharaoh's command. She is both hereditary royalty and also sort of biological royalty. That is, she's beautiful and intelligent and she's also a princess. So, all those things together, she's only missing one component. She just needs to be a Jew. But at first, it is Asineph who walks at the match. From Asineph's standpoint, why would she accept in his real life? Here's a man who is a foreigner, a fugitive, a former slave. She doesn't want to accept Joseph, until of course she meets him face to face. She's sitting at her window, she looks out, and she sees a handsome young man, and she falls madly in love. And so she is now madly in love with Joseph her patrol. She goes down to meet him, and Joseph's response is, I can't kiss you, I can't marry you. You worship idols, and I worship the true God. So, she has enough is now deeply deeply distressed. She took sackcloth and sprinkled herself with ashes and whipped bitterly, and low the ashes underneath her were like mud because of her tears. For seven days, Asineph meditates and finally prays to the God of Joseph. In response, God sends an archangel to her, who appears to her, bathed in fire, but assuming Joseph's pleasing form. What follows is a mysterious ritual that does not appear anywhere else in either Jewish or Christian tradition. He has her eat from a honeycomb that she finds magically in her room, and these bees arise out of the honeycomb and encircle her. And the bees came up from the cells of the cone, and all flew in circles round Asineph from her feet right up to her head, and yet more bees settled on Asineph lives. And they build honeycomb on her lips. They purify her lips that were once lips that offer praise to dead idols. Honey and like nectar is a traditional food of the gods, the milk of paradise. And this idea that honey is fed to her is an idea of immortality and greatness that runs throughout mythology. There is also seemingly a sexually-image to the honeycomb. Whether that's the primary intention of the text or not is unclear, but it certainly is alive, I think, in the story of the two of them coming together. Now purified Joseph can take Asineph for his own. She has been converted into a perfect Jewish wife, at an important symbol for a community increasingly concerned with the issue of conversion. There were large numbers of converts in the Greek and Roman world coming into the Jewish faith. And there's reason to believe that this text came about in order to justify those converts coming into Judaism. It's hard for modern people to imagine, but as many as one tenth of the entire Roman Empire was Jewish. The story is intended, I believe, to reinforce the idea that there are sincere and loving converts whom the Jewish people should welcome and whom they should embrace. But early in the second century AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian began passing laws restricting the rights of Jews and the number of Jewish converts dwindled. This may have been when Jews abandoned the story of Joseph and Asineph, composed in Greek and set in Egypt, it was never a contender for inclusion in the Jewish canon of biblical writings. From a rabbinic point of view, there could have been a problem with this text if it were, in fact, about the Temple in Haleyapolis. Because rabbinic Judaism is a Jerusalem center Judaism, and the idea of another temple would have been highly problematic. But the growing Christian movement and the Greco-Roman world of the first and second centuries was also deeply concerned with the question of conversion, and they would embrace the story of Asineph. It was not preserved by Jews, because again, the Hellenic influence was so strong in it, but didn't bother Christians at all, and they preserved it. They copied this text, and that's why we have it today. Though dozens of copies of Joseph and Asineph written in Greek, Armenian, Syria, and Latin have turned up in Christian libraries, it was never part of Christian canon either. For a Christian point of view, I'm not sure there was that much that would have been objectionable in the sort of text. It wouldn't have been considered for inclusion in the canon, because it wasn't about Jesus, it wasn't about Jesus' earliest disciples, and it would have been more a retelling that people would have read for enjoyment. But other texts came out of Alexandria that would become for a time part of the Christian canon. They were called Apocrypha, or Hidden writings. For the most part, they document the lives of characters unknown in the traditional Bible, but there is one familiar name within their pages. That of a humble Israelite name, Daniel. But the story found here paints him in a very different life. The biblical story emphasizes more Daniel's secondary status and humility. Here he's a superstar. You're watching Van from the Bible 2 here on the History Channel. It is a version of the Hebrew Bible that has provoked controversies since the time it was first recorded in the 3rd century BC. It's bigger than the Old Testament, and included things that were ultimately not regarded as a authority within the Jewish tradition. Commissioned by the Egyptian ruler, Tala Mitha 2nd, to enrich the Library of Alexandria, it was to be a Greek translation of the Jewish sacred writings. This would make the writings accessible to scholars from around the world. The work would become known as the Septuagint. The story is that there were a group of Jewish sages living in Alexandria in Egypt, who were commissioned independently to produce a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. They gathered together when it was all completed in a great council and compared them, and sure enough they were all identical. Because they were all identical, we know that the Septuagint must be inspired, divinely. It was said that around the year 200 BC, Tala Mitha 6 Jewish scholars, from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, 72 translators in all, to undertake the great work, which is where the Septuagint gets its name. Actually, they were 72 sages, although the Septuagint actually means 70. Easy number to remember. This story, however, may have actually been invented to bolster the claim that the Septuagint was the most authentic version of the Hebrew Bible at a time when there were several different editions in circulation. Some scholars have suggested there were at least three textual traditions, a Palestinian tradition, a Babylonian tradition, which evolved as today's traditional or massurotic text of the Hebrew Bible, and a third Egyptian tradition, separate from the other two, which is represented by the Septuagint. None of these traditions agreed entirely. It is the Septuagint that is the longest of all the versions of the Hebrew Bible that have appeared throughout history. It contains a dozen additional texts, not found anywhere else. What is contained in these additional Septuagint texts? Some are prayers or proverbs, but most are historical accounts, documenting the lives of characters unknown to the traditional Bible, or presenting characters named there in a very different light. The most well known among these is Daniel. The Israelite famous for being thrown into a lion's den by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar in today's version of the Bible. He's a pious Israelite who refuses to worship the pagan deities. And as a result, of course, he suffers persecution. Eventually, he's thrown into a lion's den, but the lions open not their mouths and do not. Touch him. That's the classic story. The Daniel of the Septuagint is seen in the same setting with the same characters, but the events in this version present a very different picture of Daniel himself. The difference between this story and the biblical story of Daniel is in this story Daniel is much more assertive, much more heroic, much more a traditional cast of someone who stands out and is noticed by others. The biblical story emphasizes more Daniel's secondary status and humility. Here he's a superstar. In the Septuagint version of the story, called Belle and the Dragon, Daniel takes it upon himself to prove to the Babylonians that they are worshiping a false god. Now the Babylonians had an idol called Belle and the king worshipped it and went daily to adore it. But Daniel worshipped his own god. Who gophering's grain offerings are brought to the deity every day. And they disappear for some mysterious reason and it must be that the deity is devouring them. That's what God's do. They eat the sacrifices and this is proof that Belle exists. But Daniel challenges that belief head on. Daniel said, O King be not deceived. For this is but clay within and brass without and did never eat or drink anything. Daniel says, Look, I can solve this. He spreads ashes across the floor of the temple. The doors of the temple are sealed and locked so that no one enters no one exits. The next day the doors are opened. Sure enough the food is gone. But there are also footprints in the ashes leading to a secret door. The fraud is exposed. It's obvious that Belle's own priests are stealing the food to trick everybody. In the next chapter of Belle and the Dragon, The King challenges Daniel showing him another Babylonian god a dragon like creature. Will thou also say that this is a brass? He eateth and drinketh. thou can't not say that he is no living god. To prove that this is no divine creature, Daniel mixes a noxious potion into cakes and feeds them to the beast. The dragon ate them and burst them. Then Daniel said, see what you have been worshiping. In Belle and the Dragon, it is for this offense. The Daniel is thrown into the pit. So we do see sort of a different Daniel in these two stories. And one day, in Daniel is passively resisting the culture in which he finds himself. He's continuing to pray to his god. And in the other story, Daniel is actively resisting the culture by actually going off to kill this dragon. Because the Daniel saga appeared so late in just the last few centuries before the birth of Christ, Jewish scholars resisted including Daniel in the canon. The Jewish belief in the time of Christ was that prophecy had ceased. And so inspired writing, which made a book authoritative, could not be attached it was written too late to be viewed as the inspired, prophetic word of God. But in the end, the story of Daniel would be included, though in an abbreviated form. We have evidence to believe that Daniel was very nearly booted out, but it was just so dog on popular that he couldn't keep it out. The people loved this book. My guess is they said, look, if we've got to canonize this book, we'll canonize the shortest version. Certainly not the one we find in the Egyptian tradition in Greek. We're going to take the Babylonian tradition. And that's what they did. So while other versions of the Hebrew Bible include the story we are most familiar with, that of Daniel and the Lion's Dan. Only the Septuagint contains his battle against Bell and the Dragon. But it was this longer and more fantastic version that would, for a time, become part of an even wider tradition. The early Christian community had the enlarged Greek Bible that was adopted mainly in the West, and took with them throughout Macedonia, throughout the Italian peninsula, ultimately to us here in modern times. It was the early church fathers in the second and third centuries, who translated the Septuagint into Latin. These additional texts that the Jews and later most Protestants would come to reject would be retained by the Catholic church. These and other texts would be called a pocrophot, meaning hidden writings. The way rabbi's approached texts that they found her radical, and the way early church fathers approached texts that they found her radicals, is that rabbis largely ignored them, and the church fathers recorded them and argued against them, which for us turned out to be a great benefit because we have then records of what these texts were about, because there are people engaged in argument with them. It was an argument that would only intensify as the early Christian church struggled to decide which texts should be included in the second part of the Bible, the New Testament. There was a flexibility in fluidity in the first generation, maybe even into the second generation in Palestine, because the gospels, the New Testament writings were not written down yet. It is here that the real battle would begin, as competing Christian sects fought over what would be considered the word of God, and what would be condemned as heresy. Though the conflicts and bloodshed would intensify in many ways, it would simply be a continuation of a tradition begun long before. The one way in which we might change people's image of the Bible is that there weren't a set of books that got passed around generation to generation. There were libraries of books, and along the way, some of them got embraced and some of them got cast out, and we can guess it why although we don't know for sure, but it seems as though the books that were retained, were the books that were religiously acceptable, that were literally moving, were touching, and also were the books that helped coalesce the community and bring them together, and those three factors, seem to have decided which books in the end wound up in the Bible, and which books were banned. We have to remember that when you pick up a book that is bound, it doesn't mean that it was bound forever. You're watching Band From The Bible Two, here on The History Channel. For a celly, one of the oldest towns in northern Italy can trace its earliest settlement back to 600 BC. It is here in a dusty church library that amazing ancient manuscripts, dating from the fifth to the tenth centuries were rediscovered. Among them was a seventh century copy in Latin of a much earlier text called The Acts of Peter. It recounts the life of one of the original 12 apostles of Christ, but the events told here are not found in today's biblical scripture. The Acts of Peter, which is one of the five acts of various apostles outside the New Testament, was written in the last quarter of the Second Century, and it seems to have assembled together various episodes about the life of Peter that may have been circulating either early or in writing before, and were assembled into a sort of life of Peter. The Acts of Peter is set after the crucifixion, when the apostles were proselytizing and recruiting Christian converts. In this extra canonical text, Peter is portrayed much as he is in the Bible, a bold and impetuous apostle. He is the kind of leader that God himself calls on to confront an evil dure, known as Simon Magos. God showed him a vision, saying unto him, Peter, that Simon the sorcerer whom thou didst cast out of Judea, had again come before the at Rome. Peter has met this man before that earlier encounter is documented in the Bible. And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands, the Holy Ghost was given, he offered the money, but Peter said unto him, thy money perished with thee, because thou has thought that the gift of God may be purchased. The new testament says that Simon repented and was baptized, and ends the story there. But in the Acts of Peter, the story continues. Simon reappears in Rome performing miracles. The problem is the Simon Magos does these miracles and people become convinced that in fact he's the representative of the true God instead of Peter and Paul, who really are the representative of the true God. Peter goes to Rome to confront Simon. It is here one evening just after nightfall that Jesus appears to Peter and calls for a public showdown with Simon. Peter beheld Jesus, clad in a vestu or brightness, smiling and saying unto him, thou shall have a contest of the faith and many more shall be converted in my name. There ends up being an actual contest in the Roman forum. What you have actually is a very public slapdown. It's in the center of the Roman world, and not only are the locals watching, but everyone is watching. It's the center of the world. The contest focuses on who has the power of life and death. The prefect of Rome sends in a slave and Simon Magos is to kill the man and Peter's to raise him from the dead. So Simon Magos speaks a word in the man's ear. He falls down dead. Peter leans over and speaks a few words to him. And the man rises from the dead. The old people think that's more miraculous than killing him, and so they decide Peter is one. But Simon, according to the ex-Peter, has one more wonder to demonstrate. He announces that he will fly over the city of Rome. In fact, he does it. He jumps up in the air and starts flying over the temples. Peter calls on a higher power. And Peter cried under the Lord Jesus Christ, all Lord let him fall from the height and be disabled and he fell. Then every man cast stones at him and went away home and henceforth believed Peter. So Peter ends up being the more powerful than to... He's the true apostle of God. Ever since the acts of Peter was rediscovered, religious scholars have debated whether Simon is supposed to be seen as a pagan, or as his earlier baptism suggests, a Christian heretic. Though this fantastical tale was never part of the New Testament, it paints a revealing picture of early Christianity as a time of intense competition for conference and a battleground of diverse and imposing viewpoints. The older view that historians held for centuries and centuries was that originally Christianity was a monolith. There was one thing. He was taught by Jesus to his apostles who taught it to their followers, who taught it to their followers and his eyes as one thing. But every now and then a heretic would come along who would pervert some aspect of the truth. But scholars of recognized since the early 20th century is that that model is probably not right. That actually early Christianity was far more diverse than that. That in fact there were lots of different groups in Christendom that taught a lot of different things. And all of these groups were competing for conference. When we look back into the earlier time, there was no golden age of Jesus. There was no day or decade or century in which everyone agreed in the church. And that's very much like today, which we have various different sex. Some of the divisions in early Christianity were far more basic, fundamental and radical than the divisions we have today between, say, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Catholic, and even. It has been largely in the 20th century, with the discovery of caches of ancient texts in desert hiding places and forgotten libraries, that a fuller scope of these divisions has been revealed. We know that because other books have been discovered, and we've seen from these other gospels, for example, that it was a much more complicated picture than this traditional view allows us to believe. We may think that early Christianity was just one thing. But we now know that it wasn't that simple. That we have people who taught all sorts of things in different times and they all had traditions. They go back to the apostles that supported their point of view. They all had books that supported their points of view. What the presidency of the, actually the apostles, I would say, the New Testament tells us, is that there are profound distinctions between various groups of Christianity. That's not a minor thing about the dates of something, but major issues. What were these differences that these extra canonical books spelled out? What ideas did they contain that were so problematic? One issue, as controversial then, as it is now, would appear again and again in the texts deemed unfit for Canada. As far back as our early Christian off of the Apostle Paul, Christians are wondering about sexual relationship. They all hear Peter's preaching about celibacy and decide that they're not going to have sex or an inch, of course, any more. You're watching Van from the Bible, too. Here on the History Channel. She is still revered as a saint in some parts of the world today. It said to be a companion of Paul the Apostle. Her story would come to be known in the Acts of Paul and Thecchler, a chapter in the Acts of Paul. It appears so early in so many fragments that some scholars theorize that Thecchler may have been a real person, one revered as much as the Virgin Mary. Yet her story is nowhere to be found in today's Bible. The actual composition of the Thecchler texts dates roughly to 170 AD. But it really is representative of a broader Thecchler movement. For example, the cult of Thecchler, if you want to use that language, essentially what you have is a movement that began in the Caspian. In that area, certainly Serbian anti-Aucord. And you have it going south through Palestine to Egypt, where it became very popular. The worship of Thecchler, if you will, has a saint, is spread all the way across its in Armenia. It's an Egypt. It's all the way to the cathedral of Taragona in Spain. You can sit and see on the altar of peace in Spain. She's up there almost with Mary. Almost on a powered Mary. Even though the story is outside the New Testament. The reason that Thecchler is largely unknown today, maybe because of a controversial doctor, among early Christians that came to be closely associated with her, known as asceticism, a called for complete sexual submissive. The idea of Christian asceticism actually goes all the way back into the New Testament. One can make a case of Jesus himself preached an ascetic message. That's debated. But it's certain that the Apostle Paul, to some extent, preached an ascetic message. And it is to Paul that Thecchler's story is closely tied. Thecchler was allegedly one of Paul's disciples, a female disciple. And the reason she became so interested in Paul was because Paul was preaching a doctor of renunciation, and which he proclaimed that the people who would be saved who would be made right with God for those who were chased, and virgin, who didn't ever have sex. Paul, as depicted in the acts of Paul and Thecchler, is a more dogmatic proponent of celibacy than he is in the Bible. In the New Testament, he tells the Corinthians that celibacy is a choice, not a requirement. Do not deprive on another, except perhaps by agreement for a set time to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you. And he says, I recommend that to you. It would be very nice if you were all celibate. But he says, and this is very important. He says, we all have our own gifts. Some people can be celibate like me, some people not. So he never says, ever ever says, you must be celibate. But in the extra canonical acts of Paul and Thecchler, it is a different message that Paul brings to the Roman provinces of Asia Minor, one that causes the local men to complain about him. He deprives young men of wives and maidens of husbands, saying, there is for you a resurrection in no other way, unless you remain chased and pollute not the flesh. Paul's call for celibacy in this alternative text attracts many women, including a virgin named Thecchler. She is so swayed by Paul's words that she rejects the mirrors, her wealthy fiancée. Her fiancée is in rage. She's one of the leading men of the city, and he drags her before the local tribunal, who decides that she's broken a law that's so important that she deserves to die. Burn her that will not marry. In order that all the women that have been taught by this man may be afraid, it is here that the acts of Paul and Thecchler recounts its first miracle. So they're going to actually burn her at the stake, but then God does this great miracle, and sends down a thunderstorm and puts out the flame, and she manages to escape, and she goes off with Paul on his missionary journeys. The two travel to Antioch in Syria where the pattern is repeated. Another influential wealthy man falls in love with her, and what does she do with that when he tries to seduce her in the middle of the town square, she rips his cloak, she embarrasses him in public, and so he takes her to the governor, and once again we find Thecchler in a perilous situation. This time it leads to a strange spectacle in the local arena. The most extraordinary scene in all of early Christian literature, burned none, because once again she's in the arena. Typical. But then instead of the audience breaking down pagans against Christians, it breaks down first of all women against man, all the women, that is all the pagan women, are on her side. When the wild beasts are released to kill, the female animals protect Paul. A she lion, which was of all the most fierce, ran to Thecchler and fell down at her feet. At that, the multitude of women shouted aloud. And it's this very gendered imagery of the female lion, protecting her from the male bear, the male lion, and finally she's protected by a queen who faints in the audience, and thus has Thecchler pardoned. Throughout the acts of Paul and Thecchler, it is the women who are the heroes. While Paul, the scholarly missionary, whose letters take up nearly half of the new testament, is portrayed in a less sympathetic line. He lets Thecchler accompany him, but refuses to baptize her, implying she is not yet worthy. When trouble starts, he does little to defend her. He's gone. I mean, she's in the arena fighting for her life, and he's on the road out of town. In the arena, Thecchler performs her final act of faith. There's a huge tank of water there, maybe a charx or something in it. And she jumps in, because Paul has refused to baptize her, and she baptizes herself. God approves of it because he sends a lightning both to kill all the charx as it were. And so she baptizes herself. This is fairly radical feminism. If the man won't baptize you, baptize yourself. Though Thecchler remained popular, the acts of Paul and Thecchler was suppressed. Chitulian, a second century church father, dismissed it as a forgery. Tertoyan disparages the stories about Thecchler, because Thecchler and these stories, according to Tertoyan, is acting like a man. Women are not allowed to baptize, even baptize themselves, I suppose, where a Thecchler obviously does baptize. Women are not allowed to preach the word, but Thecchler does preach the word in this book. So Tertoyan and others like him rejected the Thecchler stories on the grounds that they didn't have the proper view of women. Whether it's Thecchler in the second century or Thecchler today, the role of women in the year, they church or the role of women in the church today, continues to be a fairly contentious issue. It is Thecchler's celibacy, ironically, that may have branded her a feminist in the ancient world. Women when they were young were under the authority of their fathers. When they got married, they were under the authority of their husbands. In either case, they're under the authority of a man. A saddic women who don't engage in sexual activities don't have to get married, and so they're not under the authority of a man. We have to recognize that for a woman to actually choose celibacy, is a fairly radical thing. There is a side of Thecchler that would have been deeply offensive to those who were promoting in a sort of a male patriarchal model. It is this fight over celibacy that will split the early church and lead to the banning of certain texts from the Bible. Among them will be one that recounts a mysterious appearance of Jesus, some three decades after the crucifixion. You're watching Ban from the Bible 2 here on the History Channel. The story of how the Apostle Peter died would circulate for generations. It would inspire high art and deep introspection. But on this subject, the Bible is silent, except for the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, which something prophesies a difficult end for Peter. He said to Peter, when you grow old, you shall stretch forth your hands and another shall gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go. The earliest mention of Peter's death appears in the first century AD in a letter by Clement, Bishop of Rome. It is recounted in more detail in the concluding portion of the Acts of Peter, also known as the martyrdom of Peter, which has been found in more than half a dozen ancient languages, some dating to the second century AD. Peter is said to have been martyred, crucified, in Rome, and the reason the Acts of Peter implies was the contentious issue of celibacy. And there were gathered also under Peter, the concubines of a grip of the prefect, and they, hearing the word, concerning chastity and all the oracles of the Lord, were smitten in their souls. The lead into the martyrdom story is that the prefect of Rome, the grip of the prefect of the prefect of the prefect in guard, has four mistresses, and they all hear Peter's preaching about celibacy, and decide that they're not going to have sex, you'll enter, of course, any more with the prefect, which of course infuriates. And then more and more women of the Roman aristocracy, decide that they're going to observe celibacy, and these are married women, so they're demanding, marital celibacy. Many other women also loving the word of chastity, separated themselves from their husbands, and there was great trouble in Rome. In the first century AD under the Roman Emperor Augustus, strict laws have been passed to ensure that the birth rate among the upper classes did not decline. The idea that the Roman aristocracy, especially the female, members of the Roman aristocracy would stop having children. All of this is subversive to Roman patriarchy, to Roman customs, and especially to the needs of the aristocracy. They decide to crucify Peter, because he is subverting the Roman system, breaking up Roman families. But the idea of mandatory celibacy as a part of religious asceticism was equally controversial among early Christians in the second through fourth centuries. Paul preached an ascetic message, and Jesus may have, because they were apocalypticists. And apocalypticists, as somebody who maintains that God is soon going to intervene in this evil world and overthrow the forces of evil, and bring in a good kingdom to earth. The reason this leads to asceticism is because you shouldn't be attached to the things of this life. But when the end of the world did not come, the idea of celibacy became more problematic. Well, I want very practically reason would be, of course, if you insist that the only true Christians are celibatosetics. You are going to need a massive conversion race, because you would have no internal procreation. It was this idea of total celibacy or extreme asceticism, which the church would later brand as heretic, that ensure that the acts of Peter would find no place in the official canon. But the story of his martyrdom would continue to be read long after other parts of the text were dismissed. The story in the Acts of Peter is that Peter is in the city of Rome, and he's convinced by some of his Christian friends to leave Rome so he doesn't suffer martyrdom. It is on the road leading out of Rome that Jesus appears to him, and Peter asks a famous question. And he says to Christ, in Latin, co-vadestamining, we're going north. And as he went forth out of the city, he saw the Lord entering into Rome, and the Lord said unto him, I go into Rome to be crucified, and Peter said unto him, Lord, I thought to be crucified again, he said unto him, yea, Peter, I am being crucified again. Peter understands he's going in his place. Peter is leaving. Christ is coming. In the new testament, Peter denies knowing Christ in order to avoid arrest. But in the Acts of Peter, he is prepared to fulfill his destiny. He goes back full of joy and rejoicing, because now he's going to suffer the same fate as his Lord, and he goes back to be crucified. But he will be crucified upside down. It seems to me that of all the elements of this story, at least the martyrdom aspect is plausible. What the historian Josephus says was the Roman custom of crucifying people, sometimes in strange, unusual, ghastly positions, even just for fun, just for sport. This is the kind of story that has a ring of truth to it. The strange inverted image that resulted was portrayed again and again in medieval art. So much so that a story sprang up to explain it. The usual explanation is Christ was crucified in the normal upright position. Peter had betrayed Christ, so it wasn't worthy as it were. He was crucified like Jesus, so he asked to be crucified upside down. But that, although it's in the Christian tradition, is not, is absolutely not at all. The reason given in the story. And when they had hanged him up after the manner he desired. He began again to say, learn ye the mystery of all nature. For the first man whose race I bear in my appearance was born head downwards. Peter gives this little speech to a bystanders where he indicates that the world has grown topsy to the appearance of Adam. Adam came into the world like babies head first. By being crucified upside down, Peter sees everything the right way. What is left of us is right to him. What is down for us is up for him. So he has clear vision. And I think most people reading that would not know what the energy he's talking about. This strange statement, which some scholars see as unorthodox, if not downright heretical, could be one of the reasons the text was deemed unworthy for inclusion in the Bible. But others think it is the celibacy of the start of the story that is the bigger problem. If only because of the popularity of the movement that embraced it. You would not still have copies of the acts of the apostles that are outside the New Testament, unless there was a large group of people for whom celibacy, celibacy even within marriage, celibacy instead of marriage, was a life choice and a vocation. These were the texts that defended them and a very popular level even. So it doesn't look like an esoteric elite group. The ascetics would not be the only challengers to the Christian Orthodoxy. There would be other sects that claim to have secret scriptural knowledge. Sometimes of unthinkable things. What is it that they knew? There is the traditional mark and then there's the secret mark. This text certainly does seem to have some homerotic undertones. Get 0% financing with no payments to July. You are watching Van from the Bible 2 here on the History Channel. In 1958, one of the strangest and most controversial finds in religious scholarship occurred. A young theology scholar from Columbia University named Morton Smith was exploring the Greek Orthodox library of Mar Saba in the Judean Desert near Bethlehem. He was searching for old manuscripts that might have been used to make the bindings of other books. A practice common centuries ago when paper was a rare and precious commodity. As Smith later told the story, he found just such a fragment handwritten in 18th century Greek. It appeared to be a copy of a much older letter, authored by no less than the powerful 3rd century church leader Clement of Alexandria, writing to a person identified only as Theodore. What it suggests is something straight out of the Divigicode. In the letter, Clement claims that the church's imposition of a different version of the gospel of Mark than appears in today's Bible. It was after the martyrdom of Peter Clement writes that Mark came to Alexandria to record a more complete version of the gospel based on his and Peter's notes. He composed a more spiritual gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. It is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initiated into the great mysteries. This version, which has never been found, is briefly quoted in the Clement letter. It will come to be called the Secret Gospel of Mark. Here we have Clement quoting certain passages which he says were deleted from the book of Mark. There is the traditional mark and then there is the Secret Mark with the Secret knowledge, with just for the initiates. The idea that there are secret Christian mystical writings and versions of the gospel available only to the most enlightened is a concept closely linked with unorthodox sects of Christianity like the Nostuf, which sprang up in the second century AD. There were a wide range of ways of being Nostuf. There were very many different Nostuf groups with different Nostuf mythologies, different Nostuf beliefs, different Nostuf Catholics. And so we use this as an umbrella term to talk about a lot of different groups that had this emphasis on knowledge as the way of escape from this material world. When we get into the second century, there does seem to be evidence for what we call a standard text and an enlightened text. Question is did you reach this existence in the first century? We don't have to look to a text like the Secret Gospel of Mark to find the idea that Jesus had secret teachings. We look in the Gospel of Mark, the one in the canonical Bible. We find that Jesus said different things to his disciples and said to you, I teach the secret teachings and to other people, they're going to hear them in parables. They're not quite going to understand them. So already very early on in the tradition, there's a sense that there are secret texts. But Clement and other early church leaders declared Nostuf believed to be heretical and denied the existence of secret gospels, something that this letter, if authentic, seems to contradict. Clement is the one who's supposedly writing this letter. But yet at the same time, everything we know about Clement would suggest that he didn't support the notion of a second document or secrets or a secret knowledge or the notion of initiates to a higher level. Clement of Alexandria didn't support the Nostuf movement. And yet this document suggested he in fact did. If it did go back to Clement, well, they had it would change the landscape quite a bit. In some ways, it really does sort of argue for the role of the mystery religions within the development of this segment of Christianity that we find in Alexandria. In the letter Morton Smith published, Clement writes that another heretical sect, the Capacrissions, known for their licentious acts, has gained unauthorized access to the secret gospel of Mark. Now they are spreading a corrupt version of what was found in the secret text, which Clement then quotes in the letter. What the secret gospel contains appears to be an extension of the story begun in the traditional gospel of Mark. There's one passage in Mark that references Jesus at the city of Jericho, and then suddenly he leaves. Why does the story mention Jericho and then nothing happens there? It looks like something is tantalizingly missing from the gospel of Mark. What could it be? Secret Mark fills in what happened. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there, and coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, Son of David, have mercy on me. The excerpt describes Jesus raising the woman's brother from the dead in a passage that some think echoes or even expands upon the Lazarus story related in the gospel of John. Jesus stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand, but the youth looking upon him loved him and began to be seen that he might be with him. We have the story of a young man whom Jesus raises from the dead, and who begs thereafter to spend a night with Jesus. Where upon Jesus reveals to him the secret of the kingdom of God, and that very language sounds very gospelish like it. Winks with actual language from the synoptic gospel. When it was late, the young man went to him. He had put a linen around his naked body and he remained with him through that night, or Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. What is the secret of the kingdom of God that Jesus reveals this young man? What kind of relationship did Jesus have with this young man, of course, get very controversial? He goes to Jesus wearing nothing but a linen cloak, and they spend the night together. This text certainly does seem to have some homerotic undertones. This it seems is just what the heretical corporations are suggesting. Clement complains that they have made changes to the text, adding the words naked man to naked man. A suggestive phrase, not present in the original secret gospel. The secret mark does not tell us, and one is not forced to assume that there was any physical intimacy between Jesus and this young man. This simply may have been some kind of link with initiation rights in the ancient Near East to the mystery religions. And perhaps some kind of throwback to idanic innocence in the Garden of Eden that this detail is related to us. If secret mark is a continuation of events described in the Bible's gospel of Mark, it could explain a mysterious reference found later in the Bible text during the arrest of Jesus. At the point of Jesus arrest at the Garden of Gessemony, traditionally we're told the disciple to all flee from him, but Mark and only Mark adds a little tidbit. And one a certain young man followed him, having thrown a linen cloth around his naked body. Who is this young man? Could it be the same one mentioned in the secret gospel of Mark? It leads some serious researchers to believe that secret mark does belong in the gospel of Mark, and it tells us who this man is. But did the secret gospel of Mark ever really exist? Many scholars suspect the letter and the excerpt of secret gospel it contains is nothing more than a clever hoax. One perhaps perpetrated by Morton Smith himself, that skepticism stems from the fact that Smith published photos he took of the document, while the actual letter reported to have been left at the library, has since vanished. He took photos of it and we don't have a record of it. It's lost. There have been speculations about whether it's a fortune or whether it really is authentic, and just very difficult to determine unless you have the actual document that sits impossible to prove either way. When Morton Smith died in 1991, some expected a deathbed confession, but they were disappointed. And he never in a sense offered the recantation or anything about the text. And there are letters that are the end people's possessions that were he seems very sincere and very interested in his mind as though it really is a legitimate find. Every few decades it seems a find-like Smith emerges to confound scholars and provoke debate. And that this entire discipline, the study of ancient texts, is very much influx. And the landscape of scholarship changes from year to year sometimes from moment to moment. But few discoveries have surpassed the funeral, caused by the document that is surface most recently, the so-called gospel of Judas. It rewrites the events leading up to the passion. Stands completely adored with what the New Testament gospels themselves say. TophistoryChannel.com. Your source for all your history channel favorites. You're watching Band from the Bible 2 here on the History Channel. It is called the Gospel of Judas and it paints a very different portrait of the disciple who has been reviled for centuries as the man who betrayed Jesus. Little is known about where and when it was written, but an early copy of the text is thought to have been hidden in a tomb on the east bank of the Nile River near the Egyptian village of El Migna. The decaying document written in ancient copy first surfaced in the 1970s and was offered for sale several times in the 1980s. Exorbitant prices were named but not meant and it disappeared again until it resurfaced long enough to be identified by two Yale University scholars in 2000. Their conclusion, this was a copy of the long lost gospel of Judas recorded around the year 300 AD. The Gospel of Judas is first mentioned by Ironia, the church father living in what is now France and he was the bishop of the old who was writing his book against heresies around the year 180 or 185. And he mentions a group of Christians that had a gospel of Judas and what he says about the gospel of Judas seems to coincide with this book that's now been discovered. The events in the newly recovered gospel follow the canon story closer. As in the Bible, Judas' Garrett is the disciple who identifies Jesus with a kiss so that the Roman guards may arrest him. That is paid 30 pieces of silver for his betrayal. But this text offers a very different reason for his action. According to the Gospel of Judas, there was a special unique relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and Judas. Jesus said to him, step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will agree a great deal. This theme of secret knowledge leads most scholars to date the origin of the text to about 150 AD and link it to the early Nostick movement. These were individuals who sought knowledge, which is what Nostick means. People who sought a higher level of knowledge, the secrets, the mysteries of the universe. And the Judas story is one of those secrets that is not necessarily for everybody. In 1945, at Naghamaadi Egypt, a cache of Nostick writings was found. The texts were probably hidden there after they were declared heretical by the early church. The early Christian church fathers who became Orthodox, who represented the point of view that became dominant within Christianity, saw Nostick as very dangerous. And they wrote a number of books against them, presumably because they were very popular. A major tenet of Nosticism was that the physical world was a barrier to be overcome. And this idea, not the Bible's traditional 30 pieces of silver, is what provides the motivation in the Gospel of Judas. Judas had intimate conversations with Jesus for days before that Passover meal, in which Jesus revealed to Judas the mystical Nostick secrets of the universe, culminating in a simple directive. Truly, I say to you Judas, you will exceed all of them, for you will sacrifice the man that closed me. Somehow, there's an understanding that the inner man has to come out, the inner person, the individual inside of bodies of flesh, must be released. He must be, as of where, taken out of the prison. And that's a different theology. It presumes that Jesus is the spirit. He is not a true human being. His body is simply a fleshly encasement, which must be stripped away from him. And Judas is the one who does it. The stands completely adored with what the New Testament gospels themselves say. And the Gospel of Matthew, for example, Judas is completely filled with remorse at what he's done. To turn that into a very good thing would be to contradict Scripture. And Jesus has to die, and Judas is the disciple, not some evil, individual, not the great villain of all time. But one, in fact, who knew Jesus perhaps closer than any of the others, who was bestened to do this. But their spirits did not dare to stand before Jesus, except for Judas' carot. Judas said to him, I know who you are, and where you have come from. The Gospel of Judas implies that it is Judas' status as the Apostle closest to Jesus, as much as his so-called betrayal, that turns the other disciples against him. And it hints at how that animosity may have played a role in his ultimate fate. Matthews the only gospel which narrates the suicide of Judas. The other place where Judas' death is mentioned is in the book of Acts, which is written by the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke. In Acts, though, Judas doesn't hang himself. What happens is he bursts forth from his midst, and he spills his intestines on the ground. But the Gospel of Judas suggests a different hand. Judas said, for I have seen a great vision. In the vision I saw myself as the 12 disciples were stoning me, and persecuting me severely. This idea of competition among the Apostles, and the existence of a predominant Apostle, seemed to have been one of the causes of descent among early Christians. We have evidence that early Christians lined up with some of Jesus followers. That is far back as you can go. Some Christians aligning themselves with Philip, some with Andrew, some with Thomas, some with Mary, some with Peter, etc. And Sarah, this allowed them for the kind of the infighting among these groups, has different people claimed that their Apostle was the chief of Apostle. It's probably the normal process of trying to see how we're going to run this community. And Jesus is gone, who's in charge. Some scholars see these texts as evidence that almost from its inception, there was not a single Christianity, but many. The significance of this discovery of the Gospel of Judas is that it contributes to our understanding of just how diverse early Christianity was. But the early church had little tolerance for this diversity. Sects like this were not welcome in Christianity because in those formative years and decades, it was vital to come up with a single overwhelming doctrine that everyone must adhere to. Christianity was a faith that focused on an orthodoxy, a right way of thinking. And if you deviate from that, then what we have is not a single faith, but multitude of splinter groups that will become extinct. The Nostics would be just one of many early Christian sects that were suppressed, persecuted, and eventually all but wiped out. Christians in the second and the third centuries had wide ranging debates and battles, battles for belief. Only one group emerged as victorious from these battles. Only one of these groups ended up growing and growing and growing and as it grew, it shunted to the side the others until they got so large that it could declare that it was the Orthodox point of view. And once it got to that point where it had conquered all opposition, it rewrote the history of the engagement and claimed that it had always been the majority. And those were the books that we inherited, the ones that claimed that this is the view that we've always had. Well, now we know that that's not true. Those early unorthodox Christians who were vanquished left little behind, but a few fragments of their beliefs, their stories, and their traditions have survived. And it is these lost texts that continue to provoke debate centuries after they were written. It's the struggle between those that want to argue for the rule of faith and apostolic tradition, and for those that want to argue for a diverse notion of what Christianity is in the plural. It is a conflict involving questions both of scholarship and faith, and one that will not be settled anytime soon. And just when we think that the very last word has been said, the landscape changes and usually and completely unexpected ways. And sometimes we think we're really under something and then someone comes along and debunks the whole thing. But that's the beauty of it all. It means that it's an ongoing mystery as well as an incredible detective saga.