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Recently, I have become more interested in the idea of churches using some of the New Testament apocrypha, for two reasons: firstly, some of it, like the Protoevangelion of James and the Gospel of Nicodemus, contains actual doctrines of the ancient church, and other examples, such as the fragment of the Gospel of St. Peter (I desperately wish we had the whole thing) and some of the Odes of Solomon are in my opinion doctrinally sound, and I am convinced the Gospel of Thomas is a genuine Apostolic document that has interpolations from a sect such as the Encratites, Severians or Tatianists, and these could easily be removed. Secondly, doing this would encourage Christians to access these books from a legitimate, doctrinally correct source; I am a huge fan of the Year D concept for the Revised Common Lectionary (the readings for Christmas and Easter could use some work, but I think on the whole, the proposal would eliminate my objections to the RCL), and this could amusingly offer us a Year E (on this last point, I jest).
Since I have come to accept the fact that I am widely regarded as a liberal by a substantial number of members of the forum*, this is convenient because thus far only Liberal Christians have seriously considered using these books, to their credit. The late Fr. Boucher, memory eternal, of the Episcopal Church, quoted the Gospel of Mary as justification for a proposed liturgical change, and of course liberal theologians such as Hal Taussig, whose work I do admire, and I think it is of a much higher quality than that the work of the Jesus Seminar by Robert Funk, memory eternal, due to a statistical flaw in the latter’s voting method, is clearly a fan, with a deep love for a wide range of NT apocrypha and the canonical books, although I really wish A New New Testament included the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Peter, although I am glad he did not include the Gospel of Judas, which I think many of us might agree is too problematic to have any real value to Nicene Christians.
So I wanted to ask: are any of you familiar with any mainline parishes or other Nicene churches, such as parishes of the liberal Old Catholic churches or parishes of the Metropolitan Community Church, which are using any of the NT apocrypha? Particularly, reading them in church in any capacity?
Also, regarding NT apocrypha, which, of any of the books, do you think would be beneficial if used by a Nicene Church? I myself obviously at present can only think of four, plus a subset of the Odes of Solomon, which are among the oldest Christian hymns, and these are obviously not the canon agreed on by Hal Taussig’s New Orleans Council in A New New Testament, but I am open to ideas. I once read The Gospel of Truth, which is widely considered Valentinian, and actually found it edifying, and I am not convinced it is the same document as the one considered Valentinian, or if it is, it predates the departure of Valentinus from the mainstream of the Roman Church.
Curiously, the only examples I am aware of are both Oriental Orthodox: the Armenians consider 3 Corinthians canonical, but it is not in their lectionary as far as I am aware, and the Ethiopian Broad Canon has the Didascalia, which is very similiar to the Didache, in the New Testament, but I have never seen an Ethiopian Orthodox lectionary so I have no idea how they use it.
Since I have come to accept the fact that I am widely regarded as a liberal by a substantial number of members of the forum*, this is convenient because thus far only Liberal Christians have seriously considered using these books, to their credit. The late Fr. Boucher, memory eternal, of the Episcopal Church, quoted the Gospel of Mary as justification for a proposed liturgical change, and of course liberal theologians such as Hal Taussig, whose work I do admire, and I think it is of a much higher quality than that the work of the Jesus Seminar by Robert Funk, memory eternal, due to a statistical flaw in the latter’s voting method, is clearly a fan, with a deep love for a wide range of NT apocrypha and the canonical books, although I really wish A New New Testament included the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Peter, although I am glad he did not include the Gospel of Judas, which I think many of us might agree is too problematic to have any real value to Nicene Christians.
So I wanted to ask: are any of you familiar with any mainline parishes or other Nicene churches, such as parishes of the liberal Old Catholic churches or parishes of the Metropolitan Community Church, which are using any of the NT apocrypha? Particularly, reading them in church in any capacity?
Also, regarding NT apocrypha, which, of any of the books, do you think would be beneficial if used by a Nicene Church? I myself obviously at present can only think of four, plus a subset of the Odes of Solomon, which are among the oldest Christian hymns, and these are obviously not the canon agreed on by Hal Taussig’s New Orleans Council in A New New Testament, but I am open to ideas. I once read The Gospel of Truth, which is widely considered Valentinian, and actually found it edifying, and I am not convinced it is the same document as the one considered Valentinian, or if it is, it predates the departure of Valentinus from the mainstream of the Roman Church.
Curiously, the only examples I am aware of are both Oriental Orthodox: the Armenians consider 3 Corinthians canonical, but it is not in their lectionary as far as I am aware, and the Ethiopian Broad Canon has the Didascalia, which is very similiar to the Didache, in the New Testament, but I have never seen an Ethiopian Orthodox lectionary so I have no idea how they use it.