The making of the bible

[Mary_Ann_1]

First, I am really struggling to hold on to my faith.

I saw a program that said that the when the bible was canonized that Constantine had an agenda in putting the bible together. My question is how do I know that the bible is what it is supposed to be? I mean it was an oral tradition for so long how can we believe that it remained unchanged? There are so many contradicting gospels with Mary Magdalene, peter and Thomas. It is very confusing. It is impossible for me to believe that every word was spoken by Jesus. We as humans cant even document something that happened ten years ago right let alone a two thousand years.
Am I supposed to believe that God kept it whole, but don’t that interfere with mans free will? What if man changed these stories to make them better ot take away some things. How does that account toward them?

What about the ones who say that some of the gospels were used to make another?
Or something llike that.

Sorry for so many questions.

Thank you.

 

[hillbilly]

maplenet.net/~trowbridge/canons.htm

This link may be of interest to you.

 

[EphelDuath]

I saw a program that said that the when the bible was canonized that Constantine had an agenda in putting the bible together.

No, Constantine just wanted to finish off the Arian/Nicene dispute. He had no interest in theology whatsoever.

My question is how do I know that the bible is what it is supposed to be? I mean it was an oral tradition for so long how can we believe that it remained unchanged?

All of the books in the New Testament, save for those written by Paul, were written by people who actually knew Christ.

There are so many contradicting gospels with Mary Magdalene, peter and Thomas.

Which were written over 300 years after-the-fact. Even the most anti-Christian scholars have to admit that the Gospels were at least composed in the 1st century or early 2nd.

It is very confusing. It is impossible for me to believe that every word was spoken by Jesus. We as humans cant even document something that happened ten years ago right let alone a two thousand years.

There are World War II veterans who can still relay events as if they happened the day before. But it’s not just memory, it’s also the Holy Spirit.

Am I supposed to believe that God kept it whole, but don’t that interfere with mans free will? What if man changed these stories to make them better ot take away some things. How does that account toward them?

Why would God not have preserved his texts?

What about the ones who say that some of the gospels were used to make another? Or something llike that.

What about it?

 

[wasmit]

here is some Ctrl+C , Ctrl+V that might interest you:

The Myth

Occasionally someone here refers to the “fact” that the books of the New Testament were “chosen at the Council of Nicea”. People regularly refer to some kind of “vote” at this Council in AD 325, where evil churchmen select which books to include to (somehow) cement their “power” or cover up some earlier ideas about Jesus being a nice hippy or non-existent or something. Alternatively, we’re told there was an “earlier edition” of the Bible which the wicked churchmen at Nicea “edited” to “take out” the bits they didn’t like. Or something.

People who insist on this myth vary on who was behind this “editing” of the Bible and choice of which texts went into it - occasionally it’s the Pope or (anachronistically) “the Vatican” who was behind this nefarious deed, though usually it is the Emperor Constantine who is the villain of this piece of cartoon history. The idea that the Bible was “chosen” at the Council of Nicea is so prevalent that you find this so-called “fact” mentioned in History Channel documentaries and various conspiracy theory books, but it was recently given a huge boost by my old friend Dan Brown in *The Da Vinci Code:

Teabing cleared his throat and declared, “The Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven.”

“I beg your pardon?”

"The Bible is a product of man, my dear. Not of God. The Bible did not fall magically from the clouds. … "More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion–Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them … “Who chose which gospels to include?” Sophie asked.

“Aha!” Teabing burst in with enthusiasm. “The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.” … “The twist is this,” Teabing said, talking faster now. “Because Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status almost four centuries after Jesus’ death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke. From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history.” Teabing paused, eyeing Sophie. “Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.”*(Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, pp. 231-234)

The upshot, according to the various versions of the myth, is the Bible we have today is the result of some kind of tampering/political shenanigans at this Council in the early Fourth Century.

The only problem is, this is total and complete garbage.

The fact is that the Council of Nicea did not establish the canon of the Bible and did not even discuss the question of which works were to be regarded as scriptural. I’ll get to how this myth arose in a moment, but first let’s look at how the canon of the Bible was established. Smart atheists should rely on accurate history, not cartoonish pseudo historical nonsense, however much it might appeal to them. Smart atheists who are interested in how the Bible actually formed and how this myth about Nicea came about should read on. Dumb atheists who are simply fundie bigots should stop reading now, lest reality and facts intrude on their idiotic prejudices.

The Formation of the New Testament

The long process by which Christianity settled on the canon of the New Testament - the books which were included in the Bible and regarded as definitive, authoritative and divinely inspired - began long before the time of Constantine the Great and continued for some time after he died. Contrary to the myth, Constantine and the Council of Nicea was not involved in this process in any way whatsoever.

The earliest Christian communities of the First Century relied entirely on the memories of Jesus’ first followers. As these people died, an oral tradition of stories and sayings of Jesus developed and began to be written down in books. The four gospels which are now found in the modern Bible - the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - were amongst these earliest collections of accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching. Other early writings also circulated amongst these early communities, including the letters or ‘Epistles’ of Paul to various early churches, letters by Peter and James and letters attributed to them but probably written by other people. Some accounts of the earliest followers, like the ‘Acts of the Apostles’, also came to be used as sources of information, inspiration and authority by these earliest communities.

But, at this stage, there was no definitive list or ‘canon’ of these writings. Any given isolated Christian community may well have known of some of them but not others. They may also have had copies of a few of them, but have only heard of others (since copies of any books were expensive and precious). And they may also have used a variety of other writings, many of which did not find their way into the Bible. There was no single, central ‘Church’ which dictated these things - each community operated in either relative isolation or intermittent communication with other communities and there were no standardised texts or a set list of which texts were authoritative and which were not at this very early stage of the Christian faith.

But the idea of such a definitive list was not totally foreign to early Christianity. Its parent religion, Judaism, had already wrestled with the problem of a large number of texts all being claimed to be ‘scriptural’ and inspired by God. Judaism generally agreed on the heart of its canon: the Torah, also called the ‘Pentateuch’, or ‘five scrolls’ because it was made up of the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Judaism later developed a wider canon called the ‘Tanakh’: twenty-four books, including the five books of the Torah and adding the books of the prophets, the Psalms and the historical books that can be found in the Old Testament of Christian Bibles today.

 

[wasmit]

Long before Christians began to go through a similar process of determining which texts were ‘Scripture’ and which were not, it is clear that they already regarded some Christian texts as being on par with those of the Jewish books of the Torah and the Tanakh. The Second Letter of Peter was probably not written by Peter at all and was most likely written in his name by someone around 120 AD; about 60 years or so after Peter died. But its author refers to certain ‘false teachers’ who misinterpret ‘the letters of Paul’ he says, ‘just as they do with the rest of the Scriptures’ (2 Peter 3:16). So, as early as the beginning of the Second Century, the letters of Paul were being regarded as ‘Scripture’, or divinely inspired and authoritative works on the same level as the books of the Jewish Bible.

As the Second Century progressed there was more incentive for early Christianity to define precisely which Christian texts were ‘scriptural’ and which were not. In the Second Century a wide variety of new and different forms of Christianity began to develop. The various Gnostic sects were one prominent example, but it seems that it was the Marcionites which gave the impetus for the first formulation of a Christian canon of Scripture.

Marcion was born around 100 AD in the city of Sinope on the southern coast of the Black Sea. After a falling out with his father, the local bishop, he travelled to Rome in around 139 AD. There he began to develop his own Christian theology; one which was quite different to that of his father and of the Christian community in Rome. Marcion was struck by the strong distinction made by Paul between the Law of the Jews and the gospel of Christ. For Marcion, this distinction was absolute: the coming of Jesus made the whole of the Jewish Law and Jewish Scriptures redundant and the ‘God’ of the Jews was actually quite different to the God preached by Jesus. For Marcion, the Jewish God was evil, vengeful, violent and judgemental, while the God of Jesus was quite the opposite. Marcion decided that there were actually two Gods - the evil one who had misled the Jews and the good one revealed by Jesus.

This understanding led Marcion to put together a canon of Christian Scripture - the first of its kind - which excluded all of the Jewish Scriptures which make up the Old Testament and which included ten of the Epistles of Paul and only one of the gospels: the Gospel of Luke.

Marcion tried to get his radical reassessment of Christianity and his canon accepted by calling a council of the Christian community in Rome. Far from accepting his teachings, the council excommunicated him and he left Rome in disgust, returning to Asia Minor. There he met with far more success, and Marcionite churches sprang up which embraced his idea of two Gods and used his canon of eleven scriptural works. Alarmed at his success, other Christian leaders began to preach and write vigorously against Marcion’s ideas and it seems that his canon of eleven works inspired anti-Marcionite Christians to begin to define which texts were and were not Scriptural.

By around 180 AD the influence of Marcion, the growth of the various Gnostic sects and the circulation of radical new ‘gospels’ began to be recognised as a genuine threat to those Christians who considered these groups fringe sects and heretical. It is around this time that we find Irenaeus declaring that there are only four gospels which derive from Jesus’ earliest followers and which are Scriptural. These are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John: the ones found in the Christian Bible today. Irenaeus makes it clear that these four had always been regarded as the earliest and most authoritative and were therefore the ones to be trusted as true accounts of Jesus’ life, works and teachings. Interestingly, after two centuries of sceptical analysis, the overwhelming majority of historians, scholars and textual experts (Christian or otherwise) actually agree with Irenaeus and the consensus is that these four gospels definitely are the earliest of the accounts of Jesus’ life.

Not long after Irenaeus’ defence of the four canonical gospels we get our first evidence of a defined list of which texts are scriptural. A manuscript called the Muratorian Canon dates to sometime in the late Second Century AD and was discovered in a library in Milan in the Eighteenth Century. It details that the canonical four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - along with most of the other books found in the modern New Testament, as well as a couple which are not (the Wisdom of Solomon and the Apocalypse of Peter) are ‘scriptural’ and authorative. It also gives some approval to other, more recent works like The Shepherd of Hermas, but says they should not be read in church as scripture.

The Muratorian Canon document accepts twenty-three of the twenty-seven works which now make up the New Testament in the Bible. It also explicitly rejects several books on the grounds that they are recent and written by fringe, heretical groups and it specifically singles out works by the Gnostic leader Valentius and by Marcion and his followers.

It seems that the challenge posed by Marcion and other dissident groups caused the early Christians to determine which books were scriptural and which were not. And it also seems that recent works, whether they were ‘heretical’ (like the Gnostic gospels) or not (like The Shepherd of Hermas), did not have the status of works from the earliest years of Christianity. It was only these earliest works which were considered authoritative.

It is clear that the process of deciding which texts were canonical and which were not was already well under way over a century before the Emperor Constantine was even born. It also continued for a long time after he died. Constantine’s contemporary, the Christian historian Eusebius, set out to ‘summarise the writings of the New Testament’ in his Church History; a work written towards the end of Constantine’s reign. He lists the works which are generally ‘acknowledged’ (Church History, 3.25.1), including the four canonical gospels, Acts, the Epistles of Paul, 1 John, 1 Peter and the Apocalypse of John/‘Revelation’ (though he says this is still disputed by some). He gives other texts which he says are ‘still disputed’; including James, Jude, 2 Peter and 2 and 3 John. He gives other books which are probably ‘spurious’ and then lists others which are definitely considered heretical, including the Gospels of Peter, Thomas and Matthias and the Acts of Andrew and John.

 

[wasmit]

So not only did the process of deciding the canon begin long before Constantine, there was still debate within the Church about the canon in his time.

And it continued. In 367 Athanasius wrote his 39th Festal Letter in which he laid out the current twenty-seven books of the New Testament - the first time this canon had been definitively stated by any churchman. A synod convened in Rome by Pope Damasus in 382 AD also considered the question of the canon and, with the help of the great scholar Jerome, settled on the same twenty-seven books set out by Athanasius. At this stage there was still no central authority which could compel church communities in any way (despite Dan Brown’s frequent anachronistic references to a central ‘Vatican’), but councils and synods in Hippo and Carthage in north Africa and later ones in Gaul also settled on the same canon.

Despite the myth that the canon was determined by Constantine in 325 AD, there was actually no definitive statement by the Catholic Church as to the make-up of the New Testament until the Council of Trent in 1546: a full 1209 years after Constantine died. The full development of the canon took several centuries, but the basics of which gospels were to be included was settled by 200 AD at least.

Summary

• The canon was not even discussed at Nicea and was not set at that Council
• The idea of what books were to be included in the New Testament was actually reached by a process of discussion and consensus over 200 years, not at one council or meeting.
• The general shape of the canon was established by 200 AD, with only a little debate about some of the minor works from then on.
• The four gospels were established as the most early and definitive works very early in this process.
• Politics and “power” played no role in the process. At the time this subject was being debated Christianity was a small, marginalised, illegal and often persecuted faith. The idea that the books of the Bible were chosen for any political reasons is complete nonsense.

The Origin of the Myth

So how did this idea that the Bible was created at the Council of Nicea get started?

It seems the myth can be traced back to Voltaire, who popularised a ridiculous story that the canon was determined by placing all the competing books on an altar the the Council and then keeping the ones that didn’t fall off:
*
Il est rapporté dans le supplément du concile de Nicée que les Pères étaient fort embarrassés pour savoir quels étaient les livres cryphes ou apocryphes de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testament, les mirent tous pêle-mêle sur un autel; et les livres à rejeter tombèrent par terre. C’est dommage que cette belle recette soit perdue de nos jours.*

(It is reported in the supplement to the Council of Nicaea that the fathers were quite embarrassed by the apocryphal books of the Old and New Testament, put all pell-mell on an altar, and the books that fell to the ground were rejected. It is a pity that this beautiful recipe is lost today.)
(Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1767)

Voltaire never let the truth get in the way of a kick at the Church, and this silly story of how the Bible was selected was the kind of thing he found amusing. It’s likely he didn’t actually believe it, but it seems to be where the myth began. But where did Voltaire get the story?

It seems he found it in a book he published in 1765 - *La Religion chretienne analysée *(‘Christianity Analyzed) by César Chesneau Dumarsais. Dumarsais, in turn, found it in Sanctissima concilia (1671-1672, Paris, vol II, pp 84-85) by Pierre Labbe, which in turn cites the Sixteenth Century scholar Baronius. And when we track down Baronius’ source for this story we find it’s a pseudo-historical account of early Church councils from AD 887 called Vetus Synodicon. It states in its summary of the Council of Nicea:

The canonical and apocryphal books it distinguished in the following manner: in the house of God the books were placed down by the holy altar; then the council asked the Lord in prayer that the inspired works be found on top and–as in fact happened–the spurious on the bottom.
(Vetus Synodicon, 35)

So this miracle story - recorded a whole 562 years after the Council - seems to be the ultimate source of the myth. Thanks to Voltaire and constant repetition over the last 240 years, this obviously fictitious story has taken on the mantle of “fact”.

As ever, real history is much more complicated and requires much more hard work and brain power than silly myths, which is why myths are so prevalent and real history is understood by so few. If you’ve read this far, give yourself a pat on the back and go and have a beer.
**
Bibliography**

Dungan, David L. Constantine’s Bible: Politics And the Making of the New Testament, (Fortress Press: 2006)

Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, (Oxford University Press: 2003)

Ehrman, Bart D. Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code, (Oxford University Press: 2004)

Fredriksen, Paula From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ, (Yale Nota Bene: 2000)

Metzger, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance, (Oxford University Press: 1997)

McDonald, Lee Martin and Sanders, James A. , The Canon Debate (Hendrickson Publishers; 2002)

Rubenstein, Richard E. When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity during the Last Days of Rome, (Harvest Books: 2000)

 

[CalCatholic]

First, I am really struggling to hold on to my faith.

I saw a program that said that the when the bible was canonized that Constantine had an agenda in putting the bible together. My question is how do I know that the bible is what it is supposed to be? I mean it was an oral tradition for so long how can we believe that it remained unchanged? There are so many contradicting gospels with Mary Magdalene, peter and Thomas. It is very confusing. It is impossible for me to believe that every word was spoken by Jesus. We as humans cant even document something that happened ten years ago right let alone a two thousand years.
Am I supposed to believe that God kept it whole, but don’t that interfere with mans free will? What if man changed these stories to make them better ot take away some things. How does that account toward them?

What about the ones who say that some of the gospels were used to make another?
Or something llike that.

Sorry for so many questions.

Thank you.

Hi Mary Ann,
The first Christians after Jesus’ death were all Jews, most probably didn’t read and write, so they learned about Jesus and his teachings orally. They memorized teachings and the words of Jesus and passed them on, starting with the aposltes and passed down to their successors. This oral transmition is called tradition. The first written words were probably written by Paul in letters that were written to the many Christian communities that he helped establish. Paul probably wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians in 50-51 AD, less than 20 years after Jesus’ death and ressurection in 33 AD. This is a relatively short
period of time to put some of Jesus’ teachings on Papyrus. The Gospels were probably written between 65-95 AD, the first being written during a time when there were many people who might have known Jesus and were still alive and could have refuted them if it was not true. All the books in our current New Testament were probably written between 50-100 AD. The eastern and western Churches used different books at different times, but the canon was probably standarized by 367AD, with most of the eastern and western Churches agreeing (through give and take) on a canon. The canon was not offically closed until the Council of Trent in the 16th century.

The other Gospels that you mentioned are Gnostic gospels and were not excepted as scripture by the early Church. I believe most were written much later. The Gnostics were deemed heritics by the old Church.

I think you can have complete confidence in the Catholic and mainstream Christian Bibles that are published today. Though we do not have any of the original manuscripts from the first century, we have thousands of fragments, and some whole books from about 125 AD through the fourth century AD. The early Christians were very careful to faithfully copy their manuscripts. Thought there will always be slight variations, the main message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the same. And we also have the tradition of the Catholic Church for two thousand years (which the Bible evolved out of) to fall back on.

 

[Snerticus]

It sounds like you were possibly watching the History Channel. If that’s so, then I would advise against watching any non-Catholic channel regarding the history of the Church, but most especially the History Channel. They have a bias against Christians in general, but Catholics in particular.

 

[roanoker]

Just to add a word about oral tradition. Probably 90% of the people in the Mediterrean basin in the first and second centuries were illiterate. People who are illiterate as a culture have amazing memories for the spoken word. I saw this myself while working with the montagnard tribesmen in Viet Nam. They grasp things that are told them so quickly it is stunning. The people of the new testament times were like this. Consequently, oral tradition can be and usually is quite accurate among illiterate people. I think the words of Jesus and the deciples that were eventually written down are in all likelyhood extremely accurate. Roanoker

 

[Snerticus]

Just to add a word about oral tradition. Probably 90% of the people in the Mediterrean basin in the first and second centuries were illiterate. People who are illiterate as a culture have amazing memories for the spoken word. I saw this myself while working with the montagnard tribesmen in Viet Nam. They grasp things that are told them so quickly it is stunning. The people of the new testament times were like this. Consequently, oral tradition can be and usually is quite accurate among illiterate people. I think the words of Jesus and the deciples that were eventually written down are in all likelyhood extremely accurate. Roanoker

Agreed.

 

[bullfrog654]

i agree illitrate people like me even understand taxes and may not collect them here but choose to collect them at yahoo because my spirtual money is being used to tax my real money

 

[Ron_Conte]

My question is how do I know that the bible is what it is supposed to be?

The Bible has been vetted by being used for many centuries by many devout Christians throughout the world. The Living Tradition has examined these books and found them to be the inspired Word of God. The Magisterium of the Church has continually taught that the Bible is inspired by God. The Magisterium of the Church has continually taught all the faithful from Scripture.

I mean it was an oral tradition for so long how can we believe that it remained unchanged?

The Bible was not first an oral tradition. The Living Tradition gave rise to the Bible. But the Bible did not pre-exist in oral form before being written down.

 

[bullfrog654]

wasnt the bible orally inspired by the manipulated practices from midevil day for the church to prove how powerful it was in the midevil days

 

[Newbie2]

First, I am really struggling to hold on to my faith.

I saw a program that said that the when the bible was canonized that Constantine had an agenda in putting the bible together. My question is how do I know that the bible is what it is supposed to be? I mean it was an oral tradition for so long how can we believe that it remained unchanged? There are so many contradicting gospels with Mary Magdalene, peter and Thomas. It is very confusing. It is impossible for me to believe that every word was spoken by Jesus. We as humans cant even document something that happened ten years ago right let alone a two thousand years.
Am I supposed to believe that God kept it whole, but don’t that interfere with mans free will? What if man changed these stories to make them better ot take away some things. How does that account toward them?

What about the ones who say that some of the gospels were used to make another?
Or something llike that.

Sorry for so many questions.

Thank you.

What I think might help you are two considerations:

1. That the bible is merely words…words of the Lord, no less, but words. What is important is the meaning of those words.

Let’s say there is a mistake in translation; that’s not a stretch since there are many versions of the bible available, some identical passages in different versions reading quite differently. But the important thing is what YOU get out of reading it, or hearing it read.

Unless one is a biblical scholar, the ultimate effect of those words on those pages on how you think, feel and act in your faith life is what is important, not which words are on the page.

1. Those words were written by humans over the course of hundreds and hundreds of years. They were inspired by God. The writers didn’t go into some sort of trance and transcribe some divine mental-rays from the Almighty. So there are inconsistancies. Keep in mind that the Gospels were written tens of years later after the actual events happened. Jesus didn’t have a secretary taking down all his important words.

There are several theories as to the possible collaberation of sources for the Gospels of Matt., Mark and Luke. Try to think of it as three eyewitness accounts of the same events. You and I and Phil over there see an accident. Forty years later l write about it, except maybe ten years before you wrote about it, and I read your report. My memory isn’t as good as yours, perhaps, or vice-versa, and our accounts may or may not differ. Phil cannot remember diddly, so he depends on your version and my version of a particular part of that accident to jog his memory.

Lastly, it’s a matter of faith. The Bible is not a history book, although it contains historical information. Start by trusting that this is the word of the Almighty, and the answers will fall into place.

wasnt the bible orally inspired by the manipulated practices from midevil day for the church to prove how powerful it was in the midevil days

 

[Mary_Ann_1]

Jesus talks in parables, is that how he really talked? Was it just Jesus who talked that way or everyone?

 

[EphelDuath]

Jesus talks in parables, is that how he really talked? Was it just Jesus who talked that way or everyone?

A great deal of the Old Testament appears to be intended as allegory, especially Genesis. Note how God had to ask Adam how he knew he was naked and God had to come down and see Babil. Obviously, if he’s omniscient and spiritual, he wouldn’t need to “go” anywhere or ask anything.