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Lost Books of the Bible For Dummies (For Dummies (Religion & Spirituality)) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Daniel L. Smith-christopher, Stephen Spignesi
Publisher: For Dummies
List Price: $21.99
Buy New: $14.95
You Save: $7.04 (32%)
New (48) Used (14) from $10.66
Rating:  1 reviews
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 366
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 7.3 x 1
ISBN: 0470243805
Dewey Decimal Number: 220
EAN: 9780470243800
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Lost Books of the Bible For Dummies is your one-stop guide to once-hidden works that add a new dimension to Biblical teachings. Most people have heard about the discovery of strange ancient religious writings that are not part the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, such as the Gnostic Gospels. Now, you will find new insights and a fresh perspective on long-lost works that may have once been in the running for Biblical inclusion, but didn't make the final cut. This easy-to-understand guide examines the sometimes weird, provocative, and profoundly moving texts that have been "lost" as well as those hotly debated works that are in some Bibles and not others. You will come away with a clearer understanding of the Judeo-Christian religion and the development of the Biblical canon. You’ll learn about the origins of the Bible, explore early scriptures, and understand why translations affect the meanings of texts. You’ll even learn how the Greek influenced early Biblical writing. Find out how to: - Explain what the term “lost books” means
- Understand the definition of “canon”
- Take translation differences into consideration
- Divide early writings into style categories
- Take another look at scripture with the Dead Sea Scrolls
- See how the Greeks influenced early scripture
- Decode apocalyptic visions
Complete with a list of ten of the weirdest Jewish lost books, ten of the weirdest Christian lost books, ten sayings of Jesus NOT in the Bible, and ten “lost books that every student of the Bible should read, Lost Books of the Bible For Dummies is your one-stop guide to understanding and reading the Biblical lost books.
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| Customer Reviews:
Informative, Accurate, Admirably Wide-Ranging, Fascinating! October 15, 2008
A most informative and highly accurate account of the so-called "lost" books of the Bible, this latest addition to the splendid "Dummies" series, deserves the widest possible readership. By "lost", the authors mean, of course, all the works not included in approved Protestant Bibles, not just early religious books that have in fact either wholly or partly disappeared. Using this yardstick, the authors discuss all the extra books included in current Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, of which the most important are undoubtedly Wisdom and Ben Sirach, as well as compositions regarded as authoritative only by some Orthodox churches, such as Third and Fourth Maccabees and Psalm 151. Also included are celebrated works that "almost" made it into the New Testament (and were in fact actually included in early editions in some instances) like "The Shepherd of Hermas" and "The Didache". Recently rediscovered Gnostic Gospels and other literature are also dealt with at length. In fact, so much information is laid at the reader's fingertips, it is almost overwhelming. The authors have obviously examined much (if not all) of this material at first hand. On a few occasions (perhaps the result of unwarily consulting faulty translations), they miss the point. For example, the whole thrust of the inspired author's argument in the early chapters of the so-called "Wisdom of Solomon" is that the personified Wisdom is the Holy Spirit. Although content to quote Wisdom 6:12-15, the present compilers do not move on to the end of his argument in chapter 7, when the inspired author declares that Wisdom "is a breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty," who "in every generation passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets" (RSV). However, aside from this one sticking point, I heartily agree with almost everything that is said about other ancient Biblical writings with which I am expertly familiar and which I have recently translated in my book, BIBLE WISDOM FOR MODERN TIMES: Selections from the Orthodox Old Testament
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