There are several reasons why these texts were not included in the canon. The texts might only have been known to few people, or they might have been left out because their content does not fit well into that of the other books of the Bible.

A: In the Bible, cremation is not labeled a sinful practice. Some biblical references of burning a person with fire seem to suggest the type of life they lived – the enemies of God and God’s laws were promptly cremated as a form of capital punishment.

Catholics believe in Heaven, Hell, and something called Purgatory that has two purposes: a temporal punishment for sin, and the cleansing from the attachment to sin. Purgatory purifies the soul before the soul’s grand entrance into heaven.

The Gospel of John says there was a garden at Golgotha, and a tomb which had never been used. Since the tomb was nearby, John says, that’s where Jesus’s body was placed. According to tradition, she discovered relics of the cross upon which Jesus had been crucified.

Seven Signs

• Changing water into wine at Cana in John 2:1-11 – “the first of the signs”
• Healing the royal official’s son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54.
• Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1-15.
• Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5-14.
• Jesus walking on water in John 6:16-24.
• Healing the man blind from birth in John 9:1-7.

And they pressured Pilate, the only one with power to impose a death sentence, to call for his crucifixion. Contrary to the depiction of Pilate as a merciless ruler by Philo and Josephus, all four Gospels portray him as a vacillating judge.

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for a crime. The sentence ordering that someone is punished with the death penalty is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out such a sentence is known as an execution.

According to the canonical gospels, Jesus was arrested and tried by the Sanhedrin, and then sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally crucified by the Romans. It portrays his death as a sacrifice for sin.

The Bible speaks in favour of the death penalty for murder. But it also prescribes it for 35 other crimes that we no longer regard as deserving the death penalty. In order to be consistent, humanity should remove the death penalty for murder.

It is forbidden to murder, as it says “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17).

In the Hebrew Bible, Exodus 21:12 states that “whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.” In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus, however, rejects the notion of retribution when he says “if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”