New Testament apocrypha New Testament apocrypha The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings have been cited as scripture by early Christians, but since the fifth century a widespread consensus has emerged limiting the New Testament to the 27 books of the modern canon. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches generally do not view these New Testament apocrypha as part of the Bible. The word "apocrypha" means "things put away"
New Testament among Protestants when referring to those books found in the Christian Old Testament although not in the Jewish Bible, modern scholars began to refer to these works of early Christian literature not included in the New Testament as "apocryphal", by which was meant non-canonical. Collected editions of these works were then referred to as the "New Testament apocrypha". Typically excluded from such published collections are the following groups of works: The Apostolic Fathers, the 2nd-century Christian apologists, the Alexandrians, Tertullian, Methodius of Olympus, Novatian, Cyprian, martyrdoms, and the Desert Fathers. Almost all other Christian literature from the period, and sometimes