“Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God.”
— 1 John 4:1
Someone will tell you about the book of Enoch, the Gospel of Thomas or the 'lost books of the Bible'. Someone else will hand you a Bible with more books in it, or a different translation, or a further book of scripture. This is a reference list: what each one actually says, who wrote it, and why the church did not receive it.
Written by an apostle or a close associate of one — someone who could speak for the eyewitnesses. For the Old Testament: part of the Scriptures Israel received and Jesus called the word of God.
Consistent
Agreeing with the faith the apostles taught and the Scriptures already received. A book that makes the Creator a lesser god, or Jesus a created being, fails here whoever wrote it.
Received everywhere
Read and relied on as Scripture across the churches from early on — not by one region, one teacher or one sect.
The church did not create its canon by vote; it recognised books that already carried authority. No council, and no emperor, chose the books. For the full story read The Bible canon — why these 66 books?; for the Catholic and Orthodox Old Testament, The Apocrypha; and for Thomas, Judas and Mary in depth, The Gnostic gospels.
What the labels mean
Read, not Scripture
Orthodox, early and valued. Some churches read it aloud; none received it as the apostles' word.
Scripture for some
Received by one ancient church, though not by the rest of the Christian world.
Legendary
Pious fiction about Jesus, Mary or the apostles, written generations later.
Gnostic
Teaches a different God, a different creation and a different salvation.
Forgery
Claims an author or a date it does not have.
Wider canon
A Christian Bible with the same New Testament and extra Old Testament books.
Altered translation
The same 66 books, translated to fit a doctrine the original does not teach.
Added scripture
New books set alongside the Bible, and in practice over it.
Edited Bible
The Bible with parts cut out.
31 of 31
Jewish writings outside the Hebrew Bible
Books written by Jews between the Testaments, some of them read by Jesus' contemporaries, none of them in the Hebrew canon.
Gnostic gospels and texts
The "lost gospels" — second- and third-century works teaching a lesser creator god and salvation by secret knowledge.
Legendary gospels and acts
Pious stories that fill the gaps — Jesus' childhood, Mary's family, the apostles' travels. Popular, influential and late.
Early Christian writings, valued but not Scripture
Orthodox and early, read in some churches, and in a few cases bound into ancient Bibles — but never received as apostolic Scripture.
Forgeries
Books that claim an author or an age they do not have, some ancient and some modern.
Other Bibles
The Bibles of other Christian traditions, and the Bibles and scriptures of groups outside historic Christianity.