Witnesses View - Council of Nicea (serious thread)

by Confucious 20 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Wordly Andre

  I hear about many religions, including JW, Mormons, International Church of Christ, and Victory Outreach (AKA GANGSTA churchizzle) anyway, they are threatened by the Catholic church, other than Jewish, Muslim, Catholic's have the history and if you looked up the Chronological chart of Popes in the book, Dictionary of Saints by J. Delaney, it lists St. Peter as first pope, then St. Linus 67-76 all the way to Pope John Paul 1978- (Printed 2003), now compare that to say Jemina's Witnesses, who was their first leader humm right around the time the first horseless carriages were made? or if they go back as far as William Miller? Circa 1844? see when you are a new religion, your biggest threat is real religions who have a strong foundation, history and tradition.

  Maybe this is why JW's are so afraid of their members going into a catholic church, afraid that their members would see what real church looks like.

  The council of Nicea also gave us the Nicene Creed:

  We believe in one God,
  the Father, the Almighty,
  maker of heaven and earth,
  of all that is, seen and unseen.

  We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
  the only Son of God,
  eternally begotten of the Father,
  God from God, light from light,
  true God from true God,
  begotten, not made,
  of one Being with the Father;
  through him all things were made.
  For us and for our salvation
  he came down from heaven,
  was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
  and became truly human.
  For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
  he suffered death and was buried.
  On the third day he rose again
  in accordance with the Scriptures;
  he ascended into heaven
  and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
  He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
  and his kingdom will have no end.

  We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
  who proceeds from the Father [and the Son],
  who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
  who has spoken through the prophets.
  We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
  We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
  We look for the resurrection of the dead,
  and the life of the world to come. Amen
• 

  Confucious

  Great posts.

  Nice Inq... nice insite.

  I remember studying the All Scriptures Inspired and Beneficial book at the Thur Night Study.

  After each book it would go on and say "blah blah... and because it mentions Jehovah's name and has internal harmony, we can see how this how ______________ (insert book here) belongs in the Bible Canon."

  I picked up a copy of the New Jerusalem Bible and it has a few of the other books... one is very good called Wisdom.

  Con
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  Joe Grundy

  The question of the biblical canon (or is it the canonical bible) is one that has stuck with me for many years. I used to debate it with my (non-conformist protestant) parents and still do on occasion with my fanatical evangelical BIL. What struck me - and continues to strike me - is just how many people claim to believe in the bible, and can quote from it incessantly, but have absolutely no knowledge or understanding of its context or history.

  I sometimes wonder if some of these people would consider it heretical to look beyond the writings themselves. I suppose though, that the same could be true for JWs looking beyond WTBTS stuff, or Mormons looking outside their books.

  This is an interesting question, and I suspect that the answer lies in the ability of 'true believers' to voluntarily apply blinkers until they see only what they are happy to see (or only what they have been conditioned to see).
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  Borgia

  When Paul was discussing that all scripture is inspired he was not refering to the OT, his letters or any other NT witer´s letters. He mentioned that Timothy had known the scriptures from childhood. Considering that the WT says that Timo went with Paul in 50 CE when being in this 20-ties, he must have got to know the scriptures around 30-40CE. that singles any NT book out. So, Paul was referring to the OT. Not the NT as is being taught. Just to add some perspective.

  Cheers

  Borgia
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  Borgia

  Basically, the protestant churches are all in some sort of predicament when it comes the the nicean creed, and all the councils prior and post up untill the reformation. They still have a hard time to uphold their notion of Sola Scriptura because they need to take the RCC traditions into account.

  JW look very suspicious upon the churchfathers and the like. Before Nicea and post John, maybe, depending on the teachings a writer puts forward. If it is in accord with what JW are teaching, then it is fine. If no, it´s apostate material. Post nicea is hardly considered hardly worth the paper its written on.

  With protestant writers the WT maintains a love/hate relationship. When it serves their interpretation they say: look even Luther or calvin said so or look, very very naughty boys.

  The SI-book is an attempt to establish independently from Protestant and Catholic tradition a "reasonable" explanation why the books found currently in the (protestant & JW) bible are canonical. Try this one for size: list the reasons why the WT thinks of NT books to be inspired and worthy of receiving a place in the biblical canon. to add further to the joy, list the reasons why the bible is thought to be inspired. Then, apply these same reasons to apocrypha and see were you land. Then apply this to any book you like for instance: The bourne identity written by Robert Ludlum.

  Cheers

  Borgia
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  Ingenuous

  This is one of those things I repeatedly tried to "put on the shelf" as a JW and had trouble figuring out when it reared its head. I was never satisfied with the discussions of the Bible books in the All Scriptures Inspired book. All the "evidence" pointing to a book's inspiration boiled down to "Well, it's always been accepted as being written by this person at this time," and "Other parts of the Bible quote from it, so it's legitimate." (Oh, and, "Jehovah's name is in there somewhere, so it belongs in the canon.") The SI book tries to downplay the role of the Catholic church by stating that no human determined which books were inspired, as they were already inspired before they were compiled, and canonization was just recognition of that "fact."

  No one seemed to notice that didn't make any sense or jibe with reality. Then again, as a JW, I thought reading the Society's publications meant I had done my research. Most JWs won't dig far enough to find out that the Bible was compiled based on which books were popular, which supported the dominant orthodoxy, and which received enough votes from church authorities.

  And it's frightening daring to investigate the Bible's origins when your entire worldview and purpose is contained in a single book.
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  ElderBarry

  Hi Confuscious! The first official Catholic church council that was held to attempt a settlement of the question of the contents of the New Testament was the Catholic Council of Laodicea in 363 AD, not the Council of Nicea. However, the Catholic laypeople did not universally accept the decision of the Catholic council of Laodicea so the dispute continued. There continued to be Catholic Church councils held to decide this issue. for a long time. Such as the Council of Hippo in 393 AD, the Council of Carthage in 397 AD, and the Trullian Council in 692 AD. Somewhere in this time frame the Catholic Church finally settled on which books it would and would not accept. Scholars debate and quibble as to which exact Catholic council settled the issue once and for all. Athanasius--the Roman Catholic Bishop of in 367 AD listed the books of the NT as we have them today. Yeah, the NT is a Roman Catholic presentation from start to finish. I like the way the LDS Church has a semi-suspicious attitude toward the New Testament! I hope this helped. -Lisa
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  ElderBarry

  OOPS! Athanasius was the Catholic Bishop of Alexandria, so he was Byzantine Catholic, not Roman. -Lisa
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  evergreen

  I am currently reading a fascinating book that covers this subject in very clear detail. It is called "The Bible, (The making and impact of the Bible) A history" by Stepen. M. Miller & Robert. V. Huber
  
  This book is most definately worth a read. You can read this book and make your own mind up as to how you view the bible, but personally it strengthens my faith in the scriptures.
  
  One of the points that is made when the decision was made to put the new testament writings together was that most of these books were already well known and circulated among the christian congregations from the beginning of the first century onwards. In the early 200s The theologian Origen even took a poll on this. His findings were a stepping stone to new testament canon. He divided his list into 3 parts .
  
  1/ books that were widely accepted
  2/ books that were questionable
  3/ books that were viewed as unreliable
  
  Books that were widely accepted by Christians were the 4 gospels we now have, The 13 letters of Paul that we now have, acts,1 peter, 1 John and Revelation
  
  Books viewed as being questionable were Hebrews, James, 2 peter, 2 and 3 John and jude.
  
  Books that never made it into the new testament were Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Egyptians and Gospel of Mathias.
  
  The point is that from long before the Council of Nicea, the early Christians already had these books in circulation at a time when even some Christians could actually tell other Christians that they remember, or at least knew someone who could remember some of the apostles that had been preaching to them including Paul.
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  Albert Lynch

  Another point to keep in mind is the reason Christianity in general was adopted by the Roman empire.

  Constantine as emperor was ruling during a time of deep decline in the Roman empire, they had to create two capitals, one in Rome, and the other in Constantinople (Istanbul) to try and balance out power for the east and west. His adopting an empire wide religion was another way to try and hold the empire together, he felt it would be a unifying act.

  As everyone knows Rome fell under the weight of its own degredation, and that the Catholic church today is the last vestige of that corrupt civilisation.

  The bible as we know it was put together in essence by corrupt Roman empire church officials, trying to hold on to power.

  I doubt very much that truth, and accuracy were the main objectives when they were assembling the books that would eventually make up todays bible.

  Do you think that just maybe they were picking and choosing writings that would somehow benefit them, and altering the writings that didnt?????