I recently read some of these "books" and to me they don't seem any less fantastic than the included books!
2007-06-20 12:50:20 · 15 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
They had subtle rules, and fables in them that the prevailing church leaders felt wold undermine their iron grip on the believers.
2007-06-20 12:52:42 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
It took the early Church some time to sort through the various books written. There were Church councils in the 4th century who had a purpose to do just that. The collection of books, including both Old and New Testaments was finally settled at the Council Carthage in 397 AD, meaning that the list had been used by all Christians up until the Reformation, where some books were removed by Protestants, but are still in use today by Catholics.
Prior to the councils though, there were basically three groupings of books. The first grouping were those that were universally acknowledged as Canonical. These included the four gos[els 13 Epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles.
The second grouping was made up of disputed books. Some people thought they were genuine, but others did not. These included such books as the Epistles of James, Jude, Peter, 2nd & 3rd John, and Hebrews. These are today found in the the New Testament. Some other books that did not make it, but were in this category wereShepherd of Hermas, Epislte of Barnabas, Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans, aong others.
The third categeory were made up of spurious or false books.
These were never acknowledged as of any validity in the Church and were full of absurb fables to superstitions. Some of these books were the Gospel of James, the Gospel of Thomas, Acts of Pilate Acts of Paul and Thecla, among others. These were rejected wholesale. To put it simply, they did not tell about the Jesus that the Church knew. hope this helps.
2007-06-20 20:39:40 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The following is the criteria for a written work to be canonized by the Roman church:
1. Apostolic Authority: the book must be written or co-authored by the Holy Spirit. This can means they must be written by one of the 12 disciples or under the authority or guidance of one of the disciples. (Because of this Paul counts as a disciple because he was appointed by the resurrected Jesus, and Mark although he is not a disciple he is considered Peter's secretary and side-kick.).
2. Must be close to source.
3. Antiquity: must be old enough to be apostolic.
4. Orthodoxy: Must teach the right thing. Does the writing match up to the apostle? To test it must hold true to the teachings of the church the apostle started.
5. Catholicity: Universal. Must be universally recognized by all churches.
2007-06-20 19:54:12 · answer #3 · answered by Runa 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The Council of Nicea debated on this topic for a long time. In the end, the ones that made it in were the books that portrayed the concepts that the Council wanted Christians to think, and left out books that had ideas they didn't approve of. For example, the book of Thomas that portrays Jesus as a child who had a snarky moment or two... that showed him more human, and they wanted him to be seen as more divine, so it was left out.
It's all about controlling the information, that controls the people's thoughts.
2007-06-20 19:56:26 · answer #4 · answered by KC 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
The rabbis included the the books which were written with divine spirit and which had an eternal message/eternal applicability, into the 24 books of the scripture.
2007-06-20 20:09:51 · answer #5 · answered by supcch063 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
The church voted which books would be included in the King James version of the Bible, and they basically excluded all of the books that had women in a positive or powerful light. It's all about oppression, subjugation, and making people believe things that aren't necessarily true...
2007-06-20 19:53:01 · answer #6 · answered by Integri 2 · 3⤊ 2⤋
read Enoch if you want "Fantastic" earth ages, dimensions. demons, fallen angels, giants. sirens as in women, pillars of the earth, solar system etc....books were left out of the cannonized version because i believe it gave too much knowledge to regular folks and that would mean less control of minds and pocket books for the churches. that's my opine.
2007-06-20 19:53:32 · answer #7 · answered by pissdownsatansback 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The conventions to canonize the Scriptures had to determine the authenticity of each manuscript. They couldn't determine the authorship of some, while others seemed contrary to more reliable manuscripts.
2007-06-20 19:54:02 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 0⤋
Because they said things that the group who put the Bible together didn't agree with. It doesn't mean that they aren't just as important.
2007-06-20 19:53:48 · answer #9 · answered by markmccloud_1 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The Catholic church had control over the Bible for several hundred years, they killed anyone who dared to translate it to English, during that time they deleted and rewrote most of it to suit their needs, the main one being to make the Church more powerful.
2007-06-20 19:55:08 · answer #10 · answered by Daisy Indigo 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Because the whole thing is made up and wriiten so people have to follow these specific rules. The reason why some books are not in there is because they probably weren't holy sounding enough
2007-06-20 19:53:59 · answer #11 · answered by soundofsettling 2 · 1⤊ 3⤋