19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating and fun to read, June 18, 2008
This review is from: Secrets from the Lost Bible (Paperback)
Readers who want to know about the Jewish and Christian writings left out of the Bible--what they say, who probably wrote them and why they were probably excluded--will find entertaining answers in Secrets from the Lost Bible. Kenneth Hanson even provides useful time lines summarizing such details as the language in which each text was originally written, what language it exists in today, the probable time of its composition, and more. He also opens up these often strange and cryptic texts, pulling forward for the reader a message that the author of each likely intended to convey. If you are at all curious about what was banned from the Bible and why, you'll be something of an expert once you read Kenneth Hanson's book. (Speaking of "banned from the Bible," Dr. Hanson was one of the experts interviewed for the History Channel documentary of that name.)
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24 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, but Flawed, June 11, 2009
This review is from: Secrets from the Lost Bible (Paperback)
I first saw this guy on a History Channel special, so I checked out his book. This is when I realized that their "experts" weren't always experts and began to wonder where they find these people. Goes to show you that you shouldn't get your education from a television. Hanson fancies himself a Bible scholar, but really he isn't (at least according to the lack of depth and quality of this book). There's some interesting things, but mainly he's pushing his shallow, touchy-feely interpretations on Bible verses.
If you're looking for lost knowledge, or earth-shattering revelations about the Bible in the so-called "lost" texts, you'll be disappointed in Hanson's book. These "suppressed" books have been around for some time, some even in the Apocrypha section of some Christian Bibles (as Hanson reveals), so there are no big secrets here.
In fact, there is nothing here "lost," "suppressed," "secret," or "banned." Those are just all code words meant to attract readers and viewers.
Hanson tries to draw modern-day life lessons from these ancient books. Are they more life-altering than biblical passages? No, and in fact, sometimes you have to look hard for some sort of valuable lessons. In fact, this is one reason they never made it into the Bible. The other is the obvious mythological quality of some or simple irrelevance of others to the Biblical story. In spite of all the use of "lost" and "suppressed," Hanson at times admits these things. He never gets too deep into why these books were "suppressed" and often puts forth only his conjectures. Hanson is trying hard to show these as important books but sometimes is inconsistent in his attempts.
Instead of letting us read the actual texts, he provides his "own" translations. He is trying hard to be a scholar, yet there is virtually no references to other scholars in this book. This is unusual for a book like this. He claims that "some researchers" believe the Gospel of Thomas to be older than the Gospels. Who are they? He doesn't say. I ask because the fact is most scholars have dated it after the Gospels. He makes a number of undocumented statements.
He concludes that Jude's mention of Enoch is "positive proof" that early Christians considered it part of the Bible, or else why would it be referenced in the Bible? Sorry, but the Bible references dozens and dozens of extrabiblical books, not all are religious books, so Hanson's argument is not logical.
Don't get me wrong these "lost" books are interesting and at times provide some background history or potential additional clues to where the Bible is silent (like Jesus' childhood, though Anne Rice puts it together better in her novel
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt: A Novel). The stories surrounding Adam & Eve & Lilith are interesting. The connection to the Solomon story in Luke is a bit of a stretch, though possible.
Hanson makes a good attempt, but in his zeal his scholarship is sometimes weak and he has couched his book too much in the "conspiracy-suppression" language, making readers expect more than there really is. If you read this book, check out some more scholarly books along with it such as
The Case for the Real Jesus: A Journalist Investigates Current Attacks on the Identity of Christ,
The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable & Relevant? and
The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ,
Judas and the Gospel of Jesus: Have We Missed the Truth about Christianity?, and
The Many Gospels of Jesus: Sorting Out the Story of the Life of Jesus.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Facinating, July 14, 2011
This review is from: Secrets from the Lost Bible (Paperback)
There are two ways to read this book; as a novel. as a text book. I read it as a text of the ancient's methods for selecting and rejecting various early writings to become books of the bible. Dr. Hanson's writings are easily read and fairly easy to understand for a reader who has almost no background in early (600 BCE to about 300 CE) Jewish and Christian history.
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