Bible Formation – Was it formed by a secular “Christian” known as Constantine?

A lot of people say that Emperor Constantine was the person responsible for calling together church leaders to form the Bible that we know today. But what does history reveal?

It’s been taught in colleges across the U.S. for years that the Bible wasn’t written until at least a couple hundred years after the events happened.  Within the last hundred years or so, that has changed significantly and most scholars, Christian or otherwise acknowledge that the entire corpus of material of what is known as the New Testament was written between 40AD and 95AD.

What is commonly described as being the reason for the council of Nicaea in 325AD?

  • Ask anyone you know that even has a mild interest in Religion or spirituality, Christian or not and ask their opinion as to when the canon of the Bible was created.  (When the books were decided for the New Testament) If you get Constantine or the Council of Nicaea (Nicene Council) or that books fell off a table and hit the ground – with any that didn’t fall to the ground, were decided to be the actual books of the Bible – then this will be a fun exercise to go through.

Dan Brown

  • And Dan Brown in his book the Da Vinci Code said about his book, on the second page, “FACT:” it says and I quote, “all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”
  • Here’s an example of what he means – 
    •  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)

Dan’s account needs evidence. What’s out there? This is an example:

Dictionnaire philosophique – Volume III Councils (sec. I) – Voltaire 1764 – It was by an expedient nearly similar, that the fathers of the same council distinguished the authentic from the apocryphal books of Scripture. Having placed them altogether upon the altar, the apocryphal books fell to the ground of themselves.

Sec. III – We have already said, that in the supplement to the Council of Nice it is related that the fathers, being much perplexed to find out which were the authentic and which the apocryphal books of the Old and the New Testament, laid them all upon an altar, and the books which they were to reject fell to the ground. What a pity that so fine an ordeal has been lost! – VOLTAIRE

This was written by a man named François-Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire a known critic of Christianity and ardent atheist of the 18th century.  The trail doesn’t go cold here.  Looks like the source for his material by all appearances came from a piece which published in 1601.  This piece, the Synodicon Vetus was a translation of a Greek manuscript which has its’ oldest roots around the 9th century AD.

Prior to this 9th century manuscript however, there is no mention of the Council of Nicaea being responsible for the canon of the Bible.  In fact, Clement from the 1st century and many many others would attest to very different corroborated details about the accepted books of the Bible, long before the Council of Nicaea in the 4th century, to which Dan Brown, Voltaire and the Synodicon Vetus all seem to point to. 

Background:

  • It went on to say, “The sole foundation for the statement that the council took action relative to the selection of the canonical from the apocryphal books of the Bible, is contained in a curious little manuscript, written by an unknown Greek author, certainly as late as the latter part of the ninth century, and perhaps later.  This manuscript was brought from the Morea in the sixteenth century by Andreas Darmasius, and it was bought by Rev. John Pappus, a learned Lutheran Diving, who first published it in 1601, in Strasburg, in the original Greek, with a Latin version of it’s own.”

Synodicon Vetus

  • Synodicon Vetus (appears original was Greek) – English: “The council made manifest the canonical and apocryphal books in the following manner: Placing them by the side of the divine table in the house of God, they prayed, entreating the Lord that the divinely inspired books might be found upon the table, and the spurious ones underneath; and it so happened.”

If you have other evidence, bring it. Let’s discuss it. Otherwise, the appearance is that Constantine and the Council of Nicaea actually had nothing to do with the formation of the Bible and in fact, it really just dealt with a false teaching by another man during that time. If you want to know what they did, just go read about it from a real source. Like the translations around the Council itself.