To use these texts on what is from the start a precarious venture would render the venture completely incredible.1 Meier rightly places the material in the context of the second through fourth centuries and beyond. Thus the apocryphal gospels say less about Jesus in the context of the first century and more about the problems and issues people in later centuries had in understanding Jesus, and how they tried to solve those problems. These early Christians were not unique. People today have similar
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