An Introduction

            This is the first in a series of books that will present a more balanced, less canonical approach to what are known as “The Lost Books of the Bible”.  Theological study is generally done within a very clear set of perameters, formed by the church sponsoring the work, or the religious persuasion of the theologians involved.  Such study is seldom done to question the church in any way; the proof being in the staying power of orthodox doctrine.  One of those very solid doctrines in mainstream Bible-based religion is the acceptance of the books that compromise those Bibles.  This work challenges the very authority controlling the list of “acceptable books”, and the reasons those authorities use for the content of that list.              We start this series with the books known as the Apocrypha.  Researching the concepts for the absence of these books will lead one through a plethora of reasoning.  The arguments range from the dubious claims that they are forgeries to the more honest ones stating that the church has the right to exclude anything it wants.  Fact seems to play no part in the debate. 
            Perhaps one of the best kept secrets of the modern Protestant Church is that the Bible used by that body is not the original King James Bible.  That translation, completed in 1611, and the Bibles published for the use of the clergy and the church members until late in the 19th Century contained 80 books.  Attempts to remove the 14 books known as the Apocrypha from the Bible began immediately after the King James translation was completed.  Despite those efforts, they remained in the Bible until the end of the 19th Century.  There is no doubt that the 14 books of the Apocrypha were controversial, but it cannot be denied they were included in the original King James Bible. 
            Any concept or discussion in the Protestant Church about the Apocrypha is virtually non-existent, with the general understanding that only the Catholic Church uses it.   

Even this is a mistake, as the Catholic Bible, The Douay-Rhimes, does not contain all of the Books of the Apocrypha found in the original King James Bible.  Here is a comparison: 

 One would be hard-pressed to find any members of the clergy even aware that these books were ever included in the King James Bible.  There are 155,683 words, and over 5,700 verses contained in 168 chapters now missing from the King James translation of the Bible due to the exclusion of the Apocrypha. 

 Although this only happened just over a hundred years ago, their existence as fully accepted scripture is virtually unknown.  The only reason any knowledgeable Protestant can find for the books of the  Apocrypha being absent from the Bible is that they are not in the Bible.  Some think they are not in the King James Bible because they are in the Catholic Bible, which is a moot point because most of the books in the King James Bible are also in the Catholic Bible.  Still others declare them worthless despite never having read a single sentence from one of them.   

Part 2