Why weren't all the gospels included in the bible?
951817
Some of them were considered spurious or heretical.  One of them, the Infancy Gospel of  Thomas, talks about Jesus using his powers to kill children and blinding people (no joke).  There are quite a few, along with several other acts, epistles, and apocalypses.\n\nIn the beginning of the church, there was no organization of the various churches, and few, if any, had a whole New Testament.  Many had a single gospel and possibly and epistle or two.  As Christianity grew, more and more copies of the various books were around, and the current New Testament, or actually something close to it, was compiled.  Many of these books (for example, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas) were rejected.  There was some debate on six of the books, two of which (Hebrews and Revelations) were included; four of them, including the Didache (or the "Teachings of the Twelve Apostles"), the Epistle of Barnabas, the Epistle of Clement (now called First Clement because a purely apocryphal Second Clement also exist), and an apocalyptic book titled the Shepherd of Hermas, were rejected.  This final decision on these six books were decided at a church council.  \n\nAll of these "extra" books are called the New Testament Apocrypha by scholars.
1019305
Nothing was "taken out" of the bible. Some things were left out, but they were never "in" to begin with. The bible is a hodge podge collection of writings from many different people. Not one of those people ever meant for or expected their writings to become part of a holy book. Some of them are freaking letters, ffs, written specifically from one person to another, not for the purpose of being scripture. One day a bunch of priests got together and decided that some of it was "the word of god™" and some of it not. How do decide what's "the word of god™" and what isn't, you ask? You don't. You do what they did and pick whatever suits your agenda (power, money) and leave out the rest.
463231
Its another fake Gospel written by an early christian sect who obviously had no contact with Jesus, the disciples or the disciples followers. It was common for christian sects with no direct link to church founders to create bogus gospels to support there beliefs.\nIf the gospel is real it would have been mentioned somewhere in the ancient history or copies of it would have surfaced elsewhere. Not to mention a true gospel always matches with what the rest of the bible says.\nPeople have a bad habit of thinking if a text is old then it must be a part of Gods word.  This is not true!
936247
Just because Bible doesn't mention other humans prior to or alongside Adam and Eve does not mean other people didn't exist.\nIt makes sense for others to be there.  \nI know this opens a whole other can of worms but it is an interesting thought.
333778
No version of the Bible is correct. They can't even get Jesus's name right (Isa) or answer why the concept of the Trinity didn't show up in the original manuscripts of John, and yet it started showing up in the Latin translations out of no where.\n\nAny Christian 300 years believed that the Bible is the word of God, and yet it was neither written by God, nor by Jesus, only by people who were assistants to the disciples of Jesus, and wrote what the disciples remembered Jesus saying 50 years after Jesus's ascension into heaven. Also if the Bible is the "complete word of God", then why is it that even to this day, there are extra passages and scriptures being included into it and being found (i.e. The dead sea scrolls)?
1068078
well, no thought has to go into this, this is historical fact.  Many books were left out of the final book.  The old testament has books like The book of Enoch and there are also later books like the Maccabees I and 2 that are made about a century before christ.  These are called Apocrypha.  There are also many books left out of the new testament or edited in some way, there is the Gospel of Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Marc which is differently edited than the one we currently know.  The problem is, a lot of these books that were taken out of the new testament at least were written many many years after christs death so when the early church created the canon they decided what was most in use and what most applied in terms of creation date.
56282
It actually goes from Mark 16:9-20.  I'm not exactly sure why these were elimated.  But it's possible, and this is just speculation, that it was removed because this was him going to see Mary Magdalene.  It even says that she was the first person he had seen since rising.  He tells her to go and preach the Word, heal the sick.  Basically do everything that he told the other apostles to do.  It's possible that this is removed to support the belief that women can't be priests or any position of power.
126065
At certain points in time, the "Church fathers" (as a group) determined which "books"/writing would be included in the Bible (New Testament). For whatever reason, certain writings were included and other were not.  This is the reason why there are additional "books" in the official Bible used by the Catholic Church--rather than the King James version--or those used by non-Catholic Christians.
536904
Remember that the Catholic church canonized the bible which had those books in it before the protestant reformation. Catholics didn't add to it, Luther(and others) took them out! Those of you who swear by the King James bible are missing out on several books that are in the Old Testament and of value. We (Catholics) are not "on to something". We just have the complete Bible (and have all along). \nTo my Protestant brothers, check the history of the bible, and see what I'm saying!\nGod bless you for asking this question.
1023896
The original bible of Jesus was what we refer to as the Old Testament in the Bible, or the Torah, from which He quoted many times.  It's still very much around.
1044596
I couldn't list them all for you if I wanted to. There are more that were rejected than there were that were approved. Everyone that has suggested looking up Apochrypal texts is on the right track. The life of Adam and Eve was a good one from the old testament. The Book of Enoch, The gospels of Mary, and Judas, Peters Revalations. Those are just a few of the interesting ones.
1141113
It depends upon which letters and which of the four gospel accounts you are referring to and even then it's hard to tell since they don't come with publication dates.\n\nMost scholars think the gospel of John was the last one written and it was probably written after Paul's death. The gospel of Luke was written during Paul's lifetime because Luke wrote the Book of Acts, which ends with Paul being in custody in Rome, after writing that gospel account.  The Apostle Paul wrote some of his letters, like the ones to the church in Corinth while he was still going on his missionary journeys and other ones like his letter to the Philippians and 2nd Timothy from prison in Rome. So you would have to ask if a certain letter was written before or after a certain gospel and then the answer might depend upon a "best guess".
372911
Considering the Bible did not yet exist at the time Revelation was written, it seems obvious that verse is referring to Revelation itself, not the Bible as a whole.\n\nThe question you should be asking instead, is why did the author feel the need to put such a verse into Revelation?
1024989
Is been revised too many times to please the founding fathers of the catholic church. I think the Gospels ancient writtings that are being discovered recently will shed much information missing from the new testament.
964720
At the time of the Nicean Council, there were basically hundreds of Christian sects with hundreds of differing Gospels.  The council was created to unify Christian theology and belief in order to prevent conflict.  The church fathers who met decided on the Gospels that we're all familiar with now as they were the most common amongst the varying sects.  The Gospels of Thomas, Judas, Mary, Phillip, etc were discarded because the texts didn't represent the majority of Christianity at the time.  This doesn't mean that there's not any value to them.
1080776
#1.  It was written too late to have been written by an apostle or a companion of an apostle.\n\n#2. The content contradicts the rest of the New Testament.\n\n#3.  It was never accepted by the early church.\n\nThe New Testament was in its complete form before the end of the first century, long before Constantine or the Roman Catholic Church.  There never was any reason to accept "The Gospel of Judas."
1135587
It is my understanding that:\n\nActually, NONE of the gospels are the direct words of Jesus.  They were all written a couple generations after (Luke and Mark weren't even apostles!).\n\nThe Gnostic Gospels were not included into the bible because they preach a more self-sufficient version of Christianity, where the person, not the church, is responsible for their relationship with God.  They refer to Christianity in a similar sense as modern buddhism.\n\nIt is MY belief (and I emphasize belief, as no one knows for sure) that the gnostic gospels were excluded from the bible because:\n\n- They de-emphasize the church...therefore leaving less influenece, power, and control over the religion for the church\n\n- They emphasize a more "inner religion", where its not about what the religion as a whole wants or believes, but rather the individual person.  This can be deeply fulfilling for an individual, or very unnerving as there would be little unison and coordination in the religion.\n\n- They did not properly imply the possibility that Jesus was God.