New Testament apocrypha in the context of "Gospel of Nicodemus"

The parables of Jesus are found in the Synoptic Gospels and some of the non-canonical gospels. They form approximately one third of his recorded teachings. Christians place great emphasis on these parables, which they generally regard as the words of Jesus.

Jesus's parables are seemingly simple and memorable stories, often with imagery, and all teach a lesson in daily life. Scholars have commented that although these parables seem simple, the messages they convey are deep, and central to the teachings of Jesus. Christian authors view them not as mere similitudes that serve the purpose of illustration, but as internal analogies in which nature becomes a witness for the spiritual world.

Acts of Thomas is an early 3rd-century text, one of the New Testament apocrypha within the Acts of the Apostles subgenre. The complete versions that survive are Syriac and Greek. There are many surviving fragments of the text. Scholars detect from the Greek that its original was written in Syriac, which places the Acts of Thomas in Edessa, likely authored before 240 AD. The surviving Syriac manuscripts, however, have been edited to purge them of the most unorthodox overtly Encratite passages, so that the Greek versions reflect the earlier tradition. The earliest external reference to the Acts of Thomas dates to c.225 in Origen's Exegesis on Genesis, although this text is now lost and its citation survives via later texts, e.g. Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History (3.1.1–3).

Fragments of four other cycles of romances around the figure of the apostle Thomas survive, but this is the only complete one. It should not be confused with the early "sayings" Gospel of Thomas. "Like other apocryphal acts combining popular legend and religious propaganda, the work attempts to entertain and instruct. In addition to narratives of Thomas' adventures, its poetic and liturgical elements provide important evidence for early Syrian Christian traditions," according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary.

According to Christian tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary, the wife of Joachim and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the Bible's canonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come from New Testament apocrypha, of which the Gospel of James (written perhaps around 150 AD) seems to be the earliest that mentions them. The mother of Mary is mentioned but not named in the Quran.

Joachim was, according to Christian Sacred tradition, the husband of Saint Anne, the father of Mary (mother of Jesus), and the maternal grandfather of Jesus. The story of Joachim and Anne first appears in the Gospel of James, part of the New Testament apocrypha. His feast day is 26 July, a date shared with Saint Anne.

The flight into Egypt is a story recounted in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 2:13–23) and in New Testament apocrypha. Soon after the visit by the Magi, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus since King Herod would seek the child to kill him. The episode is frequently shown in art, as the final episode of the Nativity of Jesus in art, and was a common component in cycles of the Life of the Virgin as well as the Life of Christ. Within the narrative tradition, iconic representation of the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" developed after the 14th century.

Thecla (Ancient Greek: Θέκλα, Thékla) was a saint of the early Christian Church, and a reported follower of Paul the Apostle. The earliest record of her life comes from the ancient apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla.

The Acts of Timothy (Acta Timothei) are a work of New Testament apocrypha, most likely from the 5th century, which are primarily concerned with portraying the apostle Timothy as the first bishop of Ephesus and describing his death during a violent pagan festival in the same town.