LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY mirandaflynn)

Cross-posted to my LJ and posted here with Sunfell's permission.

I watched this show on the History Channel, and it was fascinating seeing the politics that went into deciding just what got put into the Bible...and a nice response to all the "God's literal Word" believers.

The firing of the female Sunday school teacher makes the fact that several of the professors on this show were females with PhDs in Religious Studies all the sweeter.

Books that got left out included the following:

The Life of Adam and Eve - A retelling of the Genesis story, with additional material on Adam and Eve's lives after they were expelled from the Garden. In this version, Eve is much more of a victim of deception than a knowing participant in disobedience. Either instead of or along with the serpent, Satan appears to Eve in angelic form, so that she thinks a messenger of God is speaking to her.

After they are expelled, she asks Adam if he wants to kill her, because with her death, God might let him return to Eden. His response is, "How could I raise my hand to flesh of my flesh?"

Well. A book that doesn't have woman as the Bringer of Sin plus a Bibilical injunction against wife-beating? Two strikes, yeerre outtathere!

The Book of Enoch: This book goes much deeper into the "And there were giants in the land" bit in Genesis where angels mate with human women and produce cannibalistic giants. This ultimately leads to Azazel and his rebellious angels being bound and cast out. No one knows why this was left out.

A Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene, who was not only not-a-prostitute, but was one of the chief disciples of Christ, who received particular mystic teaching. No physical relationship was implied, but the idea that a woman might have been over the male disciples was not going to fly.

The Infancy Gospel by Thomas: This was the most interesting one to me because it dealt with Jesus' childhood. According to one of the professors on the show, he was a divine brat at age 5, mocking his teachers and shoving one of his little friends off a roof, then resurrecting him. By 8, Jesus is using his powers to help his parents, and by 12, he's synched up with the gospels. While the early church couldn't deal with RottenBabyJesus, the professor (and I agree) liked the book because it taught that anyone, including the son of God, could change and grow with time.

A life of Mary, the mother, that claimed her own conception was divine and that Joseph had children before he married her, so she remained a virgin. This was left out because it was felt that it emphasized Mary over Jesus.

The Revelation of John was on the 'iffy' list of books to include. The Bishop working up the 'in' list preferred another apocalypse story, The Apocolypse of Peter, but John was ultimately picked.