Last Bread: >>1886892

Heiser has your answer. The Greeks or those informed by Greek thought wrote much of the Gnostic literature, combining the ideas put forth by early Christians with their own. The Gnostic gospels were written a hundred years, if not more AFTER the death of their supposed author, which makes them pseudepigraphical. Apostle Paul dealt with error creeping into the simple gospel message during his time and corrected it in his letters. It wasn't a simple matter of people with agendas trying to hide the truth, as many Internet conspiracies go, and the silly fabrications of people like Dan Brown. Early church fathers actually worked diligently to sort out the error and expunge heretical teachings. They didn't all agree, of course, and much debate was made over some texts. The Book of Enoch, for instance, dating to at least the 2nd century (BC) was favored as "scripture" by Tertullian and others, but was ultimately left out. Not because it wasn't true, but because it wasn't part of the Jewish canon, primarily, and its author was unknown. Much of the New Testament thinking is informed by Enochian text (not the second and third books, which are later and gnostic). Even quotes it in several places. Other pseudepigraphical books that are part of the Catholic Bible were removed in the later Protestant Bible for the same reasons Enoch was left out. Questionable authorship and not a part of Jewish canon, along with a few strange verses, that were difficult to reconcile with the whole. This doesn't mean that they cannot be read and inform, but that they didn't meet the high standard that elevated their status to "Scripture". The gnostic literature, on the other hand, while interesting, should not be treated as anything but "fake news".