The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Barnabas, the Gospel of Judas (and a few more) are not included in the New Testament, but the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are. Why? Was there some secret church meeting in cahoots with the Roman empire to cover-up the real Jesus by enforcing only certain books?
Ragnar Oborn
No, there was no secret church meeting (with votes etc) to decide which writings to included in the Bible and which to not include. Yes, lists were made of books that were in the Bible, but the lists did not say which books to include, but rather which ones were being used already. Because these were used and accepted already, these books were the ones that were 'in'.
Basically the criterion that people used from the very first to determine whether a book was credible or not was whether the writings were inspired by God. In order to show this divine inspiration, they had to come from, or be associated with, an apostle - one who knew Jesus personally and had been commissioned by him for public ministry. In other words:
1) Writings that are not included in the Bible (ex. Gospel of Thomas) were written much later than the period of the apostolic eyewitness accounts of Jesus so they could not have the same authority.
2) The early church immediately accepted the same books that are now in the New Testament as inspired scripture (with some discussion).
3) Lists that were drawn up reflected what was already accepted, not what (by church decree) was to be accepted.
4) The accepted books were thus the ones written in the 1st century by apostles - eyewitnesses of Jesus