Attention Christians - please give me your thoughts

We were discussing the 'other' books written but that were not included in the Bible. HUNDREDS of them.. all authenticated by being from the same time period.  Why are these ignored by Christians?  I would have thought that Christians would have been flocking to read them and include them in the 'big book'.  Is it because some contradict what the current book says? Is it because Mary's book insinuated that there was more between her and Jesus?

When I was a Christian and I found out about this I remembered being very excited and wanting to read them!  But no one else did.. it was hush hush and disregarded... part of the reason for my spiraling decent (or incline!) to Athiesm.

Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Edit: We started discussing this in the "Muslims voting for Obama calling him their savior? " thread

Catholics do actually have a set of additional books, called the Deuterocanonicals. (Thanks Wikipedia!) These books were "approved" by an early church council, but Christians disagreed over them so they didn't make it into the Protestant Bible. But I know that my Catholic Bible has them and I really like them! (My favorite is Sirach!)

There's the Apocryphal writings which may or may not fall under the Deuterocanonicals (shoot, I'm no expert).

Not sure what you meant by authenticated, but there's also The Book of Mormon.

Original Post by dnrothx:

There's the Apocryphal writings which may or may not fall under the Deuterocanonicals (shoot, I'm no expert).

To Catholics, the apocrypha are actually separate from the deuterocanonicals. We accept the deuterocanonicals as actual (canonized) books of the Bible. The apocrypha are books whose authorship is in question so they are outside of the canon.

I think that it was the 13 C. when a group of high ranking Catholic guys got together to look at what had been written and decided what would be included and what wouldn't .   From what I have studied about it, it was like these guys choosing thier favorites and excluding others that they didn't want to deal with cannonically.

You might take a look at the Nostic Gospels.

Original Post by dnrothx:

There's the Apocryphal writings which may or may not fall under the Deuterocanonicals (shoot, I'm no expert).

Not sure what you meant by authenticated, but there's also The Book of Mormon.

 Because some people believe these books to be fakes, recently written to stir the pot.. but they've been dated back to the same time, etc.. as other books were written.

Certainly something I'd never put much thought into before but I'm sure there must be a logical reason for it. One thing I am sure of, is that every word that is in the current Bible is meant to be there. You just have to have faith here. But by the way, why are we discussing this anyway? I am on this site for diet help and that alone. If I wanted to discuss other issues I wouldn't be here. Would be nicer in my opinion if we stick to what brought us here in the first place. Or are we getting all philosophical here to distract ourselves from what we really want to do--reach into the cookie jar? :-)

*smells a troll*

kindlerenze, this is the lounge. it's here so people can talk about things other than weight loss/gain etc etc.

Original Post by kindlerenz:

Certainly something I'd never put much thought into before but I'm sure there must be a logical reason for it. One thing I am sure of, is that every word that is in the current Bible is meant to be there. You just have to have faith here. But by the way, why are we discussing this anyway? I am on this site for diet help and that alone. If I wanted to discuss other issues I wouldn't be here. Would be nicer in my opinion if we stick to what brought us here in the first place. Or are we getting all philosophical here to distract ourselves from what we really want to do--reach into the cookie jar? :-)

 

 

 No cookie jars here! heh  There's only so much posting you can do about what you ate or how many miles you walked or what's my next low cal dinner going to be?  The Lounge is a place to discuss anything and I thought it was interesting.

Check out www.thelostbooks.com for a list of the hundreds of books left out. You might find things interesting there that you don't find in the King James version.

Original Post by kateduttongillett:

I think that it was the 13 C. when a group of high ranking Catholic guys got together to look at what had been written and decided what would be included and what wouldn't .   From what I have studied about it, it was like these guys choosing thier favorites and excluding others that they didn't want to deal with cannonically.

You might take a look at the Nostic Gospels.

 Actually, a tradition of use, authority within the communities, antiquity or apostolicity, and orthodoxy were factors in deciding which books were "in" and which were "out."

The apocrypha are good example.  They are considered "in" by Roman Catholics and "out" by protestants. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls are some of the more famous noncanon books.  The book of Isaiah was included in these, but so were many noncanon texts.

I understand that there is a Bible based diet, where you eat only what is mentioned in the text.  I would extrapolate that going on an exodus from your place of residence for a generation would do the trick too.

people pick and choose what they want to believe/follow/take literally out of the bible, so i assume it's the same with which books are included in it.

don't like that part about stoning women, just ignore it! don't like gay people? find the passage in the bible against it and use that to support your biggotry. and so on.

*rides off on a dinosaur before this gets ugly* 

But aren't you put off by the fact that all of these books were supposedly divinly inspired and yet they were picked over and revised to fit human needs/wants? How can you trust it?  How can you have faith in something you know has been altered?

Original Post by jenniferthepennifer:

But aren't you put off by the fact that all of these books were supposedly divinly inspired and yet they were picked over and revised to fit human needs/wants? How can you trust it?  How can you have faith in something you know has been altered?

I'm all for restoration as long as they are indeed divine.

 Every book that God intended and inspired to be in the Bible is in the Bible.  There is one God. The Bible has one Creator. It is one book. 

http://www.gotquestions.org/lost-books-Bible. html

http://www.gotquestions.org/which-book.html 

http://www.gotquestions.org/apocrypha-deutero canonical.html

AH, there in lies the BIG question......

Hey, can I get a ride on the dinosaur too?!!!

I think that is it...they were not determined to be divinely inspired...due to writing style, inconsistency contraction and the like. 

They are great books to read though and should be read, they offer much in the way of understanding the culture and times...

(btw...Jesus stopped the stoning AND the animal sacrifice :-) )

Bart Ehrman is one of the world's most respected Biblical historians and scholars and has written a number of books about the Bible and the history surrounding it.  I highly recommend them to those with questions in this area.

why yes Katedutton, you most certainly can!

he's a brontosauraus, plenty of room for two

I actually participated in a Bible study years ago and we studied that Bible diet. I don't remember a lot of it now except the part written about David, (was it David?) being fairer and better looking than all the others because of his diet. It left me with the lasting impression that this diet would create a more radiant complexion as well as a leaner body. Unfortunately I never actually tried it.