This week we are finishing our “Case for the New Testament” by looking at the topic of extra-Biblical books and why they are not included in the canon of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. Skeptics of Christianity will make claims that there were books, or gospels, left out but that is simply not true. Many of these books, or so-called gospels, are easy to identify once we look a little more closely at what they teach, when they were written and the philosophy behind them.

Check out this week’s class presentation on this topic:

Overview Notes From the Presentation

Were there books left out of the Bible?

It become easy to identify reasons behind the rejection of the non-canonical books that skeptics often claim should be included in the Bible. Taking a little time to research, and looking back over the presentations made in this class so far, we should have no doubts that the 66 canonical books of the Christian Bible are the right ones. A few things to consider on this topic:

• There are no inspired books that were left out otherwise it would not be Christianity!
• Classic Christianity is based on the teachings of the 66 books of the Christian Bible
• Other books that skeptics have said were “left out” teach something completely different than what we get in our Bible!

What are some of those other books?

There are basically two categories:

1) Apocryphal Literature

The Apocrypha: (means hidden or doubtful)

• The Catholic Bible today contains eleven of these books in their deuterocanonical (secondary canon) section between the Old and New Testament.
• These books do contain some valuable historical information useful in understanding the intertestamental period (c. 250-60 BC), but have never been considered inspired writings.
• They were included in the Latin Vulgate (AD 382) in part to defend some of the teachings of the Catholic Church (such as purgatory).

Reasons to reject:

The Apocrypha…

• does not claim to be inspired by God
• was not written by prophets of God (1 Mac. 9:27)
• was not confirmed by supernatural acts of God (Heb. 2:3-4)
• was not accepted by the people of God (Judaism) and they were never included in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)
• does not always tell the truth of God, for example: On praying for the dead (2 Mac. 12:46); on working for salvation (Tobit 12:9)
• was not accepted by Jesus the Son of God (Lk. 24:27)
• was not accepted by the Apostles (who never quoted it)
• was not accepted by the early Church and was never part of the Protestant New Testament
• was rejected by the great Catholic translator Jerome
• was not written during period of the prophets of God
• contain some absurdities and inconsistencies with the accepted Biblical Canon

Examples of Apocryphal books

1. The Wisdom of Solomon (C. 30 B.C.)
2. Tobit (c. 200 B.C.)
3. Judith (c. 150 B.C.)
4. 1 and 2 Maccabees (c. 110-70 B.C.)
5. Baruch (c. 150-50 B.C.)—Baruch 1-5
6. Bel and the Dragon (c. 100 B.C.)—Daniel 14
7. *Prayer of Manasseh (c. 200-100 B.C.)

And several others…

*Not in Catholic Bible

2) Gnostic Literature

• Gnosis means knowledge.
• Gnosticism fosters the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation (being set free) comes through special knowledge.
• Gnosticism came out of Greek philosophy and held a belief that one could gain “secret knowledge” of God through certain practices.
• Gnostic literature includes ‘secret’ gospels, poems and myths attributing to Jesus’ sayings and beliefs which are very different from the New Testament Gospels.
• There was an attempt to assimilate Gnosticism with early Christianity.
• There are over 300 writings from Gnostic literature in antiquity.

Gnostic gospels

In addition to the same reasons listed for the Apocrypha, Christians reject these because…

• Gnostic literature, and so-called gospels, were written well into the second through forth centuries AD/CE by authors who were not primary eyewitnesses of the events, and who falsely took the names of many of the apostles and disciples (for example, the gospels of Thomas, Phillip and Mary).
• The early Church leaders unanimously rejected them.
• Gnostic writings have no basis in primary evidence, cross-references to other Scripture, or confirmation from the first and second century Churches.
• The dating of the books is the key for recognizing legitimate historical literature, and these are written way too late to be legitimate primary accounts.
• Gnostic literature contains absurdities and inconsistencies with the early beliefs of the apostles and disciples of Jesus.
• Gnostic literature does not reflect a first century Palestinian Jesus, but rather an esoteric or Hellenistic Jesus.
• The Gnostic gospels contain false doctrines and heresies (Gnosticism, Ascetisicm, Docetism, Modalism, etc.) that are inconsistent with the doctrinal essentials of classic Christianity.
• The Gnostic heretic Marcion, c. AD 140, was the first to promote these Gnostic writings in the Christian community because he was anti-Jewish and rejected all books written by Jews.
• The books of the Christian Bible today are the same ones used by the earliest disciples of Christ and therefore any other so-called missing book would not be part of the classic Christian faith anyway.

Examples of Gnostic books

1. Gospel  of Thomas
2. Gospel of Peter
3. Gospel of Mary
4. Protevangelium of James
5. Gospel of the Egyptians
6. Gospel of Philip
7. Gospel of the Ebionites

And many more….

Here is the link to N.T. Wright and a short presentation on Gnostic Gospels

Conclusion:

The bottom line answer to the question of books being left out is 1) the dating of the book (they are too late to be primary sources), 2) the philosophy in the book (mainly Gnostic and Greek Esoteric that does not reflect a first century Palestinian Jesus) and, 3) the lack of acceptance by any of the apostles and early disciples of Jesus.

Reflection: Memorization Practice

To practice your memorization skills, and to improve your Biblical knowledge, practice memorizing the following things…

1. Review the Ministry Statement’s four focus points for your Christian Walk (from the “Class Introduction” post). Reflect on how you think you are doing in each area, or how you might make improvements.
2. Recite, and practice memorizing in order to tell the story, the 15 points for the Bible’s Big Picture from our previous post.
3. Recite, and practice memorizing the 27 books of the New Testament, in order by their categories.

Bible Study

Always remember to pray before you study and ask the Holy Spirit to teach you and lead you into the truth found in God’s Word – pray for protection from the evil one who will try to discourage, distract and deceive us when we commit to growing closer to the LORD.

We are taking a pause on our chapter by chapter study starting last week and for the next couple of weeks. We will then pick up with Acts chapter 13 when we start our new fall class. In the meantime, here is the following recommendation to stay consistent with your Bible study:

• Take some time to read through the Gospel of Luke – this will allow you to review the Gospel message and see how Luke connects his Gospel to the Book of Acts. There are three things you can do to make this study more in-depth:
  1. Pick a time where you can sit down and read through the entire Gospel of Luke in one sitting – just like you would do with novel (do not take notes or read commentaries, just absorb the story).
  2. Go back and break your reading down into sections by passages (where the storylines break) – use a highlighter or other marker to separate them in your Bible.
  3. Review each passage a third time and do a more in-depth study of the section by reading commentaries, taking notes, looking up cross-references within the Bible, doing word studies and/or writing down questions you have.
• Once you have read through, and studied, the Gospel of Luke go back and do the same for the book of Acts chapters 1-12 (even if you’ve already studied it with us). This will help prepare you for our next chapter by chapter study in Acts 13-28.

Next week we will be looking at the topic for our next class – A Case for Christianity, Person of Interest!

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You will not find this material in the public school curriculum even though it is based on solid evidence and grounded in research. It is ironic that following the evidence to where it leads stops at the door of our public schools as they will not let a “Divine footprint” in!  Join us as we examine evidence for Christianity and learn how to become a thoughtful defender and ambassador of your faith.

Click into the resource page of this website to view many of the top Christian thinkers and apologists along with some of their work; connecting to these types of resources is essential in your Christian growth.

Please let me know what you think: Give feedback, ask questions or send concerns in the comment section of the blog.

Teri Dugan

TeriDugan@truthfaithandreason.com

1 Peter 3:15