Why are there missing books of the Bible?

Question

Did people decide to cut them out for editing purposes?

My boyfriend inherited his family Bible (really, really old--from the 1800's) and it had a couple of extra books and lots of extra stories (including one about Daniel slaying a dragon) so I know they cut something out at some point.

Answer 1

When the canon (assembled theologians of the time) assembled they had hundreds of letters and Gospels to choose from. They chose 4 gospels to represent the 4 prime directions of the compass.

they chose only those letters they believe promoted their ideals and discarded many others. Those they discarded were ordered destroyed. The were afraid they would be incorporated at a later date unless destroyed.

One of their primary aims was to make the Bible masculine in nature showing male supremacy over women. Women were still considered "property" or "chattel" at that time.

Today there are some of the "lost" manuscripts coming to light such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary and just newly released the Gospel of Judas.

I believe all the "lost" letters and manuscripts are hidden in the archives of the Vatican and have for a long time. The resent release of the book on the Knights Templar only proves the Vatican has many hidden writings, which if brought to light would change the whole concept of Christianity making it both masculine and feminine. It would also show many of the lies the Roman Catholic Church has blinded their followers into believing.

Even the KJV of the Bible is highly modified due to political pressures at various times in history and even some transcribers have changed, added to or deleted passages because they thought they could improve on it.

ADDITIONAL: Really old Bibles as you say your bf has also often have valuable information such as births, marriages and deaths and dates for them. They may also contain other bits of family history. If these are present in this Bible have him protect it as best he can. He may not be interested in geneology now but he may becomes so or someone in his family my be doing geneologies. This infomation is vitally important.

Answer 2

Assuming you mean the New Testament, there are no books missing, if you mean books that were first accepted and later "cut out". The Canon of the New Testament were basically fixed in the 4th century, although there were still some animosities as to whether the Book of Revelation should be considered canonical or not. The Bible canon was of course decided by the Councils of the Catholic Church (not yet the "Roman" Catholic Church, because it was before the divide between the Roman and the Eastern Churches), on the grounds of theological content and (alleged) authorship.

If you mean the Old Testament books that are included in the Catholic Bible but not in the Protestant, they were cut out because it became trendy among the reformators to accept the Hebrew collection (without those books) rather than the old Greek translation (including those books) that Jesus and the Jews of his time were generally using.

There was no decision whatsoever before the 16th century as to whether those books should be included or not, but they were widely accepted by the Church during the millennia before the reformation, ever since the time of Jesus himself.


Edit: yes, it's quite common Lutheran Bibles (and maybe some other protestant ones) have the books Luther deemed "not canonical" included in a separate part of the book, because he still found them good and useful to read, although not fully reliable as the actual word of God. Until the 19th century the Protestant Bibles in Sweden always had those books included, and only the last a little more than 100 years they have been totally excluded from the Bible editions. In the last official (and ecumenical) Bible edition (1999) they have actually been included again, still as a separate part so those who don't want to read them can know which they are. The Anglican bibles also included these books until 1826. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_apocrypha

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Why are there missing books of the Bible?
Did people decide to cut them out for editing purposes?

Answer 4

If you had say 20 books that have the same meanings and you have say 5 that don;t doesn't it stand to reason that someone added to or took away from them. Think about it. There are alot of books not in the King James Version of the Bible. But we have enough to know that Jesus is our saviour and we know enough to accept him into our hearts so that we can go to Heaven, People that have accepted Jesus don't have to guess or doubt they know because when they felt the Holy Spirit leading them to be saved they acted on that and then a whole new spiritual world opened up to them. Here is a sinners prayer, as you read it if you feel a tugging at your heart or you feel something telling you that it is truth then the Holy Spirit is telling you it is time to give your life to Jesus, the rest is up to you, just pray Dear Jesus, I know and confess that I am sinner in need of salvation. I believe you died on a cross at calvery and arose from the grave to wash away my sins, I ask you right now to come into my heart and save me, I pray this Prayer believing in the name of Jesus Amen. If you prayed this prayer with a sincere heart you are now a child of God, rejoice that your name is written in the Lambs book of Life. Jesus will now send his Holy Spirit to come and live in your heart and guide you into all truth. If you have any questions just send me an email, God Bless YOU!!

Answer 5

Because man decided to edit the bible to fit in with his ideas of what Christianity should be. Anything that didn't fit into this idea was deleted.

Some of these books were more accurate because they were written when Jesus was actually alive, unlike the New Testament.

If you want to find these missing texts, you can google them.

Answer 6

There are no missing books of the Bible.

What you have are special interest groups who wrote some extra books and then complain that their book was not included.

Up until 1546 there were 66 books in all Bibles.

27 in New Testament and 39 in the Old Testament

In 1546 one religion added a few books to the Bible to enhance their fund raising techniques which actually contradicte the original 66 books.

Bible believing Christians have never accepted those extra books. Those extra books which appear in only some Old Testaments today, were rejected by Jewish leaders around 50 AD since they never existed in the Hebrew language.

Internal references in these books show that they don't even claim to be God's Word.

Another "Why . . . " question where the premise of the question is false.

A better question to ask would be this:

"Are there any books missing from the Bible?"

The answer to that is, "No."

Pastor Art

Answer 7

There are missing books of the Bible. There is no question to that. There was council that decided which book to include. Most of them that were omitted were for political reason that contradict the governing body of the time. If fact, one of the leader(name slips me at the time) was baptized on his death bed. This is a documented fact. History is history. As much people want to say no to this. This is what happened. I followed the Christian faith for over 40 years. Allot of things were changed over the coarse of time for the benefit of man. This what people do by nature to get what they want. Next we will say there are no secret societies in the church. Even thou they can out of the closet with that. So much for not bearing false wittiness.

Answer 8

If you want to read the missing books of the Bible, check out the Gnostic Scriptures. They were removed because they were considered to be too revealing, blasphemous, and contradictory.

Answer 9

If the King James Version was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for you! LOL...

In 1611, a "standard" bible translation was invented, and only included the books that suited the intentions of the Protestant church. Since "the bible" is really only an agreed-upon canon for each flavor of religion anyway, religions like to leave bits out they don't really like. The Catholic & Jewish vesions often include many books ignored by Christians.

And it is all mostly nonsense!

Answer 10

There are other manuscripts, just not cannonized.

Paul wrote many other letters but they were not found to be the word of God. The Bible is made up of "books" letters, personal accounts of the word of God. Because they were found to be the inspired word of God, example: "a word came to me from the Lord" and by whom they were written.
They were canonized by the 4th century councils who made the choice of what the "word of God" was. God's perfect word!
Read the history of the Bible for more information.