Lost Bible Writings Reframe Early Christian Debates in Culture & Entertainment

Scholars are revisiting the landscape of early Jewish and Christian writings as a cache of 'lost' books comes under fresh scrutiny. Between late Second Temple times and roughly the third century AD, more than 70 works circulated alongside what would become the Bible’s 66 books. While most were eventually excluded from Jewish and Christian canons, researchers say these texts reveal a wide spectrum of beliefs about angels, humanity's origins, and the figure of Jesus. In 2024, researchers highlighted the earliest known manuscript fragment of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, underscoring how recent discoveries continue to reshape this field.

Experts point to the canon's slow formation, with copies surviving in fragments and references. What survived as scripture in some communities, such as the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, includes texts like the Book of Enoch. Other works, including the Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel of Judas, circulated with distinctive claims about Jesus, his mission, or salvation. The Gospel of Judas—a text rediscovered in the 1970s in a limestone box near the Nile—presents Judas Iscariot as Jesus' chosen disciple who carries out a divinely appointed betrayal. These writings offer alternative visions that early church leaders rejected as inconsistent with the developing orthodox doctrine.

One canonical target was the Book of Enoch, which expands on the Nephilim and angels. It tells of 200 fallen angels who mate with humans, the birth of giants, and a Flood that refashions humanity. Michael binds the angels, and the giants perish in the Flood. Though not part of most Jewish or Christian canons, the Book of Enoch circulated widely in antiquity and remains canonical for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Causes for its exclusion included its apocalyptic imagery, detailed angelology, and perceived theological tensions with evolving doctrine.

Other texts offered startling portraits of Jesus. The Apocalypse of Peter, dating to the second or third century, depicts Jesus laughing during the crucifixion—a narrative that aligned with some Gnostic traditions that treated Jesus’ physical body as illusory. Because this portrayal implied universal salvation and contradicted orthodox Christology, it remained outside the final canon. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, whose earliest known manuscript fragment was unearthed in 2024, depicts a boy Jesus wielding miraculous powers. It describes him reviving birds made from clay, cursing a child who dies, blinding adults who cross him, and even resurrecting a man who falls from a roof. It also shows a harsher side—Jesus chastising or striking those who challenge him—before a later episode in which Joseph and Mary seek schooling for him. The text begins with Jesus at age five, far earlier than the Bible’s earliest adults-onstage account, and was rejected for its violent depictions and its association with non-orthodox groups.

Scholars note that many of these texts survived only in fragmentary form or in later references, and their existence illustrates the fluidity of early Jewish and Christian thought before a fixed canon emerged. Some texts were preserved by particular communities or in marginal manuscripts, while others became known to later scholars through scattered citations. Dead Sea Scrolls and other manuscript snippets, as well as regional Christian communities such as Ethiopian churches, help fill in the larger picture of how early groups debated salvation, identity, and the nature of angels and miracles.

Today, researchers emphasize that the 'lost' books did not simply vanish; they helped illuminate the diversity of beliefs that circulated alongside the eventual New Testament. Their content—angels and giants, alternative views of Jesus, and debates about who Jesus was and what he accomplished—offers context for how Christian orthodoxy formed and why certain texts were deemed unfit for inclusion. The ongoing study of these writings, including recent fragment discoveries, underscores how the boundaries of biblical authority were negotiated in antiquity and how different communities understood faith and morality in a rapidly changing religious landscape.