The best version of the good book compilable would be a book that's consistent AND a book of morality (ensuing from god). Consistency goes a long way in making a book believable. A book on morality would do wonders for us.

The problem is a Bible compiler can't have both for the simple reason that there are moral inconsistencies - one moment we have god issuing the 10 commandments explicitly enjoining us not to commit murder and the next thing he does is order slaughter and enslavement.

The Bible can't be both consistent AND a book on morality.

Ergo, anyone trying to put the "bunch of different texts" together would end up with an unbelievable book on morality.

I've been looking into the compilation of the Bible and I've recently been informed there are a bunch of different texts left out. It got me wondering how people came to decide which would stay in and which would be discarded. Does anyone have any references or recommendations looking into how the Bible was compiled? — GTTRPNK

It was a church council where the canon of the Bible was decided, see here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Christian_biblical_canon

For a sample of the sort of material they had to choose from when deciding the canon, there is this excellent site that you may find interesting:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com

Thanks so much. I'll take a look.

Apart from the council Devans has mentioned, there were probably several smaller, more local decisions about what texts were "good enough" to keep around for posterity. Those decisions will not be documented by a major council, and in all likelyhood we'll never have a full picture of what the first accounts of the religion were like. There are also several documented instances where the text of the books we do have was changed over time.

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Definitely. I think it is important to know if/that they were changed over time, especially when speaking with a Christian about the validity of the texts being the actual "word of god" as it's often stated.

Yeah, I'm sure different variations could be used to defend entirely different points, and that's a big issue. I'm really interested in comparing the writings that were removed when the current "edition", if you will, was canonized and if we know how it was determined what would be included.

Keep in mind that the idea of the "Bible" as a codex containing all canonical books of the Bible, and nothing else is a post-Reformation invention. Monks used to only copy some books, while also including non-cannonical epistles and the writings of early church father's in "Bibles."

Much of the myth surrounding Satan comes from the Books of Enoch, which weren't deemed canonical, but we're nonetheless considered "useful for instruction," and studied. The Books of Enoch are considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Ethiopian Jews.

Those contain a much more detailed story of the Flood, and of the Nephlim, fallen angels.

You can find it here: http://www.hiddenbible.com/enoch/online.html

Then, during the Reformation, many Protestant sects threw out books of the Bible. These are known as the Apocrypha, and many Protestant Bibles separate them out or exclude them entirely. They will be in any Catholic or Orthodox Bible though.

Finally, you have the "Gnostic" texts, which refers to apocalypses and gospels from a diverse group of Christian and Jewish Gnostics. Most interesting is the Gospel of Thomas, which is not explicitly Gnostic (no Demiurge). Thomas is older than John and based on historical analysis seems to date to around the Synoptic Gospels. It is less a story and more a collection of Jesus's sayings, some of which appear in other Gospels, some which don't. It's only Gnostic in that it was kept out of the Canon and because it seems to describe salvation as coming through enlightenment or knowledge (Greek: Gnosis, the root for the so-called Gnostics).

The Gnostic Texts can be found at gnosis.org.

I'm not aware of any others that were removed. There are stories in the Talmud that date to, or before the period of the Canon that are interesting too, although reading the Talmud straight on is difficult.

Last, there are the Books of Mormon, discovered or written, as you like, in the US in the 19th century.

Keep in mind that the idea of the "Bible" as a codex containing all canonical books of the Bible, and nothing else is a post-Reformation invention. Monks used to only copy some books, while also including non-cannonical epistles and the writings of early church father's in "Bibles." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, there's a Hebrew Bible canon as well that the monks didn't get a say in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Hebrew_Bible_canon

The Books of Enoch are considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Ethiopian Jews.

Those contain a much more detailed story of the Flood, and of the Nephlim, fallen angels. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The Book of Enoch is interesting because it speaks of angels coming from heaven and having sex with human women, resulting in giants called nephilim. Apparently the flood was necessary to clear the world of those beings. Genesis refers to the nephliim as does Numbers, which raises the question of how some survived the flood. Anyway, I find it interesting because a distinguishing factor of Judaism is the departure from a system of multiple gods warring with one another, having sex with one another, and otherwise engaging in a very human fashion as you might see with Greek Gods or in pagan cultures. The remnants found in the OT of these giants and the discarding of the Book of Enoch from the canon seems like an effort to clear this new fangled religion away from its more primitive past.

There is a general consensus that monotheism was a process, not just a sudden belief that arose among the ancient Hebrews and a very early presence of nephilim would be consistent with that pre-evolved state.

I propose that books of the Old Testament were granted canonical status by Jewish communities on the basis of then-current use and and usefulness. Different communities had varied preferences which resulted in some texts being present and others not.

A critical difference between the Jewish process of compilation and the Christian one is that Jews were a going concern and accumulated their sacred texts and traditions over a much longer period of time than Christians. The very early 'church' had the urgent task of establishing its own foundational documents because its short period of emergence occurred before there was a religious organization to manage it.

By the time the church fathers met to consider which foundational documents to keep and which to exclude (e. g., gnostic texts were ruled inadmissible) the church was already expanding and establishing traditional practices. Consequently, some passages derived from practice after Jesus' death.) For instance, the words of institution in the eucharistic ritual probably were developed as a commemoration of Jesus, rather than something that Jesus said at a Seder the night before he was crucified.

Just guessing of course; my time machine is in the shop just right now, or I would take a camera and come back with a record of what actually happened.

The Book of Enoch is interesting because it speaks of angels coming from heaven and having sex with human women — Hanover

Was there a Yelp review of the experience? Did the women like it? Did human women merit the angelic effort? How did human women give birth to the giants--narrow birth canal and all that? Maybe the tale originated in barely remembered ancient matings of Neaderthals and Homo sapiens?

Was there a Yelp review of the experience? Did the women like it? Did human women merit the angelic effort? How did human women give birth to the giants--narrow birth canal and all that? Maybe the tale originated in barely remembered ancient matings of Neaderthals and Homo sapiens? — Bitter Crank

Enoch 7:2 describes them as 300 ells. An ell is about 18 inches. That makes them just slightly larger than a Neanderthal at about 8/10 a mile tall.

A human baby does pretty good damage to the vaj, so I'd think the larger angel half breed would do quite a number, but I also expect the initial penetration would have also done quite a number as well.

It could well be that the ejaculation was the cause of the flood, having spooged our ancient forefathers with angelic baby batter, the ark being their only protection from that salty goodness.

Again, thank you for the questions. Only thorough rigorous inquiry can we fully develop our theories.

Manly P hall has a very good lecture on this topic I'll see if I can find the video took linky to it

How did human women give birth to the giants--narrow birth canal and all that? — Bitter Crank

Hi Bitter Crank. You must've met neoteny at some point in your life. It's the biological phenomenon in which the life cycle of an organism is completed at the larval, and whatever that corresponds to larvae in organisms absent such a stage, stage. So the story goes that humans could be a case of arrested development - even as aged old men and women we could actually be the adolescent stage of an organism whose adult-form nobody has ever seen. Titans of Greek myth?

Post of the Year.

You must've met neoteny at some point in your life. — TheMadFool

Actually I just met her the other day. We didn't get along; probably won't repeat it. Too larval.

Actually I just met her the other day. We didn't get along; probably won't repeat it. Too larval. — Bitter Crank

:lol: Good to know you still have your wits about you.

Ha, funny considering humans show a remarkable amount of neoteny compared to other great apes. We basically look like adolescent versions of past hominids, particularly women since neotenic phenotypes seem to add reproductive advantage there, not so much for males.

So a time traveling primordial human would find themselves surrounded by seemingly magically intelligent teenagers.