This full length documentary is not strictly for believers, rather it consists of a series of commentaries by academics, secular and not so, on the books that could have gone into the Christian "Bible" but didn't. Some were lost, unintentionally or otherwise, some were not considered authentic, and some were a definite no-no. This is not the "Apocrypha", but books like the "Infancy Gospel Of Jesus" that shows a somewhat different and some might say unacceptable side to the boy Christ. The Council Of Nicea is covered but not the later Council Of Trent. Sadly, feminist propaganda is injected into the film by a female contributor; women were seen to be unworthy of becoming disciples, we are told, which is why the "Gospel Of Mary" was mislaid. In view of the fates of the Disciples, this was not necessarily a bad thing for women.

I am a graduate student in Christian Theology and I found the information in this documentary pretty comparable to what we study in class, so therefore in sync with contemporary scholarship. There is a lot of information that goes into understanding the Biblical texts, and part of that understanding comes with knowing the historical context that brought about the composition of the Canon. There were various texts being used depending on what part of the world you were in. Also, some words, symbols, or actions had cultural significance and even different meanings from what they would mean today, and we don't pick up on these things automatically as the ancient Jewish culture would have because our society is so different. I think this documentary did a good job of representing the scholarship in its time frame. It wasn't a perfect representation of all of the scholarship that's out there, but it was still decent.

Kudos for attempting such an ambitious and controversial look at ancient books that relate to scripture and might even have become scripture. There is a lot of information here, and much of it is even true. I must complain that I disagreed with the assertion that bishop Arius believed that Jesus was just human. He thought Jesus was of like substance with God the Father, which was not the answer his colleagues were looking for (they said, exact same substance) but neither is it the same as saying Jesus was not divine: like substance sets Jesus apart from ordinary men; he was divine according to Arius, just distinguishable from the Father. Talking head John Dominic Crosson implied this and would have said it, but the filmmakers had made up their minds and went with the simplistic characterization. Anyway, I recommend this documentary for its breadth despite my quibbles.

I absolutely hated it, it was so very inaccurate in the interviews and in what they said it had me yelling at the TV!! The show had very little evidence to support what it was saying as well as even having the right to say books were banned from the bible. They make it sound like a bunch of old guys went into a room one day and said "listen up these books are going to be in the bible OK, alright lets brake for lunch." WHICH NEVER HAPPENED!!! The bible puts together the word of God which is confirmed, the nos-tics were haters of God, in fact they upheld the serpent for mans fall because it brought them knowledge, not caring that it is evil. The nos-tics hated God and lied about him in their texts which were written like 300 years after Jesus and the apostles died. Paul wrote about it in one of his letters warning the church's of these false doctrines, the reason they were called heretics is because they were!!! This complete show outrages me if I could I would have it taken off the air or another version showing the other side of view showing the real bible and not calling it politics. May God have MERCY ON THE SOUL WHO CREATED THIS HORRIBLE FILM, I hope the brainwashing of these creators of destructive material can be undone just as the corrupted information on the discovery channel.