Secrets from the Lost Bible

Book excerpt: Ancient scriptures, hidden from the world for centuries, have recently attracted unprecedented popular attention. Some were found among the ancient library of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Others include assorted mystical writings known as Kabbalah, and a host of books that never made it into the Bible, called Apocrypha (which means "hidden") and the Pseudepigrapha (called "false writings" by those who suppressed them). Additionally, there are the Gnostic texts of Nag Hammadi -- a location in Egypt where a treasure trove of lost books was discovered in the middle of the twentieth century. Collectively, they comprise the "Lost Bible." For centuries, these manuscripts were systematically suppressed because their liberating messages of individual power and worth challenged the authority and pet philosophies of political and religious leaders.