Are there books that were deliberately taken from the bible in fear that people will stray from the church?

Question

I'm not talking about books like Tobit, Judith, I and II Maccabees, etc. that are in the catholic bible and not in other non catholic bibles. But books written by other apostles, more specifically Christ himself. I have heard numerous times that he indeed docuemented his times while he was alive, but the church left it out cause it was said that he wrote about his family. Are there credible sources to come to such a conclusion. This inquiry really has nothing to do with the movie The DaVinci Code. Because this topic in modern society has been ongoing for awhile both in time, and in my understanding of the church. I do infact believe in God, but I really have a hard time believing what the church conveys . Misteaching and double standard preaching, on top of "church law" rather than Gods law have really had me question the church. So again has the church hidden certain text, chapters, and or books from the bible?

Answer 1

Only books of truly apostolic origin and books that were universally used and accepted by the early church were considered for inclusion in the new testament canon of scripture.

Jesus never wrote, or directed that anything be written.

There is nothing hidden. Everything God truly revealed is available for review.

As for your distrust of the church: Due to the way Jesus set things up, church law IS God's law.

Get used to it. No other person, group, book, or organization has the authority that Jesus gave to the church alone.

The church is also able to function quite well, totally independent of the scriptures, because Jesus still remains as the head of it.

And that is ALL duly recorded in authentic scripture.

Answer 2

The Whole Church, back when there was only One church, came together and voted on what books would be in the bible. They debated the issue and there were wise and learned men who knew more that we do about the time of Jesus because it was closer to their own time. An Ecumenical Council of the Church decided on what went in the bible. We are told that whenever all Christians in all places agree on something that we can be sure that it is the Holy Spirit working. That is why the Bible is as it is. Ecumenical mean the Whole Church.

Answer 3

The books removed were due to this, not frpm fear of misleading people, but they were inconsitsant with the rest of the books. Even the Bible we have, isn't even in order. Job, actaully happened between Ex. and Gen. I fond the Chronological Bible, really put things into place. I don't study from it cause it's not designed for that. First, we don't live under law anymore, we live under grace, Humans thought we could earn our way to God, to be good enough. Thus the 10 commandments. He knew it was a set of rules we could never keep. Thus showing our dependancey on Him. Every church seems to focus on certian parts more than others. My advice is find one that teaches the whole Word and not just parts of it. God Bless.

Answer 4

Does not the content and the literary form of the Bible prove its inspiration ? Does not the Bible contain miracles and prophecies, holy and sublime doctrines, and appeal to the heart of man by its peculiar beauty and simplicity ?

No, the book itself does not guarantee its own inspiration. Such a criterion is useless, because at most it would prove that some parts of some books are inspired, but not that any book is divine in its origin. The writings of many of the Fathers and saints of the Church contain topics just as sublime, and written in just as sublime and simple a style. And yet no one ever considered St. Augustine, St. Bernard or Thomas a Kempis inspired. Some books like Numbers are in many portions as interesting as the multiplication table, while others like Esther do not mention any religious topic whatsoever. Literary taste, moreover, is variable and subjective, and, therefore, useless as a test of inspiration.

Can we not prove the inspiration of the Bible from "the inward testimony of the Spirit?" Does not the Bible produce in the reader sentiments of devotion, faith, hope, and love of God and one's neighbor?

No, this criterion is no criterion whatever, as Dr. Eck told Luther at the Leipzig Disputation, when he argued that the inspired and canonical character of the books of the Bible could be known only by the divine authority and tradition of the Catholic Church. He quoted St. Augustine against him: "I am compelled to believe the Gospel only on the authority of the Catholic Church" {Contra Epis. Fund. Manich., ch. 5).

Such a criterion is purely subjective. The impression received from reading the Bible varies with each individual reader, and as happened in Luther's case, may give rise to arbitrary denials of whole books of the Bible. For example, he eliminated the Second Book of Machabees because he rejected the doctrine of purgatory; he considered the Apocalypse "neither apostolic nor prophetic"; he called the Epistle of St. James an "Epistle of straw," and declared the Apostle was "mad with his crazy doctrine of good works" (Grisar, Luther, v., 521, 522).

Moreover, there are many portions of the Bible which do not arouse devotion, and many non-inspired books that do. On this false test we would have to reject the inspiration of Exodus xxxv., Leviticus xi., or 2 Kings xi. and maintain the inspiration of the Interior Castle of St. Teresa and the Dark Night of the Soul of St. John of the Cross.

Answer 5

Absolutely

The early church was split in several different directions as to what exactly was the message that Jesus gave. The largest division pretty much can be summed up as the division between the esoteric side of the church and the exoteric side of the church.

The esoteric side lost. It required its practitioners to look within to find spiritual enlightenment. The exoteric by contrast told the practitioners to look to outside of themselves to their local priest for spiritual enlightenment and direction. This made the exoteric easilly malleable to a centralizing religion.

There was a locational difference to these two sides as well. The exoteric were spread into the roman lands while the esoteric where in egypt and the old biblical lands.

At the council of nicaea 325 AD, emporer constantine decided what books remained in the bible and which were tossed aside. Some of these books contradict what is in the bible today. All references to these were brutally surpressed for the last 1500 years or so - until chance led to some hidden caches of them in the desert that the catholic church didn't get to burn.

If you want to read some of the esoteric texts look for key words like the coptic church, the essenes, dead sea scrolls, nag hammadi library, manicheans, gnostics, mercabah riders

Answer 6

I read somewhere years ago that the Council of Nicea, to which Special-C referred in his answer, removed several references in the Bible that referred to reincarnation. There was apparently a belief by the powers that be at the time that if people thought they had a second - and third - chance at life, they would be more willing to take chances and defy the word of the all and powerful "Church", which of course had most of the power over the lives of people back then.

Answer 7

if jesus could read and write, it is doubtful if he was poor.
as to books left out of the bible, although I can't prove it other than by texts that have appeared, re 3rd century translations of other writers, it is almost assuredly likely that many texts would be left out. anything that might lead someone to 'free thinking' would have been frowned upon.
I have often dreamed of being able to understand ancient languages and to be let loose in the catacombs of the roman church. if there are any proofs, they are there.
what was left in has created enough controversy in modern times. like blood.
it is mentioned in ancient texts primarily because blood goes bad so quickly and became tainted and deadly within hours, possibly, in a lot of heat. remember there weren't any fridges in those days. if you didn't remove the blood from your meat, you lost the meat or took a chance of dying from eating it
one thing that always bugs me when someone says they understand something 'absolutely.' how??
we have no true understanding of the emphasis of some words in the everyday language of the day. its not impossible for some interpretations to be absolutely wrong.
this is even more likely when you consider that the biblical texts were written in a combination of jewish, possibly arab, roman, and greek. tell me there isn't probably some misinterpretation.
it is almost impossible not to have some misinterpretation. hopefully it is not in our basic concepts

Answer 8

Historically, the Church had to say which texts/stories were "canonical", i.e. acceptable to faith and which were unsure or just not trustworthy. There has been quite a lot of debates at that time, and the rejected texts were deemed "apocryphal", that is "not accepted".
To the best of my knowledge, this rejected literature has never been openly hidden. For example, you can find the Gospel of Thomas in most public libraries and/or large bookshops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas).

Answer 9

It is hard to say. The present lineup was determined in the early days of the Church, and exactly what materials they considered and how they chose is obscure. There are enough errors and self-contradictions in the bible to make the whole thing unreliable as guidance for much of anything.

Answer 10

There is a wonderful freedom to acknowledging that you don't need the Bible - AT ALL - to believe in God. Try it!

God exists completely and fully independently of all scriptures written by humans, and God is not the God described in those scriptures.