Missing Books of the Bible
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matthew 5:18)
It seems that Christians don’t have enough to debate about. I am sure we are all aware or have witnessed the King James Only debates which, in my opinion, is a waste of time. Today, I was incredulously reading a debate on whether we have the full Cannon of scripture available to us. It seems that there are Protestant Christians that believe that not all books that are God inspired are included in the bible. For instance, some believe the book of Enoch should have been included in the Canon. The debate also included other books that are not in the bible but apparently should have been.
I do not want to get into the history or reasons why the books we have are part of the Canon while others are not part of the Canon such as the Apocrypha as that is another long and detailed topic. However, I just want to say that if we cannot trust that God saw to it that all He wanted to reveal to mankind is available to us, then we really have some issues.
God who created the entire universe and all that is contained in it did it in a mere six days. That includes all the countless stars, all the planets throughout the whole entire universe that are billions of light years away. He created the oceans, every single grain of sand on our planet and all planets everywhere, the air we breath, the water we drink, animals – all of it. That is the power God has. He can bend the mind of man so that man will do His bidding.
The fact is that God has not left out a single word or a single book that He wanted for mankind. It is mind boggling and inconceivable to hold to the belief that all these thousands of years, we have missing God- inspired books as if it was up to man to decide what was to be included. Sure, men wrote the Bible but it was through the inspiration of God. And it was God that directed man on what to include when putting the bible together.
I am fully confident and comfortable that what I have is what God wanted mankind to have. If it was good enough for God to inspire man to write, He would have included it in the complete Canon.
Is it me? Should we start wondering and questioning if God provided us with His complete Word? Or do most Christians feel as I do in that God has provided us with His COMPLETE Word and He left nothing out?
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Tishrei,
This is a very good observation….. All your reasoning in realizing that God has given us His word exactly as it was meant to be, is verified by a large number of verses throughout the Bible….. God is not so impotent that He can’t make His word come true exactly as He said it would come true….. That is proven by all the prophecies about our Savior…..
We have what we have because that is what God wants us to have.
Margaret
Exactly Margaret.
“We have what we have because that is have God wants us to have.”
Nothing more and nothing less. It’s perfect and complete!
So if God inspired me today to write a new book of the bible it should in your opinion be added today correct?
Two examples where God allows “bad” things to happen. I believe that in the same way, your assertion that God would take care that everything is included in the current “standard” Bible could be wrong.
1. God’s will is that non perish but have everlasting life. Yet he allowed Adam to sin resulting in many people perishing since then.
2. The Bible also contains warnings about teachers of the word who don’t enter the Kingdom and they don’t let others enter it either.
However, even if there are more inspired texts, it is my belief that God has left us enough in the Scriptures to help us find Him (if He opens our eyes first).
Mario,
To understand what you’re asking, read this on God’s sovereign will versus His Permissive will. It may explain what you’re asking.
http://fruitoftheword.com/2009/03/04/god%E2%80%99s-sovereign-will-vs-permissive-will/
I also believe as you do if God thought we needed more he would have given it to us,sometime man with all of his brilliance goes to far trying to find fault in God’s word and he has warned about adding to and taking away from his word.Man will always try to find ways to say God’s word is not enough when we’re missing so much,well I’m totally satisfied with the Inspired Bible God has kept for us down through these many generations!
Unfortunately
it is Christians that are doing this as well.
Like you, I am totally satisfied that God gave us all that He wanted to give. Nothing has been lost by man waiting to be found and added to the Canon.
Excellent post!
I was asked once in a discussion with a member of one of the pseudo-Christian cults how I could be sure that we really had ALL of the books in the Bible that belong there and that we don’t have some books that should not be in there, and even if what we have is accurate or not.
I pointed out, as you mentioned, that there are many scholarly books that go into great detail about the methodology and reasoning used for determining criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of books in the canon of Scripture, but that the bottom line is this: my faith is not in the scribes who copied the texts or the early Church leaders who held the councils to determine which books went in, my faith is in the Spirit of God Who wrote the Bible in the first place and my belief is that He is the One Who has insured that I hold in my hands exactly the Message that He intended for me to have.
I completely agree with your observations on this. Is it beyond God’s ability to preserve His Word intact for our generation?
We could, or I could have gone into all that scholary research for this post but in the end, I don’t need that — or Christians should not need that. As Christians we trust that He gave us all that He intended and nothing has been lost. And what was sad that caused me to write this post was that it was Christians that were making these claims that somehow some books were left out that should not have been.
All that God has done in His creation, and He could not have included all His inspired Word? Oh well.
Because the words in the Bible were taken in bad ways, Americans as rich as they are, confront their own unsustainability in the face of competition from a burgeoning Asian Empire. I expect we need to think a bit beyond the “Book” and a bit for ourselves and our own survival from now on. Perhaps the “missing books” hold some answers we have not thought of, and certainly deserve close examination for that reason. Americans are now forced by a weakened dollar and a very strong Yuan to compete, and even lose some of their 80% share of world’s resources they require to maintain their “Status Quo” to Asians. We must “Downsize” and retreat to sustainability and consolidate our situation. We no longer manufacture our own cars, they are built in Mexico, Canada, Japan, Europe and South Korea, with most parts provided from China’s mainland. We grow some of our own food, but in fact import a large proportion from outside the U.S.A., and again, from mainland China. We are a debtor nation, largest in history of mankind – in direct opposition to Biblical teachings. Do the “missing Books” cover this? We have one in four of our daughter’s, ages 12 to 18, sick with STD’s and a virgin has become a social outcast in the land, a rarity, in a supposedly Christian country, and not championed by our great “Foot Ball Star” system? We consume enough dope to cause territorial wars for the gangsters from Mexico that provide them to us – not in the “Good Book” either, perhaps covered in the missing books? We screwed and Shystered Iceland into bankruptcy! A whole, friendly, allied, country, vanquished economically, for decades to come, by our dishonesty! Not a Christian act, nor Jewish, not at least in the “Good Book” I own a copy of! Maybe found in the “Missing Books”? Truth in America is: we are corporatists, not Christians, We are “Christians of Convenience” only. The “In God We Trust” BS is for the customer only, to give him/her a false sense of security while we fleece him into poverty! Ask any Icelander, they have recently been taught the lesson but well, by Americans, and not found in the “good book” either? Perhaps in the “missing books”?
Hi, I read through your comment a couple of times. All that you mention in your comment — nothing new under the sun. Mankind has not changed but all that you mention can be corrected if man submitted to God. We don’t need more books in the bible to correct these problems. If man submitted to God and followed Him as He has revealed Himself already, we would be living in a different world, not the messed up one we live in.
Let me ask this for the sake of argument, let’s say that all of a sudden there were extra books that were found, do you really think that man would follow those books in light of the fact that they don’t bother with what God has already revealed?