More Books of the Bible???

[rysydad]

I was wondering if there really are other books to the Bible.  I have had a few people tell me there are...ie the Dead Sea Scrolls and others?  Are these real??  If so what ones are they?  Why aren't they included in the actual Bible??  Please help!!  

 

[NewPrairieBill]

Hello Rysydad:

Yes, there were many other writings, many of which the Catholic church has chosen to include in their Bibles but were not considered inspiried canon by the early church fathers. These books are called the Apocrypha. There was a strict process followed by the early church fathers by which the books of the Bible we have now were recognized as inspired scripture. Many books, including the apocrypha, did not pass the test, thus they are not in our Bible.

Hope this helps.
Bill

 

[rysydad]

Thanks Bill! But does that mean that man has forced his own impressions on the Bible by 'choosing' ones he thought to be inspired by God?? If so, doesn't that mean we are missing out on messages from God??

 

[filosofer]

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves overlooking and near the Dea Sea in the period 1946-1955. They are categorized according to the region in which they were found, the largest being the 11 caves of Qumran (800 documents, in 20,000 fragments).

Most scholars now accept the view that these writings are part of the Essenes library of the first century BC and first century AD. They are written in Hebrew covering much of the OT with additional commentaries on those writings.

The DSS are valuable because they provide Hebrew manuscripts 1,000 years older than previously available, with the text of the OT essentially unchanged.

Other value of the DSS:

textual criticism of the OT
linguistic studies for Hebrew and Aramaic
studies of sects and other groups of the first century AD
aids in studies of other psuedopigraphal and apocryphal writings
intertestamental history and environment
aid in the study of ancient scrolls (writing and making)
NT background studies

Because these were not discovered until 1946 and they were written prior to the time of the NT, they have never been considered part of Scripture.

 

[Wolseley]

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?postid=167787#post167787

 

[EPHRIAM777]

NewPrairieBill said

Yes, there were many other writings, many of which the Catholic church has chosen to include in their Bibles but were not considered inspiried canon by the early church fathers. These books are called the Apocrypha. There was a strict process followed by the early church fathers by which the books of the Bible we have now were recognized as inspired scripture. Many books, including the apocrypha, did not pass the test, thus they are not in our Bible.

Hope this helps.
Bill [/B]


Eph writes...

....The Apocgrapha was included IN the scriptures...even while Jesus preached in the Temple...It wasn't till 1890 or so that the Protestant branch of the Christian Church removed them...So it wasn't so long ago that they were included in the Bible..The KJV had the Apocgrapha in it....

Plus the "Roman" branch of the "catholic church" added things way after the first century..!

There is more than just the Roman Cathloic branch of the Church that calls themsleves "catholic"...!

The books that are included in the Protestant Bible today come from Rome's dominance of deciding what was and wasn't scripture...!

.....Most of Protestantism is really but an "offshoot" out of their mother church...Rome...!

 

[Eze 36 26 28]

It is my understanding that which books go into the bible, and the ordering of the bible, as it is obviously not in chronological order, was decided about 300-500 years after christs death. =D However, I don't believe that the other writings are needed because of 1 Timothy 3:16. All scripture is god breathed, and therefore, even those who created the current bible, although didn't live in Christ's time, was still lead by god. =D So have no fear that certain books may have been left out, he is sovereign over all (psalms 103:19) I hope this helps!

Your brother, and in his grace!

 

[nikolai_42]

11th February 2003 at 11:49 AM rysydad said this in Post #1



I was wondering if there really are other books to the Bible.  I have had a few people tell me there are...ie the Dead Sea Scrolls and others?  Are these real??  If so what ones are they?  Why aren't they included in the actual Bible??  Please help!!  

 As others have said, there is the apocrypha. But also, there are books mentioned even in the bible as being of God's inspiration that don't even appear to be around anymore! There are well over 100 references to other books (I think about 120 books?) in the bible that aren't in the canon of scripture. Some we can't find, others are repetetive, others are questionable, while others seem to have been left out for little apparent reason.

 

[TWells]

A good place see the non cannonical writings is www.earlychristianwritings.com be careful with the commentary, they are non Christian

 

[Allen2]

I don't believe that the Apocrypha were removed from the Bible around 1890. The Jews never considered that they were "Scripture", but the mss. of the Septuagint(Gk. version of the OT)include them as an addendum to the sacred books.
In 1548, the Council of Trent(Catholic) recognized the Apocrypha as Scripture. However, the leaders of the Protestant Reformation rejected the Apoc as unworthy of Scriptural status, tho Luther believed they were profitable for reading.
The NT never quotes from the Apoc to give it an authoritative status.These books were written between 300 BC and 100 AD and occasionally introduce teachings that contradict the Scriptures or go beyond what is revealed in the OT. God bless, Al

 

[Gideon4God]

[font="Arial, Helvetica"]At the time the Christian Bible was being formed, a Greek translation of Jewish Scripture, the [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Septuagint[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"], was in common use and Christians adopted it as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. However, around 100 A.D., Jewish rabbis revised their Scripture and established an official canon of Judaism which excluded some portions of the Greek Septuagint. The material excluded was a group of 15 late Jewish books, written during the period 170 B.C. to 70 A.D., that were not found in Hebrew versions of the Jewish Scripture. Christians did not follow the revisions of Judaism and continued to use the text of the Septuagint.[/font]

[font="Arial, Helvetica"]Protestant reformers in the 1500s decided to follow the official canon of Judaism for the Old Testament rather than the Septuagint, and the excluded material was placed in a separate section of the Bible called the [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Apocrypha[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]. Protestant Bibles included the Apocrypha until the mid 1800s, but it was eventually dropped from most Protestant editions.[/font]

[font="Arial, Helvetica"]The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churchs continue to base their Old Testament on the Septuagint. The result is that these versions of the the Bible have more Old Testament books than Protestant versions. Catholic Old Testaments include [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]1st[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"] and [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]2nd[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"] [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Maccabees[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"], [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Baruch[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"], [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Tobit[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"], [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Judith[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"], [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]The Wisdom of Solomon[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"], [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Sirach[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"] (Ecclesiasticus), additions to Esther, and [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Susanna[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"] and [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Bel and the Dragon[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"] which are included in Daniel. Orthodox Old Testaments include these plus [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]1st[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"] and [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]2nd Esdras[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"], [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Prayer of Manasseh[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"], [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]Psalm 151[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"] and [/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"]3rd Maccabees[/font][font="Arial, Helvetica"].[/font]

http://www.folsom.sk.ca/tcimp/bfaqs/faq_bibles.htm

 

[Allen2]

Well put, Gideon. I have enjoyed reading the Wisdom of Solomon--very helpful and very readable. I believe the long process of Canonizations shows that God continued to work thru His people even after the last Apostle died. The early Church councils and their magnificent statements are a reliable guide regarding the person of Christ, the Trinity, etc. In my Baptist background there was a lot of distrust of tradition. However, tradition is (or should be!) a vehicle for transmitting to the living Church what God is teaching us from the Word. If we accept it discerningly we are edified by bros and sisters from centuries ago, that "great cloud of witnesses". God bless, Al

 

[Gideon4God]

Today at 02:15 AM Allen2 said this in Post #12

Well put, Gideon. I have enjoyed reading the Wisdom of Solomon--very helpful and very readable. I believe the long process of Canonizations shows that God continued to work thru His people even after the last Apostle died. The early Church councils and their magnificent statements are a reliable guide regarding the person of Christ, the Trinity, etc. In my Baptist background there was a lot of distrust of tradition. However, tradition is (or should be!) a vehicle for transmitting to the living Church what God is teaching us from the Word. If we accept it discerningly we are edified by bros and sisters from centuries ago, that "great cloud of witnesses". God bless, Al

Baptists have a baptist tradition...is this what you meant by tradition is a vehicle for transmitting....?  The last Apostle haven't died, have they?  The Orthodox Church still has Apostles. 

Gideon

PS  I now many will disagree with me that is fine.  God bless

 

[Allen2]

Hey Gid: it's true that Baptists have their own, time-honored and sometimes puzzling traditions. However, I had more in mind in a wider sense the basic doctrines developed from Scripture that have come to us from the early church Fathers, the Councils of Nicea, Constantinople, etc. You have to approach Church Tradition the same way you approach a half-way decent sermon: open to hearing from God and being discerning about what you are hearing. Our traditional doctrines should never be lightly discarded and yet there is always "more light to break forth from God's Word".
As to Apostles, I doubt there are any quite like the 12, but I'm not dogmatic. The original Apostles were all eyewitnesses of the resurrected Jesus and nailed in place the foundation of the Church. Seems to me we're still building on that foundation. God bless, Al