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If Peter Benchly were to write about a man-eating shark - and he did in the novel Jaws - then anyone who would use his characters to write other stories related to his original novel would be writing "fan fiction." In other words, fans of the original write fiction that is loosely based on the original. In fan fiction, the fan writer can do whatever he or she wants to do with the original story and character - unbound by the original author or the original author's intent for the story. 

There is a line of belief - popularized by movies such as the DaVinci Code - that makes a claim that the gnostic gospels should have been included with, if not elevated above, the writings we have in our New Testament. However, critical and scholarly analysis of these writings - famously found at Nag Hamadi and Oxyrhincus - are written much later than the books of our New Testament. The stories in these writings contradict the inerrant writings of the Bible - clear evidence that the writer did not humble himself to Scripture, but rather attempted append , skew, or just engage in fictionalizing the strictures of our biblical texts. 

You can identify one of these writings by their name. Some of the most prominent are: The Gospel of Thomas , the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Truth, the Apocryphon of John (Secret Book of John), and the Gospel of Mary.

People in our current age latch on to these extra-biblical writings because they provide an escape hatch from orthodox biblical Christianity. Why would modern man submit himself to the authority of our God-given Scripture, when there is a very soft alternative theory, albeit a theory that has been historically and literarily disproven as an honest competitor with the Bible. 

The heart of man is continually looking for an escape from his creator. The Gnostic Gospels are simply another vehicle used to attempt running from God's revealed Word. 

The academic discussion is in the video below!