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There are other pages on this site which go into detail about
early versions of the new testament: i.e. The Hebrew Gospel of
Matthew by Shem Tov,(which can be bought from Amazon books) The
Aramaic version used by the Church of the East, and the Khaboris
Manuscript, which are both on the net.
Other texts are available which the" church fathers" decided
not to include in the canon of scripture.
These include the "apocrypha" usually placed between
the Old and the New Testaments, which has the third and forth books
of Esdras (which seems to be a continuation of Ezra) the book of
Tobias, the book of Judith,, the rest of the book of Esther,the
book of Wisdom, Jesus son of Sirach, Baruch the prophet, the song
of the three children, The story of Suzanna, Of Bel and the Dragon,
The prayer of Manasses, the first and second books of Maccabees.
And "the other gospels" such as that of Thomas (which
is a collection of 114 sayings of Jesus), the gospel of Peter,
the gospel of the Hebrews, (which is a paraphrase of the gospel
of Matthew and only fragments still exist of it) the epistle of
Barnabas, The Shepherd (an allegory by Hermas), the Didache, the
Apocalypse of Peter, and others. Some still exist, but some are
lost, such as the letter to Laodicea. Many interesting documents
were found at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945 and those, together
with others,can be found on the net.
The Jews also have an apocrypha and one of those books which was
kept out of the canon of Hebrew scripture for fear it would encourage
the worship of angels is the Book of Enoch, which is also on the
net. The Jews, like Christians have argued about which books should
be admitted. The book of Ezekiel caused problems because the visions
sometimes caused wild speculation. They also did not like Esther
because it does not contain the name of God, and Ecclesiastes (as
it is a hard book to take spiritually), Proverbs and Song of Songs.
Strangely, these are now revered with enthusiasm :- Esther at Purim,
when the salvation of the Jews in exile in Persia is remembered,
and Song of Songs by the highly orthodox as a love song between
God and His people.
There are other writings of the Old Testament period too - for
instance The book of Jubilees (a paraphrase of Genesis dating from
2nd century BC which is in the Ethiopic Bible together
with the Book of Enoch) and the Book of Jashar, which is lost.
And is quoted in Joshua 10 v 12-13 and 2 Sam 1 v 19-27, which seems
to have been a collection of poems. The Dead Sea scrolls found
at Qumran about 1948 are library of scrolls which some say were
copied versions of Old Testament books plus new writings, many
of which are Messianic, by the Essenes, or other say they are writings
taken out from Jerusalem at the time of the war with the Romans
about AD66 and hidden in the dry caves for safe keeping. There
is plenty of information on the net about those that have been
translated.
The Septuagint is the Old Testament in Greek, having been translated
about 100BC in Alexandria. It was at first only the Pentateuch
and only this was recognised by the Jewish authorities as correct-
the rest was translated later and is considered less reliable.
It was useful to the writers of the New Testament as it saved the
work of translating quotes. But herein lies the source of some
of the problems. For instance the much relied upon verse in Isaiah
about" a virgin shall conceive" etc. There is a perfectly
good word for a virgin in the true sense in Hebrew -" betulah" but
in the Hebrew text we have it is "almah" which just means
a young woman who may, or may not be married, or a virgin. When
the Septuagint was made the word for a true virgin was used in
the Greek.
Another example of the differences the Septuagint has that allowed
Christianity to change things is in James' speech in Acts 15 which
very different from that supposed source in Amos in Amos 9 v 11-12.
But it is because the Greek differs from the Hebrew Masoretic text
These examples have been given to show you that men have not always
agreed on the "word of God" and the words have not come
down to us unadulterated.
The apocrypha was included in most Bibles in the west until a
hundred or so years ago, and some modern Bibles still have it.
Who decides these things and with what authority and by what criteria?
Can we really say the 66 books we have in our Bibles today is all
that is worth considering? Can we rely on their accuracy? Are they
the word of God to us?
next section : The Hebrew Gospel of Matthew
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