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Originally Posted by Chris
I'd certainly take issue with the phrase 'covered up'.
During the first few centuries the church existed there were several councils held, at which representatives of local churches came from far and wide to agree on matters of faith and doctrine - the books that should be included in the Bible formed part of those discussions.
These councils are well documented, considering how long ago they happened. There is no 'cover up' because it is there on parchment that texts were discussed and accepted or rejected. as for what happened to rejected texts after that - well, seeing as the churches weren't interested in preserving them in the body of work that became known as the New Testament, they were only ever going to be preserved by those groups of people that still adhered to the variations on Christianity that they contained. In time they simply died out.
Add to that the fact that in the first 5 centuries or so AD, there simply wasn't a big, powerful, Catholic Church of the kind that existed later. The catholic (i.e. universal) early church was a far looser affair. Whether or not you believe the modern Church of Rome to be the malevolent, brooding and shadowy organisation portrayed by Dan Brown and certain sections of the media last week, that organisation simply wasn't around to cover anything up.
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In fairness, I don't believe the documentary implied the Dan Brown style cover up you said beyond stating that certain documents that disagreed with established beliefs were possibly not included for that reason.