New Testament Apocrypha

The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings have been cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the New Testament to the 27 books of the modern canon. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Churches generally do not view these New Testament apocrypha as part of the Bible.

The word "apocrypha" means "things put away" or "things hidden," originating from Medieval Latin adjective apocryphus, "secret" or "non-canonical," and in turn originated from the Greek adjective apokryphos, "obscure" from the verb apokryptein, "to hide away." The general term is usually applied to the books that were considered by the Church as useful, but not divinely inspired. As such, to refer to Gnostoc writings as "apocryphal" is misleading since they would not be classified in the same category by orthodox believers. Often used by the Greek Fathers was the term antilegomena or "spoken against," although some canonical books were also spoken against, such as the Apocalypse of John in the East. Often used by scholars is the term pseudepigrapha, "falsely inscribed" or "falsely attributed," in the sense that the writings were written by an anonymous author who appended the name of an apostle to his work, such as in the Gospel of Peter or the Book of Enoch: almost all books, in Old and New Testaments, called "apocrypha" in the Protestant tradition are pseudepigrapha. In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, what are called the apocrypha by Protestants include the deuterocanonical books: in the Catholic tradition, the term "apocrypha" is synonymous with what Protestants would call the pseudepigrapha, the latter term of which is almost exclusively used by scholars.

That some works are categorized as New Testament apocrypha is indicative of the wide range of responses that were engendered in the interpretation of the message of Jesus of Nazareth. During the first several centuries of the transmission of that message, considerable debate turned on safeguarding their authenticity. Three key methods of addressing this survive to the present day: ordination, where groups authorize individuals as reliable teachers of the message; creeds, where groups define the boundaries of the interpretation of the message; and canons, which list the primary documents certain groups believe  contain the message originally taught by Jesus. There was substantial debate about which books should be included in the canons. In general, those books that the majority regarded as the earliest books about Jesus were the ones included. Books that were not accepted into the canons are now termed apocryphal. Some of them were vigorously suppressed and survive only as fragments. The earliest lists of canonical works of the New Testament were not quite the same as modern lists; for example, the Book of Revelation was regarded as desputed by some Christians, while Shepherd of Hermas was considered genuine by others, and appears (after the Book of Revelation) in the Codex Sinaiticus.

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