Becky ask,"I heard today thatt here are Bible books that were lost. Is the Bible missing some books and if so, how can I get them?Thanks Becky for writing in your question.There is much talk these days about lost books of the Bible.
From cults to the New Age, people make all sorts of claims about
how the Bible is missing books--books that help justify what they
hope to believe. Sometimes people claim that the Bible was edited
to take out reincarnation or the teaching of higher planes of
existence or different gods or ancestor worship or "at-one-ment" with
nature to name just a few reasons. However, the "lost books" were never lost. They were known by the Jews in Old Testament times and the Christians
of the New Testament times and were never considered scripture. They
weren't lost, nor were they removed. They were never in the Bible in
the first place.
These additional writings were not included in the Bible for several reasons:
- They were not referenced by Jesus.
Jesus directly referenced the entire Jewish canon of Scripture by
referring to Abel (the first martyr in the Old Testament) and Zacharias
(the last martyr in the OT) (Matt. 23:35). He also never quotes directly from any of the apocryphal writings but makes numerous references to the Old Testament books.
- They lacked apostolic or prophetic authorship.
- They did not claim to be the Word of God.
- They contain un-biblical concepts such as prayer for the dead (2 Macc. 12:45-46) or the condoning of magic (Tobit 6:5-7).
They have serious historical inaccuracies
The following is a list of a number of alleged "Lost Gospels" or
"Lost Books" that are not in the New Testament. The reason that these
books are not in the New Testament is because they were written so late
and therefore could not have been written by an apostle or associate of
an apostle, or they did not fit into all of the guidelines listed below.
Following is the criteria which the early Church used to discover which books were from God. None of the supposed "lost books" fit even one of these.
- Was a book written by an apostle or associate of an apostle of Jesus? (Apostolicity) This
was the first and main criteria for allowing a book to be in the canon
of Scripture. If a book was written by either an apostle or an
associate of an apostle (i.e., Mark was an associate of Peter and Luke
was an associate of Paul), then the book could be in the canon. An
apostle was someone who had seen the resurrected Jesus and who had a
close fellowship with Jesus (1 Cor. 9:1).
However, if the book was written over a hundred years after the time of
Jesus, as is the case with most of the Gnostic Gospels including the
Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, etc., then such books were
obviously not written by an apostle and should not be in the canon. The
last apostle who lived was the apostle John who died around 100 A.D.
Any epistle written after that time was definitely not apostolic.
- Did the book agree with undoubtedly authentic writings? (Consistency)
Another
criteria was whether such a book agreed with obviously authentic books
of the New Testament. For example, the book of James was questioned
because there was some doubt whether it agreed with Paul's writings
(i.e., Romans and Galatians). No one seriously questioned whether Paul
actually wrote a core number of epistles such as Romans, 1 and 2
Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians.
Interestingly, even if we did not have the rest of the New Testament
books, we probably could build most of our essential Christian doctrine
on the book of Romans alone!
- Was the book circulated amongst various churches? (Universal) Another
criteria, but less important, was whether a book was circulated amongst
various churches. This criteria was known as catholicity or
universality. This would help the church leaders to know where the
Gospel or letter originated so they could trace its roots and determine
if the book was apostlolic. So, as you can see, there are no lost books. You can rest assured that you have the complete, infallible, and inherent Word of God.