Bible Editing

I recently saw a programme on TV called 'The Secret Family Of Jesus'. It was made by a guy called Dr Robert Beckford. There was a programme of his on around a year ago called 'Who Wrote The Bible?'. Both shows were eye opening, interesting & sort of scary in a way.

The premise in a nutshell of 'The Secret Family Of Jesus' was that Jesus' family beyond Mary & Joseph have sort of been edited out of Christianity. The premise of 'Who Wrote The Bible' is in the title. Though it should really have been called 'Who Edited The Bible?'.

There was a lot of time spent in both programmes about Mary Magdalene. Telling us how close to Jesus she was and how there's no proof whatsoever that she was a prostitute. That was the result of a slur campaign if you will because when the Bible was put together in the form we have it now and in Jesus' day i guess sexism was alot stronger than it is today. My use of the word sexism sort of shows that i'm a real novice on all this but I'm trying my best to find the right words. She also wrote a gospel that was left out of the final Bible. As did many others. What interests me is why certain gospels were left out? Could it possibly be that theologically they didn't fit with the exact dogmatic view of Christianity that the editors of The Bible wanted to share with the world?

You know how today if somebody wants to "share" something in Church they usually do it after consulting a leader or minister? If that leader or minister feels it isn't appropriate for whatever reason then it isn't shared. That's how it works and that's fair enough. What if the leader or minister is wrong? That is they felt whatever shouldn't be shared but God really had put it on the heart of the person wanting to share. What if the people that edited the Bible were wrong in what they chose to include or leave out? What if a different group of people had been chosen to do it? We may have a different Bible altogether which may just include The Gospels Of Mary Magdalene, Thomas & even Judas.

I'd love to know what anyone thinks on this. I guess the stock answer would be something like;

"God chose the people who put the Bible together & divinely inspired them to select exactly what's in there."

Except that sort of doesn't work with the apparent sexist nature of the treatment of Mary Magdalene. Anyway this post is turning much longer than I planned so I'll draw this to an end.

A question for thought would be, why do we put so much faith in the people that put the Bible together in the form we have it? Because when we refer to the Bible as the inspired word of God (the name the Bible uses for Jesus) we're putting our all in with these rather religious men we know almost nothing about.

Aren't we?