Lost texts of the Biblical era

The Bible mentions and identifies certain texts which have (apparently) disappeared in the interim. Biblical divine inspiration and  authority gives such works an especial potential importance. If any of them ever existed, turn up and receive the seal of approval of entry into the canon, we might expect some theological revisionism refinement.

On the other hand, given that many books known at the time the Bible was finally stitched up ended up in the apocrypha, and that others such as The Gospel of Thomas didn't even make that cut, it seems unlikely that anything new is going to be added even if found.

Missing works include:
 * The Book of Jasher (as per and )
 * Various epistles associated with the prolific letter-writer Saint Paul of Tarsus:
 * Zeroth epistle to the Corinthians, referenced at
 * Third epistle to the Corinthians, also called the "Severe Letter", referenced at and
 * Zeroth epistle to the Ephesians, referenced at
 * Epistle to the Laodiceans, referenced at
 * Acts of Solomon, referenced at
 * Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, referenced at
 * Book or books of Iddo, referenced at

Website The Lost Books claims to have a list of over 500 "lost books" with titles such as Pseudo-Eupolemus, Magnesians, The Teachings of Addeus the Apostle, and the Testament of the Assumption of Moses. Most are minor apocryphal texts or variations of other, more canonical texts. Since printing became affordable, various anthologies have been produced called things like The Lost Books of the Bible but if they were really lost how have they made it into print?

Book of Jasher
This title is translated as "Book of the Upright" or "Book of the Just Man", but transliterated from the Hebrew as "Jasher" in the KJV, and sometimes spelt "Jashar". It is mentioned in (when Joshua makes the sun stand still, it says this was predicted in Jasher) and  (which implies that the Book of Jasher describes the deaths of Saul and Jonathan). Some versions of Kings, including the Septuagint, contain a reference in (suggesting a prayer of Solomon is in the book). It is suggested, based on these references, that it probably contained heroic songs. In the Rabbinic literature, there was speculation about whether the phrase refers to another, existing book of the Bible - maybe Genesis or Deuteronomy, or the twelve minor prophets - or to a now-lost text.

There are several other texts called the Book of Jasher which were written long after these references and are not the text referred to above. They include a Midrash known as the Book of Jasher (Sefer haYashar), which is apparently named after the earlier text. , a religious radical who opposed the idea of eternal punishment for the damned and denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, produced a forgery in 1751 to set out his own religious ideas. Ilive's text is sometimes called "Pseudo-Jasher". There was another, 13th century forgery, that also pretended to be the Book of Jasher.

Acts of Solomon
asks "And the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?" We don't know, because the Acts of Solomon no longer exists. Many scholars consider that this was probably a lost work of history similar to Kings or Chronicles, although others think it may also have contained the teachings of the wise king Solomon, and further material on myths and legends such as the Queen of Sheba; it might also have gone into more detail on why Israel went to shit shortly after Solomon's death.

Pauline epistles
It is likely that St Paul of Tarsus wrote many letters that we no longer have. It's less clear that they're worth reading. On the other hand, there are a lot of fake Pauline epistles that he didn't write.

Epistle to the Laodiceans
The existence of this letter is inferred from, although there are differences of opinion as to whether the Greek text of Colossians refers to a letter "to the Laodiceans" or "from Laodicea". Marcion of Sinope claimed to have a copy of the letter, although it is now lost, and many believe Marcion forged it. Another version was included in some early Latin texts of the New Testament, and was cited by Pope Gregory the Great and included in John Wycliffe's translation, but St Jerome and many others believed it to be a forgery and no Greek text exists; today the scholarly opinion is that this version was assembled from fragments of genuine Pauline texts but is not a real letter by Paul. Some sources believe the letter mentioned by Paul is the same text as Ephesians, although a minority view holds that it was combined with Paul's letter to the Colossians to give what we know today as Colossians.

Other letters to the Corinthians
1 Corinthians mentions an earlier letter to the Corinthians ("I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people", ). Since this missing letter was written before the traditional First Epistle to the Corinthians, it is sometimes called the Zeroth Epistle. In 2 Corinthians, Paul mentions a previous letter of his that upset the Corinthians ("I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while", ). Some people believe this was not 1 Corinthians but a different text.

A text exists of a so-called third epistle written after the first two, but this is generally not believed to be by Paul and is not part of the Christian canon. It is often dated to 160-170 CE, probably created as a riposte to Gnosticism.

The Lost Books of the Bible
An anthology of various apocryphal texts was assembled in the 1820s, republished anonymously in Cleveland in 1926 as The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden, and reprinted again in 1963 with the editor named as Rutherford Hayes Platt, a nature writer and distant relative of Rutherford B. Hayes. It included old translations of various texts which weren't really lost, just rejected as forgeries or irrelevant, such as some infancy gospels, the alleged text of Paul's letter to the Laodiceans, the Gospel of Peter, and a bunch of letters attributed to Ignatius of Antioch.