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There are plenty other books of the Bible, just they are not being "hidden" by the Roman Catholic Church.

For instance, the Gospel of Thomas, Passion of Peter from the New Testament, and the Book of Enoch (quoted from in the Jude) from the Old Testament.

There are many, many more, just google Apocryphal books, nag hammadi library, or pseudopigraphica.

They were rejected for various reasons, and not everyone rejects them. Some books were nearly included in the bible when the Church Councils decided on the eventual inclusions, in the same way as some books were nearly excluded.

Check out the Shepherd of Hermas, a strong contender for being included (it does not claim to be written by a direct disciple of Jesus, but is an interesting read to see what the earliest churches believed - including that if you sinned twice after salvation, that was the end of that)

The issue of these books is an important one so it's good that you brought it up. Most of them are easy to dismiss because they are so obviously incorrect, and/or they are dated much later than the rest of the Bible.

The Gospel of Thomas was written over a hundred years after the time that the other Gospel books were widespread. So its claim to be written by any disciple of Christ is impossible. It is also a very biased account, and directly contradicts what the rest of the Bible teaches. It really wasn't ever accepted by the Christian churches.

I've never heard of the Passion of Peter. Nothing came up for it in Google, Wikipedia, or Amazon.com

The Book of Enoch was never a part of the Old Testament. It was written before Christianity, but the Jews never considered it the Word of God. It is quoted in a book of the New Testament, Jude, but that doesn't mean anything special. Both the New and Old Testaments quote several sources which weren't part of the Bible and weren't ever considered to be. It is true that some people, later on, believed it should be part of the Bible, but that opinion soon died out because it had no support.



The Shepherd of Hermas is an interesting book I'd never heard of before, so thank you for bringing it up! I'll have to read it sometime. But, it isn't a part of the Bible. The statement that the early Christians believed that if you sinned twice after salvation you lost it - no way. Everything Christ said contradicts that, every book of the New Testament contradicts that, and the writings we have from church teachers of the early centuries contradict that. The early Christians believed very much the same that Christians do today. We believe exactly the same thing on the big issues, like what sin and salvation mean. You can't lose your salvation for sinning twice; Christians never believed that.


There are a lot of books that claim to be the Word of God, or that someone else has claimed to be the Word of God. Anyone can claim that. And if the book is well written enough, it can fool some people. But if it isn't true, it won't be accepted by the majority, and it won't stand the test of time. Eventually it will be completely rejected. And that is the case for all these books you've mentioned, as well as many others.

Even though some people at some point may have considered them part of the Bible, they were never as widely accepted as the other books of the Bible were. And to this day, even though there is a huge diversity of Christian churches and denominations, these books are still considered to not be part of the Bible by Christians in every country of the world.

So even though for each of these books, some people at some point contended for it to be part of the Bible, they failed, for good reasons. And churches for the two thousands years since have agreed with that decision.




They didn't need a printing press because they copied it by hand so much. We have over 5,000 copies of the books of the New Testament from just the 1st Century, and thousands more from 2nd and 3rd centuries. These are just the surviving copies, the tip of the iceberg of how many were actually copied by hand. The importance that Christians put on these documents outweighed the need for a printing press to spread it.

And actually, literacy was much more common in the Roman Empire than in most other ancient times. In Medieval times, literacy rates may have sank to only scholars and monks, but that wasn't the case when living under the affluence of Rome.

Whoa now, back up diabolical.
The things that are lain upon your heart are not always from God (though I am aware you used the potential 'can', I just want to clarify).

We are human born in sin, therefore, we sin. As such, it is important to weigh the things that come to our hearts with the word of God, asking ourselves whether or not that thing (on our hearts) is God-breathed, like scripture.

Our first and foremost question should be "Is this loving God?" and the second "Is this loving other people?"

I think those are very good questions to ask oneself although I think many of us would find the answer to the first question in the answer to the second but all in all well said

And to address the topic

I don't think the bible is the word of God. Rather I think the bible is a tailored pack of lies constructed by men to control the people with fear.

However, I am also not foolish enough to think it is not possible that the bible could be the word of God and every letter written or spoken is divinely inspired

short version:

Do I think the bible is the word of God? No
Is it possible? Yes

I also think truth is in searching for the meaning behind the words and not the words themselves

I also don't think it is up to any of us to decide for anyone else what is truth and what is not

and for those who believe it is true or at least true enough and for those who don't...their own beliefs are true or at least true enough

after all who are we to say who is right and who wrong?

I feel so out of the loop

I concur. Orthodox and Catholics, at one time were the same Church. God blessed the Church and much of what is taken for granted in the faith came from God sharing Himself with these people, even to this day from the Day of Ascension to now.

In response to statements related to my previous post only:


I agree that we can speak with God and that he does communicate with us through prayer. My previous point was that his word is the basis for truth -- i.e. if we feel that we have received a 'communication' from God, we have all we need to prove or disprove the reality of that inkling in the Bible.


God isn't a puppet master, mind-melder, or anything like that. We have free will in Him, so it isn't a matter of 'how he actually got Moses to write his word' (more than likely he was not the one writing, it is called Mosaic text because Moses said and lived it, not necessarily because he wrote it) it is the fact that God was able to reach Moses and Moses then accepted God's calling to serve him, as he ought.


I disagree with this, and this may just be a difference in they way we have been taught, but my understanding of prayer is this: We commune with God through the Holy Spirit within us, primarily through prayer -- our words, us coming before God (having been called by him to be there). They are inherently your words, because you are you. You may speak things you hadn't thought of at a moments notice, but in His infinite wisdom God provides you with insight, yet they are still your words. I do however agree with you that God lays things on our hearts to pray over.


They are the fundamental questions to ask oneself. The answer to the second question would be answered in the first, actually, because if something is loving of God, then it is intrinsic that is be loving of his creation. If we are 'loving' his creation, we can blind ourselves to what we should really be loving, which is him. Think of it this way, it's like admiring a Rodin sculpture while the artist, Rodin was there standing next to it -- to be intimate with the creation it is important to be intimate with the creator (now obviously, Rodin is dead and millions worldwide are in awe of his masterpieces, including myself, but I hope you see the point I am trying to make.)