Why did the Protestants stop using the lost books of the bible?

Answer 1

your question assumes the books were dropped. The church that existed long before the catholic church was established, already had a set number of books.

that church is what is known as the protestant church today.

long before the catholic Church came along, the books that were considered holy books were well established. the catholic church came alone and tried to add, all be it probably good books, to the books that would become known as The Bible. the problem is they do not meet the standards required to be considered holy books. they are just regular books just like any other book out there. There are very rigorous test which any book that would become part of the bible would have to go through to be included. and those books do not meet those standards.

Answer 2

The question is a bit loaded. The term "lost books of the Bible" suggests that they were canonical (or part of the Bible) but then stopped being part of the Bible. While there are a few books (like I Clement) that were considered canonical by some, most of the books described as the "lost books" were never accepted as part of historic Christianity... they were not considered part of the Bible and then "lost." The question that concerned the early church was what books have special status of being authoritative, or specially inspired by God. The term "canon" refers to ruler or standard.

There are plenty of discussions available about differences between the Roman Catholic Bible versus Protestant versus Greek Orthodox. However, the differences between these three Bibles of historic (Nicene) Christianity are very slight. Historic Christianity has a fairly simple set of rules (although a bit difficult to apply at times) for what is part of the canon of Scripture.

1. The words of Christ. Historic Chritianity is Christocentric. The early church accepted four accounts of the life and words of Jesus. The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Others written later written were rejected (either as false reporting or simply as non-authoritative).

2. The words that Jesus recognized as authoritative. Jesus described the eternality of the law of God. But what does that include? Based on His reference of Scripture from Abel to Zechariah, and the passages He quoted, it seems clear that He recognized the Tanakh (Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim) regarding the 5 books of Moses, the books of the Prophets, and the "Other writings." This seems to be the view shared by Orthodox Judaism at that time. Some other Christian groups include some books of the Apocrypha (Greek language writings in what is called the Intertestamental period). However, Protestants do not see the authority of these books because Jesus (apparently) did not view them as canon).

3. The words of Jesus' followers. This would be the writings of those taught by Jesus, the Apostles. Even though Biblical scholars like to argue about authorship of some books (you don't make a name for yourself by agreeing with tradition), historical Christian groups have agreed for the most part on what books belong in the New Testament for a long time.

These three Christocentric standards have been quite useful. it also helps explain why other writings (such as the Quran or the Book of Mormon) are not part of the Christian Bible. They don't meet any of these three standards.