The Lost Apocrypha Of The Old Testament

Collected and Translated by Montague Rhodes James. There are many ancient, lost books relating to the Bible and this work covers the ones that are most hard to find, dating between 100 BCE and 100 CE. In many cases we do not have the full works, but have various sections and fragments. The author, Montague James, used quotations found mostly in the works of the Greek Ante-Nicene Fathers like Origen, Hippolytus and Clement of Alexandria to piece together what we are missing. He also uses important lists compiled from Greek, Latin and other languages in order to reveal what we know of other missing books that would, in some cases, otherwise be unheard of. This important piece of scholarship should be part of anyone's library who is seriously researching lost and ancient texts.

What books were left out of the Bible and why? First issued in 1926, this is the most popular collection of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature ever published. Here, in one place, are the infancy gospels, the letter of Jesus to Abgarus, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Legends of Paul and Thecla, the Epistles of Clement and Barnabus, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Books of Adam and Eve, the Secrets of Enoch, the Psalms and Odes of Solomon, the many Testaments of the Patriarchs, and many more ancient books which were highly revered, but ultimately left out of the Bible.

*Includes pictures *Includes ancient accounts *Includes a bibliography and online resources for further reading The Bible is the most famous book in the world, read by a countless number of Christians and others over the centuries. Even those who aren't Christian or remotely religious can rattle off Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the first four gospels of the New Testament, and books like Genesis and Exodus include some of the most famous stories in human history. The study of the apocryphal gospels, documents about the life or sayings of Jesus that did not become part of the New Testament, is a popular discipline among scholars that now fills several shelves of any respectable library. Despite the growing secularization of society, there seems to be an appetite for the historical figure of Jesus. However, fewer readers consider the question of whether the Old Testament, also known as the Hebrew Bible, is "complete," and whether in antiquity there were other books besides Genesis, the Exodus or Judges, with different histories and unknown characters, that were excluded from the canon and got lost in the sands of time. Most readers assume that the great saga of Israel, beginning with the pastoral stories of the patriarchs, the epic of the Exodus, and the conquest of the Promised Land, until the court of King David, is a compact, complete and unique story. In its current form, it seems to start from the beginning, and as such it was accepted by all in antiquity, but did someone in ancient Israel write other renditions? Recent archaeological and textual discoveries have revealed that literary production among the people of Israel before the life of Jesus was much more extensive and varied than previously supposed. The earliest Christian and Jewish exegetes were aware of some texts whose status was imprecise. Did the books of Tobit, Maccabees and Judith belong to Israel's sacred scriptures or not? What happened to certain books that are mentioned in the Bible but have not been found, such as stories about the court of King David, the Annals of Solomon, a Book of Jasher, and prominently the Book of Wars of the Lord? There is another group of books that arouses special interest, including an extensive collection of Jewish and Jewish-Hellenistic writings that are available (some in fragmentary state) but for some reason were excluded from the Old Testament. Some have been recovered or unearthed over the last 2,000 years, while others remained under the custody of secret or heretical libraries. Among them are the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees the Apocalypse of Moses, and many others. In spite of not having been admitted into the canon, many of their doctrines permeated in the popular culture even in antiquity, including among the first Christians. The rebellion of the evil angels led by Satan, the punishment for sinners in the valley of the dead, the concept of a Messiah who would die for his people, and the belief in the resurrection of the martyrs with the literal restitution of their mutilated bodies are ideas that arose in apocryphal books of the Old Testament. These beliefs are not found in the Hebrew Bible. That the Old Testament was not a finished product at the time of the Second Temple (500 BCE-70 CE) and that there were more books in circulation can be established considering that Jewish apocryphal literature is quoted in the New Testament. The Epistle of Jude mentions a fight between the devil and an archangel for the soul of Moses, an episode not found in the Pentateuch. The author of that epistle is quoting from Enoch, an apocryphal Book of the Old Testament, or possibly from the Ascension of Moses, which the author of Judas considered as authoritative. The apostle Paul quotes twice from the apocryphal book known as the Life of Adam and Eve in his second letter to the Corinthians, and the Gospel of Matthew quotes a written prophecy that is undiscovered to this day.

Excerpt from The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament: Their Titles and Fragments; Collected, Translated and Discussed The object of this series of translations is primarily to furnish students with short, cheap, and handy text-books, which, it is hoped, will facilitate the study of the particular texts in class under com petent teachers. But it is also hoped that the volumes will be acceptable to the general reader who may be interested in the subjects with which they deal. It has been thought advisable, as a general rule, to restrict the notes and comments to a small compass; more especially as, in most cases, excellent works of a more elaborate character are available. Indeed, it is much to be desired that these translations may have the effect of inducing readers to study the larger works. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Collects the lost books of the Bible, sharing stories of Jesus as a child, discussing other miracles of Mary, and other tales not included in the New Testament.

This is an quality checked reprint of the original edition of 1920. The principal aim of this book is to make some difficult texts, important for the study of Christian origins, more generally accessible in faithful and scholarly translations.