Friday, January 28, 2011

Other Non-Bible Material from God?

Many today consider the Holy Bible to be the only written material we have from God.

But if we assume that writings from God's prophets would qualify as being "from God", then we have to consider that there were other books from God at one time, which have since been lost, such as:
  • the books of Samuel the Seer, Nathan the Prophet, and Gad the Seer, (1 Chron 29:29)
  • the book of Shemaiah the prophet (2 Chron 12:15)
If we further assume that books referenced in a positive manner by the scriptures qualify as "from God" (which I would be much more hesitant to do), then our list gets even bigger:
  • the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41)
  • the geneaologies of Iddo the Seer (2 Chron 12:15) and his story (2 Chron 13:22)
  • the Book of Jasher (Josh 10:13; 2 Sam 1:18)
  • the book of the Annals of David (1 Chron 27:24)
If we include epistles (not books), then the list grows bigger still:
  • at least one lost letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 5:9)
  • the letter to Laodicia (Col 4:16)
  • the unknown source of the Nazarene prophecy (Matt 2:23).
I can't help but wonder how we would receive one of these documents if the spade of archeology were to dig it up tomorrow, particularly the lost letter to the Laodicians. I suspect that most of us have a theology that wouldn't allow us to consider it as scripture, even though Paul seems to have considered it on a par with his letter to the Colossians. I think it would disturb us greatly.

3 comments:

S M Vinay Kumar said...

Hai good article and nice to meet you at your page. God bless you. Hope we can share more. God bless you.
Vinay

Sheri said...

I would be very skeptical if one of these lost writings were to appear. With all the hoaxes people come up with, it would take a lot of convincing to make me believe it was the real deal.

Shepherd's Ewe said...

It would be interesting to see these writings. Of course since many believe the scriptures are just fairy tales and do not take them serious, I think many would think them to be false or hoaxes.