Why Were Some Books Left Out of the Bible?

hey I'm Matt is the 10-minute Bible hour and I am somewhere really cool right now check this out that is Mount Rushmore therefore super famous presidents up there you got Washington I can do this right there you get Lincoln over there and hiding in between Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt the first one with mustache these guys are really important presidents but a lot of other people were presidents of this country as well how come all the presidents of the United States don't get to be on the mountain and if you know anything about US history you're kind of laughing at that because well duh like a third of our presidents happened after this monument was built so they obviously couldn't be on there and then some of the ones who came before nothing personal they just didn't do anything like William Henry Harrison died like two weeks into his tenure so he might have been a very influential very important guy but still you don't get to be on the mountain for that well I've been talking a lot on this channel about how the Bible was assembled and what books were in but in this video I want to talk about what books were out books that were on the fringes of the conversation about the Bible as that multi-century process was happening and I think as we take a quick look at a lot of these disputed books and why they aren't included it'll be about is obvious to us why they weren't as it is obvious to us why most of the presidents didn't make the cut for Mount Rushmore before we talk about the books of the Bible that got rejected I want to talk about the books of the Bible that got included and there's actually a big fancy word that we've used historically I don't know why we couldn't have picked something better I'm sorry I didn't have a vote the word for books that were not debated at all historically is homolog Amina the vast majority of both the Old Testament and the New Testament really effectively weren't disputed or debated here's a list of all the books Old Testament and New Testament that fit into this last time homo Legault mana category it is a well-known fact that while most of the books of the Bible were just completely agreed upon a few of the books that are currently in the Bible were debated by some questions were raised along the way some more recently than others and those books that were debated by some and by the way the term for this trophy's anti Legault mana so you're out of the ligamentum and i'm in anti lagoa it's on the screen you can remember it if you feel like it this debated list of books includes James and James was debated because at a first glance it could seem like that book is teaching that salvation in Christianity might happen because of stuff that people do and not just by the grace of God if you look a little bit closer you see that it really is theologically in keeping with the rest of the New Testament but that's why the debate was there Hebrews is debated and that's because the author is unknown and authorship was a pretty important part of the tests for being included in the Bible in the early church a second Peter is one of these anti lick gum maniacal books I think it's made up an adjective and I actually feel really good about it second Peter some people in the early church debated the authenticity of its authorship then second and third John were debated books because they seemed kind of personal and maybe like they didn't have the full relevance to the rest of the Bible Jude quotes from an extra-biblical book of first Enoch so there was some debate there and revelation has a whole bunch of weird imagery and some people had trouble wrapping their brains around it some people like everybody for all of history is had trouble wrapping their brains around it so it's understandable that those would be disputed they're even a few in the Old Testament that were disputed people raised questions again about weird imagery in Ezekiel Song of Solomon gets like into big-time hardcore sexy time with grabbing and groping and sweating and stuff there was some debate about Ecclesiastes because it just seems kind of dark there was some debate about Esther because the name of God doesn't come up in that book only one in the Bible that's that way and then proverbs there was debate about that because some of the Proverbs the little truisms could seem to conflict with each other so that debate happened but obviously you pick up any Bible from any freshen of Christianity and all of those books are in there so this anti de lagoa in a category exists really for nothing more than just Christians being honest about the fact that a lot of people had a lot of input on this thing there was a lot of discussion and a lot of thought that went into it and ultimately there's no point in hiding the fact that some of the books in the Bible were disputed but ultimately were acknowledged to scripture this third category of books is the heart of this video now we're going to the fun stuff these are the rejected books the fringe books that we're lingering around on the edges of Christianity that maybe one advocate here they're from a pseudo Christian cult-like thing was saying this should be in the Bible but otherwise everybody rejected these always rejected books of the Bible are called the pseudepigrapha books again I don't know why we pick these words I want to go through and cover a whole bunch of examples because I think it would be way more meaningful to actually tell you some stuff about these and let you see the deficiencies rather than for me to just say trust me I bought a microphone and a camera and have a thing on the internet that my mom watches dozens of times so I'm definitely right so here's a bunch of examples of what pseudepigrapha books were like [Music] most of the rejected books of the Bible are born out of a pseudo Christian religion called Gnosticism the idea with Gnosticism is that that people took Greek philosophy that they were just sure of and then took things about Jesus because Jesus was really compelling to and tried to mush them together and make Jesus fit into that Greek philosophy well this Greek philosophy centered around the idea that the physical is bad and the spiritual is good so the Gnostic version of Christianity usually went something like this the God of the Old Testament bad he made the physical world and the physical is bad and enslaved people and bodies but Jesus is the god of the New Testament is good because he seemed spiritual and like he's trying to liberate Souls from their physical bodies toward heaven and so the teachings of Jesus didn't work for these people and like I said a pseudo version of Christianity developed well early Christians absolutely rejected this at every single turn in arguably even the Bible itself has a whole book dedicated to refuting this view that's first John so the Gospel of Judas is one of these Gnostic Gospels it's a later account written under the name of a character from the Bible but not by that character from the actual Bible because it was generations after the fact and it was an attempt to advance Gnostic thought in a form that seemed like a genre of Scripture well when this gospel was rediscovered in the late 20th century it was no surprise to Christians because Christians have known that this gospel must have existed since the late 100s when a church father a guy named IRA næss wrote against this gospel and condemned it as being completely outside of the boundaries of Orthodox Christianity so right off the bat a gospel like the Gospel of Judas would be rejected because it came a century too late because it's written in the name of somebody who wasn't alive when it was written and because it articulates just absolutely contrary ideas to the entire rest of the Bible second maybe the most famous rejected book of the Bible in recent years is the Gospel of Thomas this one got traction because some fiction authors talked a lot about it recently and some more complete manuscripts of this have been available in the 20th century well the Gospel of Thomas was clearly written way after the rest of the Bible was done and we can tell that because it references a ton of the New Testament how would it have known what to reference if all of that stuff wasn't out there and in circulation for a long period of time additionally there's no way that Thomas himself actually wrote it so there's fictitious authorship just because it came so far after the fact we have an on record from Eusebius that all the early church fathers absolutely roundly rejected it the teachings which are a series of conversations and sayings of Jesus and then commentary on those sayings of Jesus again are Gnostic in nature and are contrary to what the rest Bible says Thomas is one that most people who were critics of the Bible have heard of and might even hold up as like hey I heard this one floating around maybe that should have been in the Bible but even serious scholars who hate the Bible agree that this never should have been regarded as Scripture by the early church and that early Christians definitely rejected it as being after the fact another really famous Gnostic gospel is one that resurfaced in the 1940s there was a discovery of a whole trove of Gnostic Gospels at a place in Egypt called NAG Hammadi and one of the most prominent from that batch is called the gospel of truth the gospel of truth is just through and through Gnostic theology there's I mean for what it's worth I've read all of these I didn't want to just make a video and be like I saw somewhere that it was like this I've read the gospel of truth it's not particularly long you can read it for yourself but if you read it you'll see lines that stand out where it talks about Jesus being born of God that Jesus is a created being made by God and that if you're not into this whole Christianity thing might sound like nothing to you but the Christian position Jesus position is that Jesus was the son of God he said I and the father are one this idea of the Trinity and the Godhead all being one thing jesus is not a created being and the church has been absolutely clear on that whether Protestant Catholic or anything forever the gospel of truth is obviously a second century Gnostic propaganda piece to advance this idea of a created Jesus a fourth rejected book and this is another one that we have access to because of the nagas mati discoveries is the Gospel of Philip the Gospel of Philip again advances Gnostic theology and I need to make this point like you can be a gnostic if you want you we don't have to be in a fight over that I'm not arguing in this video that I've solved Christianity and have the right version what I am arguing is that Gnosticism and Christianity just aren't qualitatively the same thing these are different beliefs whatever the case when we look closely at the Gospel of Philip he's making all kinds of references to details of an established well developed Church and Philip just wasn't alive at that time the church wasn't developed at the level of specificity that he deals with until into the 2nd century so it's really easy for us to sort that out looking back on it but it would have been even easier for people at the time to sort it out like go back to what we opened the video with Gutzon Borglum is the name of the guy who carved Mount Rushmore and let's say that a huge Donald Trump fan wanted to get Donald Trump up there you know maybe we could just sandblast off Washington and just put Trump there right and he knows that he's not going to be able to do this unless he can demonstrate like some historical credibility so he comes forward with a letter to the Mount Rushmore committee he's like I found this in a secret auction it was in a chest I dug this up it's been authenticated by real scholars it's a letter from Gutzon Borglum stating in his dying wishes that he wanted George Washington sandblasted off of there and Donald Trump put on every one of us we'd be able to be like are you kidding me like obviously that is a pseudepigrapha note from Gutzon Borglum because Donald Trump wasn't alive ago that the timing just doesn't line up at all it would have been obvious to the church leaders of the second and third century what had a routing all the way back into the time of Jesus and what just didn't in the late 19th century some archaeologists dug up an Egyptian monk and this monk was clutching a scroll that when opened up revealed the long-lost gospel of Peter the pretty exciting discovery there was rumor that this gospel of Peter been floating around I think some of the church fathers referenced it as being something that came a long way after the fact and once we actually got a look at it we could see why it must have come a long way after the fact because it argues for the perpetual virginity of Mary this is a Catholic doctrine saying that Mary was a virginity virginity she was a virgin for the rest of her life and Catholics they hold Mary in very high esteem so you would think if the Catholics were going through and making decisions on what books to reject and embrace simply based on what resonated with ideas they already held that they would have liked the gospel of Peter yet apparently it was roundly rejected as well well part of the reason it might have been roundly rejected is that the description of Jesus death on the cross is weird it has him not really dying a physical death and as strange as it sounds that is a very important aspect of the theology regarding Jesus it also at the resurrection has a magical talking cross that announces that Jesus went to hell and preached to dead people there and like literally the cross is talking Peter was obviously rejected by the early church and there's been no traction since to be like well we probably ought to reevaluate the Bible and put the gospel of Peter right back in there I love studying this stuff and I love making these videos but I I'm not some kind of mega genius and I fully accept that what I am is literate I could pick up all of these books and letters and the rejected books that isn't its to read them for myself and you can too and when I pick these things up and I actually look at them for myself it's not hard at all to see what the early church saw and understand why these things without any question were rejected but the thing about looking back through time that I think happens is there's this compressive effect I you are crystal clear on the difference between 1983 when you watch stranger things or whatever year it's in and right now you just tell with styles and the look and the music and the soundtrack oh that's the early 1980s and this is now but the further back in history we get the less clear that becomes and the more it just feels like yeah I was just all old stuff that happened a long time ago and basically all Roman and Bible era and so it's easy for us to look at these books and be like ah it seems dirty they should be in because well it was from the right time basically well yeah in the same sense that your brand-new pickup truck is from the right time with George Washington like it's that kind of distance in time that we're talking about here additionally I think theology has a compressive effect because we can look at competing theological claims and be like look I don't get this one and I don't really get this other one I can maybe sort of tell that they're different if you really point it out to me but I don't know it just makes me feel overwhelmed I want to throw my hands up that's fair but at the same time there are qualitative differences between different ideas about God and faith and philosophy and if you look close or if somebody looks close even if you were I maybe aren't up for it you can detect those things in a way that is objective not just opinion so these books when you look at them it's not hard to see what the early church song timing-wise this is way off like this book couldn't be what it purports to be it just showed up last week it's it's a recent obvious forgery it's fraud you could look at it and say like okay well they might think that but that's not at all what the rest of the Bible teaches so it doesn't sound like Jesus it just doesn't fit it's a it's a different religion belongs in a different Bible or something but not here people could look at it and say it's fan fiction like just obviously this is somebody you've got a pen and a sheet of paper and add something they were into and they assumed the character in the same way that people put up YouTube videos from the Star Wars universe that you're easily able to tell like hey that's cool but honestly that's some kids with the camcorder you know there's snowy backyard pretending be goofing around in Hoth so the Christians at this time could tell this fanfiction this doesn't check out this is commentary on a subject this is an attempt to take a fringe non-christian position and jam it into validity in the Christian world Victo and the more you look the easier it is for you or I to tell as well there's a fourth category and this is Apocrypha apocryphal books are those books that go between the Old Testament and the New Testament mostly in Roman Catholic Bibles Protestants don't have those books so Apocrypha means accepted by some but certainly not by all i cannot even start to get into that question in this video is too much we've talked too much already it is an easy thing to have doubt cast over the quality of the process by which the Bible was assembled if we don't take a close look it read a couple fiction books watch a movie here there to your edit comment you're like oh yeah that's enough for me whole thing was just thrown together sloppily and and some of it was done by force the powerful Roman Catholic Church used violence and force to suppress books it didn't like maybe later but as we've discussed before historically that's an anachronism the Roman Catholic Church did not have that kind of power at the time when what was in the Bible and what was not in the Bible was being worked out this is a very organic process and there seems to have been enormous agreement on the thing all of that said I am a fan of putting the information on the table and if you are a person of faith I'm a big fan of eyes wide open faith like the kind where we know the facts and we understand the story of how all of this happened and where we look close at our own document and our own history if you are a person who is outside looking in well hopefully you're a fan of eyes wide open skepticism the kind where you look at it and you have all the facts on the table and you say to me it doesn't add up all right we can work with each other that doesn't need to be the end of the world between us but either way I think there is just something good and write about setting aside agenda and instead just trying to consider a thing for what it is land where you will I know there's something very pressing that I need to show you and it rhymes with there's a big giant mountain goat right behind me all right i'm matt is the 10 minute bible our we'll see you soon [Music]

Channel: Matt Whitman

Views: 302,486

Keywords: Matt Whitman, Worst Christian Ever, Acts, Jesus, Christianity, Bible, 10 Minute Bible, Manatee, Wyoming, no dumb questions, nuts and bolts of the Bible, Gospel of Thomas, Gnostic Gospels, Secret books of the Bible, Did the church suppress books of the bible, Gospel of Mary, Mary Magdalene, Did Jesus Get Married, Mount Rushmore, homologoumena, antilegomena, apocrypha, pseudepigrapha

Id: srQcM0UrFkg

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 05 2017