Lost/Ignored/Removed Books of the Bible

[Berserk]

I will confine my remarks to the New Testament.  The church's consensus about our 26 New Testament books was achieved around 200 AD.   The main criterion was to include books attributable to an apostle, i.e. an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus.  Prior to that, various communities were often missing some of these books.  One community included The Shepherd of Hermas, a very boring and repetitive visionary prophetic book (written around 105 AD and later revised), and another church included the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, more commonly known by the French "Didache" (first draft around 50 AD, final form around 95 AD).  Neither book sheds new light on the life of Christ.

The Gospels made "sticky" in this section are either hoaxes or too late to be of any historical value in studying the life of Jesus.  The only exception is the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, which must not be confused with the historically worthless Infancy Gospel of Thomas.  The Coptic Gospel of Thomas consists of 114 sayings of Jesus, some of which may be new genuine sayings.  This Gospel represents the sayings tradition that circulated east of the Jordan River.  Our Gospels represent the sayings tradition that circulated west of the Jordan.  There are several early second century Gospels that have only survived in fragments.  These fragments are interesting but are generally not valued for historically reliable new information about Jesus: the Gospel of Peter; the Gospel of Hebrews; the Gospel of the Nazarenes, and the Gospel of the Ebionites (or literally "the Gospel of the Poor").   The acoount of Jesus' resurrecton appearance to his brother James in Gospel of Hebrews just might be genuine.  Perhaps if a complete manuscript of one of these Gospels were discovered, it might contain genuine Jesus tradition.  All other Gospels you might have read about are much later than these and historically worthless in studying Jesus' life.  Luke implies that there were some early first century Gospels that we no longer have and can't even name (see Luke 1:1-4).  If any of these were discovered, they would no doubt be priceless because of their connection with eyewitness testimony.  Beyond this, some second century church fathers quote about 12 seemingly authentic new sayings of Jesus from oral tradition, not from a written Gospel.  

None of this sheds reliable new light on the missing years of Jesus, i.e. the years between his infancy and baptism by John.  All the extracanonical material about Mary Magdalene and her relationship with Jesus is historically worthless.  

[narfellus]

Thank you Beserk, sounds like you have some of your facts in order. I agree, trying to find hard, unarguable truth in such topics is difficult or not impossible. What we need is the Dead Sea Scrolls 2! Who knows what's out there, buried in some lost cave...

[narfellus]

never heard that one before, but sounds believable. I wonder how children she had before she couldn't anymore, Jesus's family?

[Nick]

Hi narfellus,

Related to what you ask, if not entirely on point, is a work about the early texts and that era. The book is called The Rock of Truth by Arthur Findlay. Here is a link to a thread in this subforum.

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7608

In the thread I've detailed key points in the book. I'd invite you to take a look, and if you then want to dig further, the book is available online.


Very best,
Nick

[narfellus]

I read somewhere that there are quite a few books of the Bible that were left out by the early church in their effort to create their image and interpretation of christianity. Born and raised christian myself, i find this most extraordinary and fascinating. I had NEVER understood why the bible depicted the life of Jesus only from birth and then picked up again in his early 30's? What happened inbetween?

Here is what i have heard, and if anyone can verify or point me to these texts or summaries of these texts, i would be greatly appreciative.

Jesus traveled to India during his early adulthood and practiced Buddhism under a different name. He was married to Mary Magladene and sired two children (known as Nephalim, blood of the divine). This was kept very low key because all of their lives would be in jeopardy. There are books of the Bible that go into more detail about Adam and Eve AFTER the fall, after Cain and Abel, and there are references to the book of Enoch, which is still part of some texts used today.

I've read that there has been incredible misinterpretation and translation problems over the thousands of years since the bible was created, but this does not mar the fact that Jesus was the son of God and his truth and love is still a viable beacon for mankind. What perplexes me is that over the centuries christianity has been used by various groups to propogate fear, control the masses, generate wealth, herd mankind into boxes of belief with no option for free will or thought, and generally lull them into believing that God is outside themselves, unknown, often rathful, and unknowable other than through a intermediary priest, rabbit, etc. The bible has expressed that some people are more valuable to god than others, and this never rang true for me as i believe all men are equal, as we are all God experiencing himself in the flesh.