During the first few hundred years after the death of Jesus, there were numerous books that were popular or held to be sacred by various groups that considered themselves Christians. Some modern scholars have advanced the idea that some ancient books were excluded from the Bible based on arbitrary criteria. According to this view, the books of the Bible reflect the dominant factions of early Christianity who suppressed others with different views. Warren M. Mueller examines whether the books in the Bible are the only ones that should be there in this scholarly work. He reviews selected writings after the time of Christ that were in circulation among some of the early churches. There are over fifty-nine surviving fragments and books dating from the early centuries following the death of Jesus that are considered apocryphal. The first part of this book examines writings that have been rejected by both the Roman Catholics and Protestants. The second part highlights books that were added to the Roman Catholic Bible and are considered deutero-canonical. Join the author as he considers whether there were objective reasons for excluding apocryphal books from the Bible.
