10. The Forbidden Books of the Bible The history of the forbidden texts of the
bible is long and complicated. We know the texts which were left out of the Bible as the Apocrypha.
It's important to know that various people from between roughly 1200 BC and the 1st century AD
wrote the books we know as the modern version of the bible. Many church leaders and other
officials have debated which works they should include in this influential book.
The debates started around 300 AD with a lot of editing. This continued until the
16th century when Martin Luther published the first German translation of the Bible.
Throughout all these years, the many translations and different interpretations have changed
the bible a lot. Some later translators didn't agree with certain parts, so they took them out.
According to Jason Combs from Brigham Young University, a professor specializing in
ancient Christianity, there were hundreds of works that were skeptical. These never
made it into the canon. Many of them were lost, while others were preserved as forbidden books.
How was it decided which books were allowed in the Bible and which weren't? There were three
primary criteria. It depended on who wrote the specific book, how old that book was,
and how appropriate the text was regarding the Christian teaching of the time.
If the church leaders didn't like the message, they didn't include it.
The Apocrypha comprises non-canonical books mostly from the 2nd century AD which refer to Jesus and
his apostles. Some were published between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Others
are considered false texts, expanded stories by Jewish and Christian writers which exaggerated
and dramatized earlier parts of the Bible. From the Gospel of Peter to the Gospel of Mary,
a lot of biblical texts have been hidden for centuries, kept out of churches and out of
the public eye. We’re about to take a deep dive into these secret chapters.
9. The Apocalypse of James The Apocalypse of James, divided into two books,
was rejected when the great Emperor Constantine of the Roman Empire first standardized the
Christian religion between 306 and 337 AD. It was Constantine who instructed the bishops to take all
available Christian writings in circulation and compress them into the New Testament. That's about
330 years of writing. Constantine had this New Testament presented to the world in the
year 367 AD by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. Many people claimed God had touched the bishop,
and that he would have published nothing, not under the sacred word of God.
In the New Testament, the Apocalypse of James was not included. Officials outlawed the books.
But fragments of them have been circulating for nearly 2000 years. Most of what we know about
these mysterious books comes to us from scraps of papyrus that were found decades ago in Egypt
in the 1940s. Terracotta vessels were discovered stuffed with 13 scrolls, buried in the 4th century
to protect them. They were written in a blend of Greek and Egyptian, which we call Coptic.
The books aren't that dissenting. The Apocalypse of James details the teachings that Jesus gave
to his brother, James. It was written as a narration, a dialogue between the two men.
Jesus describes heaven, then gives James the password that he'll need to get into heaven.
This part was a little strange, and maybe that's why it wasn't included in the Bible.
If you knew the password to get into heaven, who would you share it with?
8. The Book of Adam The Book of Adam is another version of
the story that appears in Genesis of the conflict involving Adam, Eve, and Satan. Nobody knows which
version of this story is correct, only that the version most of us know is in Genesis,
and the story from the Book of Adam was thrown out. It’s called the Conflict of Adam and Eve with
Satan, and it was written in the 6th century. What makes this book so unique is that it
concentrates on Adam's story. The serpent tries to kill Adam and Eve, but God foils him. He then
casts the evil serpent into India. Satan also appears and tries to deceive and murder Adam
and Eve, but each time, God saves them. The book also goes into detail about Adam’s life outside
the garden, and how sad and helpless he was. This version also gets into the children of
Adam and Eve. It talks about how the sons of God are Seth’s sons,
Seth being Adam and Eve’s third child. It also talks about the Cainites who descended from Cain,
the first murderer in the world. This is the book that also talks about the mysterious Nephilim,
a race of giants who the flood wiped out. How tall is the tallest person you know?
7. Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas was discovered
at the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt in 1945, along with the scraps from the Apocalypse of James, lost
copies of the Gospel of Philip, and lost copies of the Gospel of Truth. Historians speculate all
these religious texts were buried here immediately after the Bishop of Alexandria announced the final
version of the New Testament. Realizing that these writings were being axed from the Bible, somebody,
under someone’s orders, hid the few scripts they could get their hands on at Nag Hammadi.
The Gospel of Thomas was probably written between 60 and 250 AD. It contains sayings of Jesus with
no information about the deeds of his life, which differ from the other gospels. There are
114 of these sayings inside the Gospel of Thomas, with the introduction at the beginning saying,
“These are the hidden words that Jesus Christ spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.”
Modern scholars don't believe the Apostle Thomas wrote this document and say some other unknown
person probably authored it. The first saying is, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings
will not experience death." Why do you think the Gospel of Thomas was left out of the bible?
6. The Sibylline Oracles The Sibylline Oracles
are unlike any other forbidden books in the Bible. They're oracular scrolls, and they were written by
priestesses called Sibylls as far back as the 6th century BC. A fire destroyed most of them in 83 BC
and then burned once and for all under the orders of the Romans around 365 AD.
This collection would never make it into the Bible. There was no way on earth it would be
allowed to happen. But they're still worth noting just because of how important they were once.
The Sibylline Oracles were essentially the same things as the gospels. They were a collection
of stories and predictions involving the known world, mostly Rome and Assyria.
But what's exciting is that the Sibylline Oracles told almost identical stories as the Garden of
Eden, the Great Flood and Noah’s Ark, and the Tower of Babel. And this was written centuries
before the books that made it into the Bible. The stories from this Pagan text are similar
to the stories in the Bible. At least, the big stories are related. It goes to show that the
biggest and most influential stories in history are more or less edited copies of one another.
Why do you think women writers were excluded from the bible? Share your thoughts in the
comments. Make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss out on more exciting videos!
5. The First Book of Enoch The First Book of Enoch is considered
an apocryphal work. This means not included in any scriptural canon. The only complete version
of the First Book of Enoch is an Ethiopian translation from a previous Greek translation,
which was made from the original Hebrew version written around the 3rd century.
Enoch was the 7th patriarch in the Book of Genesis. It was believed Enoch had received some
secret knowledge from God. He was considered a visionary, and most of his story in the forbidden
book has parallels to the old Babylonian myth of Enmeduranki. This Sumerian king ruled over much
of Mesopotamia. He supposedly ruled the lands for 21,000 years and was connected to the Babylonian
sun-god Utu, later called Shamash. Enoch’s story is so closely related to the god Utu that it’s
no wonder it was never included in the Bible. Some fragments of this book were discovered in the
Dead Sea Scrolls, but nobody knows exactly when they were written or who wrote them. But because
of how dramatic the book of Enoch is, historians agree that either a Christian or Jewish person
took known stories and dramatized them. It goes into serious detail about the origins of demons,
why some angels fell from heaven and the origins of the Nephilim. It also explains
that the Genesis flood was a moral necessity. The only people who accept these writings as truth
are the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. 4. The Gospel of Mary
In the Gospel of Mary, the controversial figure Mary Magdalene appears as one of Jesus’s
disciples. Not only that, but Jesus also singles her out to be given his very special teachings. In
this forbidden gospel, Jesus’s death discourages the disciples and Mary is the one who comforts
them. She reminds the disciples that Jesus’s presence will always be with them. And when Peter
asks her to repeat the words she can remember, she says that she spoke to him already in a vision.
Then she reveals the gospel, the words of Jesus. This was borderline blasphemy in the days when
the New Testament was being put together. The leaders of the church would never let a woman
have her own chapter in the Bible. And so, it was cut, and the church tried to bury it.
But in 1896, this text was discovered! A German named Carl Reinhardt purchased it in the Egyptian
capital of Cairo. But everything else is a mystery. It was kept relatively secret until 1983
when it was published officially. The Gospel of Mary had been discarded along with other
forbidden texts, such as the Act of Peter and Sophia of Jesus Christ. This gospel was old,
written probably around 90 AD, according to Karen L. King from Harvard Divinity School.
But what makes this gospel so exciting is that it confirms Mary as a pivotal character
in the life of Jesus. It's just that scholars can't agree on who Mary was.
She could have been the mother of Jesus, maybe his sister, or just a great friend. Whatever the case,
the church has tried to bury her existence for centuries. Some people even think she may have
been Jesus’ wife. What do you think? 3. Letter to Aristeas
The Letter to Aristeas was written by a Jewish person in the 2nd century BC. It tells the story
of the translation of the five books of Moses into Greek and why they were translated at all.
Aristeas was an official of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who was a Greek monarch in
Egypt in the 3rd century. The letter was addressed to Aristeas’s brother, discussing how the monarch
asked for a translation of the five first books of the Old Testament. The translation took 72
days and was brought from Jerusalem to Egypt. This is exciting because the original books of
the Old Testament were written in Hebrew, then translated to Greek,
and then the New Testament primarily came from those Greek translations. Historians
say that the scholars who made the translations over those 72 days could have made mistakes.
This means that those mistakes could have changed the stories of the Old Testament, which then would
have been altered even further. The Letter to Aristeas shows how messed up all the translations
of the Bible really could be. No wonder it wasn’t added to the final version of the Bible!
The only problem is that scholars also argue about the historical accuracy of this forbidden book. It
could be real, an actual letter written verbatim, or it could just be another made-up story.
Benjamin Wright who is a professor of religious studies says he doesn’t think
the story is historical, he thinks the text is an elaborate myth of origins for this translation,
which he thinks was done for different reasons. Wright says it’s a marvelous text that tells us
a lot about the Jewish community in Alexandria in the middle of the second century BCE.
2. The Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees,
also known as Lesser Genesis, was so thoroughly suppressed by the powers of Europe
that not a single complete Latin or Greek version has survived. Protestants, Roman Catholics,
and Eastern Orthodox Christians all despise the Book of Jubilees. The only group which considers
it canonical is the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The book claims to present the events which
were secretly revealed to Moses while he spent 40 days and 40 nights on Mount Sinai.
It's a fascinating take because it describes events talked about in Genesis and Exodus while
dividing them into jubilees of 49 years. Each of these jubilees has seven cycles of seven years.
This is the jubilee calendar, the Jewish calendar that marks religious festivals and holy days
and sets the Jews apart from their neighbors while emphasizing the message of the Old Testament.
The Hasmoneans immediately accepted the Book of Jubilees. It also became popular with early
Christians. The Book of Jubilees helped divide certain religious sects. It became one of the
key influences on the formation of Islam. It said God's words were written on celestial tablets,
and then an Angel revealed these words to the prophet Moses. The biblical figures are all
depicted as prophets, and this was a huge divider between early Christians and early Muslims.
1. The Apocalypse of Paul The original version of the Apocalypse of
Paul is lost. There are only redacted versions in circulation. The text has been reconstructed using
different translations and different versions. The message is the same. Paul had a vision of heaven
and hell, according to the book. It was this book thousands of years ago which helped shape
modern beliefs about the Christian afterlife. Why it was banned from the Bible is a mystery.
Another interesting part about the Apocalypse of Paul is that some experts think they know
where it was written. Researcher Kirsti Copeland argues it was composed at a communal monastery in
Egypt between 388 and 400 AD. It's an expanded version of the Apocalypse of Peter.
But one of the key differences is that at the very end, Paul or the Virgin Mary, differing from
manuscript to manuscript, convinces God to give everyone in hell the day off. Every Sunday, the
lost souls of hell get a brief respite from their suffering. And so on Sunday, people can sit around
on their couches being lazy and watching football. Which forbidden text do you think should be
included in the bible? Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching. Be sure to hit subscribe
and come back soon for more surprising videos on the ancient world! See you next time!