Quote:
Originally Posted by samfloor
It always amazes me the number of "Christians" who don't know the history of the Bible. It is a historical fact that most of it was rewritten during the Roman Empire to suit the Emperor Constantine. When he realized that his subjects were converting from Paganism to Christianity he decided he needed a Bible. They took the easiest of the popular religious books of the time, rewrote them and created the Bible. The other equally as popular books were mostly destroyed, although they missed a few, such as The Gospel Of Mary.
Many other things were changed by the Catholic Church. For example, Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute in the Bible. A pope decided that she was too popular and overshadowed Jesus' mother Mary and the church decided she was unsavory. So anyone who believes the Bible word for word, deceives themselves.
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"FACTS" of today are not always synonymous with truth. It amazes me how enmity for God will cause some to reach out to and hold on to, and put forward as "fact" what they know not of..........without the least bit of intellectual integrity or research.
It is very important to clarify exactly what role the Emperor Constantine played in the Council of Nicea, what the purpose for the council was, what happened at Nicea, and briefly how the canon?the Bible as we know it?was formed. Constantine was a Roman Emperor who lived from 274 to 337 A.D. He is most famous for becoming the single ruler of the Roman Empire and supposedly converting to Christianity. It is debated whether or not Constantine was actually a believer or just someone trying to
use the church and the faith to his own advantage. Constantine called the Council of Nicea?the first general council of the Christian church, 325 A.D.?
primarily because he feared that disputes within the church would cause disorder within the empire. The dispute in mind was Arianism, which was the belief that Jesus was a created being. The famous phrase they were disputing was, "There was when He was not." This was in reference to Jesus and was declared heretical by the council and thus resulted in the following words about Christ in the Nicene Creed: "God from true God?from the Father?not made." It was determined by the council that Christ was homoousia, meaning, one substance with the Father.
Concerning manuscripts that were burned at the order of Constantine, there is really no mention of such a thing actually happening at the order of Constantine
or at the Council of Nicea. The Arian party's document claiming Christ to be a created being, was abandoned by them because of the strong resistance to it
and was torn to shreds in the sight of everyone present at the council. Constantine, and the Council of Nicea, for that matter,
had virtually nothing to do with the forming of the canon. It was not even discussed at Nicea. The council that formed an undisputed decision on the canon took place at Carthage in 397,
sixty years after Constantine's death. However,
long before Constantine, 21 books were acknowledged by all Christians (the 4 Gospels, Acts, 13 Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation). There were 10 disputed books (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, Ps-Barnabas, Hermas, Didache, Gospel of Hebrews) and several that most all considered heretical?Gospels of Peter, Mary, Thomas, Matthaias, Acts of Andrew, John, etc.
Liberal scholars, fictional authors and God haters like to purport the idea that the gospels of Thomas and Peter (and other long-disputed books) contain truths that the church vehemently stomped out, but that simply has no basis historically. It is closer to the truth to say that no serious theologians really cared about these books because they were obviously written by people lying about authorship and had little basis in reality. That is one reason why a council declaring the canon was so late in coming (397 AD), because the books that were trusted and the ones that had been handed down were already widely known.
While I am not Catholic, I do know there was NO intentional "changing" of the bible (outside human scribal error) unless you consider adding the additional books (The Apocrypha) to the inspired work of God. The Apocrypha was and is considered heretical by Protestants but in no way corrupts the original intention of it's divine purposes. As for your statement that Mary Magdalene not being a prostitute....you are correct! And yes, that misconception is NOT in the bible. How someone is able to personally and intellectually derive that the bible cannot be trusted based on this proves a lack of understanding and research of facts. Pope Gregory, in 591, suggested in one of his homilies that the 7 devils ejected from Mary of Bethany, from the Book of Mark/Luke, was the same Mary as the Mary Magdalene of the Book of John. It was a mistake on his part and was rejected by the Vatican in 1969. Did this public correction by the Vatican serve to stamp out the purveyors of misinformation and misunderstanding...NO!
Those who do not understand will not be held accountable by a Perfectly Just God. Those that have been given the opportunity to understand and refuse to will be judged accordingly. If the bible is not your friend, Google certainly is. Try either one next time!
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