Are There Really Lost Books of the Bible?

One of Christianity’s most important details is when church councils canonized the Bible in the fourth century. Unlike other non-Christian religions that try to claim Christ or the Abrahamic lineage, the church was led by the Holy Spirit to canonize the holy texts through consensus rather than private revelation. This consensus separates it from many religions.

Despite this unique difference, the canon has had its critics. One famous critique involves “the lost books of the Bible.” From the ancient Gnostics to contemporary secular critics, the accusation comes that the early church founders left certain books out of the biblical canon to assert control.

Sadly, the fact that information can spread more freely than ever can make it difficult to discuss this topic. In a time when anyone can publish a video about “history that you didn’t know has been hidden from us” online, it’s easy to feel confused about how the Bible reached its final form. While mature Christians may know how to respond to these accusations, not everyone does.

So, what should we know about the lost books of the Bible? Did Christians deliberately deny certain books to limit people’s knowledge? Let’s find out.

Are There Really Books Lost From the Bible?

So, are there really lost books of the bible? The short answer is no.

Yes, different Christian traditions have different numbers of books in their Bibles. Protestants have 66 books, Roman Catholics have 72, the Eastern Orthodox have 76, and the Coptic Orthodox have 81. They all have in common that the number of books in the New Testament remains the same at 27. What differences different denominations have about Old Testament books will be discussed later.

Within this discussion is a collection of books often called “lost” because we don’t see them in any Bible. If these books were truly lost, they would not be mentioned. We have a collection of books that the church noted but did not see as authoritative. They were left out of the canon because they:

• lacked authenticity
• were written in a different period than the authors claimed
• contained inconsistencies in themselves or with the accepted books of the Bible

Some of these books present a very different image of Jesus. For example, New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman, who identifies as an agnostic atheist, has often discussed gnostic theology in books like Lost Scriptures: Books That Didn’t Make it Into the New Testament. Ehrman views Christ more as a mythological figure than a historical figure. While the arguments may sound provocative, mainstream biblical scholars and historians disregard such claims.

Scholars put many of the “lost books” into a group called the pseudepigrapha. Hope Bolinger explains these books were written under false names—usually attributed to Mary or one of the apostles to impress readers. These books often present alleged teachings of Jesus that don’t appear in the four gospels. As Bolinger explains, these books were never lost—scholars have known about them for centuries. Instead, these books “were either condemned for being anti-Scripture or dismissed as not edifying.”

So, it’s a misnomer to call these books “lost” because they were never put in the Bible to start with. As philosopher Michael Jones says in a video on the Gospel of Thomas, “You cannot remove something from the Bible if it was never included in the Bible. There is no evidence that the Gospel of Thomas was ever included in any orthodox Christian canon . . .”

But how did the early church decide these books shouldn’t go into the biblical canon?

How Were Books Chosen for the Biblical Canon?

A common argument is that power chooses which books go into the biblical canon. We know that Emperor Constantine the Great (306 AD - 337 AD) oversaw the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Critics argue that he implemented his own Scripture canon after making Christianity the official state religion.

However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

First, Constantine did not make Christianity the official state religion. He legalized it by ending persecution and allowing religious freedom. He was also baptized toward his life’s end. However, Christianity didn’t become the state religion until 380 AD, under Emperor Theodosius I.

Second, there is no evidence that Constantine influenced the Council of Nicaea and others about the biblical canon. He didn’t even have an authoritative role in the event, and the records indicate he let the church leaders make their conclusions. Even Ehrman disregards this theory in Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code, “The historical reality is that the Emperor Constantine had nothing to do with the formation of the canon of Scripture: he did not choose which books to include or exclude and he did not order the destruction of the gospels that were left out of the canon (there were no imperial book burnings).”

As Mike Leake explains on Crosswalk.com, very little changed when the biblical canon was decided in the fourth century. Basically, “a council recognized what had been practiced in the church since the days of the apostles. A heretic, named Marcion, forced the church to make explicit what had been practiced for centuries.” Marcion had chosen books based on his preferences, which created a controversy, leading the church to officially state what books could be included or excluded from the Bible.

Furthermore, a key part of the canonization process is that the church chose books that, for various reasons (teaching, historical usage, the fact the evidence didn’t raise any serious problems about their authorship), had authority. As Leake says, “The canon is not an authorized collection of writings (in that the church conferred authority or approval upon a list of books). Rather, the canon is a collection of authoritative writings. The church recognized their authority, it did not give them authority.”

So now we understand how Scripture was canonized. But what books were “lost” from the Old Testament? How about the New Testament?

Were the Apocrypha Lost from the Old Testament?

People sometimes talk about a collection called the Apocrypha as lost books of the books.

However, this is more of a misnomer. The Apocrypha is a collection of writings in several Bibles’ Old Testament sections, such as the RSV (Revised Standard Version). They are accepted by some Christians (Catholics and Eastern/Coptic Orthodox) and rejected by others (Protestants). Catholic Christians view the Apocrypha as divinely inspired scripture, following church decisions made following the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D.

The “lost books” that Catholics and Orthodox Christians consider canon include books like:

• 1 and 2 Maccabees (accounts of the Maccabean revolt)
• Tobit (about a faithful Jewish man who goes blind and encounters the archangel Raphael)
• The Wisdom of Solomon (poetic literature on God’s wisdom and abandoning idolatry)

For a summary of these books and others, check out Ben Reichert’s piece from Crosswalk.com

Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers challenged the Catholic biblical canon, which changed how many churches organized the Bible. It should be noted that this didn’t just affect the Apocrypha: Luther also favored removing New Testament books like James and Jude, but his peers didn’t support that choice. So, whatever our denomination, we recognize that our forefathers had some ideas about the Bible we may not share today.

With the Apocrypha out of the way, what about the rest of the Old Testament? Are there other “lost books of the Bible” from this period that we should know about?

What Books Were Allegedly Lost from the Old Testament?

Numerous ancient texts in the pseudepigrapha claim to be written by biblical figures and are “rediscovered” every couple of years.

One of the most notable “lost books” is the book of Enoch (or 1 and 2 Enoch). In the Bible, Enoch is Adam’s great-great-great-great grandson, praised for following God so faithfully that he did not die. He was taken up into heaven (Genesis 5).

So what’s the problem with the books of Enoch? As Bolinger explains, the book doesn’t follow the biblical record too closely. Enoch agrees with Genesis on some details but diverges into a story about Enoch giving a message of judgment to fallen angels.

It was not considered canonical because of its late composition date. As Bolinger points out, historians date the book of Enoch to 300-200 B.C. (after the Old Testament period). Since it was written just two hundred years before Jesus was born, it’s unlikely to depict the early Genesis period accurately.

While most Christians exclude Enoch, some (such as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church) do accept it.

Other books that did not make it include:

the Books of Wars (a history of Israel’s wars from Numbers 21)

the Books of Anna’s of Kings (historical records on the works of the Kings Israel)

Like 1 and 2 Enoch, these books were omitted from the canon for problems like authenticity and dubious teachings.

So now we have an idea of how the Old Testament was formed. How about the New Testament?

What Books Were Allegedly Lost from the New Testament?

As mentioned in the discussion above, several books appeared in the early church period, reportedly letters or gospel accounts by the apostles. These works include:

• The Gospel of Judas
• The Gospel of Truth
• The Sophia of Jesus Christ
• Zostrianos
• The Apocryphon of John
• The Gospel of Mary

As noted in the early discussion about Ehrman, these works often claim to have new knowledge previously kept secret. For example, the Gospel of Judas contains alleged conversations between Judas and Christ, in which Christ reveals secret knowledge about the cosmos, spiritual matters, and more.

Some critics claim these books were removed from the canon due to violent prejudice. Some even claim that the church targeted and executed Gnostics. However, there is no evidence that any executions happened. Many gnostic groups died out over the centuries through their memberships dwindling. Others fled to new areas—for example, the Arian gnostics fled from Rome to the kingdom of the Ostrogoths.

However, the church fathers and mothers debated the Gnostics and wrote critiques of their work. For example, St. Irenaeus and St Hippolytus wrote extensively to avoid certain heretical groups who proclaimed false Gospel writings.

As these writings show, a big problem with the gnostic works was that their authorship claims were dubious and that they didn’t consistently capture Jewish culture enough to be genuine. Each of the four gospels gives a detailed picture of Judea when Jesus lived: the Jewish law and customs that Jesus discussed, the leaders (Pharisees and Sadducees) that clashed with Jesus about how to follow the old laws.

In contrast, the Gospel of Judas contains many ideas that a first-century Jew like Jesus would find confusing, problematic, or blasphemous. It imagines Jesus as a philosopher who despises some Jewish customs, not a rabbi who shows how the old covenant is being fulfilled.

We get a sense of how off-kilter the Gospel of Judas is by its readership. As St. Irenaeus notes in his work Against Heresies, the book was widely read by a heretical group called the Cainites that abandoned Christ’s teachings while venerating figures like Cain, Esau, and Judas.

What Can We Learn from the Lost Books of the Bible?

Growing in our faith is more than knowing chapters and verses. Especially for the modern skeptical world, Christians need to be aware, at least on a basic level, of Christianity’s history from the apostles’ time to today.

For example, we need to know what the church really did to Gnostic believers and their ideas: Did they kill heretics or let them die off as the false ideas lost influence? Did they burn books they didn’t want in the biblical canon or not? Did power affect how they developed the biblical canon, or did they follow what had always worked?

In other words, know your history. Believers across denominations have held that we maintain the truth when we have scripture, reason, history, and experience supporting each other.

If we don’t take the time to learn history, we will struggle to understand how the Bible reached its final form and find it difficult to address critics.

Photo Credit:©Getty Images/andrewsafonov

This article is part of our larger resource library of Christian questions important to the Christian faith. From core beliefs to what the Bible says about angels, we want to provide easy to read and understand articles that answer your questions about Christian living.

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