I became aware of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Nag Hammadi Library years ago when I was reading heavy Philip K Dick literature/writings, and have became very interested in these writings, their origins, the stories themselves, why these books weren't canonized etc, etc.. I started to wonder, there are 12 apostles, so why aren't there 12 gospels? Well there are 12 gospels, way more then 12 actually, its just they aren't considered cannon scripture, but regardless these texts are fascinating. To start off, hands down my two favorite apocryphal books are The Book of Enoch, and The Testament of Solomon. These two stick out and are filled with tons of esoteric knowledge and much more. Enoch is a very special biblical figure, hes mentioned in Genesis and Hebrews. Enoch never died, he "walked into heaven". How many other biblical figures did this? Jesus? Mary? Maybe Elijah?
There is also a "Keys Of Enoch, Book Of Knowledge" that came out in the seventies. Some artwork from that book can be seen on the cover of Boston's first album adapted to look like guitars escaping from exploding planets. I no longer subscribe to the basic philosophy of books like that so that would include several other apocryphal works. There is one basic agenda that distinguishes all philosophical works, including works that are inspired by angels of sorts (including 'ascended masters') who may also have an agenda. The Nag Hammadi library find says firstly alot about how dangerous it was to be a book around book burning ideologies...and how some monk thought it necessary to hide a cache from the neo authorities as Christianity evolved over the years. People had agendas and literature was almost weaponized. Next, what kinds of books were in danger at that time? Gnostic. Among the Gnostic oriented books at Nag Hammadi was found the Gospel of Thomas. My info about that comes from a source said to actually be Thomas, appearing out of thin air about 18 years ago to a man meditating in his den at home...who transcribed their conversations over the next several meetings like that, over several years. According to this source the Gospel of Thomas (GoT) was found amongst Gnostic writings because that's just how it was perceived as a genre, but despite differences, was equally in danger. It is a "sayings" gospel, simply a collection of quotes from Jesus, said to be the most common version of gospel early on, UN-embellished with stories which are basically interpretations. Among the early sayings gospels is one now referred to as "Q", which they say was put together by three close associates of James whom they eventually decided was not going to faithfully portray or carry on what Jesus was really saying and teaching. Among those three was Stephen, famous for having been stoned by the firebrand Paul. Q is dead along with Stephen, but is speculated by some scholars to have existed. There are a very few sayings in Thomas that jive with things said in the four pop gospels which they described as embellishments. Interestingly, among the 100+ sayings in GoT they say about 30% are scurrilous, added later by people with agendas. The clearest example of these agendas is a reference to James, trying to establish him as the sort of patriarch of all authority inherited from his brother Jesus...yes, his brother. Meanwhile, Thomas "Didimus" was like a brother from another mother, really a favorite of Jesus', shunned by the slow learning firebrands on the crew. Didimus means "Twin". They say it's because Thomas actually looked a lot like Jesus. By "they" i mean Thomas was appearing to this man 18 years ago with another of Jesus' desciples known by the name Jude Thaddeus. They weren't appearing as apostles in robes, just as a man and a woman from the future...having changed roles over the years, as most of us do, according to the phenomenon of re-incarnation (to slow learners: "you must be born again"). Eventually they revealed that the man himself, with whom they were talking, was also Thomas, reincarnated. So it was future iterations (their last) coming back one generation (from the next incarnation) to discuss with the next-to-last iteration. They were demonstrating, among other things, how having finally understood, they had command of time, as well command the appearance (or disappearance) of the body. They talked about a time when Jesus took three of them separately aside to tell them something, telling them not to repeat it amongst the crew. Turns out that the disciples were not a completely unified ideological group, even in process of learning at that time. They revealed what it was to the man, but at that time, among the largely Jewish crew, some things were considered heresy enough to warrant stoning, which is what i mean by firebrands. Can't recall off hand what that was but i think it had to do with by whom the world was made...that it was not made by his "Father". This is a rather gnostic ideology, very much contradicting what the Jews, and now Christians, are saying about whom made the world and why. And Jesus was protecting these three from possible harm should they speak of it too much, even amongst the rest of the crew. So the impression i get is that Jesus was baby feeding the Jews, milk, and tiny little morsels that they could chew on, delaying as long as possible a time when they would want to kill him and/or his message for heresy. There was not agreement amonst them as to what he was really saying, and the division was most manifest amongst the Thomas crew and the Peter crew...which really carries down to this day...because there are only two basic agendas. Thomas suspected that the resurrection was something different from what the Pharisees, and therefore most Jews including on Jesus' crew were expecting/desiring. Thomas suspected it might be more of a psychological mind sort of thing, rather than a bodily re-manifestation. This would explain why his sayings would find some kindred among the Gnostic sayings. Despite some sketchiness, Gnostic (with an emphasis on "knowledge") philosophy was pretty advanced for it's day, and not at all new even with the arrival of Jesus, who seems to have taken it up to another level of understanding...the how and why and by whom the material world(s) were made (to appear). Anyway, Thomas is made out to be a dumb faithless bad guy in the pop gospels which really speaks more about how ideologically territorial these people were with their emphasis on "faith" (versus knowledge). That conflict of interest still exists to this day as can be seen in my own interactions with Christians, and is manifest in the struggle to the death of the gnostic/knowlege philosophy versus the faith philosophy. Of course Thomas had faith. Who doesn't? But what do we believe? And more importantly, what can we possibly know, beyond common faith? Ultimately, we an only "know" what is true versus we can apply faith to anything, including outright lies. People are very very lucky to believe in anything that is actually ultimately true. But comes a time when faith must be exchanged for knowledge.