Suppressed by the early Church Fathers who compiled the Bible, these Apocryphal Books have for centuries been shrouded in silence. Now, for the first time in paperbound book, the reader can discover the hidden beauties of the Lost Books.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Documents; other texts have more detailed notes.,
By
This review is from: The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (Meridian) (Paperback)
This text is a reprinting of two books (written in 1926 and 1927) containing "pseudepigrapha" -- books which some considered to be scripture in the past, but which were not included in the canonical Bible that almost all Christian churches use, nor in the Bible that almost all Jews use. Some of these books were quoted in books in the Christian New Testament; St. Paul quotes from 1 Enoch. The "Forgotten Books of Eden" half of this book will be of interest to students of the Jewish scriptures, and is available by itself through Amazon. Anybody who takes Bible scholarship seriously and who can afford to spend $10 should have a copy of these pseudepigrapha.
The original publication dates are important here, because biblical archaeology and textual studies have progressed substantially in the past seventy years. For example, this book predates the discovery of the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, and accordingly does not include it. The paperback edition of this book is the most economical way I know to get all of this material together. Some critical notes describing the origins of these texts are included. If you have a larger budget, the current standard editions of these texts (also available through AMAZON.COM) are Charlesworth's "Old Testament Pseudepigrapha" and Schneemelcher's "New Testament Apocrypha." You can pre-read a chapter of this book by searching for the words "Infancy Gospel" on the web. The "Infancy Gospel", included in this book, tells stories of the early days of Jesus' life. It presents Jesus as divine, yet also having the personality of a five-year-old boy. For example, one of his playmates maltreats him, so: "When the Lord Jesus was coming home in the evening with Joseph, he met a boy who ran so hard against him, that he threw him down; To whom the Lord Jesus said `As thou hast thrown me down, so shalt thou fall, nor ever rise.' And that moment the boy fell down and died." (I infancy, Ch. XIX, vv. 22-24) A good book to put some of this in context is James Kugel's "The Bible as it Was" (also available through AMAZON.COM).
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nice collection, but not anything you can't find elsewhere,
By Hal A. Kramer (Summerville, South Carolina United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (Meridian) (Paperback)
The book contains a nice variety of works from early Christianity and to some extent the old testament era. If you are a beginer of the study of such works this is a nice starting book as you can see a small sampling of each of the many types of works that were written and the very different messages these books sometimes gave (part of why they aren't widely studied today in Churchs). However, every book contained in this work is to be found in other collections and I know of single collective books that contain most of these works and more with better translations. A nice starting point but not something that is really valuable to someone who has been already been studying other works from the time of the formation of the cannon.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (Meridian) (Paperback)
This book contains insight into the minds of the people of the early Christian church and earlier. Although not accepted as Scripture it serves to give you an idea of how people thought about things back then.
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