This one hour special deals with a raft of extra-canonical texts that did not make it into the Old Testament.  Gnostic, heretical, the products of forgery or ancient midrash – these stories circulated for centuries, were lost, rediscovered, or survived in fragmentary forms.

Though they feature characters and events we know from today’s bible, each was deemed unfit for inclusion in canon. We ask what made these texts so problematic. Some of today’s best-known scholars and authors examine writings left out the Old Testament, explaining the myriad reasons behind their exclusion from the bible.

We examine a mysterious text that Jesus and the disciples may have known and made reference to: the controversial ‘Testament of Solomon’. In the course of this contentious text, the wisest of all men is revealed to be a master exorcist, using demonic power to build his monumental temple. This has been recounted by noted author Kenneth Hanson, who wrote ‘The Lost Gospels’.

The legend of Lilith, the wilful first wife of Adam who refused to be subordinate to him, is scrutinised by scholar Rabbi David Copeland. He explains why her early feminism transformed her into a legendary demonic succubus.   The lost story of Aseneth, the pagan wife of biblical patriarch Joseph, is also revealed. Mentioned by name in Genesis, the remainder of her story disappeared from canon, though it circulated for centuries.

We also re-examine the expunged saga of Daniel. Thrown into the lions’ pit in Protestant bibles, he has a far more expansive adventure - defeating dragons and debunking pagan gods - in the Catholic bible. These travails appear in n a section called Apocrypha, or hidden writings. We ask why part of Daniel’s story was embraced, while the other part was emphatically rejected. A number of prominent authors and scholars outline present and past cultural and religious pressures, providing some surprising answers.