Stolen and Forgotten Books of the Church

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Who Stole? Who Forgot?

I have assembled a collection of the Books which have been important to the Church that have not been readily available, especially to the Protestant branch of the Church Vine.

The Apocrypha or Deutero-canonical (Second Canon) books

form the largest part of this group of inaccessible works.

Publishers in North America who printed the King James Bible without permission did so WITHOUT INCLUDING THE TEXT OF THE APOCRYPHA !  They found that they could sell their Bibles just as easily without including those books. Since printing was expensive, their profits were greater without the additional books.

Cui Bonum –  In detecting the perpetrator of a crime it is often crucial to discover ‘who benefits’ financially. Answer: the publishers did.

All sorts of theological reasons have been floated as to why these books were removed from North American printings of the Bible but $ is the most persuasive reason.

As a result, divisions in the Church have been increased through misunderstanding. Protestants no longer had easy access to the same texts as their Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters. It is important to restore what has been stolen for profit !

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA

these are the category of Forgotten Books which includes:

The Book of Jubilees and the Book of Enoch, which are included in the canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Testament of the 12 Patriarchs and the Pirke Avot which are primarily Jewish works that provide important background to our understanding of the Pharisaic movement which was prevalent in Jesus’ day and developed into modern Rabbinic Judaism.

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHAL BOOKS

are also included in the Forgotten Books category.

The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the Gospel of Nicodemus and the Shepherd of Hermas were written after the birth of the Church. They include valuable insight into early Christian thought, the ways in which Persecution was dealt with as well as Ethical Thinking.

The FORGOTTEN BOOKS

are useful but not necessary.

I do not suggest that they must be included in the Bible.

But they can be helpful to understanding.

The STOLEN BOOKS

are a great loss. They need to be restored to the Protestant churches.

There has never been a consensus in the Church that these ‘Apocryphal’ Books should be considered equal in importance with the Proto-canon, those books which correspond to the Hebrew Tanak. I, personally do not think them to be equal to the Books which Protestants usually accept as the entire Word of God.

There are insights to be gained from reading these books. There is value in being ‘on the same page’ as the rest of the Church. If we are going to stand against the SPIRIT OF OFFENCE which seeks to divide and weaken the Church, we must understand each other.

SATAN DID THE STEALING. We have done the ‘forgetting’.

Maybe it would be better to say we have neglected some of our history

that would help us with our present. But that would have been too long to put as a title.

It is interesting reading.

Give it a look.

Stolen and Forgotten Books of the Church