mP V Leolaia.......
Someone has a list of scholars who believe in Jesus as a real person in history?
by TJ Curioso 40 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Leolaia
mind blown....A good place to start is H. A. Drake's Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Indifference (JHUP, 2000). And here is a good source on the myth that the Bible was assembled at Nicaea: http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html.
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Justitia Themis
...not even a contest. Leolaia by a mile...
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mouthy
COO Blimey."You aint af a clever lot of dicks"said in my very cockney voice
I believe in Jesus Christ. Call me a stupid old brod. But HE helps me get through the days ,hours,night's,
If I kick the bucket soon,( as I am hoping to do) I will come back & tell ya who had it right out of you lot -
cantleave
Justitia - I agree!
Hi Grace!!
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mind blown
Ahhh...I don't veiw threads like this as a pissing contest. They're actually very informative. The more info on them the better!
What many don't realize is threads like this go on the net (google) when one is doing research. Check for yourself. See how much of JWN comes up. I kinda feel that's why many new ones are coming out as of late, because of great informative threads. That's how I found JWN on google search, which lead me here. I'm hoping my family one day runs into one of these...
Thank you, Leolala. I will check out that info!
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mP
MP The purpose of Constantines mission was to set a definitive canon. He was the emperor of Rome, money was not an issue, a few more/less pages was not a deciding factor. The problem was some books such as Enoch were obviously absurd and conflicted with other thoughts that the church wished to define as its teaching.
LEOLAIA
You need to read a book about Constantine. Preferrably not one written by Dan Brown. Constantine could have cared less....what he did want was to get these squabbling bishops to stop bickering about Arius and compromise for the sake of unity.
This thing about Constantine being so perturbed about 1 Enoch that he wanted to ban it is pure invention on your part. And there are plenty of other absurd things in the Bible too. There are talking snakes FFS.
MP
So what there were talking snakes in Genesis as well. Constantine realised the Catholic Church needed to be united above truth and realised a definitive holy book was essential. Many books were popular or conveyed stories that lots of people somewhere were attached too. These had to be kept to keep the church united. We see the same pattern where the virgin Mary concept was adopted regardless of scripture because there were many popular virgin like goddesses about the empire. Egypt had Isis temples so why ignore them and just simply pretend Isis is now Mary, and keep everyone happy. This process of assimilation occured many times and was was repeated as the Church and the Empire found new peoples.
I never said C banned Enoch, i was attempting to only convey that it was for lack of a better word ignored and left to fade into history, because it was not vital to the cannon. There are plenty of other books that also received the same treatment. We as a whole are ignorant of these other books, because they are simply not part of our awareness.
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mouthy
Good info mP
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mP
SOMEONE ELSE
Really, it's a modern day myth Constantine expunged certain books of the bible? Maybe I read many books were left out due to a money issues for the commision of putting the canon together? Is that a myth too? I'll have to do more research....
LEOLAIA
Yes. The agenda of the Council of Nicea was not to decide what books to include in the Bible, or to decide on what deity to worship (as Tony Bushby would have it). It was primarily convened to achieve ecclesiastical unity on the Arian question (concerning the nature of Christ and his relationship with God), as well as address other ecumenical concerns.
MP The purpose of Constantines mission was to set a definitive canon. He was the emperor of Rome, money was not an issue, a few more/less pages was not a deciding factor. The problem was some books such as Enoch were obviously absurd and conflicted with other thoughts that the church wished to define as its teaching.
LEOLAIA
You need to read a book about Constantine. Preferrably not one written by Dan Brown.
MP
I fail to see how that benefits the discussion. How is Dan Brown connected in anyway to what I said ? If i said something that is wrong tell me WHAT is wrong and WHY with quotes or at the least reference materials. Stupid insults dont help.
LEOLAIA
Constantine could have cared less....what he did want was to get these squabbling bishops to stop bickering about Arius and compromise for the sake of unity.
MP
Im sorry Constantine eventually did define the Bible. Sure there are many different bibles with slightly different lists of books as well as some traditions including or removing some texts in books such as Daniel which has a of the few later chapters in the NWT. However all things considered C did create the Bible. Nobody has had a greater influence on its contents than his rule did.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Bibles_of_Constantine
The Fifty Bibles of Constantine were Bibles commissioned in 331 by Constantine I and prepared by Eusebius of Caesarea. They were made for the use of the Bishop of Constantinople in the growing number of orthodox churches. It was described by Eusebius in his Life of Constantine, and his account is the only surviving source regarding their existence.
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It is speculated that this commission may have provided motivation for the development of the canon lists and that Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus are possible surviving examples of these Bibles.[1] There is no evidence among the records of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon; however, Jerome, in his Prologue to Judith, makes the claim that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures".[2]
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The facts state that he did create the Bible, this was HOW he established unity within the church.
If a church is divided in its beliefs, then its not really a single church. This is the reassoning behind the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church. A simple examination of the name tells us a lot.
The Roman Catholic Church was always but one device used by the Emperor, thats part of the reason its called "Roman". In the very name they are telling you they OWN the church and they control WHAT it does and SAYS.
The name also does not include Christian, because the RCC is not Christian, it is however "Universal" which is what Catholic means. It may have Christian elements but it is not exclusively Xian. The mission of the RCC was to adopt all religions and make their clergy come under the authority of the Pope. Religion has always been a powerful way to control the masses and the Romans appreciated that, and knew how to use this powerful tool as part of the way they administrated their empire.
Part of the modus operandi of the RCC was to keep the believers of one religious system happy by adopting pagan gods and making them saints. St George is but one example. Nobody honestly believes there was a Xian who went about killing dragons and talked about Jesus. We have the same of Isis in Egypt. The statues of Isis and Horus became the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. WHy knock down those temples if we can just now pretend the Egyptian gods are really the same as M and JC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis
Isis ( Ancient Greek : ?σις , original Egyptian pronunciation more likely Aset ) is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world . She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic. She was the friend of slaves , sinners , artisans , and the downtrodden, and she listened to the prayers of the wealthy, maidens, aristocrats, and rulers. [1] Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus , the hawk-headed god of war and protection (although in some traditions Horus's mother was Hathor ), and she is depicted suckling him in an attitude similar to that of the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus . [2] Isis is also known as protectress of the dead and goddess of children
The Greeks had previous created the God Serapis for the same reason. The Romans then repeated this recipe of Ptolemy when they created the godman Jesus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapis
Serapis (Σ?ραπις) or Sarapis (Σ?ραπις) is a Graeco-Egyptian god . Serapis was devised during the 3rd century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his realm. The god was depicted as Greek in appearance, but with Egyptian trappings, and combined iconography from a great many cults, signifying both abundance and resurrection. His cultus was spread as a matter of deliberate policy by the Ptolemaic kings, who also built a splendid Serapeum in Alexandria. Serapis continued to increase in popularity during the Roman period, often replacing Osiris as the consort of Isis in non-Egyptian temples. The destruction of the Serapeum by a mob led by the Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria in 389 is one of the key events in the downfall of ancient paganism, and the cult ceased to exist with the abolition of paganism in 391 AD .
Religion has always been a mass mind control weapon used by rulers.
Suetonius summed it up best, when he said
> Religion is believed by the poor, ignored by the rich, useful to the rules.<
Everything i have said can be easily verified by a quick Google.
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Midget-Sasquatch
mP
About Dan Brown: Leolaia made that small, single reference, to him because he actually comes up quite a bit in this discussion of how the Bible came to be. I guess you've never read the DaVinci Code. You're much better off reading books that correct or refute the pseudohistory in it.
Don't let that little point make you overlook all the other points she and others gave us. I think there's an important distinction to be made here. Constantine commissioned the work of writing 50 official bibles. I imagine because something like that was extremely cost prohibitive.
But I've never encountered any reference book or well researched text ( I like to have that kind of proof too ) explicitly saying that Constantine created/dictated the list of books that would be in the commissioned work. He left that to the orthodox church. I believe you yourself mentioned the Marcionite canon. Historically, it looks like Marcion had a greater influence on what would end up in the orthodox canon, and as you know that was much earlier on.