The Lost Books of
the Bible and the
Forgotten Books of
Eden
The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (1926) is a collection of 17th-
century and 18th-century English translations of some Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and New
Testament Apocrypha, some of which were assembled in the 1820s, and then republished with
the current title in 1926.
History of the translations
Rutherford Hayes Platt, in the preface to his 1964 reprint of The Lost Books of the Bible and the
Forgotten Books of Eden states:
"First issued in 1926, this is the most
popular collection of apocryphal and
pseudepigraphal literature ever
published."
The translations were first published, under this title, by an unknown editor in The Lost Books of
the Bible Cleveland 1926, but the translations had previously been published many times.
The book is, essentially, a combined reprint of earlier works. The first half, Lost Books of the
Bible, is an unimproved reprint of a book published by William Hone in 1820, titled The
Apocryphal New Testament, itself a reprint of a translation of the Apostolic Fathers done in 1693
by William Wake, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a smattering of medieval
embellishments on the New Testament, from a book by Jeremiah Jones (1693–1724),
posthumously published in 1736. In the three centuries since these were originally published, a
great deal more is known about the Apostolic Fathers (including a good deal of the original text
that was not available in 1693) and New Testament apocrypha.
The second half of the book, The Forgotten Books of Eden, includes a translation originally
published in 1882 of the "First and Second Books of Adam and Eve", translated first from ancient
Ethiopic to German by Ernest Trumpp and then into English by Solomon Caesar Malan, and a
number of items of Old Testament pseudepigrapha, such as reprinted in the second volume of
R.H. Charles's Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1913).
More modern translations of these works include J. H. Charlesworth, ed. Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha; W. Schneemelcher, ed. New Testament Apocrypha; and M. R. James, The
Apocryphal New Testament.
Past of The Lost Books of the
Bible
♦ = attributed to the Apostolic Fathers
The Book of Enoch
The Protevangelion
The Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus
Christ
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas
The Book of Jesus Christ
The Gospel of Nicodemus (Acts of
Pilate)
The Apostles' Creed (throughout history)
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Laodiceans
The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to
Seneca, with Seneca's to Paul
The Acts of Paul and Thecla
♦ The Epistles of Clement (The First
and Second Epistles of Clement to the
Corinthians)
♦ The Epistle of Barnabas
♦ The Epistle of Ignatius to the
Ephesians
♦ The Epistle of Ignatius to the
Magnesians
♦ The Epistle of Ignatius to the
Trallians
♦ The Epistle of Ignatius to the
Romans
♦ The Epistle of Ignatius to the
Philadelphians
♦ The Epistle of Ignatius to the
Smyrneans
♦ The Epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp
♦ The Shepherd of Hermas (Visions,
Commands, and Similitudes)
Letter of Herod To Pilate the Governor
Letter of Pilate to Herod
The Lost Gospel of Peter
♦ The Epistle of Polycarp to the
Philippians
The History of Susana
Contents of The Forgotten
Books of Eden
The Conflict of Adam and Eve with
Satan (The First and Second Book of
Adam and Eve)
The Secrets of Enoch (also known as
the Slavonic Enoch or Second Enoch)
The Psalms of Solomon
The Odes of Solomon
The Letter of Aristeas
The Fourth Book of Maccabees
The Story of Ahikar
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
1. Books of the Apocrypha
1 Esdras and 2 Esdras (150-100 BC)
Tobit (200 BC)
Judith (150 BC)
Additions to Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4 – 16:24) (140-130 BC)
Wisdom of Solomon (30 BC)
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), otherwise known as The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach (132 BC)
Baruch (150-50 BC)
Letter of Jeremiah (300-100 BC)
Song of the Three Children (Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children), an addition
in the Greek version of Daniel 3 (170-160 BC)
Story of Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13) (200-0 BC)
The Idol Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14) (100 BC)
Additions to Daniel, or the Prayer of Azariah (200-0 BC)
Prayer of Manasseh (100-0 BC)
1 Maccabees (110 BC)
2 Maccabees (110-170 BC)
2. Books of the
Pseudepigrapha
Epistle of Barnabas
3 Maccabees
4 Maccabees
Assumption of Moses (Testament of Moses)
Book of Enoch
Book of Jubilees
Psalms of Solomon
Letter of Aristeas
The Odes of Solomon
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
2 Baruch
3 Baruch
First (and Second) Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
The letter of the Smyrnaeans (also known as The Martyrdom of Polycarp)
The Shepherd of Hermas
The Gospel of Judas (130-170 AD)
Gospel of Thomas (140-170 AD)
The Books of Adam and Eve
The Acts of Phillip
The Apocalypse of Peter
The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary
The Gospel of Nicodemus
The Gospel of the Saviour's Infancy
The History of Joseph the Carpenter
The Acts of Paul (Including Paul and Thecla)
The Seven Epistles of Ignatius
The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians
References
Edgar J. Goodspeed, Modern Apocrypha
(Boston, Beacon Press, 1956), chapt. 15.
External links
The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles (htt
ps://librivox.org/search?title=The+Forbi
dden+Gospels+and+Epistles&author=Va
rious&reader=&keywords=&genre_id=0&
status=all&project_type=either&recorde
d_language=&sort_order=catalog_date&
search_page=1&search_form=advance
d) public domain audiobook at LibriVox
Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=The_Lost_Books_of_the_Bible_and_the_Forgot
ten_Books_of_Eden&oldid=1207767156"
This page was last edited on 15 February 2024, at
17:34 (UTC). •
Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless
otherwise noted.
