Hi! We are here now to answer a question sent by a brother regarding the First Epistle to the Corinthians,

because I said that we have access to two epistles, so he asked me:

"Pastor, are there any others to the Corinthians?"

Well, the truth is that there is!

We will see this here in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, in which the apostle Paul say, in chapter 5, verse 9:

"I wrote to you in a letter not to company with fornicators:".

“I wrote to you in a letter (...)”? Now, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul is saying that he had already sent a letter to them, writing about these things.

Therefore, the First Epistle to the Corinthians is not the first letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, but the first letter that we have access to among those that he wrote to the Corinthians.

So there is at least one first letter to the Corinthians, prior to the one we call the "First Epistle to the Corinthians".

So, [what we know as] "First Epistle to the Corinthians" would be, [at least], a second letter,

and the "Second Epistle to the Corinthians" would actually be a third letter, okay ?!

So it is clear that we do not have access to that first letter to the Corinthians [mentioned in 1Co 5: 9], so we call the [letter that we have access] "First Epistle to the Corinthians", ok?!

The same thing happens with another epistle.

The Epistle to the Laodiceans, for when the apostle Paul writes to the Colossians, he says in chapter 4, verse 16:

"And when this letter is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that you likewise read the letter from Laodicea".

So he is saying that when the letter is read to the Colossians, it must be taken to be read also to the Laodiceans,

and the letter sent to the Laodiceans must be read to the Colossians as well.

So today we do not have access to the epistle to the Laodiceans, but Paul mentions this letter in his letter to the Colossians, ok?!

Now, many people ask the question, "Pastor, why didn't those seven books called 'Deuterocanonicals' get into the Evangelical Bible?"

That is, the books of the second canon, which are in the Septuagint and are part of the Catholic Bible, but are not in the Evangelical Bible.

During the reform they used the same criteria used in the Council of Jamnia, which was a council made by Jews

in which they determined the validity of the Old Testament (called “Tanakh”, already explained in our previous class, known as the Hebrew Bible),

and they adopted some criteria to determine what would be integrated into the Tanakh.

Well, their first criteria was that the books should be written entirely in Hebrew, and those seven books were not originally written in Hebrew, ok?!

The second criterion was that they should have been originally written within the Palestinian territory,

and the third criterion was that the books should have been written until the return from exile in Babylon, and thus, until the time of Ezra.

There is still a fourth criterion: these books should be completely in agreement with the Pentateuch (Torah), ok?!

Well, the Council of Jamnia adopted an important criterion: the Hebrew language, which is important for a Jew.

But the original purpose of this council is somewhat doubtful, since they did this by giving up of these seven books in the Septuagint,

which were used in the time of the apostles, and even the Jews of Christ's time used the Septuagint, but today they no longer use it .

Well, why don't they use it and what was the purpose of adopting that criterion during the Jamnia Council?

In part, [the goal] was simply to cancel the apostolic writings, which were written in Greek.

Thus, although it was necessary to give up seven books of the Septuagint, which was translated by Jews (70 or 72 Jews), who were Hebrew language scholars,

into Greek, being well recognized by the Jews in the past, but they had a purpose:

if books written in Greek were disregarded, Jews would not consider apostolic writings written in Greek, do you understand?

So, I don't have the ability to go there and say: "they were right" or "they were wrong",

but I have one observation to make, which is this: if they "cancel" all the Greek writings, the New Testament would lose all its value.

That was, let's say, a very smart strategy.

We have other lost books here. There are several, I did not put them all because it wouldn’t even fit here [on the whiteboard].

But among the lost books that we see being mentioned in the Bible are:

the “book of Jasher”, you will find the reference in Joshua 10:13, in 2 Samuel 1:18, and in Psalm 69:28, where they talk about the “book of Jasher”.

These are books that are not available for us today, maybe you can find a version, but we cannot certify that it is really the original version,

because we do not have many copies, like the entire New Testament, of the old documents, has many copies, so it's extremely reliable, ok?!

Now, the “book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel”, the Bible mentions it in several passages, there would also difficult for me [write them all here],

so I wrote some of them: 1 Kgs 14:19; 15:31 and 1 Chr 9: 1, talk about the “book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel”, ok?!

Soon afterwards it also mentions the “book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah”,

here [book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel] is about the Northern Kingdom (house of Israel), and the "book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah" is about the Southern Kingdom (house of Judah).

In 1 Kings 14:29; 15:23; 16:19 the “Book of the History of the Kings of Judah” is mentioned.

There is also a reference to a book, which could be a reference to these two books or to a third book, referred to as the "book of the kings of Judah and Israel", you can find this in 2Chr 16:11 and 35:27.

We have yet another book mentioned in the Bible which is the “book of Shemaiah the prophet", also the “book of Iddo the seer” that is in the "Genealogies”.

Genealogy is very important in the Bible, but why is it very important?

Well, at that time there was no registry office, and you needed to know which family you belonged to, so in that sense the book of Genealogies is extremely important.

After all, the Bible begins by registering in Genesis 5:1 the book of Genealogy of Adam,

that is, that group called “Law” (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) is made of several portions that Moses put together

and he had access to the book that he probably wrote himself, which is the “book of Genealogy of Adam”, and he inserted it in what we know as Genesis, ok?!

So the “book of Shemaiah the prophet", the “book of Iddo the seer” and "Genealogies” are mentioned in 2Ch [15:25],

but this book will be used in Ed 2:62 and Ne 7:64, to find out whether the people who returned from exile in Babylon were fit, for example, to the priesthood.

So I hope you enjoyed and understood this study.

May God bless the lives of each of one of you and may you continue to share this Bible study with other brothers and sisters.

I thank you, God bless, pray for us and God with us always, Emmanuel, Jesus Christ in our hearts, amen?! The Peace...