One of my favorites is the Protoevangelium of James, which tries to deal with the inconsistency of Herod killing all the children of a certain age along with th

One of my favorites is the Protoevangelium of James, which tries to deal with the inconsistency of Herod killing all the children of a certain age along with the suggestion John the Baptist was in the womb at the same time as Jesus. The gospel claims that John's mother, Elizabeth, was just sort of "swallowed" by a mountain for a while, in what always struck me as a pretty hamfisted retcon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_James http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_James But yeah, these have been available for a long time. Wider readership could possibly erode support for the Church, as people realize just how pedestrian and hamfisted some of the early Church writings were, and they might start to read the gospels more critically. Maybe, maybe not. The barrier to wider readership isn't a conspiracy so much as mass laziness though.