Spreading the word orally invited one to be tortured and killed. That is what lead to the deaths of Jesus, Peter, James and a host of other prominent religious leaders.
Yet they still did it, meaning they were willing to die for what they believed. And they were the ones who would have known if it was true or not.
Nobody knows for sure who wrote many of the scriptures. That is especially true of the Gospels. The same was true in Roman times. Since pseudonyms, homonyms, forgers, etc. were rampant and there were no printing presses, authorship of a scroll was impossible to nail down.
Who cares? We know it was general practice to attribute authorship to the source of the story/teaching/information, even if that source wasn’t the one actually writing it down. So even if the Gospels weren’t written directly by Matthew, Mark or Luke (we’re fairly certain John wrote his), it doesn’t matter because we can be sure that they taught what is contained therein.
Copying scripture by scribes was the only way to produce multiple copies, providing opportunities for scribes to insert their own passages.
True, but literary scholars are able to tell when something has been inserted that wasn’t there originally. And we know there are very few cases of that.
Prevarications are what got people excited, and eye witness accounts were as doubtful then as they are in a court of law today.
True, but the fact they were willing to die for what they testified for proves the reliability of it.
To know the truth is more powerful than blindly accepting what your preacher tells you or what you learn in Sunday School.
Yeah, and? Are you trying imply this about me, or the other members of this forum? Don’t be condescending, especially when you’ve got zero evidence for your derogatory implications.
In the first few centuries following the death of Jesus, there was no commonly accepted version of the tenets of Christianity. Different bishops were teaching different things to their parishioners.
This is speculation on your part, and not very good speculation at that. We have evidence in the NT letters of a commonly accepted creed.
There were acrimonious debates among bishops who were teaching Marcionism, Gnosticism, Arianism, and Athanasianism because there was no established religion.
There were debates, certainly, but not because the religion hadn’t been established. Rather, it was because the religion was so young, and many aspects of it were not well understood. We are witness to some of those debates in the NT, and we are also witness to those debates being settled authoritatively.
Then after Origen, Eusebius, and Ireneaus got into the act, things got serious.
Because dying for your beliefs wasn’t serious.
When the Council of Nicaea was convened, at last there was an attempt to create a unified Chrisitianity, because Emperor Constantine realized this was an excellent way to gain power over his Roman subjects.
Actually, it wasn’t an attempt to create a unified Christianity, it was an attempt to declare authoritatively to Christians everywhere what teachings were true and which were false. Your comment about Constantine’s “realization” is pure speculation. Have you spoken to him, lately? Or are you able to read the minds of dead men? From the accounts we have, Constantine was converted to Christianity. But let’s ignore the actual evidence we have and postulate fancy, instead.
In fact, the very idea of a Pope was modeled after Roman ideas of controlling an empire.
Actually, the idea of a Pope is rooted in the model of the Davidic Kingdom, not the Roman Empire. A Roman Emperor was considered to be a god. The Pope is understood to be a prime minister for the King while the King is absent. A Roman Emperor could act unilaterally in his rule of the empire. A Pope cannot act independently of his fellow Bishops, and the universal teachings of the Church. Romans are subject to the Roman Emperor and serve his goals. The Pope is subject to the Church, and serves it.
Your perspective on the Pope is inaccurate if you think it’s modelled after Roman emperors.
So Christianity was invented and many of its tenets were invented to further the aims of the Catholic Church.
Wait, wait, wait. Christianity (as there was no “Catholic Church” at the time of the Nicaean Council) invented itself and its tenets to further its own aims? Am I reading that right? I could understand if you said “Constantine invented Christianity to further his own aims.” That would at least make some semblance of sense.
The result was unanimity and an end to the squabbling. This lasted for several centuries. Eventually, however, the Orthodox wing split off and formed its own version of Christianity independent of the Pope.
Actually, the EO are basically the same as the RC, with the exception of the Papacy. Calling it “its own version of Christianity” really blurs the reality. The various rites look really different, and there are a few doctrinal differences that don’t really amount to much in the life of Faith, but they’re essentially the same. Even Pope Benedict XVI said as much, that the only tenet that the EO had to accept to be in full communion with the RCC was the teaching on the Papacy. Even then, they already accept the idea of “first among equals,” which is a big step in the right direction.
God’s Love begets beauty there. 