Saw a lot of posts on how they're justifying the decision with text from the Bible, interesting reading.

My question is in regards to what, exactly, various Protestant sects consider "The Bible." (I have a decent general background of Church history thanks to a Catholic high school, but it was a while ago, so let me know if I'm making any flawed assumptions).

Basically, there were a bunch of "gospels" written. Many at different times, in different places, by different people. So the Roman Catholic church went through them all (Council of Trent, maybe?), and went "OK! These Gospels are the real ones. All those others are evil, or fake, or wrong, or whatever. Don't read them, they're apocryphal."

So The New Testement officially became Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts of the Apostles, and then all of those letters that Paul wrote. Everything else was considered non-canonical.


Anyway, assuming all of what I just said is right, are there Protestant sects that have additional Gospels in their Bible? It'd make sense if there were- if you're breaking away from the Catholics, you have no obligation to follow their pronouncements on doctrine.

Because, of course, if there are, then that's relevant to the question of justifying issues like these. For example (though I doubt that the matter would ever be this clear-cut), if the Presbyterians had a Gospel that said "And yea, God looked out upon the seas of Man engaging in casual sodomy, and he saw that it was Good," then... well, that would probably end some arguments right there.


(Although I'm sure there would still be debates about whether or not gay marriage should be allowed, because the Lord only approved of CASUAL sodomy... but I digress)



So, yeah. Are there any variations in the New Testament between branches of Christianity? Only ones I can think of off hand are the Book of Mormon, and that one where everything Jesus says is in red ink.