There are no “lost or missing books” of the Bible or books that were taken out of the Bible. There are lots of legends and rumors of “lost” books, however there is no truth whatsoever to these stories. All book that God intended and inspired to be in the Bible is in the Bible. There are literally hundreds of spiritual books that were written in the same time period as the books of the Bible. Few of these books hold true accounts of things that truly occurred (1 Maccabees for example). Some of them hold good spiritual teaching (the Wisdom of Solomon for example). But, these books are not inspired by God. If we read some of these books, the Apocrypha as an exemplar, we must treat them as fallible historical books, not as the inspired, inerrant Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The gospel of Thomas, for instance, was a forgery written in the 3rd or 4th century A.D., claiming to have been printed by the Apostle Thomas. It was not written by Thomas. The early on church fathers roughly universally rejected the gospel of Thomas as being heretical. It contains lots of false and heretical things that Jesus evidently said and did. None of it (or at best very little of it) is true. The Epistle of Barnabas was not written by the Biblical Barnabas, however by an imposter. The similar can be said of the gospel of Philip, the apocalypse of Peter, the book of Enoch, etc.

There is only one God. The Bible has one Creator for all. It is one book. It has one plan of grace, recorded from initiation, throughout execution, to consummation. From predestination to praise, the Bible is the story of God redeeming His chosen people for the praise of His glory. As God’s redemptive purposes and plan open out in Scripture, the recurring themes continuously emphasized are: the character of God, the judgment for sin and disobedience, the blessing for faith and obedience, the Lord Savior and sacrifice for sin, and the upcoming kingdom and glory. It is God’s aim that we know and recognize these five themes since our lives and eternal destinies depend on them. It is thus unthinkable that God would let some of this vital information to be “lost” in any way. No, the Bible is full as it is so that we who read and know it might also be “complete, and equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).