Lost Books of the Bible – Necessary Or Superfluous? Worthwhile Or a Waste of Time?
These days, nearly everyone has heard of the so-called “lost” books of the Bible, but hardly anyone knows what they actually are, or indeed if they are in fact “lost”. Indeed most people simply assume that if any Biblical books are “lost”, they were undoubtedly lost for good reason. They argue that the sheer size and weight of a Bible is surely proof enough that it contains all the material anyone would want to read. The version that many Protestants favor, the condensed King James, has at least 1,146 pages of tiny print in two columns. On the other hand, the Revised Standard Version has at least 2,024 pages. My 1994 French Bible, produced by the World Biblical Alliance has 1,872 pages. Not to be outdone, the Jerusalem Bible, the approved version for Roman Catholics and High Church Episcopalians, has 2,072!
By “lost”, what many Biblical commentators actually mean, of course, is simply all the ancient religious works not included in most approved Protestant Bibles. These run into hundreds. If you count all the works that are really either wholly or partly “lost”, the number reaches into the thousands.
It can be argued that more than enough “approved” books have survived, to make any additional material either superfluous or unnecessary. The Bible already contains a large amount of repetitive material, including two versions of the Creation story, two lists of the Ten Commandments, two laudatory histories of King David, and no less than five accounts of the captivity in Babylon. In The New Testament, it is argued that all but a few verses of Mark’s Gospel can be found in Matthew and/or Luke. So what need have we of Mark?
This is surely the point. Our knowledge of the Messiah would be considerably less if we did not have Peter’s reminiscences in his own words, as faithfully recorded by his young secretary, John Mark. Often to suit their own purposes, both Matthew and Luke take it upon themselves to change Peter’s adjectives. In one instance when Peter remarks that Jesus was “extremely angry”, the other evangelists change this description to “extremely concerned”. We know that the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” delineation existed almost from the very first. This is the Jesus portrayed by Matthew and Luke, but it is not the Jesus that Peter saw, heard, and witnessed in action.
So rather than being superfluous, other accounts of the same people and the same events are often told from an entirely different perspective. Another example, is the co-called “First Book of Esdras” (which is usually omitted from Roman Catholic Bibles, even though it appears in the Latin version approved and authorized by the Pope) which duplicates material in Second Chronicles and the whole of Ezra. There are numerous, if minor disagreements between these books, but it is significant that the Jewish historian, Josephus, regarded Esdras as a far, far more reliable and authoritative source.
It can certainly be argued that almost all of the so-called “lost books” add to our perspective, while some, of course, like “The Shepherd of Hermas” and “The Letter of Barnabas” (which were formerly included in the New Testament) add directly to our knowledge. Reading and studying these books should therefore be encouraged rather than dismissed.
Lost Books of the Bible – Necessary Or Superfluous? Worthwhile Or a Waste of Time?
These days, nearly everyone has heard of the so-called “lost” books of the Bible, but hardly anyone knows what they actually are, or indeed if they are in fact “lost”. Indeed most people simply assume that if any Biblical books are “lost”, they were undoubtedly lost for good reason. They argue that the sheer size and weight of a Bible is surely proof enough that it contains all the material anyone would want to read. The version that many Protestants favor, the condensed King James, has at least 1,146 pages of tiny print in two columns. On the other hand, the Revised Standard Version has at least 2,024 pages. My 1994 French Bible, produced by the World Biblical Alliance has 1,872 pages. Not to be outdone, the Jerusalem Bible, the approved version for Roman Catholics and High Church Episcopalians, has 2,072!
By “lost”, what many Biblical commentators actually mean, of course, is simply all the ancient religious works not included in most approved Protestant Bibles. These run into hundreds. If you count all the works that are really either wholly or partly “lost”, the number reaches into the thousands.
It can be argued that more than enough “approved” books have survived, to make any additional material either superfluous or unnecessary. The Bible already contains a large amount of repetitive material, including two versions of the Creation story, two lists of the Ten Commandments, two laudatory histories of King David, and no less than five accounts of the captivity in Babylon. In The New Testament, it is argued that all but a few verses of Mark’s Gospel can be found in Matthew and/or Luke. So what need have we of Mark?
This is surely the point. Our knowledge of the Messiah would be considerably less if we did not have Peter’s reminiscences in his own words, as faithfully recorded by his young secretary, John Mark. Often to suit their own purposes, both Matthew and Luke take it upon themselves to change Peter’s adjectives. In one instance when Peter remarks that Jesus was “extremely angry”, the other evangelists change this description to “extremely concerned”. We know that the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” delineation existed almost from the very first. This is the Jesus portrayed by Matthew and Luke, but it is not the Jesus that Peter saw, heard, and witnessed in action.
So rather than being superfluous, other accounts of the same people and the same events are often told from an entirely different perspective. Another example, is the co-called “First Book of Esdras” (which is usually omitted from Roman Catholic Bibles, even though it appears in the Latin version approved and authorized by the Pope) which duplicates material in Second Chronicles and the whole of Ezra. There are numerous, if minor disagreements between these books, but it is significant that the Jewish historian, Josephus, regarded Esdras as a far, far more reliable and authoritative source.
It can certainly be argued that almost all of the so-called “lost books” add to our perspective, while some, of course, like “The Shepherd of Hermas” and “The Letter of Barnabas” (which were formerly included in the New Testament) add directly to our knowledge. Reading and studying these books should therefore be encouraged rather than dismissed.
Tags: biblical books, biblical commentators, jerusalem bible, protestant bibles, roman catholicsRelated posts
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