The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (1926) is a collection of 17th-century and 18th-century English translations of some Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and New Testament apocrypha, some of which were assembled in the 1820s, and then republished with the current title in 1926.

History of the translations

Rutherford Hayes Platt, in the preface to his 1964 reprint of The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden states:

"First issued in 1926, this is the most popular collection of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature ever published."

The translations were first published, under this title, by an unknown editor in The Lost Books of the Bible Cleveland 1926, but the translations had previously been published many times.

The book is, essentially, a combined reprint of earlier works. The first half, Lost Books of the Bible, is an unimproved reprint of a book published by William Hone in 1820, titled The Apocryphal New Testament, itself a reprint of a translation of the Apostolic Fathers done in 1693 by William Wake, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a smattering of medieval embellishments on the New Testament, from a book by Jeremiah Jones (1693–1724), posthumously published in 1736. In the three centuries since these were originally published, a great deal more is known about the Apostolic Fathers (including a good deal of the original text that was not available in 1693) and New Testament apocrypha.

The second half of the book, The Forgotten Books of Eden, includes a translation originally published in 1882 of the "First and Second Books of Adam and Eve", translated first from ancient Ethiopic to German by Ernest Trumpp and then into English by Solomon Caesar Malan, and a number of items of Old Testament pseudepigrapha, such as reprinted in the second volume of R.H. Charles's Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford, 1913).

More modern translations of these works include J. H. Charlesworth, ed. Old Testament Pseudepigrapha; W. Schneemelcher, ed. New Testament Apocrypha; and M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament.

Past of The Lost Books of the Bible

♦ = attributed to the Apostolic Fathers

Contents of The Forgotten Books of Eden

1. Books of the Apocrypha

1 Esdras and 2 Esdras (150-100 BC)

Tobit (200 BC)

Judith (150 BC)

Additions to Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4 – 16:24) (140-130 BC)

Wisdom of Solomon (30 BC)

Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), otherwise known as The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach (132 BC)

Baruch (150-50 BC)

Letter of Jeremiah (300-100 BC)

Song of the Three Children (Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children), an addition in the Greek version of Daniel 3 (170-160 BC)

Story of Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13) (200-0 BC)

The Idol Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14) (100 BC)

Additions to Daniel, or the Prayer of Azariah (200-0 BC)

Prayer of Manasseh (100-0 BC)

1 Maccabees (110 BC)

2 Maccabees (110-170 BC)

2. Books of the Pseudepigrapha

Epistle of Barnabas

3 Maccabees

4 Maccabees

Assumption of Moses (Testament of Moses)

Book of Enoch

Book of Jubilees

Psalms of Solomon

Letter of Aristeas

The Odes of Solomon

Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

2 Baruch

3 Baruch

First (and Second) Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians

The letter of the Smyrnaeans (also known as The Martyrdom of Polycarp)

The Shepherd of Hermas

The Gospel of Judas (130-170 AD)

Gospel of Thomas (140-170 AD)

The Books of Adam and Eve

The Acts of Phillip

The Apocalypse of Peter

The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary

The Gospel of Nicodemus

The Gospel of the Saviour's Infancy

The History of Joseph the Carpenter

The Acts of Paul (Including Paul and Thecla)

The Seven Epistles of Ignatius

The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians

References

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