The New Testament Apocrypha

M. R. James at the time of the first edition of this book in 1924 by Oxford Press was Provost of Eton and formerly had held the same position at King's College, Cambridge. A corrected edition was issued in 1953 and has been reprinted. While it represents the virtues of British scholarship of its time, readers may wish to consider newer works which have the benefit of more recent scholarship and which, for some, may appear in a more accessible format. One other reviewer mentions "books not included" with the Old and New Testaments. James is concerned with the New Testment apocryphal books and not those of the Old Testament. They are two separate matters as is as well the Old Testament pseudepigrapha.

This book is a great book to have in your library collection. It is great to get your own perspective on the books that weren't added to the Old and New Testament canon. The writers did a great in putting this collection together.

This book is a little known works to the masses. Only the clergy for centuries have had access to this material. The information begins to fill in the gaps of missing information in the New Testament.

i bought this book because all of the other Apocryphile Press books are awesome. there are to many books inside to list. it has 594 pages. the Apocryphile Press series contains all of the books of the apocrypha you would ever want. if you get the new testament apocrypha, the apcocrypha vol.1 (red book) and pseudepigrapha vol.2 (light blue book). you will have them all except the book of jasher. UPDATED 06-14-2009 here is the listing of the contents, some titles are only 1-3 pages. the gospel according to the hebrews the gospel of ebionites the gospel according to the eygyptians the gospel of phillip the gospel of traditions of matthias the gospel of peter the gospel of thomas the preaching of peter the birth of mary the lesser question of mary the accents of james and other lost books the memoria of the apostles the gelsian decree list of the 66 books the stichometry of nicephorus the sunopsis of pseudo-athanasius the fayoum gospel fragment fragment of another gospel sthe strasburg papyrus fragment preserved with the pistis sophia fragment preserved with the acts of paul

As what was to become known as the Christian church split from its Jewish roots, it was decided to "leave out" several books, the content of which was considered too challenging or perplexing for those new to the faith. These volumes include a mind-expanding description by the apostle John of how he spent the middle hours of the crucifixion, and the (purloined) transcripts of the Roman trial of Jesus. Wide publication of these documents would have eliminated the power base of the nascent Roman Catholic Church... which subsequently both banned the volumes for general circulation and, when they WERE published, included any "genuine" forgery or heresy to come along. Thus, the book as it now appears is over 90% nonsense... some of it dangerous nonsense. Nonetheless, the diamonds which the Church attempted to bury in this fashion continue to glisten with the light of Truth.... the same Truth that illuminates the rest of Scripture.