Books that Didn't Make it into the Bible

[Music] there are many books that did not make it into the bible hidden texts of mysterious origins with bizarre stories or esoteric teachings the apocrypha the word apocrypha comes from the greek adjective apocryphos meaning obscure which ultimately derives from the verb apocryptaein to hide away it's related to our word cryptic which means something hidden or mysterious so an apocryphal book refers to a text that is hidden away and contains secret writings that said they can't be that secret because we know that a huge amount of them existed the old and new testaments both have apocryphal books that were not included into the final cut to the bible or in some bibles they were pushed to the end in some sort of honorable or should i say dishonorable mention section aptly titled the apocrypha so in this video we're going to see what kind of books were labeled apocrypha in both the old and new testaments the old testament you may have heard of terms like biblical canon or canonical texts it simply means works that a group deems to be authoritative you'll probably be aware of some of the canonical books in the old testament the book of genesis which contains the creation of the world adam and eve noah the stories of abraham isaac and jacob or the book of exodus which contains the story of moses and how the hebrews escaped pharaoh there's a bunch of other books like isaiah job ezekiel jonah and so on we described these biblical texts as canon the book of enoch is an example of an apocryphal text the book of enoch draws upon a brief passage in the book of genesis where he's mentioned once in passing right before the story of noah in the great flood enoch is said to have lived for 365 years and quote walked with god and he was no more for god took him it's a really brief and unusual account what does it mean to walk with god and why did god take him to answer these questions an unknown author produced an expansive background story embroiling him in a tale of fallen angels and nephilim which ultimately led to god flooding the earth to rid the world of evil this apocryphal text expands on the biblical text in order to supplement it and explain away any inconsistencies oh and if you want to learn more about enoch consider watching my video on the biblical origins of lucifer after this video of course i'll provide a link at the end there are a great deal of other apocryphal books in the old testament the book of jubilees like enoch expands on the book of genesis and retells the history of the world and of israel but this time introducing a new calendar built around the jubilee a period of 49 years with important days and observances oh and a few more fallen angels to boot as well as demons like the mystema and baleau other texts include belle and the dragon an additional chapter to the canonical book of daniel in it daniel debunks a myth that the statue to the god bell is able to eat offerings that it's given in fact whilst the king's back is turned the priests are the ones who eat the offerings are passed off as this statue consequently the priests are swiftly executed later it describes how daniel slays a ferocious dragon surprisingly however it's not with a sword but by feeding it enough cakes to cause it to explode there's a bunch of other books in the apocrypha like tobit judith one and two maccabees and some others but above are some of the highlights these apocryphal texts were written and circulated around 300 bce to zero ce and by all accounts they seem to be quite popular there are masses of manuscript fragments of the book of enoch and jubilees from the dead sea scrolls so they may have been viewed just as authoritatively as any other book in the canon but many of these texts were written late and not as established as texts like genesis and exodus they simply did not have a long enough history and tradition behind them what's more all the talk of fallen angels in books like enoch and jubilees may have been too theologically controversial for them to be officially canonized the new testament with the arrival of christianity came the new testament and 27 more canonical books the gospels of matthew mark luke and john many letters including corinthians and thessalonians acts the book of revelation and the list goes on this canon was drafted up by the nicene christians the more quote-unquote mainstream group of christianity from which catholicism protestantism and eastern orthodoxy are all descended from their canon is pretty straightforward it's the one in your everyday bible but the new testament apocrypha largely comes from a group known as the gnostics from the greek word gnosticos meaning having knowledge gnostic christians were a diverse group claiming to have secret knowledge about jesus passed down through their hidden apocalypse texts one of these texts is the gospel of judas it originally came from egypt and is dated to 280 ce the badly preserved manuscript describes a secret conversation between jesus and judas judas is told the true nature of christ and his cosmic role as messiah it's got some other unusual features like our god is supposed to be a luminous ball of light and how the other disciples apart from judas have got jesus message entirely wrong another example includes the gospel of mary again coming from egypt is believed to have been written in the second century in it jesus has a conversation about matters of the soul with his disciples including mary it's unsure however whether it's meant to be the virgin mary or mary magdalene but either way she offers a vision of her own where she describes the ascent of the soul into the afterlife these texts as exciting as they are were written a lot later than the canonical gospels which repent anywhere between 66 to 100 ce but they do reveal the diversity of early christianity and some highly unusual beliefs yet they pose enough problem for the nicene christians for theologians like irenaeus of leon to have to debunk them in a book suitably titled on heresies but there are some texts in the new testament apocrypha which are a bit harder to simply discard as being gnostic the gospel of thomas is one of them it's a text that dates to 60 to 140 ce around the time when the other soon-to-be canonical gospels were being written it contains a bunch of sayings by jesus 114 to be specific but two-thirds of these sayings crop up in the other gospels in one form or another implying that they were somehow connected or even had a shared origin some go as far as to call it a fifth gospel but others say that it copied these sayings from an already completed gospel and so should be kept in an apocrypha it was not until far later when a formal collection of what is and what isn't canon came about for example in christianity a fixed canon came with the council of rome in 382 ce during which the council drafted up a list of all the canonical books from the old testament and new testament and officially excluded the apocryphal texts from further consideration the apocryphal books were considered to be inauthentic or simply too controversial to be given the green light and were therefore discarded a final note is that what is and what isn't canonical does depend on specific religious communities for example the ethiopian church has enoch in its canon and because of this they managed to preserve the book of enoch without this church may have been lost to history equally catholic bibles contain more books in the old testament than in protestantism books like tobit judith and even bell and the dragon are one way or another featured in catholic bibles in these cases the texts are pseudo divinely inspired and shouldn't necessarily be excluded from the bible entirely so i hope this gives you a decent overview of the apocrypha and what it means to be canonical or non-canonical as with anything in biblical studies it can get a little complex so add some links below if you want to learn more i'd love to go into these texts with more detail and perhaps dedicate a video or two to a single apocalypse like the book of enoch or the gospel of judas write below which book you'd like to see in more detail and i might cover it and with this video we mark the start of season two thanks for your patience everyone i can't wait to make more videos and if you're new here why not subscribe a like and a comment also go a long way anyway i look forward to seeing you next time goodbye you

Channel: hochelaga

Views: 1,119,129

Keywords:

Id: fryITDxUyHA

Length: 9min 30sec (570 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020