Speaking of Lost books of the Bible

I have a copy of the bible that came out just prior to the King James Bible. This Bible is called the “Breeches Bible”. In it I noticed several books that weren’t included in the King James version. My personal favorite being “The Book of Judas” Does anyone know why these books weren’t put in the King James version?

Where did you get this copy?

So far as I know, the Breeches Bible is just a nickname for the Geneva Bible (though the choice of translation it refers to (Adam and Eve making ‘breeches’ for themselves) was also used in the Wycliff), which doesn’t have any non-canon (or even deuterocanonical) books, and certainly doesn’t have any Book of Judas…

Your “Breeches Bible” probably has the Apocrypha, books which appeared in the Greek Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew. The Book of Judas may be what is now called Jude. The Apocrypha was originally in the KJV, but dropped circa 1826.

Come to think of it the name might have been “The Book of Jude” I always have a hard time remembering Jude. He’s so obscure.

There is a Book [Gospel] of Judas, but it is one of the gnostic gospels, and was never part of the canonical Bible, or even the standard Apocrypha. The Book [Epistle] of Jude is a completely different work, and is part of the canonical New Testament. The purported author, Jude, is certainly not considered to have been the same person as Judas, although there seems to be some confusion, even in Christian tradition, over who he actually was. He may have been one of the more obscure of the twelve apostles, and he may also, or alternatively, have been a brother (or half-brother, I guess*) of Jesus himself.

Of course, in reality, both The Epistle of Jude and The Gospel of Judas (especially the former) were probably written by different people altogether, long after the original Jude and Judas (if they ever existed) had died. However, my point is that that they are not the same person, even according to a quite uncritical version of the Christian tradition.

*Along with James the Just, who may or may not have been the same person as James the Less.

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Also, neither James the Just nor James the Less (whether or not they were different people, or whether either were the same as the person referred to in the book of Acts as James the bother of Jesus, who seems to have been the leader of the Jerusalem Christians during Paul’s time, after Peter disappears from the narrative) should be confused with the Apostle James that everybody knows about (because he is frequently mentioned in the gospels, unlike the other James or Jameses, who are mentioned there only rarely, although at least one of them seems to have also been an Apostle). That is James the Great, son of Zebedee (and brother of John, who almost certainly did not write the Gospel of John), and nobody believes him to have been Jesus’ brother.

Confusing, isn’t it! And this is all just taking it all literally. To think they manged to base a worldwide religion on this stuff! :eek:

Also, the Gospels are quite clear that Jesus had exactly twelve Apostles, but at least 14 different people are said to be apostles in the New Testament (Mathias and Paul, in addition to the original twelve). Many of the original twelve are only mentioned very briefly in the Bible, and I believe there is uncertainty about the name of at least one of them (different Gospels seem to name him differently - or perhaps it is two different people, in which case we have 15 named Apostles, and 13 even during Jesus’ time on Earth). Contrary to a misconception common even amongst devout Christians, none of them were named Mark or Luke.

One thing I have always found very interesting in the Book of Jude is that basically calls the Book of Enoch Holy Scripture.

He took a sad song and made it better.