Can I Trust My Bible?

There is a particular kind of video showing up more and more on social media. Someone holds up an old Bible, turns to a book or passage that isn't in the Bible most of us carry, and asks a question designed to stop you in your tracks: “Why did they remove this from your Bible?”

Sometimes it's the Book of Enoch. Sometimes it's the Gospel of Thomas. Sometimes it's the Apocrypha. Recently I watched someone holding a Bible more than two hundred years old showing Bel and the Dragon, a story associated with the book of Daniel. His argument was essentially, “Look! This used to be at the end of Daniel. Somebody cut the ending off your Bible. Why would they do that, especially to a book containing end-times prophecy?”

If you don't know the history, that can be unsettling. It can sound as though somebody somewhere decided what they wanted Christianity to say, removed the books that didn't cooperate, and handed us an edited Bible. For a new believer especially, the natural question becomes, “If they removed this, what else did they remove? Can I actually trust the Bible I have?”

Yes, you can.

But I don't want to answer that by pretending the history of the Bible is simpler than it really is. Different Jewish and Christian communities did not always agree about every book. Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Bibles still aren't identical in their Old Testament contents today. Ancient copies of some biblical books contain material that other ancient copies don't contain. Those are facts, and Christians don't need to be afraid of them.

The problem comes when complicated history gets reduced to a thirty-second conspiracy theory.

Scripture itself never teaches us to be afraid of examination. Paul told the Thessalonians:

“Test all things; hold fast what is good.”—1 Thessalonians 5:21

That's a pretty good approach here.

Don't believe something simply because a preacher said it. But don't believe it simply because somebody made a dramatic reel about a “lost book” either.

Test it.

The Marvel Version

If you know me, you know I'm a comic-book and movie nerd. So when I started thinking about how to explain this without turning it into a seminary class, my mind immediately went to Marvel.

Marvel is currently rereleasing Avengers: Endgame with additional material connected to the story moving toward Avengers: Doomsday.

That gives us a nearly perfect illustration.

Imagine someone living two hundred years from now discovers two Endgame scripts. One corresponds to the original theatrical release. Another contains additional material associated with the later release.

He compares them and discovers scenes in one that aren't in the other.

Then he turns on whatever TikTok looks like two hundred years from now and announces:

“I found the missing scenes from Endgame! Somebody removed these from the original movie! What didn't Marvel want you to see?”

There's an obvious problem.

We are alive right now. We know what happened.

Nobody secretly removed those scenes from the original movie. Additional material became associated with another release.

Now imagine historians preserved both versions. They could compare them, identify what they share, and identify the additional material associated with one version.

Nobody would have to hide anything.

That's an important concept when we're talking about ancient biblical texts.

Finding additional ancient material does not automatically prove that somebody removed that material from the Bible you have.

You first have to establish that it belonged there in the first place.

Or Let's Put It in the Garage

Maybe Marvel isn't your thing.

Let's say you're a motorcycle mechanic working on an old Harley. You have the factory service manual sitting on your workbench.

Then somebody brings you another old publication containing additional procedures, diagrams, and information about that motorcycle. It's genuinely old. It's authentic to the period. Some of the information may even be extremely useful.

Then somebody grabs it from your bench, turns on his camera and says:

“Look what Harley removed from your service manual! What were they trying to hide from mechanics?”

You'd probably stop him right there.

“Hold on. Who said those pages came out of this manual?”

That's the question.

Maybe they came from another edition. Maybe they were a supplemental publication. Maybe different versions circulated with different material. The information could be completely legitimate and historically valuable without ever having been pages ripped from your particular service manual.

Before you can accuse somebody of removing something, you first have to demonstrate that it originally belonged there.

That's where many of these videos make their biggest mistake.

They begin with a true statement:

“This ancient writing exists.”

Then they jump to a completely different statement:

“Therefore somebody removed it from your Bible.”

There is a lot of historical ground between those two statements.

Did Someone Cut the Ending Off Daniel?

Take Bel and the Dragon as an example.

It is a real ancient writing. Nobody needs to deny that. It isn't an internet hoax, and Christians don't need to pretend it doesn't exist. The story involves Daniel exposing the fraud surrounding the Babylonian god Bel and later destroying a dragon that was being worshiped.

But ancient Daniel comes to us through different textual traditions. The Hebrew and Aramaic Daniel behind the Protestant Old Testament ends with Daniel 12. Ancient Greek versions of Daniel contain additional material, including Bel and the Dragon.

And notice how the Daniel in your Bible actually ends:

“But you, go your way till the end; for you shall rest, and will arise to your inheritance at the end of the days.”—Daniel 12:13

Daniel 12 doesn't read like somebody accidentally lost the final page halfway through a sentence. It reaches a natural conclusion to Daniel's visions.

So when someone holds up Bel and the Dragon and declares, “Somebody cut the ending off Daniel!”, he has skipped the most important question:

Was this originally the ending of the Hebrew/Aramaic Daniel in the first place?

There is also a rather large problem with blaming the Catholic Church for supposedly removing it because they didn't like what it said.

They didn't remove it.

Catholic Bibles still contain Bel and the Dragon. It appears in their longer form of Daniel.

So this isn't evidence of a secret Catholic editing project. It's evidence that different ancient textual and later Christian traditions preserved and evaluated some material differently.

That's certainly worth learning about.

It just isn't the conspiracy being advertised.

Then Why Isn't the Apocrypha in My Bible?

Now we get to an important question, because there is a little bit of truth behind what people are seeing online.

If you picked up an original 1611 King James Bible, you would find an Apocrypha section between the Old and New Testaments.

If you pick up most King James Bibles today, you won't.

So yes, those pages really did disappear from most Protestant Bibles.

The question is why.

Protestant Christians had already made a distinction between the books they recognized as Old Testament Scripture and other ancient Jewish writings they considered useful for reading. That's why older Protestant Bibles could print the Apocrypha without necessarily treating those books as having the same authority as Genesis, Isaiah, or Psalms.

We even see distinctions concerning recognized Scripture within the New Testament itself. After His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples:

“These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.”—Luke 24:44

Jesus was speaking within recognizable categories of Israel's sacred writings. The idea that people distinguished sacred Scripture from other religious literature didn't suddenly appear hundreds of years after Jesus.

Eventually Protestant Bible publishers and Bible societies began leaving the Apocrypha out altogether. One major turning point came in the nineteenth century when large Bible societies decided their resources should be used to print and distribute what they considered canonical Scripture rather than the additional books. Removing those pages also made Bibles smaller and less expensive to produce, which mattered when organizations were distributing them by the thousands.

So this part of the story shouldn't be hidden either.

The Apocrypha really was printed in many older Protestant Bibles and eventually stopped being printed in most of them.

But notice the difference between that statement and:

“The Catholic Church secretly removed books that didn't fit its theology.”

Those aren't remotely the same story.

In fact, Catholics retained books that Protestants eventually stopped printing.

The disagreement wasn't primarily about hiding information. It was about which books should carry the authority of Scripture.

And those writings weren't destroyed. They weren't locked away. Protestants continued to know they existed, scholars continued to study them, and anybody today can read them.

What About the Book of Enoch?

The Book of Enoch gets even more attention online, partly because it is fascinating.

It talks about angels, heavenly beings, judgment, the mysterious “Watchers,” and traditions surrounding Genesis 6.

And here's where things get especially interesting: the New Testament actually references Enoch.

Jude writes:

“Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints…’”—Jude 14

That language corresponds closely to 1 Enoch.

Understandably, someone discovers this and thinks, “Wait a minute. If Jude knew Enoch and quoted it, why isn't Enoch in my Bible?”

That's a legitimate question.

But quoting something doesn't automatically make the entire source Scripture.

Paul gives us a perfect example. While preaching in Athens he says:

“For in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”—Acts 17:28

Paul quoted pagan Greek poetry because the statement served the point he was making.

Nobody concludes from that that the complete works of those Greek poets should be placed between Acts and Romans.

A biblical writer can use something true from another source without declaring everything in that source to be inspired Scripture.

Enoch is ancient Jewish literature and can be extremely valuable for understanding some of the Jewish thought surrounding the world of the New Testament. Christians don't need to be afraid to read it. The Ethiopian Orthodox tradition even regards 1 Enoch as canonical.

But that is very different from saying:

“Enoch was part of everybody's Bible until somebody removed it.”

There isn't good historical evidence for that story.

Enoch can be ancient, interesting, influential, and worth reading without automatically being part of the Bible you carry.

Then There Is the Gospel of Thomas

The Gospel of Thomas gets presented in much the same way:

“Here's another Gospel the Church didn't want you to read.”

Again, that makes a great reel.

It doesn't make great history.

Something Luke says at the very beginning of his Gospel is important here:

“Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us…”—Luke 1:1

Luke knew other accounts existed.

Christianity never depended upon pretending nobody else wrote anything about Jesus.

Luke continues by explaining that he carefully investigated the testimony handed down by eyewitnesses so that Theophilus could “know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed” (Luke 1:4).

That's important.

The existence of other writings isn't the threat.

The question is what relationship those writings have to eyewitness testimony, apostolic authority, and the faith received by the early Church.

Thomas is an ancient collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. Scholars study it seriously, and there are ongoing discussions about its date and whether some individual sayings may preserve early traditions.

But simply putting the word Gospel on an ancient document doesn't put it in the same historical category as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Early Christianity produced many writings. Some were widely read. Some circulated among particular communities. Some claimed connections with apostles. Some were considered helpful without being considered Scripture.

The important question isn't:

“Did other ancient Christian books exist?”

Of course they did.

The question is:

“What evidence shows that this particular book was broadly received as apostolic Scripture and was later deliberately removed?”

That's a much harder case to make.

Some of These Books Are Actually Worth Reading

I think Christians sometimes hurt their own case by acting as though anything outside our sixty-six books must be dangerous nonsense.

It isn't.

If you want to understand the world between the Old and New Testaments, read 1 Maccabees. If you're interested in ancient Jewish thinking surrounding Genesis 6 and spiritual beings, read Enoch. Read Bel and the Dragon. It's an interesting ancient story attacking the foolishness of idolatry.

You can learn from an ancient writing without calling it Scripture.

I have shelves full of books that have helped me understand God, Scripture, history, theology, and life. Some have profoundly affected the way I understand particular passages of Scripture.

That doesn't mean I need to staple them into the back of Romans.

Useful isn't the same thing as inspired. Ancient isn't the same thing as canonical. And unfamiliar isn't the same thing as suppressed.

Paul told Timothy:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”—2 Timothy 3:16

The Greek word translated “inspiration of God” is theopneustos—literally, God-breathed.

That's ultimately the category we're talking about.

The question isn't whether another ancient book is interesting, useful, or even contains truth.

The question is whether it belongs to that category of God-breathed Scripture.

“But Who Decided What Went Into the Bible?”

This is usually the next question, and once again the popular version is far more dramatic than the historical one.

There wasn't one great meeting where a group of Catholic leaders spread hundreds of books across a table and created Christianity. They didn't vote Matthew in, throw Thomas out, hide Enoch in a basement, and then order everybody to believe the resulting Bible.

The recognition of Scripture developed over time.

Long before later church councils produced official lists, Christians were already reading apostolic writings in their churches, copying them, carrying them from one Christian community to another, and treating particular writings as authoritative.

Peter even refers to Paul's writings in a remarkable way. Speaking about Paul's letters, he says that some people distort them:

“…as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.”—2 Peter 3:16

That's significant because it shows that within the New Testament period itself, apostolic writings were already being spoken of alongside “the Scriptures.”

Were there disagreements about some books?

Absolutely.

Some books took longer to receive widespread recognition than others. Different communities sometimes used different books. The boundaries around portions of the Old Testament especially developed differently within different Christian traditions.

We don't need to pretend otherwise.

But there is an enormous difference between saying the Church recognized a collection of writings over time and saying the Church manufactured the Bible to control what Christians believe.

Those are very different claims.

Don't Let Someone's Discovery Become Your Crisis

Here is what I especially want new believers to understand.

When someone on TikTok, Facebook, or YouTube holds up an ancient book you've never heard of, don't panic.

Your lack of familiarity with something doesn't mean somebody hid it from you.

Maybe nobody taught you about the Apocrypha in Sunday school. Maybe you didn't know Catholic and Protestant Old Testaments aren't identical. Maybe you had never heard of Enoch until somebody made a video about the Watchers.

That's okay.

There is a lot of history most of us haven't learned.

But:

“I didn't know this existed”

and

“They didn't want me to know this existed”

are two very different statements.

That distinction alone will save you from a lot of internet nonsense.

Can I Trust My Bible?

Yes.

And you don't have to be afraid of its history in order to say that.

We have ancient manuscripts. We can compare them. We know about different textual traditions. We have ancient translations and quotations from early Christian writers. We know about Enoch. We know about Thomas. We know about the Apocrypha. We know about the different forms of Daniel.

These things aren't being discovered for the first time by a guy with a cellphone.

In fact, the reason someone can make a video showing you these things is because the evidence wasn't destroyed.

But there is another part of trusting your Bible that can't be reduced to manuscripts, church councils, or historical research.

Read it with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus didn't leave us with a book and then leave us alone to figure it out. He gave us His Spirit. Jesus said:

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things…”—John 14:26

And again:

“However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth…”—John 16:13

That doesn't mean we throw scholarship out the window and call every thought that enters our head “the Holy Spirit.” It means we don't approach Scripture as merely an ancient document to be dissected either.

The same Spirit who inspired Scripture lives in the believer.

So when you open your Bible, invite Him into the conversation. Ask Him to illuminate the Word. Ask Him to show you Jesus. Ask Him to expose assumptions you've brought to the text and lead you into truth.

And when you read other ancient writings—Enoch, Maccabees, Bel and the Dragon, Thomas, or anything else—do the same thing. Don't read them in fear. Don't read them hunting for secret knowledge that supposedly escaped everybody else for two thousand years. Read, learn, study, compare, and allow the Holy Spirit to lead you.

Jesus said of the Scriptures:

“These are they which testify of Me.”—John 5:39

That's a beautiful anchor when the internet starts offering us supposedly hidden revelations.

The goal isn't to discover something nobody else knows.

The goal is to know Him.

So ask questions.

Study the history.

Read some of these ancient writings if you're interested.

Your faith doesn't require you to pretend they don't exist.

Just remember Endgame and the Harley manual.

Finding an additional scene doesn't prove somebody secretly cut it out of the original movie.

Finding additional pages doesn't prove somebody ripped them out of your service manual.

And finding an ancient religious writing doesn't prove somebody removed it from your Bible.

Before accepting that claim, ask one simple question:

“Can you show me the evidence that it belonged there in the first place?”

And then follow Paul's advice:

“Test all things; hold fast what is good.”—1 Thessalonians 5:21

Bring your questions.

Bring your intellect.

Bring the history.

And bring the Holy Spirit into your reading.

That's not being afraid to ask questions.

That's trusting that truth has nothing to fear from them. ~ REV