While it is true that WE are still finding scrolls, it's largely known that the texts we are discovering were well known to the early church fathers. Books like the Gospels of Judas and Jesus are precisely the kinds of texts which were purged from the canon during the formative period of the church because they did not conform to the emerging uniform doctrine. The first major schism of the church dates to this period; it is amazing to me that the eastern and western churches acknowledge each other at all, so great is their difference on a fundamental element of doctrine like the concept of the trinity.
In the early 4th century, the bishops were still deciding whether Jesus was actually god or just filled with god, or a whole heckuva lot like god. They also decided self-castration wasn't in line with church teachings (First Nicaean Council).
Did you know the books of the bible actually contain numerous references to OTHER texts which are not contained within the bible? The traces of a vast ancient library are sprinkled throughout the text we know. Like the Book of the Wars of the Lord, written collaboratively by Moses, Joshua and the children of Israel. This book is now entirely lost.
This made me think of how accustomed we are to thinking of the bible in a hermetic sense; i.e. the bible exists within an entirely self-referential space in which texts reflect and are confirmed by other texts within a closed corpus of texts. So these extra-biblical textual references are surprising to learn about. They are so de-emphasized by pastoral practice in favor of the solipsism of scripture.
And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stayed,until the people had avenged themselves on their enemies.
Is this not written in the
Book of the Upright (
Sēper haiYāār)?Joshua 10:13.
The OT is filled with these little nuggets. The NT is purged of any references to texts outside its own canon.
Scholarly Sunday wake and bake
. Sorry about the ramble; just sharing.