Why was the Bible censored?

If "christ was in actuality just a mortal man" who has been deified by the new testament everyone would look foolish for anticipating his return. If revelations was proven false there would be no judgment day and that would mean that "he's not coming back". If "jesus didn't die for the sins of the world" because he wasn't concerned about saving the world but more concerned about the scattered jews in other places, that would mean "he didn't die for you". And last but not least, if "hell was proven to not exist" biblically why would you be bent out of shape about religion anyway?

The above statements are where I stand on religion for now.

[edit on 12-1-2006 by NEGROPOLIS]

[edit on 12-1-2006 by NEGROPOLIS]

YES! The Bible was Edited, MANY TIMES.

There are tons of notable authors that touch on this subject.

The Bible was edited and controlled because of a few scared old men, that wanted to manipulate and dominate the masses.

What better way than through Religion?
We see it today in Terrorist attacks, Persuasive, charismatic leaders can use people's beliefs against them adn for their own 'glory' of 'God' .

Check out these books :
LOST SCRIPTURES
The Blade & the Chalice
Mary Magdelene
AND SO ON................

the lost scriptures is very informative, based on NEW FOUND biblical writings.//////

ROMAN church seeks to control outlet of information on Jesus and the Bible for centuries....

What's new?

Powerful men, and men seeking to be powerful, have always tried to manipulate and control ppl, for their own profit and interests....
See: BUSH
Roman Catholic Church
NWO
Saddam
ETC
ETC
ETC
ETC
ETC
ETC........................................

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Ungrounded rumors, the Bible wasn't censored. The main reason there were writings that didn't make the grade was because they were redundant. There really isn't a big conspiracy about the non-canonized writings, but it is a LOT more fun to make a conspiracy theory!

To piggy-back, if you disagree then go ahead and read the omitted books. If you find any shocking revelations or massively helpful information that was not included in the canonized version, please let me know. I didn't find any. Am I being redundant to what Thomas Crowne said? Then feel free to omit my post if it has already been said. No point in reading it twice, right?

Originally posted by NEGROPOLIS
If "christ was in actuality just a mortal man" who has been deified by the new testament everyone would look foolish for anticipating his return.

More accurately, those who anticipate it would look foolish.

Originally posted by Vinci
Also keep in mind all of the New Testament books coincide with the Old Testament, this is what I believe is evidence of God.

Presuming this were true, why do you believe it provides evidence of a god?

I have read about conspiracies that the Catholic church has hidden under it's skirts, some of the original writings, to hide certain info....TRUE? Anyone?

Greetings,

Originally posted by DigitalGrl
a ecumincal councle met in nicenia to discuss biblical text and the formation of the bible.

This is not correct.

It is an urban myth.

The Council of Nicea did NOT decide anything about the books of the bible.

This claim is often made, which is odd, because it is not true, and the evidence clearly shows it is not true.

The documents (Creed, Canons, Synodal Letter) produced by this Council still exist, you can read them here -
www.newadvent.org...

NONE of these documents say ANYTHING about the books of the Bible.


There are also accounts of the meeting by Theoderet, Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Philostorgius, Rufinus, and Gelasius. (You can read these accounts from Roger Pearse' page below.)

NONE of these writers say ANYTHING about the books of the Bible


All we have is one writer (Jerome) that claims the council discussed the value of the book of Judith - nothing more.


Roger Pearse does an excellent analysis of this false claim here -
www.tertullian.org...

Here is his conclusion -

Pearse - "From these there appears almost no evidence that the council of Nicaea made any pronouncements on which books go in the Bible, with the ambivalent exception of Jerome, or about the destruction of heretical writings, or reincarnation. However it did condemn Arius and his teachings, and the Emperor Constantine did take the usual Late Roman steps to ensure conformity afterwards. However these were not put into effect; and Arianism made an almost immediate comeback. Even Arius was recalled by Constantine."


Regarding the formation of the NT canon, here are some good pages -

Richard Carrier -
www.infidels.org...

Glenn Davis -
www.ntcanon.org...


Iasion

Originally posted by isisinanna
I have read about conspiracies that the Catholic church has hidden under it's skirts, some of the original writings, to hide certain info....TRUE? Anyone?

The history channel had a show that claimed that the catholic church hid nazi war criminals and aided Hitler. It was no surprise when I later read that Hitler was trying to bring the glory days of the Roman Empire back and that he was persecuting feminine gays while he himself was gay only he preferred masculinized homosexuality instead as stated in a speech made by Mussolini. Well what gets me is that the Romans made catholicism and everyone knows that they were outright pedophiles and homosexuals; and even to this day it is still "secretly" practiced while nothing is being done about it. Has anyone read "The Family" by Mario Puzo? It's a true story about a corrupt pope who had his daughter and son perform incest among other terrible things. He killed people and fornicated frequently during his popedom.

Originally posted by NEGROPOLIS
Well what gets me is that the Romans made catholicism and everyone knows that they were outright pedophiles and homosexuals; It's a true story about a corrupt pope who had his daughter and son perform incest among other terrible things. He killed people and fornicated frequently during his popedom.

Do you really view homosexuality and fornication to be in the same category as pedophilia and murder?

Originally posted by spamandham

Originally posted by Excitable_Boy
I have heard numerous stories recently in the news that there were many books of the new testament not published in the Bible because they didn't fit the agenda of the Catholic Church or whatever Christian organization printed the first Bible or close to the first Bible.

Sort of...

If you want to understand why the Bible is what it is, I think it helps to look at early Christianity like you would any other religion that you have no emotional ties to.

It's even better if you do that for the religious position you hold, rather than one you wish to asperse, of course.

From that perspective, the Bible resulted from the various cult leaders basically writing lists of what they thought should be considered scripture, based on the traditions they had been taught as well as the writings of the earliest cult fathers. ...

Nothing in the historical record supports these statements.

So you end up with a hodgepodge of books based on the whims and biases of the cult fathers, where executions or other political force was frequently employed to determine who was right. That approach continued right up through the Reformation, when Catholics killed protestants, protestants killed Catholics and protestants killed protestants.

Leaving aside the varied falsehoods and misrepresentations, one might merely ask why this poster fails to mention the 20 odd million people killed in the last century by people who, like himself, told stories like this?

...but let's not bicker about who killed who, this is supposed to be a happy occasion.

"Just let me make my smear without having to talk facts"? Yuk.

Those who live by societal values are remarkably unable to examine them objectively.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Now, Does it even matter if the bible was edited? Seriously, the only reason it would matter is if you took the bible literally. Which is impossible to do because it would contradict itself. So, if you cant take the bible literally, you'll have to take it figuratively. You can't pick and choose what you want to take literal and figurative. Well, you can but it would be no more right than the other persons view.
After this fact is accepted, you have to ask if someone else is capable of telling you what is literal and what is figurative (usually the preacher thinks they have this privledge). But once again, no one can do this.
Place your faith in God (whoever you want that to be), not in another mans representation of God.




[edit on 17-1-2006 by xEphon]

Iasion,

to respond to your post: the consul didnt put together the books of the bible at that time..they did it after..which i stated. the consul was to establish the nicene creed which was the document that established the basis of how to determine which books on the two lists they made were to be apart of the bible. This you can find in any history book. I know the bible wasnt created at the consul in 325 AD.


kind regards,
digitalgrl

Originally posted by spamandham

Originally posted by NEGROPOLIS
Well what gets me is that the Romans made catholicism and everyone knows that they were outright pedophiles and homosexuals; It's a true story about a corrupt pope who had his daughter and son perform incest among other terrible things. He killed people and fornicated frequently during his popedom.

Do you really view homosexuality and fornication to be in the same category as pedophilia and murder?

My point was that these things were very unbecoming of a pope's behavior. I wasn't trying to categorize his sins into any organizational order. Yet, the bible teaches us that "one sin is no greater than the next", and ALL men have fallen short of the glory of god; therefore the wages of sin is death. But to answer your question, no I do not view fornication to be in the same category as homosexuality and pedophilia, and murder is in a class all by itself in relation to the aformentioned sexual deviations.

[edit on 22-1-2006 by NEGROPOLIS]

Roger Pears: A Truely great quote Sir

I'm sorry to tell you that this 'history' is completely untrue. The idea that the bible was edited, that books were removed, etc, is quite false.

Why do any of us take the time and effort to investigate the Bible and the mysteries surrounding it when all along we should have just asked you.

The Bible was not written, dictated, printed or burned into rock by The Christian God.

It was written by human beings with their own bias, flaws and agendas.

Even if every single word of the Bible is True (which is impossible if you look at the massive amount of contradictions contained within the document ) it still wasn't written by God.

If you believe the bible to be divine then what you are doing is ignoring the wealth of evidence to the contary by using the tool of faith.

Faith is fine if you are an individual who chooses to remain quiet iand content with their own beliefs but if you are entering into a discussion with others then Faith alone is not an adaquate argument.

Present me with evidence that says God had a hand in writing a single sentence of the bible, evidence that is not contained within the bible itself then perhaps we can debate this issue and climb off the Merry-go-round of Blind faith.

Sincerely

St Jude

[edit on 22-1-2006 by StJude]

[edit on 22-1-2006 by StJude]

St. Jude's post was on the money! But I found some more historical interesting facts for those who claim there was no conspiracy on the part of the romans to hide and change biblical teachings.
What may account for the lack of the gospels may have been the burning of the Library of Alexandria by Constantine when 500,000 manuscripts and books were destroyed and stolen by the Roman Empire. Very few early Christian texts exist because the originals were destroyed or "retouched" under Emperor Anastasius (506 CE AD).

At The University of Alexandria in Egypt, there was an immense library founded by the Ptolemies. It was a gathering place for monks and Jesuits to study holy mysteries and inspired legends. It was the place where priests were educated and trained. It had from 500,000 - 700,000 manuscripts collected from around the world. After the Council of Nicea, Constantine ordered the destruction of the ancient texts. The Library was destroyed in 391 AD. The Christian Emperor Theophilus I wanted to hide the truths that exists within other religions. The Christian conspirators went on a rampage destroying books, temples, statues, inscriptions and other traces of previous cultures, eventually leading to immense ignorance and the virtual illiteracy of Christianity.



[edit on 22-1-2006 by NEGROPOLIS]

[edit on 22-1-2006 by NEGROPOLIS]

Originally posted by StJude
The Bible was not written, dictated, printed or burned into rock by The Christian God.

No, but the 10 commandments were . If you negate that there's any spiritual part of God, I could see your point. However, a believer in God believes God works with and through people in a very personal relationship with him/her up to and including direct and indirect communication. If that concept cannot be grappled, there's no way the Bible can be accepted as the Word of God. Therefore to folks who have a tough time with that (myself was included), my proposition is to first gain that very personal relationship with Him and then the answer to this question of validity should be clear.

I'm afraid a few common mistakes have crept into this post. Here's a couple of them.

Originally posted by NEGROPOLIS
What may account for the lack of the gospels may have been the burning of the Library of Alexandria by Constantine when 500,000 manuscripts and books were destroyed and stolen by the Roman Empire.

The destruction of the library is not associated with Constantine. The numbers quoted are very dubious.

Very few early Christian texts exist because the originals were destroyed or "retouched" under Emperor Anastasius (506 CE AD).

Immense quantities of texts exist; pretty large numbers online, at CCEL. I have no idea why poor old Anastasius -- a man with the monophysite dispute on his mind -- should be named here.

It is very easy to allege that texts are corrupted. No effort is ever made to prove it, however.

At The University of Alexandria in Egypt, there was an immense library founded by the Ptolemies. It was a gathering place for monks and Jesuits

The Museum was not a university in the modern sense. I was unaware that the Jesuits had invented time-travel -- their order was invented in the 15th century. Christian Monasticism is not associated with the Museum.

After the Council of Nicea, Constantine ordered the destruction of the ancient texts.

No such edict exists. Probably this is a confused exaggeration of an order commanding the burning of the books of Arius, plus the libel of Porphyry against the Christians, which was made at this time. There is no evidence that a single book was burned; the edict against Porphyry's book was reiterated in 488 AD, which shows that it was still around and common.

The Library was destroyed in 391 AD. The Christian Emperor Theophilus I wanted to hide the truths that exists within other religions. The Christian conspirators went on a rampage destroying books, temples, statues, inscriptions and other traces of previous cultures, eventually leading to immense ignorance and the virtual illiteracy of Christianity.

This appears to be a (pardon me) ignorant and illiterate description of the destruction of the Serapeum (not the Museum) in 391 by a mob, headed by the Patriarch (not emperor) Theophilus. The remainder of the comments are merely hate-speech; pagan literature remained the school curriculum of the Greek Eastern Roman empire for another millenium.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Originally posted by StJude
Roger Pears: A Truely great quote Sir

I'm sorry to tell you that this 'history' is completely untrue. The idea that the bible was edited, that books were removed, etc, is quite false.

Why do any of us take the time and effort to investigate the Bible and the mysteries surrounding it when all along we should have just asked you.

I have no idea why anyone who had an education would rely on my opinion. It's best to find out for oneself, on matters of controversy.

The Bible was not written, dictated, printed or burned into rock by The Christian God.

It was written by human beings with their own bias, flaws and agendas.

Do you know this by (ahem) divine revelation? If not, no doubt you can prove this? I am unclear how you would do this, since I doubt you can define 'inspiration' in any sense that makes sense, but of course you are welcome to try. I have no interest in this purely theological question myself.

If you believe the bible to be divine then what you are doing is ignoring the wealth of evidence to the contary by using the tool of faith.

Faith is fine if you are an individual who chooses to remain quiet iand content with their own beliefs but if you are entering into a discussion with others then Faith alone is not an adaquate argument.

Indeed. I look forward to you offering anything other than this (very stale) repetition of 19th century invective.

Present me with evidence ...

It is one of the depressing signs of blind faith that you demand other people prove things to you. Most atheists silently add the rider, "and nothing you say will prove it to me, I'll make sure of that." Education starts at home.

Now you need to present me with evidence that your religious position -- almost certainly conformity to some subset of societal values -- even needs to be discussed by intelligent people. So far all you have done is repeat some very old and very stupid comments. Why not think for yourself?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

I'm sorry to tell you that this 'history' is completely untrue. The idea that the bible was edited, that books were removed, etc, is quite false.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Sorry to rain on your parade, but the Bible was translated with an 'anti-semetic' flavor to in order to paint the Jews in a bad light.
Th 'Holy Roman' church under Constantine caused a lot of those.
So, Roger, in that sense, the Bible has been edited!
Banjo

Roger, a piece of advice given to me by another (Christian) member about other members on this board:


You can tell them, but you can't sell them.

No use debating people who think you are the "evil Christian out to get them". You can refute the nonsense ALL NIGHT but people will go on, and on, and on.....


Now for some advice from none other than Jesus Christ:



Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Matthew 7:6