Books "banned" from the Bible

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Hello,

I’m new here and a somewhat recent (and late) revert to Catholicism. I’d say “convert” because though I was baptised a Catholic it never really meant anything to me until much later in life. Immediately prior to becoming a Catholic I would have probably considered myself a deist/agnostic.

So on to my question:

The History Channel keeps running this show “Books Banned from the Bible” and other channels have had similar documentaries named “The Lost books of the Bible”.

First, I’m well aware that it’s the intention of the History Channel with shows like this to undercut the validity of Christianity and make believers question their faith’s foundation.
One thing that bothers me is that this show kind of backfires. While watching it I was kind of struck by how consistent the general Christian message has been maintained even in the non-cannonical books (Acts of Paul and Thecla for example). Eventhough there might be a slight different focus (the History channel guest speakers maintain it was the outspoken feminist message of Paul and Thecla that lead it to being banned) the underlying message is still the same “Jesus died and rose for our sins and we need to be baptised”.
Bart Ehrman was one of the main speakers thinking that this omission of this book was a big deal. But, from my perspective this is just another book that while not cannonical still supports some of the very basic precepts of the Christian faith (certainly the Catholic expression of that faith).

But, alot of people don’t see it this way. They see it as a nefarious plan of some Christians to squelch the actual picture of Jesus, shoehorning it into something that it never was.

Does anyone know of a book(s) that address these topics? The topics of how the Bible was compiled the way it was, why certain books were actually left out?
Or any websites or blogs that deal with these topics?

thanks!!
 
jorgeK said:
Hello,

I’m new here and a somewhat recent (and late) revert to Catholicism. I’d say “convert” because though I was baptised a Catholic it never really meant anything to me until much later in life. Immediately prior to becoming a Catholic I would have probably considered myself a deist/agnostic.

So on to my question:

The History Channel keeps running this show “Books Banned from the Bible” and other channels have had similar documentaries named “The Lost books of the Bible”.

First, I’m well aware that it’s the intention of the History Channel with shows like this to undercut the validity of Christianity and make believers question their faith’s foundation.
One thing that bothers me is that this show kind of backfires. While watching it I was kind of struck by how consistent the general Christian message has been maintained even in the non-cannonical books (Acts of Paul and Thecla for example). Eventhough there might be a slight different focus (the History channel guest speakers maintain it was the outspoken feminist message of Paul and Thecla that lead it to being banned) the underlying message is still the same “Jesus died and rose for our sins and we need to be baptised”.
Bart Ehrman was one of the main speakers thinking that this omission of this book was a big deal. But, from my perspective this is just another book that while not cannonical still supports some of the very basic precepts of the Christian faith (certainly the Catholic expression of that faith).

But, alot of people don’t see it this way. They see it as a nefarious plan of some Christians to squelch the actual picture of Jesus, shoehorning it into something that it never was.

Does anyone know of a book(s) that address these topics? The topics of how the Bible was compiled the way it was, why certain books were actually left out?
Or any websites or blogs that deal with these topics?

thanks!!
Click to expand...
From what I can understand the books discussed in these history channel shows were written well into the second century and a lot of them were written by Gnostic sects. Basically these books were never really mainstream and only used by fringe Christians. I can’t think of any non canonical Christian book that was estimated to be written before the second century (though I think there were a couple letters written by bishops written in the 90’s).
 
Many books were written after Jesus’ resurrection, but that doesn’t mean that all those books were “of the bible” only because they were written of Jesus and same time period. I noticed that the history channel gets a lot of facts wrong on history of the Church because it has an agenda. That’s why we have the Church , which was/is guided by the Holy Spirit, to guide us to what was inspired.
Such books that they may be speaking of is…en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_James and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Peter
 
FaithJoy said:
Many books were written after Jesus’ resurrection, but that doesn’t mean that all those books were “of the bible” only because they were written of Jesus and same time period. I noticed that the history channel gets a lot of facts wrong on history of the Church because it has an agenda. That’s why we have the Church , which was/is guided by the Holy Spirit, to guide us to what was inspired.
Such books that they may be speaking of is…en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_James and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Peter
Click to expand...
This book was considered canonical by St. Iraneus, one of the church fathers.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd_of_Hermas
 
FaithJoy said:
Many books were written after Jesus’ resurrection, but that doesn’t mean that all those books were “of the bible” only because they were written of Jesus and same time period. I noticed that the history channel gets a lot of facts wrong on history of the Church because it has an agenda. That’s why we have the Church , which was/is guided by the Holy Spirit, to guide us to what was inspired.
Such books that they may be speaking of is…en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_James and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Peter
Click to expand...
I think that the history channel’s agenda is just to make tv shows that people will be interested in. I don’t think that they have some sort of agenda to discredit the church or anything like that but controversy is interesting.
 
Catholics believe that the books of our Bible were inspired by God and so that they are the word of God. And so during the mass when the Gospels are read it is said that this is the word of God. To someone without faith the books of the Bible are not the words of God but simply something men wrote. Actually, though, if the books discussed in this show could have been or should have been in the Bible, they should show that they are the word of God,not simply the words of men… This show says nothing to Catholics.
 
jorgeK said:
The History Channel keeps running this show “Books Banned from the Bible” and other channels have had similar documentaries named “The Lost books of the Bible”.
Click to expand...
The History Channel is not accurate when it comes to antiquity. For example, one of their “documentaries” claims that Constantine established the Biblical canon. He died in 337, and the Councils of Hippo and Carthage established the canon in 393. Constantine, having been dead for 60 years, had no part in either council and so no role in “banning” any books.

They’re basically the Psychology Today of antiquities. Entertaining but not educational.
 
If you research the history of the “Canon of Scripture” you will be reminded that the Bible is not one book, but a collection of books. “Bible” comes from “Biblia” which means “Books” and yes the plural form is important. There were many documents in circulation, and in the first few centuries of the Church, Christians were persecuted and their texts were confiscated and destroyed. Hence why a Canon of Scripture had to be laid down, and new copies of the texts had to be made. St Jerome was the person entrusted with this task. He had to collect the various texts in Greek (and I think some in Hebrew), collect them and then also translate them into Latin (which at that time was one of the fastest-growing languages).

The books that made it into the Canon of Scripture were ones that were universally considered to be true. Some were disputed, but were also widely accepted as true.

There were all sorts of Gnostic works around, which included Gospel of Judas which claimed that Jesus asked Judas to have him put to death so as true free himself from his evil flesh form, and to become pure spirit form. The Gnostics also believed that there were two Gods. 1.) An Evil God who created the universe and 2.) A Good God who wanted to have humans ascend into a pure spirit form. They taught a lot of very weird and fanciful things.
 
Bart Ehrman is simply wrong. He figured out - when he lost his faith - that he could make money and get tenure by peddling and almost Dan Brown like explanation of the development of the canon.

You might want to look at Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger by Gary Michuta, but I think that will only help marginally.

A better book on the canon overall, but with non Catholic approach, would be Bruce Metzger’s excellent book on the NT canon: amazon.com/Canon-New-Testament-Development-Significance/dp/0198269544 Metzger’s book is considered a classic and will be long remembered after everyone forgets who Ehrman is.
 
bingbang said:
This book was considered canonical by St. Iraneus, one of the church fathers.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd_of_Hermas
Click to expand...
The Shepherd of Hermas, The Didache, The ProtoEvangelium of James, and the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians all had supporters among the Fathers of their canonicity.

At the same time, there were detractors of Revelation and Hebrews and the Catholic Letters.

But never was there an established Canon of Scripture that had the Shepherd listed among it.
 
NotWorthy said:
The Shepherd of Hermas, The Didache, The ProtoEvangelium of James, and the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians all had supporters among the Fathers of their canonicity.
Click to expand...
Of course, all four of those writings (and undoubtedly others) are orthodox in their presentation of Christianity. Even though they are not considered inspired, they are early Christian writings valuable for their depiction of what some Christians were saying and doing in the first and second centuries.

Most of the lost/suppressed works that pop up in the news periodically nowadays are of much later vintage, and teach heretical (usually Gnostic) visions of Christianity.

Usagi
 
One thing that really impresses me with the Catholic Church is the view of tradition and then the Bible.
I don’t want to discredit the value of the Bible. But, the Catholic Church maintains (as well as mentioned in Holy Scriptures) that Jesus did not come to give a book but to establish a Church - the living body of Christ. The Church being so important that it is referred to as the pillar and bulwark of truth.

When people like Bart Ehrman start quibbling over inconsistencies in the Bible I’m always left wondering how any of this undercuts Catholicism. Let their be some corollary inconsistencies in the Bible… so what? God imparted His divine understanding to men (Matthew 16:17) not to pages in a book.
 
I think the importance of these books is that they fed a desire by people to understand more about Jesus and helped them direct their efforts. The Acts of Paul and Thecla was read into the Middle Ages and many women wanting some vocation outside of joining orders used it as their guide. I would put it in a class with works such as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress or the writings of Saint Augustine. Whether they belong in Scripture was settled a long time ago. That does not mean that we cannot find use in them. The Didache is the basis for Catholic and therefore Lutheran liturgy. This makes it very useful without it needing to be considered an inspired text.
 
I think the importance of these books is that they fed a desire by people to understand more about Jesus and helped them direct their efforts. The Acts of Paul and Thecla was read into the Middle Ages and many women wanting some vocation outside of joining orders used it as their guide. I would put it in a class with works such as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress or the writings of Saint Augustine. Whether they belong in Scripture was settled a long time ago. That does not mean that we cannot find use in them. The Didache is the basis for Catholic and therefore Lutheran liturgy. This makes it very useful without it needing to be considered an inspired text.
 
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