Bible Alterations and Converting the Sun Worshippers.

I want to start this by saying anyone who tries to condemn me to hell, or anyone who tells a Christian they are deluded etc I urge everyone to simply ignore them because I will deem that off-topic. I want a nice clean debate, with some intellectual input. Also anyone who quotes the Bible to disprove my theory that the Bible is an unreliable source is just being oxymoronic.

Now I'm sure this subject has been done to death, but I would like to put my own spin on the old Jesus is a Sun God argument.

I have seen many people use it as proof for Jesus being a myth, for arguments sake on this thread, I would like everyone to assume that Jesus did exist. What I am trying to debate here is not the invention of Jesus, but the manipulation of the Messiah's story.

My theory here is that, considering Jesus as being real, the story of Jesus has been used to convert people to one religion for nearly 2000 years. It is my belief that whilst you (being a Roman Leader) have ultimate power over a vast area of land, especially all the area's where the Romans had an iron foothold, you are free to deal with information and people however you see fit.

Now it's not a ridiculous notion to suggest that during this age of total dominance, the Roman Empire used information to control the population (much like what is done today I might add). I will also add that this was not a literate time in history, alterations to the bible could easily go unnoticed.

I believe the Roman Empire faced a problem, Christianity was snowballing, the Roman Gods were becoming obsolete, and the stranglehold they had over the area was diminishing. Christian men and women did not want to be told what to do by men who worshipped completely different gods, it would be like a Muslim leader telling Jews what they can and cannot do. Something had to be done, they could not stop people being Christian but they could convince other Romans to accept Christianity.

The obvious instigator of this would of course be Constantine.

Emperor Constantine, who was Roman Emperor from 306 CE until his death in 337 CE, used what motivates many to action - MONEY! He offered the various Church leaders money to agree upon a single canon that would be used by all Christians as the word of God. The Church leaders gathered together at the Council of Nicaea and voted the "word of God" into existence. (I wish to thank Brian Show for pointing out in his rebuttal to this article that the final version of the Christian Bible was not voted on at the Council of Nicaea, per se. The Church leaders didn't finish editing the "holy" scriptures until the Council of Trent when the Catholic Church pronounced the Canon closed. However, it seems the real approving editor of the Bible was not God but Constantine! This fact is revealed in the second counter-rebuttal to Brian Show's first rebuttal to this article. This counter-rebuttal makes the following important statement and backs it up with FACTS - "Therefore, one can easily argue that the first Christian Bible was commissioned, paid for, inspected and approved by a pagan emperor for church use."

The Bibles Un-Godly Origins

Constantine managed to unite all of Rome under his rule, because he was the first emperor who advocated religious freedom. Before him, Christians were set on fire and used as 'human torches', especially by Emperor Nero, who would use burning Christians as 'decoration' to light up his gardens.

There is a price to pay for allowing religious freedom, debate and division within your society. Constantine was faced with a problem, he needed to convert his fellow Romans to Christianity and try and spread this as the one true religion. How do you achieve this though? How do you convince people that your religion is the one true religion? Easy, show them that your religion is simply an advanced version of their own.

One of the biggest cults of Roman religion was a cult know as 'Sol Invictus' and funnily enough, they became extinct with Constantine's reign. These were Sun-God worshipping Romans, they worshipped Mirthras, who has many similarities in his story to Jesus's, it isn't far fetched to suggest that to convert the followers of Sol Invictus Constantine suggested that Jesus was Mithras, then provided his altered Bible as proof. This would be a big step in unifying all the religions under his banner and what I believe to be a major part in his success as Emperor.

The cult of Sol was not the only people Constantine had to convince, he also had the Egyptian's who needed to be unified. Which we can see in the vast similarities between Jesus and 'Horus', a god who was the outcome of a virgin birth and has a similar story to Jesus.

Now I also want to just show you how religions have changed to conform with powerful rulers views. The story of King Henry VIII, which is very well known (across England at least), about a King who wanted a Son to carry on his legacy. When his wife would not produce a son, he wanted a divorce. Being a Catholic country this was blasphemy, marriage was sacred! So King Henry was left with two choices, 'suck it up' and not have a Son, or form his own church and re-create his own Bible then force everyone in the country to convert to his new version of Christianity. Being a noble leader, he obviously did the latter and formed a new church.

So it is not impossible, in fact, it is rather probable that the Bible had been used in similar ways in the past. Even if you do not believe the role Constantine may have played, other leaders over the past 2000 years will most likely have tinkered with it.

This is clearly evident in just how many variations of the Bible exist today, there are recorded around 150,000 different types of Christian Bible, all because of translations, mis-translations and alterations to better suit society or a leader.

My message here is not to de-bunk Christianity, my message is that you should not devote your life to an unreliable source, that was written by MEN. Not just any kind of man but POWERFUL MEN.

Give yourself to God, do good, pray and worship God. However, I urge my Christian brothers and sisters to do so in their own way. Worship God in a way that you have discovered through your own experiences with the Divine and not through a book that we all know is likely not the word of Jesus or God.

I will re-iterate, all abusiveness should be simply ignored, no retorts and no explaining why they were wrong, just don't even respond and keep it friendly. Apart form that I welcome all input into this debate.

Jesus Christ in comparative mythology
Astrology in the Bible

Mettā ~

There was much corruption of Christianity, around its adoption by rome, MANY beliefs where pagan and brought in.

Things like the Solstice celebrations, Fertility festivals, Priest being Celibate, Female Acolytes being Celibate(nuns). Hell even many of the "color" schemes of the church afterwards came from some of the pagan worship, much of the Idolatry (saints to replace various gods in roman worship).

There really is too much to name, and is also covered in the Schism of the church during the Protestant reformation (which in my opinion didn't go far enough.

As for the last part on Astrology, the Jewish Mazzaroth is known to be a precursor to modern Astrology and was supposed to be gods method of showing signs in the stars.

ETA:

Ive always maintained, that someone with a bible in isolation.

Would come away with a view of what a "christian" is that matches no Modern example, far to many listen to what their Organized region tells them.

Not what their holy book says.

Reading Acts where the church sold everything to feed, house and clothed its members, where individuals sold everything they owned to help one another.

Flash forward to the Modern american church...

benrl
Ive always maintained, that someone with a bible in isolation.

Would come away with a view of what a "christian" is that matches no Modern example, far to many listen to what their Organized region tells them.

Not what their holy book says.

Reading Acts where the church sold everything to feed, house and clothed its members, where individuals sold everything they owned to help one another.

Flash forward to the Modern american church...

edit on 28-2-2014 by benrl because: (no reason given)

I totally agree, we live in an age where organised religion destroys spirituality.

Spirituality should be sought from within, not from someone else.

I'm not highly-educated in this area, but it is my understanding that the Council of Nicaea only addressed the divinity of Jesus Christ and had nothing to do with doctrine or the books in the bible.

reply to post by sheepslayer247


So they say, would they have really been stupid enough to make it public knowledge?

This is a Jekyll Island kind of scenario.

reply to post by iRoyalty

This is clearly evident in just how many variations of the Bible exist today, there are recorded around 150,000 different types of Christian Bible, all because of translations, mis-translations and alterations to better suit society or a leader.

If this is the core of your argument, it is based on a false pretense.

"150,000 different types of Christian Bible" sounds like something that should be disconcerting. The truth is pretty mundane, though -- because the Bible was reproduced by hand until the Gutenberg Press came on the scene in the mid-1400s, errors in duplication were bound to creep in. However, the vast majority of these errors in transcription are of no consequence -- misspellings, duplicative or dropped words, stuff like that. If you read a well footnoted Bible, you'll see many instances of "some early manuscripts have ____" or "this is based on the most reliable manuscripts" in the notes.

Because there are over 14,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament we can absolutely be confident of its accuracy. With this large number of manuscripts, comparing manuscripts easily reveals any place where a scribe has made an error or where there is a variation. There are approximately 150,000 variations in the manuscripts we have today. However, these variations represent only 10,000 places in the New Testament (if the same word was misspelled in 3,000 manuscripts, that is counted as 3,000 variations.) Of these 10,000 places, all but 400 are questions of spelling in accord with accepted usage, grammatical construction, or order of words. Of the remaining variations, only 50 are of significance (such as two manuscripts leaving out Acts 2:37). But of these 50, not one alters even one article of faith which cannot be abundantly sustained by other undoubted passages.

There are some manuscripts that date as early as 130 AD, very close to the completion of the New Testament. These manuscripts are nearly identical to those dating 900 years later, thus verifying the accuracy of the scribes. (Source)

So the differences wind down to only a handful of known significant issues.

Of these, only two are of any great import:

1. The post resurrection appearances in Gospel of Mark
2. The Comma Jahanneum

Neither of those really have any significance for any political leader, or have anything to do with Jesus being a "sun god".

As I told you in the earlier thread, the Bible was in general circulation throughout the world, including parts not controlled by the Roman Empire by the time Constantine showed up. Eusebius wrote in the Fourth Century that missionaries to India reported that a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew was in use in that country, likely brought there by the Apostle Thomas in the First Century.

So, if Constantine, or anyone, for that matter, decided to revise the Bible in order to achieve some sort of theological or political goal, the entire known world would have to be scoured for copies of the existing Bible, every copy would have to be destroyed and replaced with the "new version", and all of this would have to happen without any remaining evidence -- no copies of the old Bible, no mentions of that text, no mentions of the government action, no protests against it, no one breaking off from the church in order to protect "the real Christianity"…

In other words, such a proposition is obviously out of the question.

Now, as for the other side of things, yes, the church adopted various pagan practices, but not for any insidious reasons. As I say in the introduction to the radio show, "If you want someone to stop doing something, it's more effective if you give them something else to do." The problem for the early church was that some Christian converts still wanted to celebrate the Roman festivals, but they involved sacrificing food to idols, something expressly prohibited by the church, so they offered up their own feast, Christmas, as an alternative for Saturnalia. The difference is that Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, it isn't a revised version of Saturnalia.

As for Sunday worship, the writings of Paul make it clear that Christians worshipped on Sunday (the day that Christ was resurrected) in the First Century, likely to differentiate themselves from the Jewish observation of the Sabbath, so Constantine obviously had nothing to do with that.

reply to post by iRoyalty

Therefore, one can easily argue that the first Christian Bible was commissioned, paid for, inspected and approved by a pagan emperor for church use.

This is a quote from an external source in the OP. They claimed to have facts to support this claim. Could you provide that evidence?

I'm just getting in to these sorts of topics, but from what I have read so far the Council debated the divinity of Christ and produced the Nicene Creed...which was just a way to unite all the different "groups" of Christians.

Supposedly much of the Roman Catholic Sect. traditions and what not, are heavily based off Babylonian mythologies, which is said to be older then Egyptian. Meaning, they practice traditions that are within their own group, that the public don't do. I found this video quite helpful with religious/myth origins.


I could hardly care if Christ was a real person or not, nor if it was a many pagan gods, crumbled into one big one, which actually act a an oxymoron ideology. Christmas was a Greek Pagan holiday, Jesus is seems to be based off some Thor/Zeus persona, while the One God(Jesus, or a mighty spirit that everywhere) can never seem to make up it mind.

Whos the Pagan God now, EH!?

I've been kinda of curious about Islam lately, as to how Jesus is actually introduced in that sect. of Abrahamic Traditions, since they are said to pay homage to Jesus. Also, Islam is much older then Christianity, and could easily rival that Judaism origins in age.

Maybe both group of leaders had to get a long, or at least try to control people. Even if they hated each other.

reply to post by Specimen


Uh....

Islam was created *after* Christianity. Mohammed was influenced by Jewish and Christian schools of thought. The story goes that he sat in a cave and wrote down what the angel Gabriel told him.

Zoroastrianism is probably one of the, if not oldest monotheistic religions still practiced today.

MystikMushroom
reply to post by Specimen

 

Uh....

Islam was created *after* Christianity. Mohammed was influenced by Jewish and Christian schools of thought. The story goes that he sat in a cave and wrote down what the angel Gabriel told him.

Zoroastrianism is probably one of the, if not oldest monotheistic religions still practiced today.

Exactly right Mystik,
Islam was founded in the 600's AD. Christianity was founded.....hmmm....when was that again?.....oh right...at "0".

When you look at how long America has been around....and then how long after Christ was born that Islam was founded......puts into perspective just how long that is.

My bad.

Added:Actually Just came across this video to make up for some damaged pride. Not sure about it credibility and if it 100% proof. No need to go past 2:22, it just music and subtitles. Except for 7:45, where it goes into a comparison of Jewish dailiy prayer, christians(which i don't think they are, unless they actually are) and something about Karite(whatever) Jews praying.


And I've seen Muslim pray in a similar fashion. Again, not 110% about the video, and I don't have the attention span.

reply to post by Specimen


Which is why many feel the Roman Catholic church is the "whore" of Babylon in revelations, drunk on the blood of the saints, who made fornication with the worlds leaders, etc.

With things like the Crusades, inquisition, its a church responsible for killing its own.

Also has a seat on the UN, theres more that tie the RCC with the description given.

reply to post by benrl

With things like the Crusades, inquisition, its a church responsible for killing its own.

How were the Crusades, an effort to retake the Holy Lands from the Muslims, "killing its own"?

Also has a seat on the UN, theres more that tie the RCC with the description given.

Vatican City (an independent nation) is a non-member of the UN with observational privileges. See: United Nations Permanent Observers

reply to post by benrl


Yea, I'm somewhat familiar with the whore of Babylon depiction, as well how the E.U/RCC was supposed to be something of a beast with many heads, with crowns on each of them, except for one, the Lil horn. In a myth. creature depictions, sounds much like a Hydra, which is the main beast depicted/symbolized as the beast of revelations.

adjensen
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

This is clearly evident in just how many variations of the Bible exist today, there are recorded around 150,000 different types of Christian Bible, all because of translations, mis-translations and alterations to better suit society or a leader.

So, if Constantine, or anyone, for that matter, decided to revise the Bible in order to achieve some sort of theological or political goal, the entire known world would have to be scoured for copies of the existing Bible, every copy would have to be destroyed and replaced with the "new version", and all of this would have to happen without any remaining evidence -- no copies of the old Bible, no mentions of that text, no mentions of the government action, no protests against it, no one breaking off from the church in order to protect "the real Christianity"…

In other words, such a proposition is obviously out of the question.

Entirely out of the question? We see that govts are quite talented at suppressing the truth and manipulating people today. It would have been much easier then. You mentioned protests. Seriously? Any protester would be burned on a stake. People would willingly bring their "outdated" bible to the big bible burning party. As for people breaking off and trying to protect the real Christianity, the Cathars come to mind. But again, they were eventually hunted down and burned alive.

iRoyalty
Christian men and women did not want to be told what to do by men who worshipped completely different gods, it would be like a Muslim leader telling Jews what they can and cannot do.

Both Muslims and Jews worship the same God of Abraham.

But your point is still completely valid, regardless of example semantics.

So it is not impossible, in fact, it is rather probable that the Bible had been used in similar ways in the past. Even if you do not believe the role Constantine may have played, other leaders over the past 2000 years will most likely have tinkered with it.

This is clearly evident in just how many variations of the Bible exist today, there are recorded around 150,000 different types of Christian Bible, all because of translations, mis-translations and alterations to better suit society or a leader.

My message here is not to de-bunk Christianity, my message is that you should not devote your life to an unreliable source, that was written by MEN. Not just any kind of man but POWERFUL MEN.

I would caution throwing the baby (Bible) out with the known dirty bathwater (mankind's intentional misinterpretation of the Bible to suit the will of the powerful).

You are 100% correct in your OP, regarding the history of the early church, how it was hijacked and twisted to resemble ancient Sun God worshipers and the Counsel of Nicaea is the primary time at which this shift was intentionally made by Rome.

The original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew languages recorded in scripture are still available today. Correct interpretations can be reached by addressing the original text and by the power of God's spirit coming in the flesh of the individual in God's church.

You did an excellent job at proving the modern invalid interpretation of scriptures found in the Bible used present day to manipulate billions into believing that which is not true according to the Word; however to suggest it is the Bible as the "unreliable source" rather then the individual people/leaders/pastors who are interpreting scripture falsely is not accurate.

It is the people who are to blame for misinterpretations, not the source material which still remains perfect as originally written.

The current English interpretation of scripture was written and modified by powerful men to control and define their will.

The original scriptures were written by the Word of God (the Spirit of God coming in the flesh of one called out of the world to live according to the perfect will of God).

Blame selfish mankind as the "unreliable source" of information, not divine revelation from God to mankind for a great purpose.

God Bless,

reply to post by Tucket

As for people breaking off and trying to protect the real Christianity, the Cathars come to mind. But again, they were eventually hunted down and burned alive.

And yet… you know about them.

Saying that the Bible was changed in any meaningful manner in the 4th Century or later is a ridiculous notion. Unless Constantine had a time machine and could go back and alter the texts in the First Century, there is sufficient historical evidence that the texts that we have today are pretty much the same as the ones that the Early Church Fathers wrote about in the First and Second Centuries.

sheepslayer247
I'm not highly-educated in this area, but it is my understanding that the Council of Nicaea only addressed the divinity of Jesus Christ and had nothing to do with doctrine or the books in the bible.

Read the Catholic Encyclopedia where they admit the only authority for the changing of Passover to Easter (doctrine); 7th day Sabbath to Sunday (doctrine); establishment of Christmas observance (doctrine); weekly communion rather than annual observance (doctrine); priest/nun celebacy (doctrine) etc. all come solely from the divine power of the Pope (Pater of Rome).

All of these doctrines were established at the Counsel of Nicaea.

God Bless,

adjensen
reply to post by Tucket

 

As for people breaking off and trying to protect the real Christianity, the Cathars come to mind. But again, they were eventually hunted down and burned alive.

Saying that the Bible was changed in any meaningful manner in the 4th Century or later is a ridiculous notion.

The truth, sometimes is unbelievable.

And a time machine you say?..hmmm..yes yes, damnit! Thats how he did it!

reply to post by ElohimJD

All of these doctrines were established at the Counsel of Nicaea.

Nope. The only one you got right was Easter, and what they decided was which day to celebrate it on -- it was an already existing observation.

The policy of priestly celibacy is from the Middle Ages, no one knows when Christmas began, but it probably was before Nicaea, Christians had been worshiping on Sunday since the First Century, as noted in the writings of Paul, which also note that the Eucharist ("communion") was a weekly observation.