The antediluvian patriarch Enoch inspired several ancient pseudepigraphic texts. The Book of Enoch (generally known as “1st Enoch”) is part of the Biblical canon in the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition. “2nd Enoch” is an ancient text unrelated to 1st Enoch, which is sometimes called “The Secrets of Enoch.” Because the text was translated into Old Bulgarian and was widely used among the Medieval Bogomils, 2nd Enoch is sometimes known as Slavonic Enoch. The text claims to be Enoch’s record of his visit to the Ten Heavens with archangels as guides. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will review the text, consider its authorship, dating, and influence in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and today.

The ideas about the afterlife in heaven and hell are deeply ingrained in modern, popular culture, based on Christian doctrines and imagery from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the present. However, this concept of the afterlife is almost entirely absent from the Old Testament. In making his covenant with Abraham, God does not promise eternal life in heaven. Rather, Abraham is blessed with prosperity, long life, and a vast posterity. In this lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place briefly traces the development of our modern ideas about afterlife from its pagan origins to the present.

Artistic expression and religion have been intertwined since prehistory. From Antiquity to the Modern era religion has provided both inspiration and patronage for artists. Paintings of animals and hunts in caves may have related to Animism: calling upon their spiritual power. Classical sculpture and painting were focussed on depicting the gods and the stories of Greek and Roman mythology. In much the same way that casting an actor for a role in a film adaptation of a book tends to overwrite a future reader’s picture of a character (e.g., try envisioning Gandalf without seeing Ian McKellen), having a statue or a picture of a god affects the way a worshipper envisions the divine. Perhaps for this reason, religious reformers at various points in history have objected to picturing the gods, or especially picturing God. Ancient Israelites forbid graven images of Yahweh, a prohibition that expanded to any depiction or even saying his name aloud. Likewise, Islam forbids depicting God (Allah) and the prohibition has expanded to depictions of God’s prophet, and in some interpretations any human or animal forms. Christians too have a complicated history with religious imagery from the Iconoclasm which divided the Byzantine Empire to the Protestant destruction of statues and imagery during the Reformation. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will explore why artwork has been such a charged issue within the religions of the West from Antiquity to the present.

Writing the Book of Mormon required neither a conspiracy nor supernatural intervention Mormon apologists argue that the composition of the Book of Mormon requires supernatural intervention to explain. Many of the book’s detractors believe that Joseph Smith must have been part of a conspiracy involving additional authors. However, the scholarly consensus is that neither of these extraordinary explanations are necessary.

What is mysticism in the Christian context, and how has it shaped this tradition from Jesus to the present? How does it compare with mysticism in other religions? Why did women’s voices become prominent in the Middle Ages and the Catholic “counter-reformation,” but mainly in mystical writings? And are the spiritual practices many churches embrace today rooted in Christian mysticism or borrowed from Buddhism and New Age spirituality?

Although Judaism is a monotheist religion, the Biblical book of Proverbs contains a long speech by a divine being who identifies herself as “Wisdom.” Wisdom states that “the Lord brought me forth as the first of his works” and that as he was engaging in the world’s creation, “I was constantly at his side” (Proverbs 8:22-30). In addition, the first century CE Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria identified God’s “Word” (Logos) as a separate hypostasis of God. These and other ideas about the nature of God were part of the immediate context with which early Christians understood the relationship between the ineffable Creator, God the Father, and his “only begotten Son,” Jesus Christ. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look that the understanding of divine beings like Holy Wisdom and God’s Logos within the context of Second Temple Judaism generally and will track specific ideas about these figures among the diverse factions of early Christians, including the Gnostics, Ebionites, and Proto-Orthodox communities.

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time and many people, including Christians, imagine that its authors were writing with a single voice with the final canon in mind. But, of course, the Bible is actually a library of texts written in different languages over the course of centuries, that reflect the diverse contexts of its authors, most of whom never imagined that their individual book would eventually be part of a “Bible.” While it’s often assumed that the final canon was approved at the Council of Nicaea, this is not the case. In fact, canonization was a slow and haphazard process, which resulted in different lists for different branches of Christianity (Catholic, Protestant/Anglican, Orthodox, and others). John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at criteria used to create the canon and the historical development of the Bible.

Have you ever heard that Joseph was an elderly widower, and that Jesus’ siblings were actually half-brothers and sisters that were children of Joseph and his first wife? Did you know that Mary’s parents’ names were Joachim and Anna? Have you seen pictures of the nativity taking place at a stable housed inside a cave? Have you heard that after Mary gave birth to Jesus, her midwife affirmed that she was still a virgin? None of these details is in the Bible, which gives us two different (and contradictory) nativity stories in Matthew and Luke’s gospels. Instead significant sources of Christian tradition regarding Jesus’ birth along with the life of his mother Mary come from a pseudepigraphic text that ancient Christians excluded from the New Testament. During this Christmas season, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look that this non-canonical gospel, usually known as the “Protoevangelium of James” (or Pseudo-James), its contents, authorship, and influence.

Of the books left out of the Bible, the First Book of Enoch is among the most fascinating. Purporting to tell the story of Noah’s great-grandfather — the antediluvian patriarch that God took up into heaven — the text includes elaborate visions of the celestial realms and angelic hierarchies. In a past lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place looked at 1st Enoch’s context, including its acceptance within the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In this lecture, we dive deep into text, investigating its obscure and esoteric content.

Early Christianity included a wide diversity of beliefs on ideas as central as who Christ is and what is Jesus’ relationship with the Father to whom he prayed. Gnostic Christians focused their attention on personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) which they developed through elaborate philosophical mythologies. By the end of the Second Christian Century, bishops of the proto-orthodox establishment, increasingly identified Gnosticism as a deadly “heresy,” which they sought to purge from Christianity. One of the figures leading the fight was Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon from 177 until his death in 202, who wrote a book entitled “Against Heresies” that was largely focused on combating Gnosticism. In a presentation given from Lyon, France, John Hamer will look at the history and beliefs of the ancient Gnostics and consider why attacks by leaders like Irenaeus proved so effective.

In this live lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place examines how the Bible has been misread, mistranslated, and weaponized—often in direct contradiction to its original intent. We'll explore the real meaning behind the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, take a closer look at Leviticus and Paul, and highlight biblical stories that suggest deep, loving same-sex relationships, including David and Jonathan, Ruth and Naomi, and Jesus and the Beloved Disciple.

The authors of Matthew and Luke seem to have composed their gospels independently, using a text that compiled sayings of Jesus — a lost gospel scholars have dubbed “Q”. If Q existed, it was among the earliest gospels and potentially gives us our best glimpse of the historical Jesus and the movement he led. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at what we can learn about the community that produced Q from the reconstructed text of the lost sayings gospel.

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement (commonly called “Mormonism”), began his career as a teenage treasure seer. By peering with his spiritual eyes into a seer stone, Joseph led digging companies on quests to unearth buried treasure. The gifts he claimed evolved as he announced that a spirit had shown him where a book engraved on gold plates was buried. Using the same process of looking into the seer stones, Joseph dictated the words of what became known as the Book of Mormon. He also used the stones to channel what he claimed was direct revelation from God as he transitioned into the role of religious seer and prophet. In this new lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will cut through the mythic portrayal of Joseph Smith to try to understand him in his historical context. Given that literary criticism has shown the Book of Mormon is a 19th Century document and is not the ancient history Smith claimed, must it necessarily follow that both were conscious frauds? How is the text still understood as scripture in Community of Christ, the second largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement?

Written sometime between the mid-1st century and early 2nd-century AD, the Didache (or “Teachings of the Twelve Apostles”) is one of the most important early Christian writings to have been left out of the New Testament Canon. The text includes some of the earliest practical rules for the emerging institution of the church but describes a decidedly primitive stage in Christian development. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will review the text and consider the community that produced it. Why was it left out of the Bible and does it have anything to teach Christians today?

As early Christians were deciding which books belonged in the New Testament of the Bible, a long, enigmatic text called “The Shepherd of Hermas,” was on many of their lists. The text is included in the Codex Sinaiticus (one of the most important early Bible manuscripts) and Irenaeus considered it to be scripture. Dating from the beginning of the Second Century, the text was written in Rome and includes a series of visions granted to Hermas, a former slave and brother of Pope Pius I, followed by a list of twelve commandments, and a series of ten parables. The text appears pre-Trinitarian and may reflect a Binitarian or Adoptionist Christology. Moreover, the author seems to argue that Christians should follow Jewish law, that works and faith are both necessary for salvation, and may be our earliest source for the idea of “the Rapture” in Christianity. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will outline this fascinating lost book of the Bible and what it adds to our understanding of the diversity among early Christians.

Although the Apostle Paul argued that Christians were not required to follow the law of Moses (including circumcision and keeping kosher). However, many Christian contemporaries disagreed and groups that continued to follow Mosaic law survived for many centuries. Although their scriptures have been lost, many fragments remain. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will survey what we can know about the lost gospels of the Hebrews, the Ebionites, and the Nazoreans.

Many more scripture-like books were left out of the New Testament than made it in. We'll explore why. The New Testament contains a hodge-podge of 27 books by different authors: gospels, letters, a book of acts, and an apocalypse. Why did these texts make it into the canon and what texts were left out?

The Testaments of Three Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (the sons of Israel), the Testaments of Moses, of Solomon, and of Adam are among the many ancient texts that were left out of the Bible. Although written by different authors in different languages over many centuries, these texts share some common traits, usually taking the form of the final words of the ancient patriarch prior to his death. In reviewing these texts, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will consider who wrote them and when, what information they contain, why testaments were a popular form, and why they were left out of the canon.

Given that it's not an actual history of the ancient Americas, what can the Book of Mormon teach today? While the Book of Mormon contains no information about the actual history of the ancient Americas, the text speaks volumes about its actual context: the aspirations and worries of Christian Americans at the beginning of the United States’ experiment with constitutional democracy. We’ll look at what the text said to its first readers along with its potential meaning for readers in the 21st century.

Although the Fourth Gospel of the Christian New Testament is traditionally attributed to John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, the text was actually composed by multiple authors. There is no indication that any of these were named John nor that John is the name of the anonymous “beloved disciple” described in the text. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place examines the evidence that a document that some scholars call the "Signs Gospel" is at the heart of the present-day canonical Gospel of John.

During the Reformation, Martin Luther and Protestant Christians argued that everyone should be able to read the Bible in his or her own language. When they went back to the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, they realized that the Latin Christian Bible included a number of books that Jews did not consider scripture. The Reformers stripped these books from the canon, calling them the “Apocrypha” or hidden books. We'll take a look at these books that the Reformers hid away and consider why they made it into the early Christian canon and not the Jewish canon.

Between 140 and 37 BCE, the Hellenistic kingdoms led by the successors of Alexander the Great declined, a Jewish dynasty known as the Hasmoneans (also sometimes called the Maccabees) led a revolution and successfully ruled an autonomous and later independent Kingdom of Judea from their capital of Jerusalem. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the history of the Hasmonean revolt and Kingdom and review how it is portrayed in the Bible by two Apocryphal books, 1st and 2nd Maccabees.

The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587 bce ended the First Temple Period of ancient Israelite religion. The prophet Jeremiah and remnants of the army fled to Egypt, while the royal family and members of the nobility were taken captive in Babylon. That enforced exile continued until the Persian Empire conquered the Babylonians in 539 bce and allowed the exiles to return to rebuild Jerusalem (under Persian rule). John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will explore this period, which saw the beginnings of diaspora Judaism and its many lasting legacies including its impact on the development of the Bible.

The Book of Daniel is the source of some of the Old Testament’s most lasting prophetic visions: A statue with a head made of gold, breast and arms made of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay that is toppled by a stone cut without hands. A vision of successive beasts that appear from the sea. The vision of one like a “son of man” appearing in the clouds. The book’s protagonist Daniel, a Jewish noble living in exile at the royal court at Babylon in the 6th century bce, interprets the visions to predict the future. These predictions are uncannily accurate up until the year 167 bce, when they suddenly become wildly inaccurate. As scholars have now show, this is because the text was not written by Daniel or anyone who knew him, but by an apocalyptic prophet writing between 167 and 164 bce, whose accurate “predictions” recount events of the past and whose proved a complete failure at predicting the actual future. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the Book of Daniel as a textbook example of what happens in religion when prophecy fails.

“Is this not written in the Book of Jasher?” asks the author of the Biblical Book of Joshua. And in another reference in 2 Samuel, the author assures us that further details are “written in the Book of Jasher.” This intriguing book that pre-dates the Bible has been lost since ancient times. However, the name has inspired numerous forgeries. One such “Book of Jasher” was translated and published in English in 1840. Soon after it made its way to Nauvoo, Illinois, where it was accepted by the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr. The book was reprinted in 1886 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and continues to circulate among Mormons to this day. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will trace the surprising origin of this obscure Book of Jasher.

An ancient expansion and revision of the book of Genesis, the Book of Jubilees divides the world’s primordial mythic history into a series of eras (49 years long each) known as “Jubilees.” Multiple manuscript fragments were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the popular book was viewed as scripture by many ancient Jews and Christians. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will review the date, authorship, content, and legacy of this lost Bible text.

While the Book of Mormon narrative today seems outlandish, the story was very familiar to Americans in 1830 The central plot of the Book of Mormon –the idea that Native Americans are descendants of ancient Jews who came to the Western Hemisphere– seems bizarre in the 21st century. However, the idea was commonplace when the book was published in 1830. We’ll look at the Book of Mormon’s 19th century context in order to make sense of this book of Latter Day

The Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church includes a number of books not found in the Catholic or Protestant canons. The Book of Enoch was considered scripture to many early Christians and Jews, including the author of the New Testament Book of Jude. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place looks at this interesting apocalypse with its vision of angels and devils and consider its context within the apocalyptic tradition.

Who were the Gnostics? What secret knowledge did they keep? Why did they die out? In Christianity’s first centuries, a powerful challenge to leaders of the emerging orthodoxy came from the Gnostics. “Gnostic” means “having knowledge” and these groups believed they had secret, esoteric information about life’s meaning. What were the secrets kept by the Gnostics and why did their sect eventually die out?

Many religious fundamentalists read the Bible literally, insisting that its stories occurred historically as written. While some take this to the logical extreme forcing them to reject science in favor of alternative theories like young Earth creationism others look for naturalistic explanations to preserve a literalistic historicist reading of the text. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the modern development of these interpretative lenses and will consider how such readings radically distort the original stories and rob them of any meaning.

Many early Christians believed that all matter is evil, and the spirit-realm is good. There was no “sin” just “ignorance”, and the key to eternal life was found through “gnosis” — knowledge that was kept hidden from the masses. We’ll look at their many gospels and other texts that combine ideas Christian, Jewish, and Greek ideas which Orthodox Christians left out of the Bible.

An early Christian group believed that Jesus had revealed secret knowledge about the meaning of life, the nature of God, and the universe. They became known as the Gnostics (meaning "having knowledge.) Gnosticism posed a powerful challenge to what would eventually become Christian orthodoxy. In this lecture, we will explore how the Gnostics imagined Jesus and what set their beliefs apart.

In this lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place explores how Mary Magdalene was portrayed by Gnostic and other early Christian communities outside the emerging orthodoxy. In texts like the Gospel of Mary, the Dialogue of the Savior, and the Gospel of Thomas, Mary is depicted as a bearer of secret knowledge and a spiritual interlocutor who challenges the authority of male apostles. These writings reflect alternative theological frameworks in which salvation came through inner revelation rather than institutional authority.

Of all the gospels left out of the New Testament canon, the Gospel of Thomas may be the most important. Some scholars argue that this collection of the sayings of Jesus preserves an independent witness of the historical Jesus. Others believe the text is dependent on the New Testament and contaminated by the ideas of Gnostic Christianity. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place gives an overview of Thomas and compares the text’s sayings with those in the four canonical gospels.

Scholars had long argued that the authors of Matthew and Luke used a lost gospel of Jesus’ sayings known as “Q,” in addition to using Mark’s gospel as a source. One argument against the existence of Q was that no such “sayings gospels” were known. That changed with the rediscovery of the sayings Gospel of Thomas at Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. The Gospel of Thomas, like the hypothetical Q, contains few narrative elements and consists almost entirely of a list of teachings attributed to Jesus. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will compare Thomas and Q to consider overlaps and relationships of the sayings each text preserves.

After the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, the canonical gospels have precious little to say about the life of Jesus between his birth and the beginning of his public ministry as an adult. The infancy gospel of James and the infancy gospel of Thomas (not to be confused with the more important sayings gospel of Thomas) attempted to fill in some of the details with mixed results. Although both texts were left out of the New Testament, their narratives have had a significant influence on Christian tradition and doctrine and episodes from these apocryphal sources even found their way into the Quran. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will review both texts in light of our sources for these “lost years” of Jesus’ life.

The “Life of Adam and Eve” is an ancient expansion of the Genesis story after the first man and woman were driven out of Eden. Although the original (likely written in Hebrew) is lost, variations of the text survive in Latin, Greek, Armenian, and Slavonic --- showing its wide popularity. The biblical story of the Fall of the first humans and its effect has intrigued Jews, Christians, and Muslims from Antiquity to the present. Although it was not included in the Bible, the “Life of Adam and Eve” added biographical details and influenced later literary works as diverse as the Quran and Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will give an overview of the text, consider its provenance and date, and look at its role in literature and theology related to the Adam and Eve story.

Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian” is an irreverent, hilarious spoof of the life of Jesus. Nevertheless, in some ways the movie better understands the historical context of Roman-occupied Jerusalem in the 30s AD than some Christian apologetic films. As a light-hearted lecture for our Christmas season, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at what Monty Python got right and wrong about the historical Jesus.

A look at the lost text many scholars believe is our earliest witness of the historical Jesus. Live video will start a few minutes before the hour listed for this event. Please note you may have to refresh the page several times until the live video appears. Like and follow our page to get notified when we go live. Zoom discussion will follow (please ask for link) The content shared between the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke) means that they share a direct literary relationship. The most commonly accepted hypothesis states that Mark was written first and the authors of Matthew and Luke used Mark to write their own accounts. However, for this to be true, they must have also shared an additional gospel, now lost, which scholars call “Q”. What’s the evidence for Q? If it existed, who wrote it and what can it tell us about the historical Jesus?

Surveys find that nearly 7 in 10 adults in the US believe in angels. But what are angels supposed to be? What is the difference between angels, demons, genies, and ghosts? Why do cherubs look like the Roman pagan god Cupid? John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will explore early Biblical understandings of angels, evolution and elaboration of the idea in extra-Biblical apocalypses like the Book of Enoch, and later theological formulations by Christian philosophers including Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

The northern Kingdom of Israel, centered on its capital Samaria, was destroyed by the Assyrian Empire in 720 bce. Many members of the nobility were deported to Mesopotamia where they eventually assimilated, the so-called “Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.” However, the overwhelming majority of the northern Israelite people continued to live under Assyrian rule in the provinces of Samaria, Megiddo, and Gilead. When Assyrian rule was replaced by Babylonian and finally Persian rule, the people of Samaria (the Samaritans) continued to maintain their Israelite identity and even offered to help the returning Judean exiles (the Jews) rebuild the Jerusalem Temple. This offer was refused and over time, Jews and Samaritans became bitter rivals. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at Samaritan history from antiquity to the present.

After Jesus’ crucifixion, his movement in Jerusalem was led for many decades by his brother James the Just. His historicity is confirmed by the Jewish Roman historian Josephus who records a version of James’ execution at the hands of local Jewish authorities. The Apostle Paul met James (and came into conflict with him) as the two presented different visions for the emerging Christian church. Although historians largely agree that the Epistle of James was not written by the historical James, it shares the perspective of James’ community. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at what we can know about the historical brother of Jesus and the communities that looked to him for leadership.

In the gospel accounts, Jesus’ ministry begins with his baptism by a figure named John the Baptist, whose own disciples continued to revere him after his execution. Many historians have argued that the historical Jesus was originally a disciple of John the Baptist. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at what is known about the historical John, his practice of baptism, and his legacy in both Christianity and also Mandaeism (a small, ancient religion which may trace its origin to John’s disciples).

The gospels cite Mary Magdalene as either the first of Jesus’ followers to testify of his resurrection or as part of a group of women followers who were the first. The gospel of Luke lists her among the wealthy women who provided material support to Jesus and his disciples and states that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. In the gospel of John, she is among the women who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion. Several Christian communities, including the Gnostics, looked to Mary Magdalene as an authority greater than many of Jesus’ male apostles. She is included in several apocryphal texts including the Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the Savior, and her own Gospel of Mary. Already in Antiquity, she was conflated with other gospel characters, including the unnamed “sinful woman” who anoints Jesus’ feet in Luke 7:36-50, given rise to the false tradition that she had been a prostitute. More recently, because of fictional accounts like The DaVinci Code and modern frauds like the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, the completely baseless idea that she was Jesus’ wife has become popular. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will revisit the various accounts of Jesus’ most famous female follower, to discern what can be known about the historical Mary Magdalene and will survey her many, diverse legacies.

Christian tradition assigned the name of “John” to the New Testament’s fourth gospel, but the text itself does not claim to be written by him. Obvious seams in the text between the end of chapter 20 (an original ending to the gospel) and chapter 21 (which was added on) show that the text is the product of multiple authors. One of those authors claims that a source for the gospel is the testimony of one of Jesus’ beloved disciples. But although the “beloved disciple” is a significant character in the gospel, the authors deliberately do not give his name. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will explore the fourth gospel to determine what the text can tell us about its authors and the community that produced it. What else can we know about the Johannine community and how do they relate to the historical John (Jesus’ disciple) and other early Christians who share the name John?

The Epic of Gilgamesh preserves some of the oldest stories in human history—and many of its themes resurface in the Bible. In this lecture, John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place examines how myths of creation, the fall, the flood, and humanity’s quest for eternal life were reimagined by the authors of the Bible. We’ll explore how these retellings differ from the original Mesopotamian accounts and why.