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Some Excluded Texts
Thursday, September 12, 2019Hi there. I stumbled here from Google while researching some Bible history. I'm really trying to make sense of some ideas and background of the Bible. My main question is: why are texts such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocrypha of John, and the Gospel of Phillip not included in the Bible?Thanks for making this site, and I hope to hear back from you!
Sincerely,
Bible Student
Dear Bible Student,
The books that you referred to are called ‘apocryphal’ books. An apocryphal book (‘apocrypha’ means hidden) is a book that was rejected from the Bible because it was considered inauthentic. These books are not written by God and never were accepted by God’s people as divinely inspired – most of them were written hundreds of years later. They were forgeries created by false teachers and charlatans of the day (religious corruption isn’t a new thing!).
The most famous historical document that includes the entire list of all the New Testament books was written at the Nicene Council in 325 AD. The Nicene Council did write down a list of the New Testament books, but they didn’t create that list – they just reiterated what people had already known and accepted for a couple hundred years. Within fifty years of its books being written, most of the canon of the New Testament was universally settled. Most of the New Testament books were written as letters to different congregations that personally knew the apostles and prophets that wrote the letters. Paul would even mention his penmanship as being distinctive (Gal 6:11). Those churches were able to tell the difference between a letter that was actually written by an apostle and one that was a forgery. The church of the first century collected, copied, and distributed these letters just as God intended (Col 4:16, 1 Thess. 5:27). God made sure that His Word was properly preserved and established. SB