LOST BOOKS OF THE BIBLE

 

I have a book in my library with the above title. It was edited by R.H. Platt and has been in print for about 100 years. The subtitle says that it includes “all the gospels, epistles, and other pieces now extant attributed in the first four centuries to Jesus Christ, His apostles and their companions, not included by its compilers in the Authorized New Testament.” And for good measure, this volume also contains The Forgotten Books of Eden. Some of the literary works include books such as the Infancy Gospels, the Gospel of Nicodemus, The Shepherd of Hermes, Adam and Eve, Secrets of Enoch, the Fourth Book of Maccabees, and the Story of Ahikar.

Let me make it clear that these creations are by no means “lost” or “forgotten” since we can obviously still read them today. They are merely later forgeries which were rightly excluded from both the Bible and the Apocrypha by the early church. But instead of talking about these fakes, I would like to concentrate on books actually mentioned in the Bible or strongly inferred to have been used as sources for the biblical authors in composing the authentic Scriptures. These are writings which would be very interesting to read but which are lost, probably forever, to antiquity.

I don't want to spend much time on the hypothetical sources which liberal scholars supposedly detect behind many of the the books in the Bible, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least allude to the proposed documents conveniently labeled J, E, P, and D which are said to have been used by teams of Jewish editors over the centuries to put together the five books of the Pentateuch. This is an area that is the purview of the source critics, and you can get a good overview of the Documentary Hypothesis from any good Bible introduction or by consulting articles on-line. Similarly, behind I-II Samuel is a supposed lost source labeled L and a Q document used for the production of the Synoptic Gospels. I will leave it to the experts in the field to argue the pros and cons of the various rival reconstructions of these now-lost documents, assuming that they once existed.

Joshua

“In Jos. x.13 and 2 S. i.18 the book of Yasar ('the upright one') is mentioned. Solomon's wars in I Ki. viii. 12,13, according to LXX [the Septuagint], who put them after viii. 53, are to be found in 'the book of the song'. As 'song', syr, closely resembles ysr, probably the same book is meant here. All three quotations are in poetic style. It is possible that more quotations from ancient poetry came from this lost book. Some scholars identify it with 'the book of the wars of the Lord' (Nu. xxi.14).” (van Selms)

But Cole believes that the lost book referred to in Numbers 21 may be the same as the one mentioned earlier in Exodus 17:14.

This is as a good a time as any to point out that the exact number of “lost” books mentioned in the Bible is hard to pin down since the same book may have gone by different names. This Book of Yasr (or Jashar) is also mentioned below.

I-II Samuel

Payne states, “There can be no doubt at all that the writer of the books of Samuel made use of some earlier documents, though it is impossible to know how many...One source used by the writer of the books of Samuel is named in 2 Sa. 1:18, 'the Book of Jashar'. Its contents (perhaps consisting entirely of poetry) can only be guessed at...the court history of David, perhaps composed by Ahema-az [II Samuel 18:19-23] certainly figured among such documents. I Ch. 29:29 makes reference to records written by (or associated with?) Samuel, Nathan and Gad, and these three documents alone could well have covered the whole period under discussion in the books of Samuel.”

I-II Kings

“A most striking feature is the conscious principle of selection which is operative throughout the book. Not only is the reader continually told where he can find additional information about each king..., but also there is no attempt whatever to give a detailed account of each king's reign...[This] indicates that he did not envision his composition to be in contradiction with his sources...he needed only a selection from a larger historical sequence to demonstrate his thesis.” (Childs)

I-II Chronicles

“It is clear that the main source of Chronicles is Samuel and Kings. In addition reference is made to a number of other sources, twenty in all, e.g. I Ch. 5:17; 9:1; 23:27; 27:24; 29:29; 2 Ch. 9:29; 12:15; 13:22; 24:27; 26:22; 27:7; 33:19; 35:25; et alia. While there is no need to doubt that these sources existed..., it does not follow that the Chronicler must have made direct use of them, for he may have been using one or more works based on them. It is improbable, though not impossible, that all these sources should have survived the Exile.” (Ellison)

On the same subject, Williamson says, “first, it may be stated, with as strong a degree of certainty as is ever possible in such circumstances, that the Chronicler did have access to sources since lost to us. There has always been a minority of scholars who have denied this, usually arguing that no such material could have survived the fall of Jerusalem and the exile of much of its population. This is a presupposition, however, for which there is no evidence whatsoever other than surmise.”

“It is generally agreed that the majority of the historical sources which are cited under different names are variations of the same work...A similar problem arises from the frequent citation of written sources which are attributed to various prophets, both known and unknown from the canonical books.” (Childs) See II Chronicles 20:34; 32:32.

In spite of the above proviso, Jacob Myers categorizes the number of listed sources in I-II Chronicles as follows: official records (7), official genealogical lists (7), and prophetic records (12), other official documents (2), and others (4). Some of these presently unknown books include the Annals of the Kings of Israel and Annals of the Kings of Judah, both also cited in I-II Kings. Concerning these, he says, “Whatever may be one's view as to the historical accuracy of the Chronicler, one cannot totally disregard his references to materials extant in his time or earlier. How much the stories or elements taken over from those sources were embellished by him is something else again, but wherever his work can be checked it is found to contain an element or elements of truth...”

Ezra-Nehemiah

Cundall expresses a majority opinion concerning the sources behind these twin books when he lists the personal memoirs of these two Jewish leaders as well as official Persian records for passages such as Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26. One strong indication that such records were utilized is the fact that these particular passages are written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew.

Proverbs

I Kings 4:32 states, regarding King Solomon, “He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five.” One can always ascribe this description to an example of literary hyperbole, although the strange number 1,005 for his songs seems to be eerily precise. In any case, we possess nowhere near that many proverbs in the book going under that name, and the only songs ascribed to him in the Bible are Psalms 72 and 127 as well as the Song of Songs. This represents a prominent example of “lost books” of the Bible.

Jeremiah

The whole of chapter 36 concerns the story of Baruch taking down all the prophecies of Jeremiah and delivering the scroll to King Jehoiakim, who proceeded to burn it. It is later (v. 32) rewritten and other prophecies added. While all of this material and more may be in our present canonical book of Jeremiah, we really do not know if that is true or whether any of the sections were deleted.

The New Testament is also noted for its missing books, as can be seen from the following:

The Synoptic Gospels

As mentioned at the start of this short exposition, It has been proposed that the quotations of Jesus' words found in the Gospel account may have come from a now-lost book, labeled Q for convenience, which was nothing but a compilation of such sayings. There was some excitement when the Gospel of Thomas was discovered, thinking that this might be the predicted source. However, except for the fact that one or two of the sayings in that compilation might possibly have preserved authentic material from Jesus, the rest of the collection consists of minor variations on material already in the Gospels in order to give it a Gnostic or proto-Gnostic slant.

Gospel of Luke

The clearest example we have in the New Testament of an author giving mention of his sources is that of Luke. “Luke himself has expressed his indebtedness to his predecessors who had written about the life of Jesus and to the early eyewitnesses and Christian preachers. Speculation enters when we try to identify these sources more precisely.” (Marshall)

Especially intriguing is the presence of Luke's word “many” in Luke 1:1 describing the number of people who had already attempted to write Gospel accounts. That word certainly refers to more than just Mark, Matthew and John. It may have also provided the impetus for Christians in subsequent generations to create their own “gospels” written under various pseudonyms.

Acts of the Apostles

What about Luke's companion volume, Acts? The most obvious source utilized by Luke here is described by F.F. Bruce. “Most likely the 'we' sections of Acts beginning at 16:10; 20:5 and 27:1 came from Luke's personal observations. It is, of course, possible to suppose that the author of Acts incorporated in his work the travel-diary of some eyewitnesses, not himself, but in this case the simplest hypothesis – that the author incorporated part of his own diary, that the 'we' of the diary includes the 'I' of 1:1 – is also on general grounds the most satisfactory...The question of written sources, apart from the travel-diary on which the 'we' sections are based, is entirely problematical.”

Romans

Fitzmyer expends ten pages of closely-reasoned analysis regarding the many theories casting doubt on the unity of Romans. However, only one of these possibilities concerns a now-lost document. “The Pauline authorship of 16:1-23 is generally admitted today, but the question whether vv 1-23 might have been part of a separate letter of recommendation written by Paul for Phoebe, a deacon of the church of Cenchreae, is quite debated.” Fitzmyer notes the complicated path this scenario would have required: 1) the letter would have to be detached from its opening passage, (2) sent to Ephesus where (3) someone other than Paul would have attached it to the end of Romans. We are probably safe in rejecting this remote possibility.

I-II Corinthians

At the risk of getting very complicated at this point, I will just try to summarize some of the theories proposed concerning the composition and order of these two letters as Hillyer describes it. There is an earlier letter to this church mentioned in II Corinthians 2:3-4 and 7:8. Scholars first assumed that it was referring to I Corinthians. But “the character of I Corinthians as a whole hardly suits a letter said to have been written 'out of much affliction and anguish of heart' and 'with many tears' (2 Cor. 2:4).” Therefore he feels that this “severe” letter has not been preserved for us today.

But then there is the even more difficult problem of II Corinthians 10-13, which may have been attached to the book by someone from the “severe” letter. “In addition, fragments of a lost letter are supposed by some scholars to be preserved in 1 Cor. 6:12-20 and 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1.”

F.F. Bruce doubts all these scenarios, which have no manuscript evidence to back them up. He proposes several “lost” letters instead according to the following order of events:

    The 'previous' letter of I Corinthians which “has probably disappeared”

    The Corinthians' reply (see I Cor. 7:1), whose content must be inferred

    The writing of I Corinthians

    Paul's brief visit mentioned in II Cor. 2:1

    The 'severe letter' (2 Cor. 2:3-4,9;7:8) “Probably, however, this letter too has not survived. The Corinthians would hardly be keep to preserve it.”

    The writing of II Corinthians

Philippians

Foulkes cites those who feel that several portions of Philippians actually came from other letters of Paul now missing. These proposed passages include 3:2-4:20; 3:16-19; 3:1b-4:3; and 4:10-20. “The arguments for these interpolations from other letters are not insignificant, but they fall far short of provability. It is to be noted that in no case is Pauline authorship doubted.”

The only real evidence for more than one letter written to Philippi comes from the early church father Polycarp writing to the Philippians sometime before his death in A.D. 155-156. Reumann quotes from Polycarp Phil 3.2, which says that Paul “when he was absent, wrote to you letters.” However, Lightfoot's edition of that document has “letter” in the singular instead. So even that evidence may be in doubt.

Colossians

This epistle has an interesting reference to a “letter from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16). Rudwick explains that it “is thought by many to refer to a copy of 'Ephesians' which had been received by the Laodicean Church.”

R.P. Martin reviews other theories regarding this unknown letter. Thus, it has also been proposed that it was a letter from the Laodiceans to Paul, it was a letter to them written by Tychicus, or it was written to the Laodiceans by Paul but subsequently either lost during the earthquake of A.D. 60-61 or suppressed by that church due to its highly critical nature, etc, etc.

II Timothy

At the conclusion of this letter (4:13), Paul asks Timothy to bring with him “the books and above all the parchments.” Although we would dearly love to know whether these books included any writings not found in the Bible, that point will remain a mystery to us.

Jude

One notorious problem with this letter is its reliance on sources not considered worthy enough to be included in the canon of Scripture. M. Green says, “There can be no doubt that Jude knew and used at least two apocryphal writings, the Assumption of Moses and the Book of Enoch, and probably others as well, such as the Testament of Naphtali in verse 6 [see Naph. 27] and the Testament of Asher [see Ash. 37] in verse 8.” We actually have copies of all these writings with the exception of Assumption of Moses. Both it and Enoch “were highly esteemed in the early church, but we have no means of knowing whether Jude regarded these books as canonical.”

In conclusion, it may bother some that there is so much apparently missing information germane to the Bible that we would love to get our hands on but probably never will. If so, you may get some reassurance by John's comments toward the end of his Gospel: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (20:30-31) The important fact to keep in mind is that what is preserved for us in the Bible is all the information we need here on earth for salvation.