DeConick A.D

K
Introduction
Forbidden Scriptures
In 1982, I was finishing my first year of college. I was enrolled in a twoyear
program to become a registered nurse and had been doing rounds
on the oncology floor of the local hospital and in geriatrics. I was eighteen
years old and any romantic notions I may have had about health care
when I started school vanished with the first catheter I had to insert.
One day, to distract myself from my existential crisis, I visited the local
bookstore, hoping to find a good novel. But I didn’t have any luck.
Back at home, my mother pulled out a book that she had been reading
and handed it to me. “I bet you will like this,” she said. I glanced at the
cover. The Other Gospels by Ron Cameron (1982). Gospels that never made
it into the New Testament . Unknown sayings of Jesus . Could be interesting,
I thought.
That is how I read the Gospel of Thomas for the first time, in the opening
pages of The Other Gospels . As I read this gospel, I encountered a Jesus
who impressed me, a Jesus who was unknown in conventional Christian
circles. As I began reading the Gospel of Thomas, I was immediately enraptured
by Jesus’ declaration that God’s power is not external to us but
inside of us, and that if we don’t grasp this we are living impoverished.
Here, in the Gospel of Thomas, was a Jesus I wanted to know more about.
For years I had been searching for a spiritual church home. I had visited
just about every Christian denomination under the sun. But I always
left their services disappointed and disenchanted. The God of goodness
and providence that I knew from my personal religious life did not seem