h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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The Bible was not re-edited at the Council of Nicea. What the Council of Nicea defined was the Creed, not the Scriptures.

The Scriptures were set very early on; the Muratorian Canon (c.200 AD) lists them, and although a few books are missing, there is none additional.

There are original fragments of the Gospels that have survived burial in the sands from long before the Council of Nicea: editing would not have affected them, and they are basically the same as the ones we use now.

Hi Andrew,

"The Bible was not re-edited at the Council of Nicea. What the Council of Nicea defined was the Creed, not the Scriptures."

and

"although a few books are missing, there is none additional."

What is the removal of a few books (or paragraphs or passages as is indeed the case) if it is not editing?

There is no question that the Bible WAS edited at the Council of Nicea: at least one whole gospel and numerous passages, particularly those relating to Jesus' relationship with Mary Magdalene, were removed.

F

Hi F

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What is the removal of a few books (or paragraphs or passages as is indeed the case) if it is not editing?

The Muratorian Canon, which is a list of books, is not complete, but breaks off towards the end. Hence the missing scriptures. As regards the Gospels, there are (of course!) only the four. No other was ever accepted as canonical.

When were the Scriptures decided? Constantine had nothing to do with the process. The Muratorian Canon is the earliest list. The next time we find one is a letter of St Athanasius dated 367 AD, and it is identical to the one that we have. But Nicea had nothing to do with that either.

There are plenty of Christians who wrote before the Council of Nicea. Their commentaries quote the Gospels at times, and they quote them as we know them.

This sort of thing appeals to the conspiracy theorist in all of us, but there's no evidence of censorship. There is no evidence of an order from Constantine. There is no mention of such an order from any writer of the period, or even later centuries.

In any case, even if all copies of the scriptures had been tracked down (an impossibility) and altered, it would not have affected those copies that had already been lost. Many have now been found by modern archaeology, and they teach the same doctrine as later copies.

I'm afraid that your conclusion doesn't follow from the premises, Insight. You've forgotten about rotational movement and Newton's Bucket. Quite why rotation takes place in a different spatial frame from translational motion eludes me, but this view appears to be part of the 'standard model' of physics. There are those here, I believe, with knowledge enough to correct me if I'm wrong.

toxx

Hi Andrew

So, as we always seem to do here, we return to the origins of the modern bible.

I'm sorry Andrew, but their origins are utterly irrelevant. It is the fact that sometime between the second and fourth centuries CE they were fossilised, petrified if you prefer.

At that point christianity died and the rule of the church really began.

Controversial moi?

Blessings,
Matholwch /\\.

Hi Math, and thanks!

I think any variations after the beginning of the second century are very minor. The versions of the Bible we read today are without them as modern biblical criticism has detected and corrected them.

anyway most, possibly all, of the experiments demonstrating fast-than-light stuff have had limitations.

In the commonly quoted laser pulse one, for example, the average point of pulse travelled faster-than-light/backward in time, but the front of the pulse didn't.

Mixing quantum and relativistic always causes problems.

I think it may be the act of observing (bouncing something off of) the entangled thingy where the information is actually transferred. Uncertainty principle and all that. After all you don't know from entanglement what state its going to be in, only what state it isn't going to be in. Je pense.

Matholwch,



I never claimed to be an expert on any religious matters. I doubt many if any people on here are, as even after many years of study people still can’t claim to know about all things religious. I have a smattering of knowledge of the religion of Christianity, and I believe after discussing with other people I know the basic and fundamental concepts. I think that this basic knowledge gives me the right to be able to discuss and debate the fundamentals. However if I am ever factually incorrect please feel free to correct me, and thereby educate me.

<“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” A classic line and a scene that still brings a lump to my throat (old trekkies don't die, they just beam up). However, it is irrelevant to the argument as it involves voluntary self-sacrifice, not deliberate infliction of pain and fear.>

Yes a classic line indeed! Oh and I love your line about old trekkies never dieing! The reason why I used that particularly example is that although in the context in which Spock said it, it was about self-sacrifice, I believe the same rule can be applied when making very difficult decisions! This means making the decisions that will result in the least deaths. I know I am bringing peoples lives down to pure maths and their maybe other factors involved (such as children should take priority over all others and that torture to get information is wrong), but this rule seems to make logical sense.



I would agree with your sentiment in principle and I wouldn’t try to stop you! However I would say death is too good for some people! I rather put them on trail (to ensure you get the right people!) and see them live in a small cell (ideally solitary confinement with no privileges) in a prison for the rest of their lives!

Sorry if this all makes no sense (no changed there you might think), but I wrote it in a rush!

Take care,

Pete

Alternatively, you might send the signal towards its destination and also four years ahead in time. That way you'd get round the speed limit (or would you?). Perhaps this very example is a reductio ad absurdum of the idea of sending things forward in time faster than is normally the case.

Come to think of it, this idea wouldn't help unless you also sent yourself four years forward. Tricky innit?

toxx

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I keep hearing about this "re-editing" especially here on this thread, but no one ever goes into any detail! What was done, when, by whom, and how do you know? (This is a genuine question...)

Thank you Andrew, I had asked a question of Fathom about this very thing (the Council of Nicea) and you've answered it!

I'm not an expert on the Council of Nicea, but then I don't have to be since other people have done the work for me:

A307487

A933914

F

It's quite something to come across an entry about the Council of Nicea that doesn't mention the Nicene Creed, or indeed any of the council's twenty canons.

Neither does the entry mention Arianism, the proximate cause of the council. You can find out about it here: A958494

So what is with this Holy Trinity thing?

Is there One True God or is it Two True Gods (God and Christ) or Three True Gods (Father, Son and Holy Ghost) or even Four True Gods (Father, Son, Holy Ghost and Satan)?

And do you dispute the content of the entry on Nicea, Arianism notwithstanding, or do you accept that the bible was indeed edited in 325CE?

F

Thanks F:

I would say something like the following :

1) The entry on the Council of Nicea has the wrong title: it is not about the Council of Nicea. You would learn very little about that council from reading it, apart from the date and place.

The Council of Nicea was held in the year 325 because around the year 320, or a little earlier, an Alexandrian priest called Arius began to teach that 'the Word once was not', or in other words that Jesus was not God in the fullest sense. This contradicted the general belief, but caused a sharp controversy, and Constantine called the council to settle the dispute. Several bishops attended from outside the Empire (e.g. Persia), and it is thought that Constantine was probably working in concert with the Bishop of Rome, Sylvester I.

Constantine tended to support the Arians (the followers of Arius), but he recognised the authority of the bishops, who affirmed the traditional teaching that Jesus was God. From this council we have the Nicene Creed, which is the ancestor of the creed that Christians profess today, the council resolutions expressed in 20 canons, and a letter attached as an annexe. The Council of Nicea did not touch the Bible, as is evident from an examination of the council resolutions.

2) The books of the Bible were defined (or re-written) neither at Nicea nor by Constantine. The re-writing theory seems to demand that an order came from Constantine, but there is no evidence of one, either first-hand or second-hand. Neither is there evidence of systematic editing or censorship from archeological finds, contemporary citations, etc.

On the wider issue, there is no evidence that any books were ever accepted as Scripture that are not part of the canon today. Instead there appears to be unanimity as regards the four Gospels from at least as early as the time of Irenaeus (c.125), and the other books of the New Testament were accepted at various dates. Constantine played no part in any of this.

3) On the belief that Jesus was God, you can find evidence for this [belief] all over the place in the New Testament, and in the various commentators of antiquity such as Ignatius of Antioch, Tatian, Tertullian, Athanasius, etc. It is clear enough in all the Gospels and most explicitly the Gospel of St John (required background reading for a discussion like this). Nobody seriously argues that these writings post-date the Council of Nicea.

So much for the charge of editing.

Re the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, we can discuss it if you like, but it's a whole field in itself, and quite separate from the notion that Christians have somehow falsified the Scriptures.

Hi peter

The problem with letting such men live is that their cohorts may use their imprisonment as an excuse to kill more people in order to try to free them. They may also escape, or be released in an unthinking amnesty. or at the behest of a liberal government.

Trials are OK if you can be sure of the result, and they don't lead to a lifetime of appeals.

All this from a man who professes that all life is sacred, and that we shouldn't sacrifice the one for the all.

Hypocrisy runs deep in the human soul .

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Hi Matholwch,
Thanks for replying!

< The problem with letting such men live is that their cohorts may use their imprisonment as an excuse to kill more people in order to try to free them. They may also escape, or be released in an unthinking amnesty. or at the behest of a liberal government.>

Hadn’t really thought of that good point! I totally disagree about releasing prisoners early as part of the peace process in Northern Ireland. They did the crime they should serve the time!



I here what you saying, however the point of a trail is to prove if someone is/isn’t guilty, if the result is predetermined, there is little point in having a trail. I still feel trails are essential, or you will have people taking the law in their own hands and innocent people getting killed through mistaken identity etc. With no trails, the police/army becomes judge jury and executioner (which often happens in a war situation).



Yeah I was going to pick you up on that! Particularly you being ex-service, where you may have had to taken certain action, which could result in peoples deaths. I admire your honesty in admitting your human faults, which of course we all have!

A teacher once told me, many years ago that he would never fight for his country. When I asked why, he said that if every man and women followed his example then there would never be war. – If only we could get everyone to agree!

All the best!

Pete

Peter,I am with you here, and I'm sorry, Matholwch, I just have to disagree with you. Trials are essential if you're going to have executions, adn you can't allow a modern fear of terrorism to allow abrogating the rights of the accused!
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I don't care how idealistic (and therefore *called* unrealistic) what that man said was, I am with him.

Is nothing worth fighting for then, Adelaide?

F

I agree with what Della says about trials (even though she declared me guilty of despoiling her brothers PS without any sort of investigation.

We do need a sytematic non-violent way of dealing with what we see as transgressions and although there may be individual cases where the use of capital punishemtn may be effecaicious I fear, no, I know that when they are put at the disposal of law enforcement bodies they do get over used. In this sense they are similar to antibiotics, Math.

If we used execution more often we might be without Nelson Mandela.

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