False Christians chose the modern Bible books

lifeisgood

One of the issues that I discovered when I took two years off from the JWs to just study the Bible is the contents of the modern Bible do not even come close to matching the contents of the holy books that the first Christians used. Not even close. Off by over 550 books.

Now, the JWs claim that the Catholic church is false religion. Personally, I think that anyone who murdered tens of millions of people and launched the Crusades and the Inquisition are not Christians, I don't care what lies they tell. So, the JWs are correct about this. HOWEVER, the Catholics chose the books that would make up the official Bible. And the JWs accept their findings. Huh? Let's see, false religion pared down the accepted list of books from over 600 to 81 and then a different false religion pared this list down to 66 and the JWs accept this list? Prepared by false religion? Huh?

Constantine the Great called for a meeting where he set up what the "Christian" doctrine was going to be so that he could adopt "Christianity" as the state religion. This was in 325, everyone here knows this story.

There were further meetings after this where it was decided what books would be included in the Bible and forbade the dissemination of the other books. Representatives of Constantine ran these meetings.

Constantine allowed 20% of the books being used by the early Christains to be included in his Bible. It was Constantine that laid down the modern concept of Christianity, the major belief systems, etc, which were quite different from early Christianity.

There were over 600 books that were viewed by the early Christians on the same level as the books that are now in the Bible. Constantine only allowed 80 of these books to be included in the Bible. The Protestant reformation purged 14 of these books and the "Authorized" King James Bible contains 66 books, the number that the WTBTS used in their Bible and the number that are used today in all Bibles.

These missing books were not "lost", they were purposely forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church in order to include only the books that support their doctrines. Nice, eh? These books were not lost, the Roman Catholic Church knows exactly which books that they struck from the early Christain canon. I'm certain that manuscripts for all these books are in the Roman Catholic vaults at the Vatican.

We can summarize the works that are missing from the "modern" Bible:

1. Apocrypha - these 15 books were actually included in the Bible until the Archbishop of Canterbury excluded them in 1885.

2. Books mentioned in the Bible but not found. - Besides the apocryphal books eliminated in 1885, there are at least 28 other books mentioned in the Bible but not found in the Bible.

3. The Real New Testament (not the one in the Bible) - the books contained in the modern day New Testament were chosen by one man, a servant of the Emporer Constantine. Constantine's agenda was to totally reform early Christianity so that he could make it into a state religion that the pagans would accept. This servant of Constantine excluded many books that early Christians had accepted.

It is estimated that Constantine reduced the number of 'official' books from over 600 to 81. The Archbishop of Canterbury then reduced the number from 81 to 66. Here is a list of some of these books.

Here, I list some of these books. I divided this up into the Apocrypha and books mentioned in the Bible. I give a link to a list of the 600 at the end.

Apocrypha

1st Esdras
2nd Esdras
Tobit
Judith
Add to Esther
The Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of Jesus Son Sirach
Baruch
Letter of Jeremiah
Prayer of Azariah or Song of the Three Young Men
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
Prayer of Manasseh
1st Macabees
2nd Macabees

Books mentioned in the Bible but not found

Book of Jasher - Joshua 10:13, 2 Samuel 1:18
Book of Enoch - Jude 1:14
The Manner of the Kingdom / Book of Statues - 1 Samuel 10:25
Book of Samuel the Seer - 1 Chronicles 29:29
Nathan the Prophet - 1 Chronicles 29:29, 2 Chronicles 9:29
Acts of Solomon - 1 Kings 11:41
Shemaiah the Prophet - 2 Chronicles 12:15
Prophecy of Abijah - 2 Chronicles 9:29
Story of Prophet Iddo - 2 Chronicles 13:22
Visions of Iddo the Seer - 2 Chronicles 9:29
Iddo Genealogies - 2 Chronicles 12:15
Book of Jehu - 2 Chronicles 20:34
Sayings of the Seers - 2 Chronicles 33:19
Book of the Covenant - Exodus 24:7
Book of the Wars of the Lord - Numbers 21:14
Book of Gad the Seer - 1 Chronicles 29:29
Epistle to Corinth - 1 Corinthians 5:9
Epistle to the Ephesians - Ephesians 3:3
Epistle from Laodicea to the Colossians - Colossians 4:16
Nazarene Prophecy Source - Matthew 2:23
Acts of Uziah - 2 Chronicles 26:22
The Annals of King David - 1 Chronicles 27:24
Jude, the Missing Epistle - Jude 1:3
Chronicles of King Ahasuerus - Esther 2:23, Esther 6:1
Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia - Esther 10:2
The Chronicles of King David - 1 Chronicles 27:24
The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel - 1 Kings 14:19, 2 Kings 1:18 (there are many references to these chronicles, I am only listing two of them)
The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah - 1 Kings 14:29, 2 Kings 8:23 (there are many references to these chronicles, I am only listing two of them)

The Lost books of the Bible

If you want to see a list of the lost books of the Bible, and this is only a partial list, go to http://www.bibleufo.com/anomlostbooks3.htm. Some of these books they have, some of them they tell you where you can find them in print (at a library). Some are only found in the Vatican vaults of the Roman Catholic church, some were destroyed by Constantine and are gone forever.

designs

Visions of Iddo......one of the all time classics

Room 215

I wonder how JWs, or any of the Protestant religions for that matter, rationalize their uncritical acceptance the canon as we know it, given its origin.

lifeisgood

The reason that this started me on the road of seeing that the bible is not the truth about God, is that the JWs and all Christians, claim that God has been protecting the Bible since the early days, Moses I guess since they claim that Moses wrote the first books of the Bible.

If God has been protecting the Bible to make sure that we got it, he sure didn't do a very good job.

Over 550 books missing.

One of the most important pieces of Christian history/philosophy, the Gospel of Mary Magdalen is missing. Some of the male apostles saw to it that this book was excluded.

Modern Christianity as supported by the current books of the Bible is nothing like early Christianity that was supported by over 600 books. Most "Christians" are totally unaware of this fact.

Terry

None of the men who wrote any of the manuscripts, books, sayings or histories included in Bible canon ever thought for a minute their efforts

would be looked upon as SUPERNATURAL.

That is something projected unnecessarily.

What makes anything Holy? Simply considering it as such!

A baseball card in a pack of bubble gum from the early 20's through 50's was worth what? A penny.

How about today?

Some are regarded as priceless!

Same freakin' penny baseball card!

Get it?

Paul wrote letters and gave opinions and rants. People read them. Some may have copied parts. But, reality is: they threw them away!

In fact, all the originals were eventually tossed into the rubbish heap or burned or confiscated and destroyed.

We have none.

Whatever group of people any place any time SELECTS as SPECIAL is THEIR OPINION.

If we are stuck with them being labeled HOLY---it is up to us to be skeptical and cautious or gullible and green.

sabastious

I wonder how JWs, or any of the Protestant religions for that matter, rationalize their uncritical acceptance the canon as we know it, given its origin.

When they open it they can "feel" God's spirit flow through them. That's one way of rationalizing it, but I think it takes a bit of mental illness to accomplish.

-Sab

mf6

Regarding the Old Testament apocrypha, my understanding is that they were included in the Septuagint (a greek translation of the OT). The translation was done between the 3rd and 2nd century BCE. They weren't part of the Massoretic text and may not have been in previous OT writings.

Concerning the New Testament, I believe there was a great deal of general agreement well before Constantine. The Muratorian fragment, which could date from about 170 AD, mentions the four gospels, Acts, the Pauline works, Jude, and other works.

Several church fathers quote extensively from a variety of NT texts.

I doubt very much that the NT was "chosen by one man" as you say. There was no universal agreement for some time after the first century but by his time the canon was more or less established, IMO.

MIke

sabastious

lifeisgood I replied to your pm.

-Sab

DanaBug

I think they rationalize it by saying the Catholic Church was the Church Jesus established until an apostacy happened and it wasn't until JWs were selected as the FDS that they actually lost God's favor or spirit (or whatever you want to call it). I've don't remember ever seeing it in print, but I think they believe that God directed which books would be chosen for the canon; if he wanted those other books in there, he would have made it happen. (Otoh, if he wanted his name in the Greek Scriptures, he would have made sure it was in there.) But when you dig into what was going on back then and what the gnostic gospels that weren't included say, it's pretty clear the books were chosen for political reasons and for the survival of the Church.

Thanks for the list and the link, lifeisgood. That'll be some interesting reading.

PSacramento

Amazing all these "lost and hidden" writings that we have so much knowledge of.

LOL !

False Christians chose the modern Bible books

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