How the New Testament was formulated and decided upon is little known by most Christians. Most think that either God sent a message through a prophet or else some ecumenical council determined that 27 books. Neither is the truth. The Bible was decided by the “last group standing” and there is yet to be an unanimous agreement, though tradition gives us the current 27 books.
The group that won the battle for primary doctrine and books to be canonized were called the proto-orthodox.. Their main competition was the Gnostics.
Gnostics is a large tent of ideas that range anywhere from small heretical groups embracing wild-eyed ideas to larger and more acceptable groups seemingly not far from the orthodox crowd. Valentinus had the greatest number of believers; however, Constantine and emperors after him pushed the bishops to do away with all Gnostic beliefs seeing that they were more esoteric and harder to label and control that the doctrinally minded proto orthodox.
All Gnostic books were burned, or thought to have been destroyed. And then along came 1945 and the find at Nag Hammadi and some 50 Gnostic writings were found.
Gnostics generally believed that there was no separation between people and God. They pointed to Luke 17:21 wherein it’s written that the Kingdom of God is within! They used the Old Testament verses such as Psalms 82:6 which says, “You are God, you are ALL sons of God.” They embraced Luke 6:40 professing that masters and salves in many ways were one. And of course there was Paul’s revelation that he had visited a “third heaven” and had “secret knowledge” of the workings of the Spirit.
So, as you can see, while the orthodox believers were able to out-muscle the Gnostics, some of the more esoteric beliefs of the losers managed to sneak through and be canonized. And, today we’re seeing more and more people embracing Gnostic principles and one of the most popular non-canonical books is the Gospel of Thomas.
Have you read it?
Every time I read the GoT, I find something new. You don’t find the doctrinal issues and dogma there. I really like that. I forced myself over four years ago to read all the Nag Hammadi documents. I am glad now that I did. As you said, some of it is still pretty far out there, for me, at least. But, some of them are most interesting and deserve a better reception by followers of Jesus. Thanks for the references you gave in the post!