Topic 4 of 33 - Your Place in the Learning Journey
Lost and Non-Canonical Books
The Bible itself mentions books that no longer exist. Numbers 21:14 cites the "Book of the Wars of the Lord." Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18 refer to the "Book of Jashar." 1 Kings 11:41 mentions the "Book of the Acts of Solomon." These were apparently real documents that the biblical authors knew and drew upon but that were not preserved in the canon. Their loss is a reminder that the Bible as we have it represents a selection from a larger body of ancient Israelite and early Christian literature, much of which is gone.
Beyond the lost books, a significant body of Jewish and Christian literature from the biblical period survives outside the canon. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha includes texts like 1 Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs - Jewish religious writings from roughly 300 BCE to 200 CE that were not included in any canonical collection but were widely read and sometimes quoted. 1 Enoch is actually quoted in the New Testament letter of Jude, which raises interesting questions about the boundaries of scriptural authority.
The New Testament Apocrypha includes gospels, acts, letters, and apocalypses that circulated in early Christian communities but were not included in the canonical New Testament. The Gospel of Thomas, discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945, contains 114 sayings attributed to Jesus, some of which have parallels in the canonical Gospels and some of which do not. Scholars debate which, if any, of the non-parallel sayings might reflect authentic Jesus tradition. The Gospel of Peter, the Acts of Paul, and the Apocalypse of Peter were all read in some early churches before the canon stabilized.
These non-canonical texts matter for several reasons. They illuminate the diversity of early Judaism and early Christianity - the range of belief, practice, and interpretation that existed before the boundaries of orthodoxy were drawn. They provide context for understanding the canonical texts - knowing what was circulating in the same communities helps us understand what the canonical authors were engaging with. And they remind us that the decisions about what to include in the Bible were real historical decisions made by real people in real circumstances - not self-evident conclusions that any honest reader would reach.