“Ancient Words, Ever True” – 6

 

 

                                      BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER BOOKS?

 

 

1.                  What we have learned thus far has suggested to us that the Canon developed gradually and by _______________ rather than by decree.

 

2.                  There are about as many questions about the writings that are perceived to have been “left out” as there are about those which have been accepted.

 

a.                   Some of this is because of reference made by writers of Scripture to other writings of their own which have not been preserved (cf. 1 Cor. 5:9, etc.).

 

b.                  A lot of it also has to do with our unfamiliarity with, and uncertainty about what to do with, the extra books that are included in “the Catholic Bible.”

 

c.                   More of the questions than you might think come from current suppositions in popular culture about “the lost books of the Bible” or about “the Gnostic Gospels.”

 

3.                  Prior to our examination of some of these specific writings, there is a line of thought within canonical materials with which we should be familiar.

 

a.                   Before some other “revelation” should even be considered, the New Testament would have to ___________ ______ it.

i.                    The Old Testament scriptures promised that someone was coming who would have the right to speak with authority.  (Deut. 18:15)

ii.                  The New Testament claims that One has come and promises no other.  (Acts 3:22, 23)

iii.                When Jesus sent the apostles out, it was to remember all that he had said to them (Jn. 14:26), thus emphasizing that this would be all that we would need (Jn. 16:13; 2 Pet. 1:3).

 

b.                  Any thought of sacred writings must take into account the meaning of a _______________, what covenant material is.

i.                    Within Scripture, God made a covenant with a man, a family, and finally a nation.  When that nation failed to honor the terms of that covenant, God promised to establish a better one (Jer. 31:31-34).

ii.                  The New Testament says that God has done that through Christ, but that in order to establish it he had to allow the death of his Son (Matt. 26:28; Heb. 9:15-17, 25-26; 13:20).

iii.                Christ could send qualified individuals to write, but his Testament could not be added to or replaced.

c.                   Any writing that might be suggested as Scripture would have to _________________ to what the recognized sacred writings already say, both in the facts which are recorded and in the nature of the matters which are addressed (Deut. 18:21-22; 12:32-13:4; Gal. 1:6-9).

 

4.                  The first and most prominent class of other materials for us to be familiar with are those which are commonly known as the __________________ books.

 

a.                   There are understandable reasons why these writings have fascinated people.

 

i.                    The term means “hidden.”

 

ii.                  The Apocrypha consists of some 15 Jewish writings from about 200 B.C. to 100 A.D. which are supposed to be add-ons to Biblical books like Jeremiah, Daniel, Esther or Ezra, or which interpret the history of the period between the Testaments in a way which encouraged Jewish patriotism.

 

iii.                Some of these writings were included with Greek translations of the Old Testament at least as far back as around 400 A.D.

 

iv.                Eleven of these materials were ratified by the Council of Trent in 1546 and were included in Catholic versions of the Bible from that time.

 

b.                  But there are also clear and strong reasons why the Apocrypha is not to be accepted as Scripture.

 

i.                    These books were never included by the Jewish community in the ______________ canon of the Old Testament.

 

ii.                  There is no evidence that __________ or the _____________ ever treated them as Scripture.

 

iii.                They were not accepted Scripture by important early Jewish and Christian ____________, such as Philo and Josephus or the council at Jamnia, or Origen and Jerome (whose Latin Vulgate translation about 400 A.D. said these books were “apocryphal” and were not to be included as Scripture).

 

iv.                These writings do not exhibit the ____________ qualities of inspiration as the canonical books do.

 

v.                  They have always been surrounded by a cloud of __________________.

 

5.                  The New Testament category of these kinds of writings are being called “lost books” or “Gnostic Gospels” and have captured the imagination of many.

 

a.                   In 1997 The Lost Books of the Bible by Dr. Frank Crane came out.  Its promotion capsule said these books were not among those chosen to comprise the Bible and “were suppressed by the church, and for over fifteen hundred years were shrouded in secrecy.”  That idea has been promoted more popularly by The Da Vinci Code.

 

b.                  Some of the scholarly footing for this kind of thinking was laid by Elaine Pagels of Princeton with her 1979 book The Gnostic Gospels.  She says that these writings are attractive to the spiritual seeker because “in them are echoes of Buddhism and Freud with a greater appreciation of women’s roles.”  Through these documents she claims to have found a “Christianity less keyed to make-or-break beliefs like the virgin birth or even Christ’s divinity and more accepting of salvation through ongoing spiritual experience.”

 

c.                   They bear names like “The Gospel of Thomas” or “The Gospel of Judas” or “The Secret Book of John” and were written between the second and fourth centuries A.D.

 

d.                  There were also writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas, I Clement, and the Shepherd of Hermas which did vie for a position in the canon but were rejected by the early church.

 

e.                   Here are some important points to remember:

 

i.                    These books were ___________ regarded as books of the Bible.  They cannot, therefore, be regarded as lost from the Bible.

 

ii.                  These writings are of a _____________ kind of material than we find in the books of the New Testament.

 

iii.                These are materials which include factual ______________, which is one of the reasons they were never accepted.

 

iv.                None of these books _________ any truth or point of faith that the church needs in order to live for the Lord.  Some do include things which would mislead believers.

 

6.                  The other category of writings which we might mention may be thought of as _________________ revelations.

 

a.                   Remember what we said earlier about whether recognized inspired scriptures allow for it.

 

b.                  These writings often include statements which contradict recognized scriptures, or are otherwise obvious errors.

 

c.                   They are almost always clearly material of a different kind from what we have in the New Testament.

 

7.                  A principle we find stated at intervals within the Bible makes us think about the importance of our including or not including materials as Scripture.

 

a.                   Deuteronomy 4:2 –

 

b.                  Proverbs 30:5, 6 –

 

c.                   Revelation 22:18, 19 –