The Lost Books of the Bible
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Book Summary Information
Compiler: William HoneForeword: Solomon J. Schepps
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Illustrated
Published: 1988-06-08
ISBN: 0517277956
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Testament
Book Reviews of The Lost Books of the Bible
Book Review: Ian Myles Slater on: I Once Was Lost.... And should have stayed?
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Lost Books of the Bible" originally appeared in this format in 1926, and has been reprinted by several publishers; sometimes in one volume with "The Forgotten Books of Eden," which I have reviewed separately. It combined, along with a modicum of newer material, some rather old translations of the "Apostolic Fathers" -- early Christian writings sometimes included in the New Testament canon by "orthodox" writers, but later rejected from it -- and of various apocryphal, but popular, Gospels, Acts, and Epistles from later centuries.
These latter are mostly flat-out pseudepigrapha, works with false attributions, rather than genuinely early works that simply failed to be considered inspired by enough leaders of the early Churches. But they often are splendid entertainment, with many reflections in art and literature, bits and pieces of which remain in circulation as "gospel truth," their lack of support in canonical texts often missed by those who have known the stories from childhood.
The original languages of both groups seem to have been, variously, Greek or Syriac, but Latin and other translations exist for some of them, and provide important evidence. This adds more complications to the problem of multiple versions, none standardized, of extra-canonical works treated freely by some scribes.
Is the volume worth the reader's time (and money)? As long as the copy is reasonably priced, and you don't expect too much of it, and don't plan to rely on it for any serious scholarship, the answer is a qualified yes. There are alternatives, so, if possible, make some comparisons in a library before buying.
Despite the 1926 date, the set of translations of "Apostolic" works were by William Wake (1657-1737), an Archbishop of Canterbury, and the others were by his less prominent contemporary, Jeremiah Jones (1693-1724). They did not exactly reflect current scholarship! But in 1926 the book was cheaper than the shiny new 1924 Oxford University Press "The Apocryphal New Testament," edited and translated by M.R. James (yes, the ghost-story writer; that was his hobby); it filled a niche.
James' collection is currently in paperback as "The New Testament Apocrypha" at a reasonable price, although of course it is now rather antiquated itself. Those on a budget may well wish to consider it as an alternative to the present volume.
A replacement for James was published by Oxford in 1993, "The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation," edited by J.K. Elliott, with a revised edition shortly thereafter, and a paperback in 1999. And there are other up-to-date collections, although some aren't all that accessible, of the "Christian Apocrypha."
Highly regarded, although the introductions are translated from a German translation, are the two volumes of "New Testament Apocrypha" edited by Wilhelm Schneemelcher: "Gospels and Related Writings" and "Writings Relating to the Apostles; Apocalypses and Related Subjects." Against them, and the single volume edited by Elliott, is their steep cover price (although Amazon offers attractive discounts). Of course, they have a much larger selection of offerings than "Lost Books" (three or four times as many titles). Elliott has almost 800 pages in a single volume! There are also shorter modern collections (see below).
As for the specifically proto-orthodox extra-canonical works: Back in the 1920s, I suppose that the facing pages of Greek text may have intimidated potential readers of the Loeb Classical Library "Apostolic Fathers," edited and translated by Kirsopp Lake (1912), which then offered the latest word on the subject. It remained standard until quite recently, being replaced by Bart D. Ehrman's new Loeb edition, also in two volumes, in 2003. And there are various other editions and translations, individual or collected, some with elaborate commentaries. The Penguin Classics volume of "Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers" unfortunately omits a major text (see below), which prevents me from giving it unqualified support.
Some of "Apostolic Fathers" are included also in a volume of translations by Ehrman himself, "Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It Into The New Testament" (2003) which includes other non-canonical texts in a mixture similar to "Lost Books," but much richer. Unfortunately, Ehrman abridges some of the longer works, including that omitted by Penguin; my main reason for not making it a main recommendation, either. The "Apostolic" texts are not included in the other big "Apocrypha" collections, which are overstuffed already; although a couple of them might well qualify on grounds of false, rather than mistaken, claims of authorship.
I don't know how the prices compared in 1926, but I suspect that Lake's version was a better bargain all around, even then; although not nearly so entertaining in its total contents as "Lost Books."
Now, in point of fact, most of the works in "Lost Books of the Bible" had originally been brought together, not in the 1920s, in response to James, but in 1820. This proto-collection was made by William Hone, a sometime-radical turned zealous Christian. (Or so he said; some of the pieces he made more available may not have been all that welcome to the conventionally devout!) For some reason (perhaps because Wake had worked on it, and its title was confusing) the volume includes "The Apostle's Creed," directly from the Anglican "Book of Common Prayer." Not exactly "Lost," or in any way a "Book" of the Bible -- although the Apostolic attribution is a matter of pious legend.
To Hone's editorial work was added two later discoveries. One is a version of "The Lost Gospel of Peter," a Greek fragment recovered in Egypt in the 1880s, and identified as a work known to early Christian writers (Origen and Eusebius) who debated both its orthodoxy and authenticity -- it seems to have had canonical status only in very limited circles. Whether the identification of the seventh-century manuscript was correct has been disputed. The second addition was of a translation of a Syriac "Letters of Herod and Pilate," which apparently is the version by W. Wright in his "Syriac Apocrypha" of 1865 (not seen).
The textual basis available to Archbishop Wake and Jones for almost all of their material was very insecure. The translations, while fairly pleasant in their archaic English, are less than reliable in their understanding of the Greek or Latin; and the English itself is obscured a bit by those charming quaint features.
The volume does make available versions of the legends of the Virgin in "The Birth Gospel of Mary" (not a Nag Hammadi or Berlin Coptic text!) and "Protevangelion," the passion and resurrection narratives of "The Gospel of Nicodemus" (which includes "The Acts of Pilate" and "The Descent into Hell"), "The Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans," "The Epistles of Paul and Seneca," and "The Acts of Paul and Thecla," which are otherwise difficult to find in an inexpensive form. "Nicodemus" was extremely important in the Middle Ages (there survives an Anglo-Saxon version of part of it, among other vernacular treatments), especially for the concept of Christ's "Harrowing of Hell." (The "Apostles' Creed" is set up to show that its appearance there is a late expansion -- although the point of establishing something like that for a short text with an unclear history seems to me debatable.) I don't have more recent versions of these on hand, such as Elliott or Schneemelcher, or even James, and refer to Jones' translations in this collection from time to time, instead of rushing to the library.
However, good translations of "The Gospel of Peter" and of different versions of what "Lost Books" offers as the "Infancy Gospels" attributed to Thomas and James (a confusingly overlapping complex of stories about the childhood of Jesus; the "Birth Gospel" and "Protevangelion" are related too) are now fairly readily available in "The Complete Gospels" (edited by Robert J. Miller for The Jesus Seminar, 1992, 1994), as well as the bigger collections; along with other fragments, and "heretical" works.
For "Christ and Abgarus," a supposed correspondence between Jesus and a Syrian ruler (the "Prince of Edessa"), there are a number of English versions, translated from both the (probably original) Syriac and the Greek text traditions, the latter notably including the early rendering by the Church Historian Eusebius in Book I, chapter 13, of his "Ecclesiastical History." A two-volume version in the Loeb Classical Library, edited and translated by Kirsopp Lake (1926) and J.E.L. Oulton (1932), has long been standard. It is readily available in a Penguin Classics translation, "The History of the Church." Eusebius is an important source for Christianity before Constantine, and well worth attention for those interested in the period. He is also a fairly tedious writer; the Penguin translation tries to reduce his wordiness, so it is better as an introduction than a scholarly resource.
This fascinating "Abgar" text, in which Jesus promises to send his image to the ailing Abgar, instead of interrupting his Ministry to come himself, is probably behind the later story of the miraculous relic of Christ's face imprinted on the handkerchief of St. Veronica (otherwise "the Veronicle"). It probably underlies the concept of the Shroud of Turin, too. Copies of the letters were themselves regarded as having healing powers, and amuletic versions were found even in Western Europe.
Jones, or perhaps Hone, or even the 1926 editor, omits Eusebius' explanatory narrative; which is not the only version available, but seems to be the oldest extant. This lack of a traditional context reduces the aging translation's value considerably.
In addition, a third textual tradition has since turned up, in an openly magical context, in "The Coptic Book of Ritual Power from Leiden," translated by Richard Smith in Marvin W. Meyer and Smith's "Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power" (1994; revised 1999). This version includes extraneous material, but it sheds some light on those who valued these traditions; and should be compared to a citation of the Abgar letter in Text 61 (page 114), and to adaptations of canonical texts elsewhere in the same volume.
The bulk of Archbishop Wakes' contributions were, as mentioned, of works now known as "The Apostolic Fathers," a modern term for a varying assortment of early works once (for the most part) attributed to associates of the original Disciples, of the Apostle Paul, or to members of their immediate circle. He included an incomplete (because based on imperfect texts) version of the so-called "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians," and with it the problematic "Second Epistle ...," which may also be by a man named Clement, but certainly not the same Clement, and isn't really much of an Epistle. The "General Epistle of Barnabas" is in the name of a companion of Paul, but is certainly not by him, although some parts of it may be very old. (Even, although not in their present form, pre-Christian -- actually Jewish, which would have horrified pseudo-Barnabas, who insists that the Church is not only now, but always was, the "True Israel.")
The -- generally considered authentic -- "Epistles of Ignatius," to various congregations and to his friend Polycarp have a complex and controversial textual history, which had then only recently been clarified in its outlines. With them Wake included the "Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians," but not the related "Martyrdom of Polycarp," which also seems to be a very early work. (Forged epistles of Ignatius, and interpolated texts of the authentic ones, were a hot issue in the Reformation.) Again, textual issues abound, and Wake could be no more reliable than his sources.
Wake also provided the charming, but textually unreliable, translation of "The Shepherd of Hermas," a visionary work, filled with allegorical images and their angelic explicators, in the apocalyptic mode. Very long, theologically muddled, sometimes tedious but intermittently fascinating, it, like "Barnabas," once seemed likely to achieve canonical status, and is actually found in some early New Testament manuscripts. It doesn't share the violent anti-Jewish sentiments of Barnabas, with their almost Gnostic view of the Old Testament God. But its very odd views on baptism, repentance and salvation, and its strange reluctance to mention Jesus Christ as Savior (preferring instead "The Church" and sometimes "The Lord") probably militated against its acceptance.
The "Shepherd" of the title is one of the angelic figures; and the work is sometimes known by the Latin name of "Pastor," of the same meaning, but which suggests something different in modern English contexts! Hermas, the narrator, is aware of a fellow-Christian in Rome named Clement, who may or may not be, or be supposed to be, the associate of Peter (and his second successor as "Bishop of Rome"), to whom the Clementine Epistles are attributed. It was once very popular; yet in this case the Latin version is particularly important, because none of the surviving Greek manuscripts are quite complete. Wake's translation of Hermas seems to me the best of the whole group, in literary terms; but Lake and Ehrman are both far more reliable, and both are clearer. Many other translations (including Ehrman's in his "Lost Scriptures") are abridged (it is *very* long, and not always very interesting), so care may be needed in finding a full version in English elsewhere. Unfortunately, it is missing entirely from the Penguin Classics "Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers."
Summary of The Lost Books of the Bible
Suppressed by the early church fathers who compiled the Bible, these apocryphal books have been shrouded in silence for centuries. Here are the Apostles' Creed, the girlhood and betrothal of Mary, the childhood of Jesus-told in all their warmth, intimacy and humanity. Translated from the Original Tongues, with 32 illustrations from Ancient Paintings and Missals.Reference Books
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