You probably already know that the Bible you have on your lap as you fact-check Cracked articles has been heavily edited. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that, as you can imagine, over the centuries lots of people have tried adding their own books to it, to advance an agenda or because they thought it would spice things up.

The point is, there are whole other books that used to be part of the Bible, until someone took a hard look and said, "No way." And it's too bad, because some of the miracles performed in these apocryphal texts are freaking amazing.

#5. John: Commander of Bed Bugs

Wikipedia

Early Christians considered The Acts of John to be the gospel truth, just like the Four Gospels and the fact that it's going to rain right after you get your car washed. That is, until church officials took a harder look at the stories in the book in 325. Not only was The Acts of John bounced out of the Bible, but the church burned all known copies. That's how bananas it was. Keep that in mind as you read further.

Quinn Rooney/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images
"And it came to pass that the LORD did a sick-ass back flip, and the panties did fly with the wings of a dove."

So, John is traveling around to spread the gospel as far as he can and has amassed a decent following. The group he is traveling with comes to an abandoned inn, and they decide to rest for the night. Too bad there's only one bed, which obviously goes to John. Double too bad that the bed is full of bed bugs. How do the apostles know? Because John talks to them. Not the friends, the bugs:

I say unto you, O bugs, behave yourselves, one and all, and leave your abode for this night and remain quiet in one place, and keep your distance from the servants of God.

"Behave yourselves," he says, like he's talking to a pre-K room of humans or characters in an Austin Powers movie. The next morning, when the group wakes up, they see a brigade of bed bugs standing patiently outside the door of the inn, waiting:

"Since ye have well behaved yourselves in hearkening to my rebuke, come unto your place."

Pixland/Pixland/Getty Images
"But wipe your damn feet, I just mopped!"

John invites the bed bugs back into the house, and they immediately crawl back into the bed and disappear into the crevices. Win-win for everyone.

#4. Peter, the Talking Dog and the Resurrected Fish

Comstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images

If The Acts of Peter are to be believed, Peter was like that kid who would eat hot sauce laced with dirt if you just dared him hard enough. He'd do anything to convince unbelievers he was a true representative of God, which kind of makes sense if you remember that Peter was the guy who denied even knowing Jesus three times the night before the Crucifixion. He had a lot of making up to do.

Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images
"We don't even have a number for how many Hail Marys that is. Just keep praying till I tell you to stop."

Now, we're going to go more into this in a minute, but Peter had a bizarre grudge against a Jewish magician named Simon. Simon, according to Peter, was leading people astray and sullying God's name. In Peter's head, the whole Simon thing could be solved with a few miracles. Miracle One: Give a dog the voice of a man to send a warning.

And Peter, seeing a great dog bound with a strong chain, went to him and loosed him, and when he was loosed the dog received a man's voice and said unto Peter: What dost thou bid me to do, thou servant of the unspeakable and living God? Peter said unto him: Go in and say unto Simon in the midst of his company: Peter saith unto thee, Come forth abroad, for thy sake am I come to Rome, thou wicked one and deceiver of simple souls.

Oh, shiiiiit. Peter just summoned Simon via dog. VIA DOG. And check this out.

And immediately the dog ran and entered in, and rushed into the midst of them that were with Simon, and lifted up his forefeet and in a loud voice said ...

What he said was not important. He said what Peter told him to say, which, P.S., isn't too crazy in the Bible world since a donkey got the power of speech in the Old Testament. What's crazy is that this dog stands up to deliver the message. He stood up like people. This dog becomes the star of the show, which kind of plays out like a low-rent soap opera.

But Simon saith to the dog: Say that I am not here.

Jupiterimages/Polka Dot/Getty Images
"Just be cool and cover for me, dude."

To which Dog replies:

Hast thou taken thought so long, to say at last: 'Tell him that I am not within?' Art thou not ashamed to utter thy feeble and useless words against Peter the minister and apostle of Christ.

Simon gets shamed by a walking, shockingly eloquent dog. Eventually Dog reports back to Peter.

And when the dog had said this he fell down at the apostle Peter's feet and gave up the ghost.

He died. The dog died. And still the people weren't totally convinced Peter was the real deal. Maybe because HE KILLED A DOG to prove a point. So Peter, Jesus' favorite *&%^$#@Eup, makes things right with another miracle. He looks around the room and, completely overlooking the fact that the greatest dog that has ever lived is lying dead right in front of him, notices a smoked herring (or sardine, depending on the translation) in the window and asks the crowd if he should resurrect it:

If ye now see this swimming in the water like a fish, will ye be able to believe in him whom I preach?

Ryan McVay/Photodisc/Getty Images
Only if it sings "Putting on the Ritz."

"Pleeeeeease?" (We're imagining he was kind of whiney about it.) The crowd agrees that seeing a dead fish swim would be enough of a sign for them to believe Peter. So Peter steps over the dead dog, grabs the fish, and throws what is undoubtedly someone's supper into a bath. It immediately starts swimming. The next thing you know ...

And seeing this, many followed Peter and believed in the Lord.

Talking, walking dog, not so much. A resurrected fish? Truly your God is the one and only true God.

#3. Jesus Returns as a Giant

Michael Regan/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

Most of us have seen enough church to know the story of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. He's buried in a tomb, which is kind of like a cave with a big rock in front of it. Three days after his death, there's a great commotion, and one or two angels come down from heaven to roll away the stone blocking the tomb. Jesus emerges and proceeds to rock history with his message.

Photodisc/Digital Vision/Getty Images
Complete with a 20-minute guitar solo.

But when fragments of The Gospel of Peter were found buried in Egypt in 1886, the details of the resurrection story were a little different. The first to get on the scene on Easter Sunday see this:

... they saw again three men come out of the sepulchre, and two of them sustaining the other, and a cross following, after them. And of the two they saw that their heads reached unto heaven, but of him that was led by them that it overpassed the heavens. And they heard a voice out of the heavens saying: "Hast thou (or Thou hast) preached unto them that sleep?" And an answer was heard from the cross, saying: "Yea."

Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
"Would you mind taking him down? He's starting to get a little heavy."

When the angels and Jesus get out of the tomb where Jesus used to be dead, they turn into giants. The angels' heads reach up to the clouds and Jesus' noggin went up even further so that he can have some one-on-one time with God. Then God says,

"DID YOU GO TALK TO THE UNDEAD YET?"

"YEAH," said the cross.

"Yes," the cross answered. We don't even know if the cross was walking along on its own legs or bouncing behind them like a pogo stick. Maybe it had a mouth. The writer didn't specify. Honestly, if you've got a choice between staring at giant Jesus and an anthropomorphic cross, where are you going to look? It's no wonder he didn't get all the details down.

#2. Jesus is a Talking Star

Comstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images

The Revelation of the Magi is a newly translated tale of the Christmas story from the perspective of the wise men (Magi) who brought gifts to the baby Jesus. It starts off as most Christmas stories do, with a tight-fisted old grump learning the meaning of the season and Santa secretly being real all along. Also, the birth of baby Jesus triggers an astronomical anomaly that lures curious well-wishers.

Tsuruya
Sadly, the only record is text since it happened before the invention of Russia and dash cams.

Now, in the version you know, the star was just a bright spot in the night sky, gently guiding the Magi to a stable in Bethlehem. In this apocryphal version, the star descends from the desert sky, hangs out in a "Cave of Treasures of Hidden Mysteries" and has baby arms that beckon the wise men to him.

And (something) like the hand of a small person drew near in our eyes from the pillar and the star � and we saw the star enter the Cave of Treasures and Hidden Mysteries and the cave shone beyond measure.

Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images
"And within the cave we found a blue genie who would not shut the hell up."

So the star is a little person. That person is Jesus the Pre-Born Star Child. Star Jesus tells the Wise Men his whole future -- all of it. Starting with how he's going to get born at any second now.

I will be born like a human being. And again, worship me there: Even now, as I am speaking with you, I am also there.

So even as Mary is pushing through her contractions, Star Child Jesus is off in the desert in a cave, chilling with some exotic foreigners. And can you blame him? If you were all-knowing while getting birthed, wouldn't you want to get the hell out of town?

Polka Dot Images/Polka Dot/Getty Images
"Call me when you're ready for the circumcision!"

Jesus goes on to explain, like, how he's going to eventually die on a cross and tells them to take all the treasures in the cave and bring them to come meet ... himself ... again, presumably so they can to turn them over to baby Jesus when they get to Bethlehem. In this version of the Nativity, Jesus is both a star and a hustler.

The Magi then set off on their journey as the Jesustar leads them, but the star doesn't just stay in the sky in the direction that the Magi should follow. The star is literally leading them along. The star gives them food and makes it so they don't tire out. They can walk day and night because the star outshines even the sun. The star levels mountains, allows the Magi to walk on water, and ...

when we crossed into the places [of beasts and vicious snakes], we trampled them with our feet.

... walk on animals, before finally reaching their destination.

#1. Peter the Wizard-Slayer

Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images

So you're hanging out in Rome when word gets out that there's going to be a wizard battle: The forces of good are challenging the forces of evil. "Sweet!" you say, before discretely dropping a Horcrux. Before you know it the Bad Wizard proves his superior powers by flying above the city. If any of this sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of Voldemort and Dumbledore/Harry Potter, except things didn't end up nearly as awful for He Who Must Have Apnea Because He Doesn't Have a Nose.

Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty Images
It's hard to take a supervillain seriously when they sound like they have a perpetual sinus cold.

Now, to pick up where we left off with Peter and Simon the magician ... Peter's given a dog a voice and resurrected a fish, so Simon knows he's got to do something huge to win back his followers. Good thing HE KNOWS HOW TO FLY. For real, Simon goes up to a high place and begins flying over Rome.

... Peter seeing the strangeness of the sight cried unto the Lord Jesus Christ: If thou suffer this man to accomplish that which he hath set about, now will all they that have believed on thee be offended, and the signs and wonders which thou hast given them through me will not be believed: Hasten thy grace, O Lord, and let him fall from the height and be disabled; and let him not die but be brought to nought, and break his leg in three places. And he fell from the height and broke his leg in three places.

Tsu Dho Nimh
And in three places his leg did break.

What the hell? First up, the guy that's not on God's side can fly. Peter can't fly, but the allegedly dark lord of magic who's leading believers astray can fly. Second up, fresh off the wisdom of "Do unto others as you'd have done to you" and "Turn the other cheek," Peter, the foundation of the Christian Church and the first pope, asks God to make this man fall to the ground and break his leg in three places. And because God is petty, he does exactly what Peter asks -- and more.

No sooner had Simon fallen to the ground and shattered his leg, than

... every man cast stones at him and went away home.

Goodshoot/Goodshoot/Getty Images
Worst flash mob ever.

That's right, Simon is writhing around on the ground in pain with a broken leg, and the crowd stones him. Simon later dies while having his leg operated on. So instead of praying for Simon to have a quick and painless death, he ends up putting Simon through the worst physical and emotional pain imaginable, which eventually leads to his death. Apparently God works prayers on genie wish rules. Peter appears to want to show Simon some mercy, and we can just picture God saying, "As you wish. Wink." Yes, we picture God as the type of person who says "Wink" when they wink.

So you can probably see why this torture PICS of a gospel didn't make it into the canon.