Apparently Amazon decided to delete my review of the book The Lost Books of the Bible by William Hone (ed). That's unfortunate, because none of the reviews seem to mention the obvious: That having a "lost book of the Bible" is impossible.

Greg Koukl examines the idea of having lost books in his article "No Lost Books of the Bible". In summary:

[T]here are two ways of looking at this: a supernatural or natural perspective. I would contend that there are no other ways of looking at this question; no other options. No matter who you are out there you either think of the Bible as being God's inspired Word … or the Bible is merely the statement of beliefs of the early church, without any supernatural content.

Is it possible that in the first sense of the word Bible that the books could be lost? Wait a minute, if God is supernaturally overseeing it, then God is supernaturally involved in seeing that His book gets written down and preserved. So we have God's supernatural protection if it has a supernatural quality to it. You may say that the supernatural element is bogus, but you can see that from this sense of the definition that it's not really possible to think that God could lose His own book.

Maybe the Bible isn't supernatural, it's a statement of beliefs of the leaders of the church. Okay, if that's the case then who has the final word on which books belong in the Bible? The leaders of the early church. Therefore, by very definition any books that they cast into outer darkness are not part of the Bible. It's their decision to decide which books represent their beliefs.

Related reading:

• Is the New Testament Text Reliable? – "Has the New Testament been altered? Critical, academic analysis says it has not."
• A Mountain of Manuscripts – Shows just how many ancient copies of the NT are in existence.
• Video: What Is the Story Behind the Gnostic Documents? – Why the "Gospel" of Philip and others don't deserve serious consideration.