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Nicea didnt make the bible, I admit I was wrong (Damn you Dan Brown!!!!!)

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posted on May, 17 2011 @ 01:56 PM
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The purpose of this thread is to clear up a fallacy that many of us take as truth.....

OK so I started a thread yesterday to get some answers from Intelligent christians on what I see as major discrepencies within Christianity.
Im pleased to say I found quite a few (a couple nuff nuffs as well) and I look forward to continuing the discussion with one in particular.

I asked them to answer 5 questions for me and one of them was this




1) have you heard of the council of Nicea? what do you think of it?


Now I feel the need to point out here that I had heard of tthe Council of Nicea long before Dan Brown came along, Ive been fascinated by Religion and Mythology since I was a child and I had read extensively on the foundations of christianity and the early church.
While I dont remember names and dates linked to events and had a great grasp of the general bigger picture and something I took as "gospel" truth was that at the council of Nicea the books of the Bible were chosen from 100's of potential sources................. Feck me dead it turned out I was wrong!!!!!!!!

I was so confident in this knowledge that I didnt even bother to google it coz I "knew" it was right. I ended up in an argument with a guy over the validity of my statement. Over the course of about 10 back and forward posts he came back with a link to a christian website saying the council of Nicea had nothing to do with the bible.Let me tell you I actually laughed out loud and told him he was an idiot for using a christian website as a source as it was obviously biased. After a few others chimed in and said that he was right I thought maybe I should look into it
Heres one of the sources I found that isnt christian based but if you ggogle council of nicea and bible youll find plenty more

What was discussed at the council of Nicea

The main topic of the meeting was the question of whether or not Jesus and god were one in purpose or one in person with the one in person side winning out.

when I couldnt find a reference that suited my argument I was somewhat distressed as I normally have a great memory for this sort of stuff and could distinctly remember reading it somewhere that the bible was made at that council, I have an extensive library on religion back home so i called my mother today and for about 90 min made her go through my books while I was on the phone with her.
This is the closest I could find to something that would support my argument




" The creed was used by church leaders as a guide to what teachings were divine and which were heretical. This lead to suppression and in some cases even death to those who didnt follow its decision. The creed set the stage for deciding which of the many texts that existed in early christendom were to be used in the bible"


So there you have it, they didnt decide the books they decided what was acceptable christian theology/dogma.

Now I normally enjoy finding out I was wrong on something as it means I just learnt something new but in this circumstance it wasnt that great.
the above quote combined with reading the da vinci code one too many times lead me to make an absolute D!ck of myself and as of now I have made a decision to boycott Dan Brown (at least till his next book comes out, say what you like about him but his books are a great read)

While I admit I was wrong in that they didnt compile a bible at the council the Nicean creed was effectively used from then on to decide what was acceptable christianity and what wasnt which lead to alot of censorship and book burning. Not long after the council a Bishop sent a compilation of works he thought appropriate and good for the furtherence of chrisendom to Emperor Constantine who in turn made 50 copies and had them distributed throughout his empire. This compilation (with some additions and edits over the years) is the bible we have today.

So its definative, to all who thought like me (and I know theres lots of us) we were wrong, we were suckered in by fiction and then spouted it as fact.

So anyway there are 3 morals to this story

1) before you start a thread or get into an argument be sure you have your facts straight
2) boycott Dan Brown (at least till his next book comes out)
3) dont argue with christians coz nowadays they not only have the bible but they also got google


peace yall

p.s please no haters, Ive had my a$$ handed to me enough times in the past 24 hours LOL
edit on 17-5-2011 by IkNOwSTuff because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 17 2011 @ 02:13 PM
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S&F!! I just want to applaud you for recognizing you were wrong and setting the record straight. (I wasn't involved...I just like when people are wise enough to know they were/are wrong.)

Plus, I learned something.



posted on May, 17 2011 @ 02:15 PM
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reply to post by freakjive
 


LMAO

that avatar is so smooth


Star for the avatar



posted on May, 17 2011 @ 02:26 PM
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reply to post by IkNOwSTuff
 


I too studied the Council upon taking my first steps into a journey that lasted about five years after my son died from Leukemia. I can honestly say that these people were just as men are today. They were control freaks. Also, I do have my favorite writers of the era but never the less these men did indeed decide what papers to keep and which to burn and so on. They definitely played their role!



posted on May, 17 2011 @ 02:44 PM
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reply to post by MamaJ
 


If you have any reliable sources I would love to read them

Unfortunately the only stuff I could find was blogs and academic speculation.

I do believe that council and its rulings lead to what we call the bible but I was telling people one of the main points of Nicea was to decide which books make up the bible.
It is possible to stretch and pull the story so this is true but in the strictest sense it was not about making a holy book



posted on May, 17 2011 @ 11:58 PM
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S&F for highlighting one of the more ridiculous claims made by anti-Christians. It is one thing to make theological arguments, quite another to absolutely ignore history and make claims that are completely fictitious, because they agree with some sort of agenda.

Kudos to you for recognizing and admitting your error.



posted on May, 18 2011 @ 11:44 PM
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What you are looking for is how the early church formed the cannon. Our English term canon is derived from the Greek word kanon. Originally it referred to a straight rod or a ruler which was used as a test for straightness or a measurement of length. It also came to symbolize anything which constituted a rule, norm, or standard.

The most important criterion for determining canonicity is inspiration. Paul stated this principle in 2 Timothy 3:16 by suggesting that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” Originally Paul’s statement referred to the inspiration of the Old Testament, but the term Scripture came to be used also in reference to New Testament writings (2 Pet. 3:16).

The cannon formation was more organic that organized. The work of John Barton is very helpful in evidencing this claim. Barton used data on the number of times the early church Fathers quoted the various books and there is a clear distinction in frequency of usage between the New Testament books and the non Cannonical works.


Barton counts the number of times the New Testament (and other) books are actually cited by the Fathers in proportion to each book’s length. He discovers there are three clear groups: those New Testament books that are quoted frequently (viz., the four gospels and the major Pauline letters), those quoted less frequently (the rest of the New Testament), and books that are scarcely quoted at all (viz., those that were excluded from the canon). In other words, there is a sharp demarcation in actual frequency of usage between the New Testament books and all other claimants: actual usage was establishing the canon.

D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 733.


Hence, the argument that the formation of the cannon was a spiritual work of God by his providential authentication gains credence over the brute authority of magisterial councils.







edit on 5/18/2011 by Bigwhammy because: fix ex quotes



posted on May, 19 2011 @ 04:44 AM
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You are right in that First Ecumenical Council in Nicea in 325 didn't decide the books that make up the Bible canon.

The books that were included in the current day Bible rose organically from usage at the start, as well as throwing out the books that were associated with creeds that were then later declared heresies (something which WAS done at some of the Ecumenical Councils).

For example, the first formal list of books was compiled by a fellow called Marcion, who held some decidedly unorthodox (for today) beliefs about Christianity. He only considered Paul and Luke valid (not even the OT), so as a response to him, the church put forward it's own "formalised" canon list.

So the formation of the formalised canon, while not addressed in the first council of Nicea, was part of the proceedings of some of the other 6 councils, and it is sometimes posited that the Fifty Bibles commissioned by Constantine in 331 also played a part in the formation of the Bible Canon, although not much is known about that.

This list was completely formalised I think by the 5th or 6th Ecumenical Council some time in the 7th century, but by then I think it was just a formality...most of the church already followed those books.
edit on 19-5-2011 by babloyi because: (no reason given)




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