The art of storytelling is very pervasive, and leaves an ingrained mark on entire cultures. Everyone loves a good fantasy, but the most successful would arguably be biblical. As outlandish as these stories go, few stand up to the epic tales that were tellingly retconned, which definitively prove that if your belief system relies on one instance of magic, it is infinitely reusable. They read as either the most ambitious movie scripts ever put to pen, or a straight up testament to insanity. I'll let you decide which... * * * * The Gospels that made it into the Bible pretty much skip from the birth of Jesus Christ to his adulthood, but there are other documents that chronicle the adventures of Jesus Christ: Boy Wonder. They're part of something called the New Testament Apocrypha, a series of books deemed unfit for inclusion due to concerns over the message they'd send or, in some cases, the number of faces they'd melt with their sheer awesomeness. Most of the stories are pretty normal fare -- healing lepers and raising the dead -- but some are so insane that we learn that the answer to, 'What would Jesus do?' is 'Whatever the hell he wants'. The New Testament didn't just descend from the skies onto newstands the morning after Jesus ascended up to heaven. The 27 books in modern Christian Bibles weren't declared official until over 300 years after Jesus walked the earth. By that time, thousands of sayings and stories about Jesus' life had to be left on the cutting-room floor. Such was the case of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. The name comes from the fact that it's basically an extended director's cut of the Gospel of Matthew that made the Bible, covering most of the same territory save for one regrettably deleted scene. On their way to Egypt, Jesus and his family stopped to rest in a cave, which, to their surprise, was populated by a herd of dragons. The Bible could have included a passage detailing how Jesus Christ totally gave the cold shoulder to a dragon army. At first glance, this seems like a pretty baffling omission. Jesus Christ, dragon tamer, would have been pretty effective when converting metalheads and 14-year-old boys. It makes a lot more sense if you believe that God was handling editorial duties. Jesus totally could have used his dragon-taming powers to sic an invincible hell-beast armada on Herod's ass. That's what the God from the Old Testament would have done. If our son squandered powers that awesome, and we were editing his biography, we'd probably skip that part too. Written in the early second century, around the same time most scholars date the four Gospels in the Bible, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas picks up the story a few years after the dragon taming. Back in Nazareth now, five-year-old Jesus was playing beside a small brook with some other children, forming pools of water to make clay. (Fun had yet to be invented.) Jesus formed some sparrows out of the clay and, since he was not the figurine-collecting type, decided to give the sculptures life, and off they flew on his command. One of the children playing with Jesus saw this and, rather than thinking, "Holy shit! That kid can create life with a word!", instead walked up behind him and started splashing his pools with a stick. And Christ just goes apeshit: "O evil, ungodly, and foolish one, what hurt did the pools and the waters do thee? Behold, now also thou shalt be withered like a tree, and shalt not bear leaves, neither root, nor fruit." And straightway that lad withered up wholly. -- Infancy Gospel of Thomas 3:2-3 And, like the Nazi archaeologist in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the boy started aging rapidly and withered away. Sure, it would've been easier just to kill the kid, but this is Jesus Christ we're talking about here. He's not just gonna up and waste some kid. Right? Well... In Thomas' version of events, later that same day as Jesus was casually strolling around town, running divine errands, another boy accidentally bumped into him on the street. So what would Jesus do? He'd probably use his divine presence to heal the boy of being clumsy, right? Let's see: Jesus was provoked and said unto him, "Thou shalt not finish thy course." And immediately he fell down and died. -- Infancy Gospel of Thomas 4:1 Wait. He just straight up murdered a kid for brushing against him. Far be it from us to question the judgment of the Son of God, but being sentenced to death for scuffing Christ's sandals seems excessive. Maybe if the kid had been walking exceedingly slow right in the center of a path so he couldn't get past him and was just obliviously yakking away on his phone while, like, eight people stuck behind him were trying to get somewhere and seriously if you would just move four inches to one side we could get past and GODDAMN IT DON'T STOP SO THAT WE ALMOST RUN INTO YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH -- maybe that's a walking crime worthy of divine capital punishment. But wasting a kid because he touches your arm? Jesus was like a bully in an 80s high school movie, if they had been able to murder people with words. By now Jesus is dominating Nazareth like Lord Humungus dominates The Road Warrior's wasteland. The local children feared him so intensely that they adopted him as their king and acted as his bodyguards -- forcing everyone who passed through town to come and worship him. One day a group of men came by carrying a small child, and they refused to follow a group of terrified children just for the honor of worshipping their bully king. Jesus catches wind of this and asks exactly what it is they're doing that's so important they can't reserve some time for random child worship. They explain that the boy they're carrying was bitten by a snake and is near death, and would he terribly mind taking his boot off their necks, because they're so, so sorry. Jesus Christ (more sci-fi warlord than beacon of forgiveness in this version of the Bible), says simply, "Let us go and kill that serpent," and storms off into the woods to do what he does best: extravagant murder. Jesus demands the snake suck back out its poison, then even after it acquiesces to Jesus' demands, the snake is still blown to crap by the power of God for doing what's in its nature. By now the parents of Nazareth were understandably upset: Jesus was walking around town ruining little kids left, right, and centre. So they gave Joseph an ultimatum: Either Jesus learns to use his powers for good, or the family has to leave town. Considering that, by this point, Jesus has killed more kids than a Willy Wonka tour group, that sounded pretty reasonable. But Christ was having none of this insubordination and instead of repentance for being a superpowered little shit, he struck his accusers blind. And that was the last straw: Joseph finally decided to discipline his son. But what do you do in response to a list of crimes more befitting a Grand Theft Auto sequel than a holy child? Grounding? Caning? Imprisonment? None of the above. Joseph grabbed Jesus' ear and "wrung it til it was sore." You may laugh, but in the end Jesus does end up uncursing everybody; just not out of some well-deserved sense of remorse or the slightest hint of empathy or anything. Eventually, a local teacher starts frantically screaming to everybody that Jesus Christ is probably God, after a Good Will Hunting-style display of intelligence at his Nazareth grade school. Funny, you'd think the boy's ability to kill with words would have clued everyone in sooner. Now that the secret's out (the kid laying siege to entire countries with his superpowers is-- surprise -- extraordinary), Jesus figures he may as well reverse all the death and destruction because, hey, once you get your propers, there's just no reason to blast them bitches no more. If you take one thing away from this, let it be that Jesus Christ wasn't born the Gandhi-like paragon of peace you know him as. He's more like a reformed con: sick of the game because he lived it too hard for too long. If there are two things that you take away from this, let the second be that the power of Christ is terrifying. Sure, miracles like bread splitting or wine making might seem a bit dull, but that's just because the church decided that the part where Jesus became the snake-melting dragonmaster was a little too terrifying for your delicate sensibilities. You straight up can't handle that much Jesus. * * * * The Acts Of Andrew is generally believed to be the earliest apocryphal "Act," and its runaway success inspired a lot of unauthorized sequels. Prequels, actually, since (spoiler alert!) Andrew dies at the end. The story follows everyone's favorite super-apostle as he wrecks shit across the ancient world. Andrew responds to even minor setbacks by summoning earthquakes, and his main method of persuading people to convert is murdering them and then resurrecting them once they've seen the other side. And his methods are surprisingly effective. A troop of soldiers try to arrest him, but drop dead immediately, while a snake that annoys him vomits blood until it dies. Andrew personally smites demons disguised as a pack of vicious dogs that have been running around murdering people, because dog murder is only cool if it's for Thomas. The wife and steward of the proconsul Lesbius make trouble for a Christian, so "as they bathed, an ugly demon came and killed them both." Andrew brings them back later, because that's how he do. By my count, he resurrects 48 people over the course of the fairly short text. At one point, a Roman governor tries to feed him to a leopard, and Andrew makes the leopard strangle the governor's son. Astute cat-noticers will observe that leopards don't have hands, so this was doubly impressive. When the time comes for Andrew to be martyred, he has to coax the soldiers to tie him to the cross, since they are (understandably) hiding quite a long way away. Andrew hangs there, laughing and preaching, for three days -- as if crucifixion was just a cool way to chill. He even has to berate the terrified governor out of trying to cut him down. When a mob forces the governor to try again, Andrew shows them who's boss by asking God to kill him immediately. At least he died as he lived: terrifying everyone in a 30-mile radius. In Acts Of Peter And Andrew, Peter is chatting with some friends when Andrew surfs up on a glowing cloud (Andrew is basically Goku Black in all these texts) and tells Peter about his success with the cannibals. Jesus appears and tells them both they can have one hour to rest before they head off to another famous city of barbarians, because this was well before labour laws. When they get to the city, they find that the locals have tried to ward them off by forcing a ***** woman to stand in the gate, but Andrew says he can solve this little problem. Peter, not exactly Andrew's biggest fan since he threw a fit about helping a farmer on the journey, unenthusiastically mutters, "Do as you will." Within seconds, Andrew has the screaming woman suspended in midair by her hair while the apostles hustle by beneath her. Peter and Andrew may be an odd couple, but they sure do have each other's back in a crisis, like when a rich man starts beating Andrew. Peter commands him to stop, and quotes Jesus' line about how it's "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go into the Kingdom of Heaven." In response, the rich guy starts stops beating Andrew and starts choking Peter with a scarf. He then agrees to convert, but only if Peter can show him a camel literally going through the eye of a needle. And for some reason, Peter takes him up on it. Three times. The fourth time, just to show off, he manages to cram a camel and its rider through the needle. Now that's how you convert a city, Andrew! The Acts Of Andrew And Matthias Among The Man-Eaters is possibly the best pulp title of the Biblical era. It all starts when the apostles draw lots to decide which countries they'll go preach in. Andrew gets central Greece, Thomas gets India, and Matthias gets Cannibal City, which must have been kind of a bummer. And it isn't just a name. As soon as Matthias steps through the gate, the cannibals grab him and gouge out his eyes. They also give him a special drug that makes their captives act like cows, because you really have to up your twist game if you want to compete in the Biblical genre. Fortunately, Jesus immediately gives him his eyes back (though Matthias has to keep them closed so the cannibals, a naturally untrusting people, don't get suspicious). He then orders Andrew to come to Matthias' rescue, giving him a special magic boat so he can make the journey in a mere three days. After Jesus and Andrew zoom up in their speedboat to save Matthias from cowboy cannibals, Andrew makes the sign of the cross and the guards all drop dead, allowing him to heal the minds of the cow-men. After teleporting everyone else to one of Peter's sermons, Andrew turns himself invisible and really starts to kick ass, rampaging around the city turning cannibal hands to stone and having the earth swallow them whole. With his henchmen getting wrecked, it's clearly time for the supervillain to reveal himself. Yes, Satan materializes in the form of an old man and takes control of the cannibals, commanding them to drag Andrew through the streets until "his flesh stuck to the ground, and his blood flowed." Don't worry, Andrew finally wins by enclosing the city in a wall of fire and having a pagan statue spew acid from its mouth, which is "eating them up exceedingly." Unsurprisingly, they quickly promise to stop being cannibals and become Christians if Andrew simply agrees to leave within the week. The Acts Of Thomas starts when the comparatively lucky son of a bitch draws India as his turf but then refuses to go, giving him the distinction of being one of the few documented people to make adult Jesus lose his cool. Jesus intervenes by secretly selling Thomas as a slave to an Indian merchant, because when Jesus says you're going somewhere, you can go the easy way or the hard way. Thomas' little adventure with slavery doesn't teach him much humility. When a cupbearer lightly cuffs him around the head for being a jerk at a party, Thomas calmly informs him that he'll see him eaten by dogs. A short time later, a dog wanders into the party, dragging the severed hand that struck Thomas. The rest of the cupbearer's body is later found with its limbs torn off and "members seized" by a pack of dogs, and also a lion for good measure. Thomas then fills time with some villain-of-the-week stuff. He battles a dragon, then a creepy rape demon, then he gives a sermon on the evils of promiscuity and a young convert immediately murders his girlfriend. Thomas kind of takes that in stride and resurrects her, and the story ends with her grisly description of the horrors of Hell, where damned souls hang by their hair and tongues over pits of fire. She also saw "infants heaped upon each other, and struggling and lying upon each other," with a helpful demon explaining that they're kids born out of wedlock. Of course the afterlife has docents. * * * * The 2nd century Acts Of Paul And Thecla tells the story of a rich young woman who overhears the Apostle Paul preaching and immediately goes nuts for Christianity. That is not an exaggeration. When Thecla starts "wallowing" in the dirt Paul sits on, the people of her city decide things have gone a little far and try to get her the help she needs. Which back in the day meant burning her at the stake. Luckily, God sends a mighty thunderstorm to put out the flames, and Thecla joins Paul to preach the good word. When they arrive in Antioch, Thecla cuts her hair short to disguise herself as a boy. It doesn't work great. As soon as they enter the city, a rich guy screams that she's the hottest women he's ever seen and starts trying to grope her on the street. Thecla beats him up and he runs to the governor, who sentences her to be torn apart by wild animals. This outrages the women of Antioch, who are completely on board with pervy old street-fondlers getting the shit kicked out of them. Meanwhile, Paul pretends not to know her and skips town. Thecla is thrown into the arena, but the vicious lioness that's supposed to tear her apart instead licks her hand, and then begins fighting off the male animals while the women in the crowd cheer. This doesn't work, and the lioness is killed just as surely as Thecla is about to be. Determined not to die unbaptized, Thecla jumps into a nearby vat of ferocious man-eating seals. The crowd screams, but God comes through with the assist yet again, shooting lightning at each seal and leaving Thecla encased in "a cloud of fire." At this point, the governor gets so frustrated that he somehow ties Thecla to some bulls and burns their balls in an effort to persuade them to tear her apart. But the fire only burns up the ropes, and the governor finally relents. The local women all convert to Christianity, and Thecla leaves to find Paul, who is "astonished" to see her alive. With his blessing, she becomes a famous preacher and lives to the ripe old age of 90. Interestingly, although this book was apparently very popular with early Christians, church fathers like Tertulian declared that the story couldn't possibly be true. Not because of the Christian lions, man-eating seals, or people living to be what were wizard years at that time, mind you -- it was because the story implied that women could perform baptisms. * * * * In the Acts Of John, our boy is the nicest, humblest, sweetest guy around. What Andrew would solve with fireballs, John solves with friendship, and he responds to minor slights with chuckles rather than having people eaten by rats or whatever, like Thomas. Unfortunately, John still lives in the same world of unrelenting horror as the other apostles. John has a premonition in which a youth having an affair with another man's wife butchers the couple before committing suicide. John arrives to find that the youth has already killed his father and is sprinting toward the couple's house waving a bloody knife. Andrew would already be summoning Leviathan, but John just calms things down, raises the father from the dead, and tells the youth he'll let him off with a warning if he promises not to attempt any more triple murder-suicides. John then preaches a little sermon on chastity which impresses the youth so much that he immediately castrates himself with a sickle, bursts into his lover's bedroom, and throws the severed genitals at her feet. The text considers this a happy outcome for everyone, and John meanders off to continue spreading the good news. Later, a follower of John's named Drusiana dies, and local perverts Fortunatus and Callimachus break into her tomb for, you know, pervert reasons. Suddenly a huge venomous snake appears and bites Fortunatus, then pins Callimachus down and sits on him until morning, when John shows up to bless the body. John orders the snake to get off Callimachus, who is so grateful that he immediately repents and converts. John also resurrects Fortunatus to give him a chance at repentance. Fortunatus mulls it over and decides he'd prefer to be dead, all things considered. Given that Gods most prolific creation appears to be mental illness, this seems reasonable.