Klompen
Active member
Though I have no names (I don't keep records), there are a number of documents from the era which were not included in "the bible." There are also a few tiny references to Jesus and the disciples in non-religious texts (day to day recordings), nothing concrete.
One of the major downsides to the bible is the New Testament, written some 7 decades later. Heavily politically influenced editing, to create a calander years worth of monthly teachings. The masses were unable to read, and the stories were created to 'teach' them in an easy to understand way.
Seems to have worked, since it's put a spell on a lot of people for thousands of years. Massive resource funnel to a few small groups at the top. Always follow the money. When you get nauseous and feel like you're going to be sick, you should be really close to the truth.
The oldest extant documents that mention Jesus Christ are those found at Nag Hamadi. They are often referred to as "The Gnostic Gospels". They paint an entirely different picture of Jesus though certainly not a negative one. They contain everything from gay disciples to astrology. Not only that but they portray Judas Iscariot and "Doubting Thomas" as the closest and most trusted disciples of Jesus. They predate any publicly-known biblical documents by centuries. It is widely believed by scholars that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are actually all renamed portions of an original work that is often referred to as the "Quelle Document"(which no longer exists as far as we know).
So actually we only assume the original documents were written 70 or so years later, and mostly by a man who claimed to be a disciple of Christ who never actually knew him while he was alive. The only actual known sources of the material were actually much later. The history of the books of The Bible is murky at best, and the people who composed the Bible at Nicea actually made things much worse by declaring everything not officially recognized at Nicea as being heretical(and thus to be destroyed on pain of death). The more deeply I studied The Bible as a Christian the more the narrative presented in it began to unfold. I was a very fervent Christian when I was younger because I wanted a moral compass and divine guidance, but I was shaken out of this as I dug deep into my studies.