Monday School: Lost Books Of The Bible

Monday! Time once again for You-Know-What. Yes, it’s STILL what I’ve long said it was, but today it’s also somehow unique. (Feel free to look on your neighbor’s paper for details.)

Today’s Lesson: What Are The Lost Books Of The Bible – And How Much Will The Library Fine Be If They’re Ever Found?

The Bible is often called a perfect book, yet – as I hope these lessons have made it perfectly clear – even a cursory examination of its pages reveals much that’s hard to reconcile with perfection.

Today’s lesson deals with one imperfection that I don’t believe I’ve mentioned before: The number of lost books that it refers its readers to for confirmation and elaboration.

Perfect books would seem to me to be books that are self-sufficient. Many Bible believers seem to recognize as much when they claim that the Bible contains all the answers or is the only book we ever really need. These believers have a lot of explaining to do whenever the Bible basically says “Go read someone else’s words for details!”

The fact that so many of these non-Biblical writings are now lost raises another severe problem for those who believe that the Bible was written or inspired by gOd. Given that these non-Biblical book were lost many centuries ago and that an omniscient gOd would necessarily know that the vast majority of Bible readers would not have access to them, why would that gOd refer those readers to inaccessible books? It would be like me including a link here that I knew was going to go dead before the vast majority of my readers had a chance to click on it. How wise would that make me? And how wise would it be for anyone to claim that an entry with a dead link is the perfect creation of a perfect creator?

And another problem: Why would an all-powerful gOd inspire scriptures that he then fails to protect and instead allows to be lost?

And another: If these works were as important as a mention in the Bible implies that they were, why did those people who value the Bible ever allow them to utterly vanish?

Once again it would seem that the Bible doesn’t make sense except as the imperfect creation of very flawed people living in ancient times….

Wikipedia provides a handy list of these lost works as well as a few details about them.

Here is some of what it says (along with additional information I’ve found elsewhere):

—– “The Book of Jasher (fully translated as the Book of the Upright or the Book of the Just) is mentioned in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18. From the context in the Book of Samuel it is inferred that it was a collection of poetry. Several books have claimed to be this lost text, but are widely discounted as pseudepigrapha. [i.e., forgeries]”

The Encyclopedia Britannica indicates that the origin of this book is uncertain but probably was a collection of oral traditions that were written down in the 10th century BCE. In the 18th century a “forged and spurious” work popped up that was allegedly an English translation of the original.

One online site that presents one version of the book in its entirety describes things this way: “This is one of the apochrypal Books of Jasher. There are several (as many as five) separate works by this title, all composed much later than Biblical times. This particular one is a translation of a Hebrew book printed in 1613. Sepir Ha Yasher, the Hebrew title of this book, means the ‘Book of the Upright’, or ‘the Upright or Correct Record’. This title was misread as ‘Jasher’, and at some point Jasher was treated as a proper name; however the pronoun ‘the’ (hebrew ‘ha’) never preceeds proper names. There is also another spurious Book of Jasher, published 1750, in which Jasher is treated as the name of the author. This text covers much of the same ground as the traditional Mosaic books of the Bible, from the creation of the world to the death of Moses, albeit with several minor variations.”

—– “The Book of the Wars of the Lord is one of several non-canonical books referenced in the Bible which has now been completely lost. It is also known as the Book of the Wars of Yahweh, by those who do not wish to translate Yahweh as The Lord. It is mentioned in Numbers 21:14-15 … Amongst academics, it is generally thought to be a collection of victory songs or poems, although some readers have suggested it may be a prose military history. It has been suggested by the theologian Joseph Barber Lightfoot that the book was one and the same as the mysterious biblical Book of Jasher.”

The Encyclopedia Britannica basically agrees with this assessment, saying that the work was probably “a collection of early Israelite war songs including hymns of victory, curses, mocking songs, and other literary genres recounting the victories of Yahweh….” It indicates that most scholars reject the idea that it’s identical to the Book of Jashar (a.k.a., Jasher).

—– “The Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel mentioned in 1 Kings 16:20 regarding King Zimri. This appears to be a different book than any of those included in the Bible.”

—– “‘The Book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the Seer’ is mentioned in the book of 2nd Chronicles. (II Chr 12:14-15). Iddo was a seer who lived during the reigns of Solomon, Rehoboam, and Abijah. His deeds were recorded in this book, which has been completely lost to history, excepting its title.”

Wikipedia lists more than 30 such examples of Biblical references to works that cannot now be found. Other websites (such as this one and this one) provide similar lists. As fascinating as it might be to examine each example in detail, I think even one is enough to reveal the Bible as a less than perfect, less than complete work.

And lest you think that the Christian scriptures gathered in the New Testament are somehow exempt from the problems of the Jewish scriptures, here are several examples of apparently significant works they allude to but fail to include:

—– The Epistle to Corinth (mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5:9)

—– The Earlier Epistle to the Ephesians (mentioned in Ephesians 3:3-4)

—– The Epistle from Laodicea to the Colossians (mentioned in Colossians 4:16) (“Apparently God intended to include the epistle from Laodicea in the Bible, but it was lost somewhere along the way. There were several letters that claimed to bethe lost epistle [and one of these was often included in Latin medieval bibles], but they are considered forgeries today.” – The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible)

All of which raises a number of questions:

—– How many of these works never really existed at all but were merely added to give additional credibility to dubious claims?

—– How many of these works might have been suppressed or “lost on purpose” because they contradicted other claims made by the Bible or revealed unflattering details?

—– What else might be missing?

—– Which of these works or others might yet be rediscovered? And how might any rediscovered works shake the conventional wisdom about Judaism, Christianity, or the Bible? (The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostic writings that were rediscovered in the 20th century perhaps hint at what remains to be found.)

Do you have any comments or questions of your own? Feel free to share them now!

(NOTE: If you happen to have any of these missing works and want to turn them into a library, I wouldn’t worry about the overdue fine. I *would* avoid dumping fragile ancient works in the Book Drop box, however!)