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What Are The Lost Books Of The Bible

Chapters And Verses Of The Bible

The Truth About the Apocrypha and the Lost Books of the Bible

The chapter and verse divisions did not appear in the original texts they form part of the paratext of the Bible. Since the early 13th century, most copies and editions of the Bible present all but the shortest of these books with divisions into chapters, generally a page or so in length. Since the mid-16th century editors have further subdivided each chapter into verses each consisting of a few short lines or sentences. Esther 8:9 is the longest verse in the Bible. Sometimes a sentence spans more than one verse, as in the case of Ephesians 2:89, and sometimes there is more than one sentence in a single verse, as in the case of Genesis 1:2.

The Jewish divisions of the Hebrew text differ at various points from those used by Christians. For instance, in Jewish tradition, the ascriptions to many Psalms are regarded as independent verses or parts of the subsequent verses, whereas established Christian practice treats each Psalm ascription as independent and unnumbered, making 116 more verses in Jewish versions than in the Christian. Some chapter divisions also occur in different places, e.g. Hebrew Bibles have 1 Chronicles 5:27-41 where Christian translations have 1 Chronicles 6:1-15

The Historical Background To The Canon

The question of this article, What are the lost books of the Bible, is an important one, but before we can answer it decisively, we need to understand something of the Early Church background.

During the second century AD, Maricon the heretic produced a list of his approved books of Scripture. He held that the Old Testament god was an evil god of wrath.

In his thinking, this was incompatible with the god of Scripture, so he eliminated the Old Testament in his Bible, along with those places in the New Testament that referred to God in the Old Testament.

To answer Maricon, the Early Church formulated once and for all the list of books in the Canon of Scripture.

All the Church did in recognizing the books was to utilize the books of Scripture that were already in circulation among the Churches.

A few questions were raised about Jude and Johns letters, but the Church quickly determined these were Scripture as they were apostolic, and nothing suspicious was contained in their content.

Several other books, such as the First Letter of Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas, were proposed for inclusion. The Church didnt include them because the authors of these books indicate a difference between their view of authority and the apostles authority.

None of the other books in circulation were seriously considered because the Church deemed them frauds.

The Teachings Of The Resurrected Christ

After studying the four Gospels of the New Testament I became very curious and puzzled about how each of them concluded. Each of them only devotes a short chapter or two to the teachings and activities of Christ after the resurrection. Logically, wouldnt you think that if someone rises from the dead, that this would immediately become the central, electrifying event that becomes the main focus, if not the obsession of the writers to record these events with extreme detail??? Wouldnt you think that the words and deeds of the resurrected Christ would deserve to be the focus of many chapters, if not entire books?? And yet, the New Testament simply says that there were many other things that Jesus did, and that he continued to appear to the disciples and instruct them about the Kingdom of God.

Apparently the post-resurrection teachings of Christ were regarded by the early church as secret or advanced, meant only for those followers who were ready for a deeper commitment to contemplation and the spiritual journey. Clement of Alexandria said that there were introductory gospels for new Christians and more advanced teachings for contemplatives or Gnostics.

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The Nag Hammadi Library Discovery In Egypt

A number of ancient Christian, Sethian , and Hermetic books were discovered near the city of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. This almost 2,000 year old time capsule now known as the Nag Hammadi Library, has set in motion a spiritual revolution. Buried under the sands of Egypt for centuries, these censored and forgotten scriptures from the early years of Gnostic Christianity may impart to spiritual seekers of today, knowledge of several mystical traditions that once existed in the West. This ancient library contains spiritual discourses from Christian, Gnostic, Jewish, Pythagorean, Hermetic and other spiritual movements. What has been returned to us are the teachings of various mystics: Gnostics who initiated their students into the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Light, and wrote down descriptions of their otherworldly journeys into inner space. One of the most talked about books of the Nag Hammadi Library is the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of the wisdom sayings of Jesus on gaining enlightenment/salvation. Thomas is a book in the Jewish tradition of wisdom literature.

The Book Of Pistis Sophia

The Lost Books of the Bible by William Hone, Paperback ...

The largest Gospel ever discovered, Pistis Sophia, was brought to London from Egypt and purchased in 1772 by A. Askew, a London doctor and collector of old Coptic manuscripts. The book was published and one of its most famous readers was the great poet-mystic William Blake, who was greatly influenced by it. This text does document that there was a time when some Christians did believe in the concept of reincarnation and the preexistence of the soul. Like St. Pauls Damascus Road experience recorded in the New Testament, Christ is said to have appeared to His followers as an incredibly brilliant Light and many Rays of Light. Many interesting dialogues between Christ and His initiates are recorded in this document – about eleven years-worth!

Pistis Sophia also contains many beautiful hymns and prayers. Though reincarnation is mentioned as a reality, the goal of salvation was to liberate souls from material captivity, reincarnation, the wheel of fate, and go back to God again. Ignorance was overcome and souls were given the ability to mystically travel from Earth to heaven via the Holy Stream of Light. Jesus said, Seek, all of you, after the Light, so that the power of your soul that is in you may live. Do not cease seeking day or night until you find the mysteries of the Kingdom of Light, which will purify you, make you into pure light and lead you into the Kingdom of the Light. This inner vision of Gods Light took place during periods of solitude: contemplation .

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Sayings Of Jesus About The Light And Sound

The Gospel of Thomas is a sayings Gospel, a collection of the proverbs and parables of Christ about discovering the Kingdom of God. The theme of these sutras of wisdom is that the Supreme Being is Light, our soul is made of Light, and that by contemplating the Living Light we can reenter paradise – find the present tense Kingdom of God. In the Book of Thomas it is recorded that Jesus was a Master who taught His disciples that: we have come from the Light, from the place where the Light came into being by itself, there is Light within a person of Light, and it shines on the whole world, and, if one is whole, one will be filled with Light. Also, He who will drink from my mouth will become like Me I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to that person. The image of drinking from the mouth of Christ is describing the process of listening to the Sound, Word or Voice of God which transforms the listeners, transporting them to the higher or hidden realities of God. The quotes are from, The Gospel of Thomas – The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, Marvin Meyer, published by Harper Collins.

For much, much more on Sound, see my collection of passages in a post titled: Meditation and Sound or Auditory Mysticism in Gnostic & Christian Mysticism

There Are Three Main Categories Of Lost Books As Follows:

The PseudepigraphaSome of the books are called the Pseudepigrapha. The Oxford American Dictionary notes the word originated in the 17th century from the Greek pseudepigraphos, which literally means with false title. Read a list of pseudepigraphical books

Some people who doubt the validity of the Bible feel that these books pose a valid counter to the present makeup of the Bible. They say that because the Pseudepigrapha contains content that counters the existing canon, the decision to exclude the lost books is biased.

Some books have strong support from modern sources, such as the support the Gospel of Judas recently enjoyed from National Geographic. Yet all of them were written long after the original New Testament canon had been closed. These books were never accepted as genuine by the early Church fathers. Read about how early believers chose what to include in the canon

The DidacheAnother lost book” was written just after the time of Christ and is known as the Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. It is thought to have been written between 65 and 80 AD.

The Didache is a catechism or handbook of Christian procedures. Many of the instructions in the Didache are based on Biblical concepts but are added to with rituals and direction that are not supported in the Word of God, as we can see from the section on baptism:

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Which Are The Lost Books Of The Bible

Posted by Navah on Nov 17, 2018

Question: Which are the lost books of the Bible?

Answer: Unfortunately for many scholars, there are the so-called the lost books of the Bible, which are referred to as a reliable source of information throughout the Scripture and more particularly they are:

  • The Book Wars of YHVH
  • The Book of Annals of the Kings of Israel
  • The Book of Annals of the Kings of Yehudah
  • The Book of the Acts of Shlomo
  • The Book of Shemayah the Prophet
  • The Book of Nathan the prophet
  • The Book of Shemayah the prophet
  • The Book of Yehu
  • The Book of Iddo .

These are the lost books of the Bible.

There are books that are not lost, but they are still unaccepted by many scholars: the books of the Apocrypha.

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What Are The Lost Books Of The Bible

The Lost Books Of The Bible | The Catholic Talk Show

There are no lost books of the Bible, or books that were taken out of Scripture, or even books missing from the Bible. Every book that the Lord intended to be in Scripture is there.

The English Bible comprises 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament, totaling 66 books. When men wrote the Bible, they were aware that what they were writing was Scripture.

The faithful community of the people of God recognized these books as scriptures because the Holy Spirit caused them to recognize the Masters voice in them. Each new book was added to the recognized Canon, beginning with the collection Moses began.

The process continued during the Old Testament and into the New Testament. In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter refers to Pauls letters as already part of the Canon of Scripture.

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Lost Books That Are Mentioned In The Bible

This is part 3 of a series of posts titled Relearn the Bible. These four blog posts are written to challenge notions of the Bible held by biblically illiterate Christians, including that the Bible is a magical rule book void of human history, influence, & the need for careful interpretation.

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As Ive mentioned in the past, there is a huge amount of Biblical illiteracy found amongst professing Christians. Stranger still is the large quantity of dogmatic beliefs about the Bible by those who hardly read the Bible. One of these big misconceptions that I have encountered is a gross misappreciation of the human aspect of the holy writings. While calling the Bible The Word of God many forget it was also written by the hand of man. Sometimes people act as though those hands were under a supernatural trance, which robbed the writer of his humanity and individuality. Sometimes there is at least an allusion given to this fact, namely by admitting that God used the local language and culture of the writer as the style of said Biblical book. Yet, even in this the human writer and culture are often presented as excuses for the uniquely human appearance of the text, rather than as part of the model of a mutual convergence of the human and the divine.

What About The Lost Books Of The Bible

In modern studies of the NT canon, there is a lot of discussion with so-called lost books of the Bible. So, we have recent book titles like Lost Scriptures, Forgotten Scriptures, and The Lost Bible.

In fact, scholar Philip Jenkins even wrote a whole book documenting the academic communitys fascination with this theme: Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way.

So what do we with these other books of the New Testament? A few quick thoughts.

First, most of these books werent really lost. The early church fathers were very much aware of these other books. Indeed, they knew them well enough to recognize they were not authentic apostolic writings.

So, no one hid or suppressed these books. On the contrary, early Christians were quite open about the problems with these books and overtly stated why they should be rejected as part of the biblical canon.

Second, most of these lost books werent really that popular. Unfortunately, many modern studies of canon give the impression that early Christians read these lost books in droves. It was only when later church authorities decided to clamp down, we are told, that the popularity of these books waned.

But the historical evidence says otherwise. Yes, church fathers occasionally used apocryphal gospels. However, when we consider the frequency of citation of apocryphal gospels vs. the canonical ones, its not even close.

For more, see this recent video I did for The Gospel Coalition:

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The Gospel According To Mary Magdalene

A few copies of the Gospel of Mary have been found in Egypt. The preeminence of Mary Magdalene in this Gospel gives one excellent example of the leadership roles of women in early Christianity. Mary is described as an apostle, equal in every way to the twelve apostles and part of the inner circle of Jesus. But more than that, Mary was a kind of spiritual successor to Christ, taking over His role as the spiritual teacher of the other disciples. In every way, the text affirms that her leadership of the other disciples is based upon superior spiritual understanding.

As a recipient of the secret teachings of the resurrected Christ, Mary, in her Gospel teaches the other disciples spiritual knowledge and gives detailed accounts of her visions and travels through the higher planes or heavens accompanied by the Radiant Form of her Master, the resurrected Christ. She relays to the other disciples the spiritual instructions, the words of Christ that she heard during these encounters, which probably took place during times of deep prayer – long periods of meditation.

The Bible Is A Unified Book

The Lost Books of the Bible by William Hone, Paperback ...

In Scripture, we see one God, one Creator, and one plan of grace from initiation, through execution to consummation. From predestination to glorification, Scripture tells the story of God redeeming the people of God for His glory.

The redemptive purpose and plan of God unfold in Scripture. The recurring themes of Gods character, judgment for disobedience and sin, the blessing of faith and obedience, the Lord and Savior, and His sacrifice for sin and the coming Kingdom and glory are the focus of Scripture.

The Lords intent is for man to know and understand these themes because our lives are bound up in them. It is unthinkable that the Lord would allow Scripture to be lost in any way.

Scripture is complete, so those who read and understand it might also be complete, and equipped for every good work .

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Are There Missing Books Of The Bible

I remember when I finished reading the Bible for the first time. I was happy with the accomplishment but also sad that there were no more books. It did not take long for me to realize that Gods Word is inexhaustible. Some 20 years later and many more times through the Bible, I realize that Ill never finish reading Gods Word.

Yet after that first read through I was indeed disappointed that Id read the whole story that is until I picked up my friends Bible. She was from a Catholic background and as I thumbed through her Bible, I realized that there were seven books that Id never read before. Were these Scripture too? Was my Bible missing books?

On occasion that question will press upon believers. In the early 2000s, with the release of Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code, this question became prominent again. This time the concern was over a different set of books that some thought were taken out of the Bible.

So, do we have the complete Bible? Are there books that are missing?

Light Mysticism Of The Gnostic Contemplatives Thenand Now

One of the central teachings of Gnostic Saints was the experience of the inner Light. In fact, having visions of divine Light is a universal experience. People around the world in all cultures have recorded visions of heaven and encounters with the Light within. Many have eloquently described in their sacred texts encounters with Light coming from beyond the darkness. Many saints and mystics, including those who wrote various Nag Hammadi texts, describe God, the Supreme Being as a GOD OF ALL-ENCOMPASSING, PURE, BRILLIANT LIGHT. They also believe that we, as souls are sparks of the Light, that we are, in reality, Children of the Light.

The experience of Light mysticism takes place during ones time of contemplative prayer meditation).

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