The Lost Books of the Bible The Church View: In the Catholic Church the version used is the

Douay-Rheims Bible consisting of 73 books. In the Protestant church only the 66 books approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1885, which today is known as the Authorized King James Bible, are used. No other books, neither the Apocrypha, which was included in the original King James Bible, nor the 22 books mentioned or quoted in the King James Bible, are considered inspired. The Bible View: There was no specific list or accounting of all the books that made up the Bible until the commission of the first Bible by the Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century AD. The books that make up the Authorized King James Bible were chosen by men, not divine forces. The language of the King James Bible is obscure and limited. An Introduction Human history has allowed precious few ancient religious writings to survive the onslaught of the more aggressive and powerful religious forces, which seek only to gain territory and wealth. Genocide and cultural eradication always go hand in hand with missionary zeal. In many cases every trace of the conquered society's religious writings, practices, icons, and even buildings were destroyed, in the name of conversion from worship of gods considered evil, and religious customs labeled as heresies. What generally results from past crusades is the conqueror's religion replacing or predominantly blending with the conquered culture's former religious practice, making the its religion almost unrecognizable. Christianity falls into the latter category, having been the victim of the Roman Empire, under the Emperor Constantine, who blended the Christian Church with the institutionalized "pagan" practices of Rome and eliminated any semblance of either the Jewish religious influence or the first church Jesus established during his ministry. The First Reformation After solidifying his position to gain complete control of the western portion of the empire in 312, the Emperor Constantine instituted the Edict of Milan, a "Magna Carta of religious liberty," which eventually changed the Empire's religion and put Christianity on an equal footing with paganism. Almost overnight the position of the Christian Church was reversed from persecuted to legal and accepted. Constantine began to rely on the church for support, and it on him for protection. The Church and the Empire formed an alliance, which remains to this day. Very rapidly, the laws and policies of the Empire and the doctrine of the Church became one with Constantine as the interpreter of both law and policy. This was accomplished by eliminating hundreds of books thought to be against "Church" doctrine and watering down what remained by blending Christian beliefs and practice with long established Roman sanctioned pagan worship. Constantine believed that the Church and the State should be as close as possible. Constantine tolerated pagan practices, keeping pagan gods on coins and retaining his pagan high priest title "Pontifex Maximus" in order to maintain popularity with his former subjects. In 330 he began an assault on paganism but used a clever method of persuasion to force people to follow the laws by combining pagan worship with Christianity. He made December 25th, the birthday of the pagan Unconquered Sun god, the official holiday now celebrated as the birthday of Jesus. He also replaced the weekly day of worship by making rest on Saturday unlawful and forcing the new religion to honor the first, not the seventh day, as a day of rest. As a way of defining his concept of the new universal religion he simply classified everything "Jewish" to be an abomination. Considering almost every aspect of the Bible is "Jewish" by association, every doctrinal biblical principle was changed or eliminated. After 337 Constantine increased his purging of the more obvious aspects of paganism. Through a series of Universal Councils, he and his successors completely altered doctrine without regard to biblical edict, set up a church hierarchy of his own design, and established a set of beliefs and practices, which are the basis for all mainstream Bible-based churches. The separation of the Protestants and the Roman Church caused a physical split but the beliefs and practices established by Constantine remained almost identical. Very little has changed since the 4th century Councils changed the face of Christianity. An effective practice instituted was the purging of any book in the formerly accepted biblical works, over 80% of the total, that church leaders felt did not fit within their new concept of Christianity. The doctrines and practices remaining in the surviving books were effectively eradicated by simply changing them by replacing clear scripture with Church-sanctioned doctrine. Forbidden Not Lost

Constantine began what was to become a centuries long effort to eliminate any book in the original Bible that was considered unacceptable to the new doctrine of the church. At that time, it is believed there were up to 600 books, which comprised the work we now know as the Bible. Through a series of decisions made by the early church leadership, all but 80 of those books, known as the King James Translation of 1611, were purged from the work, with a further reduction by the Protestant Reformation bringing the number to 66 in the "Authorized" King James Bible. What we now have in Bible-based religion, whether labeled as "Catholic", or Protesting Catholic, known as "Protestant", is unrecognizable form either the Hebrew religion, now known as the Jewish religion, or the church established at Jerusalem by the Apostles and disciples of Jesus. The practices of this first church are not practiced by any major religion and they are almost unknown, despite being clearly outlined in the existing New Testament. In its place are doctrines and practices first established in the first "true" Reformation of Christianity begun by Constantine. There is much controversy over how many books the Bible should actually contain but considering the depth and scope of those few works remaining in the "accepted" Bible, we see but a fragment of incredible wisdom and history. A study of the Lost Books of the Bible is incomplete without a clear understanding that this is not a matter of simple loss, but a campaign by the Roman Catholic Church to purge books variously classified as heretical, dangerous, and corruptive. To the public they are "lost"; to the Church they are "forbidden". Although the exact number of books purged is known only to the Church, and not shared knowledge, some can be determined by the discovery of their presence in the church prior to the reformation resulting in what became known as the Roman "Universal" Church. One of the more obvious forms of discovery comes from the surviving books themselves, which sight works not present in the existing collection. Also many do not know that the Apocryphal books were actually included in the King James translation until they were officially purged by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1885. Other writings also connect many books to the first church. Whatever the number before the purge by the formation of Catholicism by Constantine; even one lost book is a great loss indeed. We claim no expertise concerning the authenticity of any the lost books and leave this judgment to the reader. We do, however, strongly reject the self-proclaimed authority of any dogmatically motivated and church-controlled mortals who think themselves qualified to make such decisions. One of the most logical and realistic concepts in the Bible is the caution that one should prove all things. We believe that proving the veracity of a given thing is an individual responsibility, which must not, and should not be the duty of those who think themselves better judges

. Old Testament Apocryphal Writings The term "apocrypha" comes from a Greek word meaning "hidden" or "secret" and the books were originally considered by the early church as too exalted to be available to the general public. As time progressed, the exalted nature of the books was lost and the books were deemed by some as false. Between the Book of Malachi and Matthew there is a gap of approximately 450 years. It is these books that fill that gap and in the time of Christ, these books formed part of the Septuagint Greek Bible which was in circulation at that time. What is missing from most Bibles, and our understanding of it, is what happened in that 450 year gap. Prophets were still writing and reflecting on life in the Holy Land right up until the Romans destroyed the temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The world that Jesus entered in 4 BC is not the world that Daniel and Malachi experienced. One of the values of these books is how they reflect the mindset of Judaism and a Roman world that the New Testament writers faced. Malachi and Daniel leave us in Persia; Matthew brings us into a Roman world. The Apocrypha bridges that gap and gently nudges us into the reality of Roman Palestine. It was only in the fourth century AD that Christians first started to question the "canonicity" of the works although most survived to be included in the King James translation of the Bible in 1611. Old Testament Apocryphal Writings "The Apocrypha" The term "apocrypha" comes from a Greek word meaning "hidden" or "secret" and the books were originally considered by the early church as too exalted to be available to the general public. As time progressed, the exalted nature of the books was lost and the books were deemed by some as false. Between the Book of Malachi and Matthew there is a gap of approximately 450 years. It is these books that fill that gap and, in the time of Christ, these books formed part of the Septuagint Greek Bible that was in circulation at that time. What is missing from most Bibles, and our understanding of it, is what happened in that 450-year gap. Prophets were still writing and reflecting on life in the Holy Land right up until the Romans destroyed the temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The world that Jesus entered in 4 BC is not the world that Daniel and Malachi experienced. One of the values of these books is how they reflect the mindset of Judaism and a

Roman world that the New Testament writers faced. Malachi and Daniel leave us in Persia; Matthew brings us into a Roman world. The Apocrypha bridges that gap and gently nudges us into the reality of Roman Palestine. It was only in the fourth century AD that Christians first started to question the "canonicity" of the works, although most survived to be included in the King James translation of the Bible in 1611. Unknown to almost all of the over two billion people who claim the Bible as their spiritual foundation is that there are several books and two sections missing from all but a few modern versions of that Bible. Perhaps one of the best kept secrets of the modern Protestant church is that the Bible used by that church is not the original King James Bible. That translation, completed in 1611, and the Bibles published for the use of the clergy and the church members until late in the 19th Century, contained 80 books. Although attempts to remove the 15 books, known as the Apocrypha, from the Bible began immediately after the King James translation was completed, they remained in the Bible until the end of the 19th Century. There is no doubt that the 15 books of the Apocrypha were controversial, but it cannot be denied they were included in the original King James Bible. The concept of the Protestant Church about the Apocrypha is virtually non-existent, with the general understanding that only the Catholic Church uses it. One would be hard-pressed to find any members of the clergy even aware that these books were ever included in the King James Bible. There are 155,683 words and over 5,700 verses contained in 168 chapters now missing from the King James translation of the Bible due to the exclusion of the Apocrypha. Although this only happened just over a hundred years ago, their existence as fully accepted scripture is virtually unknown. A clear history exists of the inclusion of the Apocrypha in the King James Bible: - In the year 1615 Archbishop Gorge Abbott, a High Commission Court member and one of the original translators of the 1611 translation, "forbade anyone to issue a Bible without the Apocrypha on pain of one year's imprisonment". - "It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or Deutero-canonical books. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary". (Early Christian Doctrines, J. Kelly) - "In 405 Pope Innocent I embodied a list of canonical books in a letter addressed to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse; it too included the Apocrypha. The Sixth Council of Carthage (419) Re-enacted the ruling of the Third Council, again with the inclusion of the apocryphal books... "The Sixth Council of Carthage repromulgated in Canon 24 the resolution of the Third Council regarding the canon of scripture, and added a note directing that the resolution be sent to the bishop of Rome (Boniface I) and other bishops: 'Let this be made known also to our brother and fellow-priest Boniface, or to other bishops of those parts, for the purpose of confirming that Canon [Canon 47 of the Third Council], because we have received from our fathers that these are the books which are to be read in church.'" (The Canon on Scripture, F. F. Bruce) - "The holy ecumenical and general Council of Trent . . . following the example of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates all the books of the Old and New Testament . . . and also the traditions pertaining to faith and conduct . . . with an equal sense of devotion and reverence . . . If, however, any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have by custom been read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, let him be accursed." (Decree of the Council of Trent in 1546) - "In the name of Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church. . . And the other books (as Jerome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners: but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine." (Articles of Religion of the Church of England, 1563, Sixth Article) Most early Bibles contained the Apocrypha; here are just a few: 1534 1534 1537 1539 1541 1551 1560 Luther's German translation of the Bible The Coverdale Bible Thomas Matthew Bible The Taverner Bible The "Great" or "Cromwell's" Bible The "Tyndale/ Matthews" Bible The Geneva Bible

1568 1610 1611 1615 1625 1717 1782 1791 1846

The Bishops' Bible Catholic Old Testament King James Bible King James Version Robert Barker at London, England A King James Version King George 1st, AKA, The "Vinegar Bible" The Aitken Bible The Family Bible The Illuminated Bible

The Apocrypha are also contained in the following: - The Septuagint (LXX) - Except II Esdras. - Codex Alexandrinus (A) - Also contains III & IV Maccabees - Codex Vaticanus - Except I & II Maccabees and The defaulter of Manassah - Codex Sinaiticus (Aleph) - Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus - Includes Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus - Chester Beatty Papyri - Fragments of Ecclesiasticus - The Dead Sea Scrolls - Some apocryphal writing was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls - interestingly written in Greek. - Several writings of Church Fathers Bibles are still available with Apocrypha: - The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha: Published by Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0192835254 (Pub. Date: July 1998) - KJV Standard Reference Edition With Apocrypha: Published by Cambridge Univ Pr (Bibles); ISBN: 0521509467; Slipcase edition (Pub. Date: August 1997) - 1611 Edition: a reprint of the 1611 KJV With Apocrypha, Published by Nelson Bible; ISBN: 0840700415; Reissue edition (Pub. Date: June 1, 1982) - King James Version Lectern Edition: Published by Cambridge Univ Pr (Bibles); ISBN: 0521508169; (Pub. Date: March 1998) - The Dake Annotated Reference Bible, Standard Edition: King James Version With Apocrypha, Published by Dake Publishing ISBN: 1558290699 (Pub. Date: April 1996) For 275 years there were efforts to purge the Apocrypha from the Bible: - "APOCRYPHA, that is, Books which are not to be esteemed like the Holy Scriptures, and yet which are useful and good to read." (Luther Bible, 1534) - "The books and treatises which among the Fathers of old are not reckoned to be of like authority with the other books of the Bible, neither are they found in the Canon of Hebrew." (Coverdale Bible 1535) - "The books that follow in order after the Prophets unto the New Testament, are called Apocrypha, that is, books which were not received by a common consent to be read and expounded publicly in the Church, neither yet served to prove any point of Christian religion save in so much as they had the consent of the other scriptures called canonical to confirm the same, or rather whereon they were grounded: but as books proceeding from godly men they were received to be read for the advancement and furtherance of the knowledge of history and for the instruction of godly manners: which books declare that at all times God had an especial care of His Church, and left them not utterly destitute of teachers and means to confirm them in the hope of the promised Messiah, and also witness that those calamities that God sent to his Church were according to his providence, who had both so threatened by his prophets, and so brought it to pass, for the destruction of their enemies and for the trial of his children." (Geneva Bible, 1560, Preface) - The Synod of the Reformed Church held at Dordrecht in 1618 condemned the Apocrypha. - "The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the Canon of Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings." (Westminster Confession, 1647) - The thirty nine Articles of the Church of England in 1562 recognized this and rejected the canonicity of these apocryphal writings which the Roman church had proclaimed. - In 1880 the American Bible Society voted to remove the "Apocrypha" Books from the King James Version. These 14 Books [There are 155,683 words in over 5,700 verses in 168 Chapters] of the Apocrypha had been part of the King's bible since 1611.

- The "Apocrypha" was not officially removed from the English printings of the KJV by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1885 leaving only 66 books from the original 81. An Apocryphal Comparison of the King James and Douay Rheims Bibles: The common belief is that even though the Apocryphal books do not appear in the modern King James Bible, they all do appear in the Catholic Douay Rheims Bible. This is not correct.