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Mary Magdalene, too, had a gospel for the New Testament.

She was one of the last to linger as Jesus lay dying on the cross — and the first witness to the empty tomb after the crucifixion, according to Christian teaching.

“She was potentially his closest friend,” said Jennifer Bird, assistant religion professor at Greensboro College, who will lead the upcoming adult Vacation Bible School at St. Paul Presbyterian Church.

The church’s theme, “How We Got Our Bible,” explores the New Testament and those theological questions behind why some writings and perspectives, such as those of Mary Magdelene, were left out.

“I look at what I do as having conversations and inviting people to the table,” Bird said.

A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Bird holds a doctorate in New Testament and early Christianity from Vanderbilt University. She has served as an interim associate pastor at a Presbyterian church in Waco, Texas — and has an interest in the various viewpoints.

How the Bible came to be, she says, is a complicated process.

“People started collecting the letters that Paul wrote, or that people put Paul’s name on,” Bird said. “So we see early on these small collections, that are being copied and passed along to the next community.”

In the early second century, the four Gospels — writings of the followers of Jesus — started appearing with Paul’s work.

“If you have a name attached to these writings, such as an apostle or disciple, then it’s more likely to be revered,” Bird said. “Beyond that you start getting into issues of who had more power and whose ideas were held to be more important.”

Which brings us to Mary Magdalene, whose relationship with Jesus is fodder for the controversial “Da Vinci Code” book and movies.

“This is where it gets to this issue of politics and what I think of as patriarchy at work,” Bird said. “Why was 'Mary’s Gospel’ not kept? ... You can go however 'Da Vinci Code’ you want on that … but why wasn’t her insight kept?”

For example, Roman Catholics included books that were not included in Protestant scriptures, according to church pastor Jay Lambeth, who has studied the history behind the testaments.

Besides all of these, hundreds of other ancient writings deal with God and matters of faith, Lambeth said.

The closed and authoritative list of the books of the Bible have stayed the same since the fourth century, he said.

“We encourage people to come with their questions and the things they want to know more about,” Lambeth said of the adult Bible study.

For example, over time, even some of the gospels associated with the Twelve Disciples don’t make it.

“The ones that didn’t make it tend to have a more Gnostic feel to them,” Bird said.

A collection discovered in upper Egypt in the 1940s — referred to as the Nag Hammadi library — includes The Gospel of Thomas, which included sayings attributed to Jesus, and the Great Sophia, or writings with feminine principles.

“By doing carbon dating we’re pretty sure it was a collection buried in the desert around the time the guys in the church who were making a decision about what should be included started burning ... texts that weren’t part of the collection, such as Gnostic writing,” Bird said.

What’s also interesting to Bird is that of the books that have made it, the Apostle John’s book is the most spiritual — talk of the other world and next life, which is similar to Gnostic thought.

“It’s interesting to me how much of Christianity today reflects the spiritual part, and yet there’s not a lot of content in the Bible that supports that particular perspective. The writings that have been kept out really support that kind of thinking.”

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com