March 29, 2026

The Books Left Out of the Bible Explained: Enoch, Thomas, and the Canon

The Books Left Out of the Bible Explained: Enoch, Thomas, and the Canon
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The Books Left Out of the Bible Explained: Enoch, Thomas, and the Canon
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Most people assume the Bible has always existed as a complete, settled collection of books. But the reality is more complex. In this episode, we explore the books left out of the Bible, how the canon was formed, and why certain writings were included while others were set aside. From early Christian texts like the Shepherd of Hermas to controversial writings like the Gospel of Thomas and the Book of Enoch, we break down what these books contain, how they were viewed by early believers, and why they didn’t make the final cut. This isn’t about hidden conspiracies or suppressed truth. It’s about understanding the historical process that shaped Scripture and what that means for us right now. If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s more to the story, this episode gives you the context you’ve been missing.

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When people ask whether there were books left out of

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the Bible, the answer is actually yes. But the more

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useful question, in my opinion, is why those books didn't remain,

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because once you follow that question, the conversation moves from

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curiosity to something deeper, and that's authority and trust and

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how something becomes foundational. There's a version of history most

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people carry without realizing it, a clean version, one where

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the Bible arrived, complete and settled, sixty six books, nothing debated,

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nothing left behind. And that version, frankly, it doesn't hold

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up because across deserts, inside caves, and through handwritten copies

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passed between early believers, there were other texts moving alongside

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what we now call scripture. So were some were read

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in churches, some were quoted by respected leaders, and some

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were preserved very carefully in caves and places. And then

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at some point they weren't included, not a race necessarily,

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not like hunted down and destroyed. I mean maybe they were,

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but just set aside. So here's the tension with that.

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If these books were known and read, even valued, why

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didn't they make it in the Bible? Maybe more importantly,

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what inside them? What's inside them that did Okay, So

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once you start following this thread, the story of the

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Bible stops feeling simple and starts becoming something far more layered.

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Most people think they understand the Bible Genesis to Revelation,

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sixty six books, final answer, right, But that's the end

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of the story, not the beginning. And what we now

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call the Bible came together over hundreds of years, not

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in a single moment, not in a single actual place,

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and certainly not without disagreement. Different communities were reading different texts.

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Some were widely accepted, some were debated, some lived at

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right on the edge. And this is where things start

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to shift, because when you look at early Christian history

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you find evidence of them of like this middle category,

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books that weren't quite scripture, but they weren't rejected either.

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There's an early document called the Meritorian Fragment from the

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late second century. It lists recognized books, but it also

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mentions writings like the Shepherd of Hermas, saying it should

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be read, just not publicly in church with the others. Now,

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that distinction matters. That texts can be useful and even

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encouraged and still not be part of the canon. A

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text can be respected circulated and still not make the

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cut right. So fast forward to three sixty seven AD

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and Athansias of our Alexandria writes his thirty ninth Festal

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Letter and listing the twenty seven books of the New

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Testament exactly as we know them today. But even he

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draws a line. He names other books as valuable for instruction,

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just not part of the canon. So the pattern shows

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up again and again, not banned, not destroyed, but I'd

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say categorized is the best way to describe it, and

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that raises a deeper question. What separates a book that

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becomes scripture from one that doesn't. I mean, is it

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authorship or consistency, maybe usage or something less obvious. Once

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you see the process, you can't unsee it, though, and

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by the by the end of this episode, you'll understand

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how the Bible was formed, what kinds of books were

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left out, and why this matters. Right now, we're moving

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through early church history, ancient manuscripts and discoveries like the

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Dead Sea scrolls and texts found at Naghamati. I've talked

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about this in past episodes, which I'll link to this episode.

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Some of this is straightforward and some of it is

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hotly debated. Some of it doesn't land cleanly. Per Broadcasting Seeds. Way, right,

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we're calling this series Beyond the Bible. It's going to

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go on for about ten weeks because we're finished with

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the Supernatural Bible, so we're gonna go with Beyond the

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Bible because where the cannon ends, the conversation sure does not.

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It just doesn't end. And people are revisiting these edges, right,

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these edges of biblical scripture. Not because the information is new,

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because it sure isn't, but because access is for some

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of these I mean, we have the Internet and most

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of the stuff is there now. And if you're yeah, so,

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it'll be great. If you're getting value from this, though,

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take a moment to like, share and review the podcast.

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That's how this show reaches people asking these questions. And

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if you want to support the podcast, I urge you

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now to check out my books. They keep this show going. Okay,

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I've written a few books and you can find them

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at Bennett tantonbooks dot com or through some links at

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Broadcasting Seeds dot com. If you're researching or working in

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this space, there's a room to connect to always. Now

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let's go a little deeper in the section one. Most

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people approach the idea of books left out of the

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Bible as if it's about secrets, right. They look at

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them as hidden texts and suppressed knowledge. But when you

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step into the history, it actually doesn't look that like that.

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It looks a lot slower. It's more gradual, way, more human.

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Right.

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And the formation of the Bible wasn't a single event.

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It unfolded across centuries, and it started way before Christianity.

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In the first century. The Jewish historian Josephus described a

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defined set of sacred writings, and he spoke of twenty

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two books and made it clear that later writings just

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didn't carry the same authority that tells you something right away.

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Even before the New Testament, people were already asking what

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counted as scripture. Now moved forward, and early Christians didn't

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have a finished New Testament. They had letters, of course,

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they had accounts, firsthand accounts, teachings being copied and shared

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across regions, and those collections weren't identical everywhere. Picture a

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small gathering, someone reads a letter attributed to say Paul okay,

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another time from a gospel, and occasionally something else. A

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text that fit. I guess it feels helpful and worth hearing,

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but not quite the same. So early Christianity didn't begin

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with a fixed book. It began with a flood of writings,

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and by the late second century we start to see

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efforts to bring order to that flood, and that's the

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Meritorian fragment reflects that moment, and we talked about that

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in the intro. Some books are reorganized, some books are

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just flat out rejected. Right, sorry, I'm a little sick.

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Some sit in between. The Shepherd of Hermas is a

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clear example of this. It circulated widely and was concealed

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that are valuable, but it came with a boundary. Read it,

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but don't treat it like scripture. So the question shifts

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not why it existed, but why it didn't cross Why

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it didn't cross that line. A book isn't excluded because

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it exists. It's excluded because it doesn't need a standard.

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Those standards weren't written in a single checklist. But there

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are patterns that emerge connection to the apostles or consistency

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of the teachings that were already accepted across communities and

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frankly widespread usage. This is where certain texts start to

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stand apart now, like the Gospel of Thomas, for example,

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that appears later around the mid second center, and its

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tone and structure are different. It reads less like a

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continuation and more like a paralleled voice entering the conversation.

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It doesn't automatically make it meaningless, of course, but it

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helps explain why it didn't carry the same weight as

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other books. Not everything ancient is equal either, age alone

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doesn't does not determine authority. And then there's the Dead

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Sea Scrolls and discovering discovered between sorry discovered beginning in

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nineteen forty seven. They open another layer of entirely hundreds

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of manuscripts, including biblical texts, commentaries, and works like Knock

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and Jubileese. That matters because it shows that the ancient world

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wasn't working from a single clean list. It was overlap.

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There was tons of overlap, a wider ecosystem of text

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moving through different communities. Some of those ideas became part

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of scripture and some just didn't, so some remained on

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the edges. The Bible didn't emerge in isolation and emerged

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from a crowded field. Folks, I guess it is the

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best way to describe it. So when people ask whether

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there were books left out of the Bible, the answer

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is actually yes. But the more useful question, in my opinion,

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is why those books didn't remain because once you follow

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that question, the conversation moves from curiosity to something deeper,

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and that's authority and trust and how something becomes foundational.

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Send this to a friend who's been asking whether there's

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more to the story than what they were handed Section two.

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Once you understand the process, the next question is about

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context or content, what was actually inside the books that

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didn't make it, Because this is where the differences become

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clear again. We'll take the tops the Gospel of Thomas,

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which was discovered in nineteen forty five near Nagamati, which

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is in Egypt, and it contains one hundred and fourteen

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sayings that were attributed to g Jesus. But there's no narrative,

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no crucifixion, no resurrection, just sayings. And many of those

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things they carry a different emphasis, less about repentance and

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more about hidden knowledge, less about transformation, more about uncovering

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something internal. Right in some of these texts, salvation is

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tied to insight rather than relationship and that shift matters.

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Early communities weren't only asking whether a text was interesting,

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they were asking whether it aligned with what they had,

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what they had already received. If it didn't, that raised concerns.

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Now consider the Book of Enoch, because this one's different.

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Part of it predates Christianity, and fragments were found among

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the Dead Sea scrolls showing a circulated that it circulated

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in Jewish communities. So the question becomes sharper. If Enoch

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was known and preserved, why isn't it in most bibles.

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Enoch expands on themes found in Genesis. It describes the

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watchers angels who descend an influence humanity, and it develops

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a detailed view of the unseen world. For some early

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readers that wasn't a problem because they had already heard

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these stories. In fact, the New Testament's Book of Jude

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quotes a passage attributed to Enoch that complicates the boundary.

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A text can exist outside the canon and still intersect

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with it. But influence doesn't equal inclusion, So inclusion depended

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on broader recognition and consistency and acceptance across communities. Enoch

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did not meet that threshold universally, except for in one tradition,

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the Ethiopian Orthodox Church still includes it in its canon.

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So this isn't just history, it's a living difference. What

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counts as scripture can vary depending on tradition. Then there

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are texts like the Oh my Gosh, the Didtickey and

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I have already talked about the Shepherd of Hermits. They

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were respected and copied and used for teaching, but still

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not considered scripture. That metal category shows up again, useful

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but not foundational. When you step back, a pattern forms.

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Some books were excluded because they just came later, some

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because their teachings diverged straight up, diverged from what was

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already being taught, some because their origins were maybe uncertain,

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and some because they didn't gain wide acceptance, not suppressed

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or filtered. The canon wasn't built by hiding information, I

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guess there's not a lot of It was shaped by

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narrowing it. So interest in these texts is growing again.

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People are reading Enoch, exploring Thomas, revisiting the Dead Sea scrolls,

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and the question that follows is almost always the same,

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why wasn't this included? And the answer isn't that they

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were hidden? Necessarily? Is that they didn't meet the same criteria.

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Ah.

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And once that's clear, the conversation shifts from secrecy to

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discernment Section three. At this point, the conversation stops being

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purely historical, okay, it becomes personal. And because once you

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understand that other texts alongside existed, what became scripture and

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you have to decide what to do with that. Not

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every claim survives and not every surviving text carries authority.

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There are two common reactions though. One assumes anything outside

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the Bible is automatically false. The other assumes anything outside

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it must contained hidden truth, so wild both oversimplifying the

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actual situation and the reality is more layered. Okay, Some

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of these texts were valued, and still are, some were debated,

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some influenced early communities, and still they weren't included. Okay,

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So the real question becomes how to approach them. Context

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absolutely matters, and the Dead Sea Scrolls are a good

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example of this. Discovered near Kumran beginning in nineteen forty seven,

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they revealed a broader textual world, biblical manuscripts, commentaries, and

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additional writings, all circulating together that shows the end ancient

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landscape was not uniform and everybody likes this nice uniform thing,

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right it was. It was active and varied and evolved

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all the time. Scripture emerged within a wider conversation, not

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outside of it. That reframes everything. So instead of asking

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what was hidden, you start asking what endured and why,

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because survival across centuries and cultures and transmission tells you something. Right,

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not everything lests. What remains tends to carry weight within

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the communities that preserved it. Okay, that doesn't automatically prove truth, though,

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but it does signal significance. Endurance points frankly to importance,

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even if it doesn't settle the question of truth. Now,

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it's important to separate fact from speculation. And there are

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some facts, the fact many texts existed, right. Another fact

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is that some were respected but not canonized. Fact different

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traditions still define the canon differently. Now, speculation that there

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was a coordinated effort to suppress a hidden original version

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of Christianity. This is hotly debated. There's no solid evidence

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that for that claim. In the material that we've covered, right,

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what we do see is a process of selection, evaluation,

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and narrowing over time, and those edges, those edge texts

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are still accessible, like the Gospel of Thomas can be

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read today. The Book of Enoch is available in many forms.

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Dead Sea scrolls have been published and studied. Nothing is

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locked away at least of these texts right now. That

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doesn't mean that there isn't. But for these texts that

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we've talked about, access isn't the issue anymore. Interpretation is.

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There could be other hidden stuff, but again I don't know.

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There's only so much that we can cover right right now.

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Interesting interest is absolutely increasing because people are connecting with

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these texts the broader questions about belief and history and meaning.

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That can lead to insight or confusion because without contexts,

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it's easy to build conclusions that the original text don't support.

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That's where careful reading matters, understanding what a text is,

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where it came from, and how it was used. If

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you're exploring this space, there is room for collaboration with

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others doing the same kind of work. The conversation around

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books left out of the Bible isn't going away. How

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it's handled will shape how people understand it. Send this

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to a friend who's been digging into ancient texts and

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trying to separate signal from noise. Okay, So to wrap

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things up, this isn't a story about missing pieces. It's

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a story about how pieces were chosen. And the phrase

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books left out of the Bible suggests something was removed

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or hidden. But what we've seen is a process of

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recognition and filtering. A wide range of writings existed satis fact,

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some aligned closely with what communities came to accept and

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some didn't. Over time, the collection narrowed, and the question

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isn't only what was left out, it's why what remained

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was kept. That's where the weight of this topic sits, Okay,

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because once you understand that other texts were known, read

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and sometimes valued, the conversation shifts not towards suspicion, but

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toward understanding. You're not looking at a lost library erased

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from history. You're looking at a historical process that shapes

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a small or more consistent set of writings. Now that

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doesn't remove the intrigue, of course, It gives its structure though,

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And those edge texts they still matter. They show what

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people were thinking, what ideas were circulating, what questions were

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being asked, and in some cases how different the outcome

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could have been. The canon wasn't inevitable, it developed over time.

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So where does that leave you with a clearer view?

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Not everything outside the canon needs to be rejected, for sure.

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Not everything needs to be accepted either, but everything benefits

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from being understood in context. So if this gave you

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something to think about, take a moment to like, share

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and leave a review. That's how the show grows and

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reaches others asking the same questions. Another ask If you're

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getting value from the show and want to support what

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we're building here, one of the best ways to do

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this is by checking out my books. They go deeper

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into a lot of the themes that we talk about

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on this podcast. I have a couple fiction books too,

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and you just might like them. You can find them

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at Bennett tantonbooks dot com or over at Broadcasting Seeds

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dot com. And if you're working in the space, researching, writing,

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or exploring these ideas, there's room to connect. Okay, we're

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going to keep digging because this isn't just about books

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left out of the Bible. It's about how beliefs take

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shape and how they continue to influence the world right now.

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And once you start paying attention to that, you start

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seeing it everywhere. Have a good day, the hand.

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In me a finished story, leather bound, clean and complete,

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sixty six and nothing missing, no lustress.

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Beneath my feet, but buried under sand and sides. Being

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still is spas to the of the voice, the same

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horizon Jos never meant to reach Chudes. Not everything was

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burned away, Not everything was lost, Some were.

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Kept in shadows. Some just didn't make the cross?

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What was left behind?

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What didn't make the line?

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Who was it true that fad or something by design?

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Who was set aside? Still it comes through all time, not.

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A race, just way on the edge to the divine.

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Fragments hidden in the desert, scrolls that never lost their breath,

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the angels falling Watcher speaking.

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Story is walking close.

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To death, sayings carved without a story, no cross.

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No empty grain, just a different kind.

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Of no way, a different kind no way.

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Not everything belongs inside.

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Not everything lines.

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Some were weight and measured, some just fell between the lines.

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What was left behind?

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What did made the line?

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Was it truth that fad or something by design?

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But what that a sign?

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Still it goes through all time.

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Not a race, just a waiting on the edit of

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the divice.

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You can read it now, nothing's locked away, but understanding

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that surprise you've paid.

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Not every voice is equal, not every word is life,

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but every question leads you deeper.

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Side.

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What was left.

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Behind still knocking in your mind. Not everything rejected means

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it wasn't.

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Real in time.

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What was set aside, still standing.

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To outside, not hidden, just filtered through the hands that

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had to his side.

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It wasn't dropped from heaven.

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It was chosen the tide.

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And now you see the story

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Was never just on line