The Lost Books of the Bible: Being All the Gospels, Epistles and Other Pieces Now Extant Attributed in the First Four Centuries to Jesus Christ, His

Customer Reviews

awsome

This book is a must read for any bible student. True some of these books are writtrn by early gnostics, but some of the letters written are from the early church fathers. Read how st.ignatius defends the doctrine of the trinity and calls the Lord Jesus his God. Read the awsome letters of st. clement. These books and letters may not be inspired by the Holy Spirit, but is certainly good history to read.

Holding a degree in theology, I highly recommend this book

I have to say that this book (of books -- like the Bible) contains literally dozens of early Christian writings with excellent intros about the "reasons" some church fathers left them out of the cannon. NOTE: Each intro tells you which early fathers accepted the different books as well. That's very important to know.

I love the Books of Hermes, Visions, Paul & Thecla, the Gospel of Peter, Commands and more. Why many don't I suspect is do to the fact that the teachings are very very strict like Jesus' teachings were and speak of how one lives their life, how one's works come into play in their salvation, and just a lot of attention on works of the individual. You find the same idea in the four Gospels Mat, Mk, Lk & Jn, and also in 1John and James, plus the Revelations message to the 7 churches about works.

For those who value James 2:24 in your lives, BUY THIS BOOK!!

Please think logically about these "lost books"

In my opinion there are two different ways to approach the material contained in "The Lost Books of the Bible". You are either reading them as a Christian, who has faith in Jesus Christ ... or you are reading them as a non-Christian who has faith in believing that Jesus was "just a man".

If you are reading it as a Christian, that means that you believe the Bible is God's word. Now why would God have given us the New Testament Bible, yet left out these works if they really were valid and accurate? If you believe that God is good and perfect, does it make sense that God would give us an incomplete story of the most important event in history, leaving out potentially extremely important information? I would say no, and therefore would say that these books, while possibly interesting, must not be elevated to the same level as the material contained in the Bible.

If you are reading it as a non-Christian, you don't believe that the Christian God is true and that He came to earth as Jesus Christ. So, to a non-Christian, what books make up the Bible don't really matter, and these are just as good as any others, including the ones in the canonical Bible. So the question of whether these books should/shouldn't have been included in the Bible is rather moot.

Either way, in my opinion, the question of what the "real" books of the Bible are depends on whether a person is Christian or not. For a person believes in Jesus Christ, they must also believe in the validity of the Bible, and thus that these "lost books" may have been "lost", and they may be interesting to read or study, but they are not lost books "of the Bible", and they were not included in the Bible because they are not part of God's intended communication to us.

I hope that makes sense. :)