A simple challenge for atheists

[dyresand]

No one knows, or if they do, they haven't chosen to share that info with me.
People used to chalk the weather up to gods, simply because they didn't understand.
We shouldn't make the same mistake with how our universe came to be.

Roxy well religious people and preachers always say pray and your answers shall come to you. Or they say keep coming back you will get your answers. Religion gives you more questions and no answers. You won't get your answers following blindly i found mine through logic and reasoning. Logic first only to find out its a bunch of bullshit and i had to reason with my self to dump the guilt i felt i had with it.

[bob96]

Where did you get the belief that the bible was created in the 4th century AD???

In the early days christians were following a rag tag collection of contradictory texts and oral traditions. It had gotten so bad that action needed to be taken. So they convened a committee and selected from the myriad sources the ones that:

A: Told a more or less coherent account and

B: Told the account that the committee wanted to tell.

This was the council on Nicaea convened by Emperor Constantine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

None of the purposes of the council that you refer to in the Wikipedia article are actually mentioned. It seems you are getting your ideas from somewhere else.

The article actually states:
"A number of erroneous views have been stated regarding the council's role in establishing the biblical canon. In fact, there is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council at all.[66]"

[goodwithoutgod]

In the early days christians were following a rag tag collection of contradictory texts and oral traditions. It had gotten so bad that action needed to be taken. So they convened a committee and selected from the myriad sources the ones that:

A: Told a more or less coherent account and

B: Told the account that the committee wanted to tell.

This was the council on Nicaea convened by Emperor Constantine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

None of the purposes of the council that you refer to in the Wikipedia article are actually mentioned. It seems you are getting your ideas from somewhere else.

The article actually states:
"A number of erroneous views have been stated regarding the council's role in establishing the biblical canon. In fact, there is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council at all.[66]"

Creation of Old testament.

Today we know that the Judean priests cooked up/assembled Genesis for political reasons in Babylon as a text for reference for the return, to provide a national story and a legal system for a basis for the return. They did it around 575-550 BCE, in order to promote political unity during a crisis caused by the exilic experience in Babylon, after having written the book of Job, (as an attempted "spiritual" response to the question of suffering). While the "Persian Imperative" is now discounted by scholars, it was probably on the right track in some ways, i.e. the unification of the warring priestly class with the Yahwist land owners into a unified, post exile state. In any case in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah it describes the Return from Babylon, with Ezra carrying two things, ... the letter from Artaxerxes giving him and the King the power to rule in his name, and the Torah of Moses --- the first time in human history what is now the beginnings of "The Bible" (The Scroll of Moses), are ever mentioned.

Using the fact that archaeology has proven that the domestication of camels did not occur in the Ancient Near East until after 1000 BCE, the fact that camels have not been portrayed on pottery, ceramics, buildings and decorations earlier than 1000 BCE, (except on royal buildings), we know they were not a regular, general part of their culture. That and the fact that the Sea Peoples (aka Philistines) did not arrive in the Levant until about 1200 BCE tells us that the dating of any possible Genesis as real history is impossible before that. We know from location citing, that the Patriarchs were not related, and that the priest-authors invented the "family" of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, meaning that the Patriarchs are mythological, as well as unrelated. Camels were used in the Southern trade route to Arabia, where they transported the gum, ointments, tragacanth and labdanum mentioned in Genesis. The trade was at it's height around 700 BCE, making it the approximate likely date for Joseph, in case he ever existed. That being said, he was probably a myth as well.

How do we know that? Because Genesis is a conflation of J-1, the Yahwist-1 source, with J-2, E, and P. The "4 source hypothesis" was originally proposed by the French phsyician Jean Astruc in his monumental work, published in 1753, which forever changed our view of the Bible and the way it was written. His discovery forms the basis of present day scholarship by every mainline Biblical Studies department in the world and is confirmed by most scholars, including Dr. Cuthbert Simpson, who was Sub-Dean and Professor of Old Testament at the General Theological Seminary, in the US, in his chapter of Albright's Interpreter's Bible.

The most important early historical person we know of in the history of Isra-EL is Deborah. She organized the tribes (Judges 5) in combating their neighbors. Judaism should therefore rather be called Debra-ism. She is the Mother of the Nation and actually existed, whereas Abraham did not.

Jean Astruc noticed that the name of God alternated in the Genesis text and he and scholars in the years to follow, were able to figure out what the probable source documents were. They separated the ones that were used by the Judean priests, who combined the J-1 (Yahwist doc) with J-2 and E (Elohim doc) and added their own P (Priestly) material. There is also evidence for further work, which is called "R" for "redactor". This multiple source "hypothesis", has been accepted by scholars for hundreds of years, except for a very small radical fringe of fundamentalists who refuse to accept the facts that are lying right in front of them. The reason Abraham was created as "Father of the Nation", is that he was associated with local geographical sites from the Kingdom of Judah. The Judean priests were trying to centralize and give importance to their own location in Judah by making Abraham hold primacy of importance, thus giving Judah, (and themselves) primacy. This is all proven by the archaeology. There is another theory which proposes that since J is more concerned with women, women's issues and more sensitive to women, that at least one of the major authors of J was a female. Dr. Richard Elliot Friedman does not discount this. In fact, in his book "Who Wrote the Bible?", written in 1987, Dr. Friedman raised the question of whether or not J was a woman. In comparing J with E, he pointed out that the J documents originate from the Judean court, "from a circle in which both men and women had a certain status. The possibility of J being a woman is thus much more likely than with E. More important, the J stories are, on the whole, much more concerned with women and much more sensitive to women than are the E stories."

This became what is known in Biblical scholarship as the Source Hypothesis, or Documentary Hypothesis. There is no longer any dispute in scholarly circles about this hypothesis. Why ? Because it it confirmed by 6, independent sets of supporting evidence.
1. The linguistic dialect in each source is known, and can be documented as separate by decades, or longer.
2. The terminology for the same idea, person, object, or place is different in each source.
3. The content of each of the sources is different.
4. The "flow" of the story works if the source materials are combined.
5. The same known sources are similar or connect to the same known sources in other books.
6. The inferred political motivations for each source matches the material and it's apparent goals.

A lot of the J traditions came from Sumeria, the Enuma Elish and the Gilgamesh Epic. They were used as sources for the Creation myth and the Flood myth.


Compilation of the New Testament

The assemblage of the New Testament is a very interesting process and a highly complex one. It can, however, by summarized relatively simply as follows.

Various Christians wrote books explaining the history of the Christian Church (including Gospels about the life of Christ and more general histories such as the Acts of the Apostles) and letters addressed to specific communities and persons (such as the letters of Saint Paul) and also what are best considered to be “open letters” (such as Hebrews). There were hundreds of different documents circulating around, all of them purporting to the authentic Christian teaching and accurate history and doctrine.

However, many of these documents were not what they claimed to be – they were forgeries not written by the people whose names they bore, or were heretical documents advancing novel notions about Christ. Some of these documents have survived today – examples are the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Thomas. Neither of these documents were written by their alleged authors – they are late forgeries designed to cash in on the success and popularity of Christianity.

Out of all these hundreds of documents – many of them forgeries – the current 27 book New Testament appeared. This process took a long time – roughly 300 years went by from the writing of the last book of the New Testament (Revelation) until the list was finalized.

The list was compiled by the bishops of the Catholic Church. Initially, local canons were assembled by individual bishops. These canons were lists of books which could be read aloud in Churches at Mass. Despite the fact that these canons were independently assembled they bore a great deal of similarity to each other – because the Catholic bishops were all using the same criteria to determine which books should be included. They looked to see if the books were written by an apostle or someone who was reporting the words of an apostle. They checked to see how much the book was being used by other bishops and priests in their Masses, and also looked at how often the book was quoted by the Church Fathers in their writings. Only those books which “scored” favorably on all three of these criteria made it into their canons.

In the early fourth century Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire and it became possible for the bishops to meet without being imprisoned or killed by the pagan authorities. Beginning in the late fourth century and continuing until the very early fifth century the Catholic Church met at a number of councils where the canon of the Bible was debated. Since Emperor Constantine made christianity the official religion, and banned all others under threat of death, it spread quickly...

That work better for you?

[bob96]

None of the purposes of the council that you refer to in the Wikipedia article are actually mentioned. It seems you are getting your ideas from somewhere else.

The article actually states:
"A number of erroneous views have been stated regarding the council's role in establishing the biblical canon. In fact, there is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council at all.[66]"

Creation of Old testament.

Today we know that the Judean priests cooked up/assembled Genesis for political reasons in Babylon as a text for reference for the return, to provide a national story and a legal system for a basis for the return. They did it around 575-550 BCE, in order to promote political unity during a crisis caused by the exilic experience in Babylon, after having written the book of Job, (as an attempted "spiritual" response to the question of suffering). While the "Persian Imperative" is now discounted by scholars, it was probably on the right track in some ways, i.e. the unification of the warring priestly class with the Yahwist land owners into a unified, post exile state. In any case in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah it describes the Return from Babylon, with Ezra carrying two things, ... the letter from Artaxerxes giving him and the King the power to rule in his name, and the Torah of Moses --- the first time in human history what is now the beginnings of "The Bible" (The Scroll of Moses), are ever mentioned.

Using the fact that archaeology has proven that the domestication of camels did not occur in the Ancient Near East until after 1000 BCE, the fact that camels have not been portrayed on pottery, ceramics, buildings and decorations earlier than 1000 BCE, (except on royal buildings), we know they were not a regular, general part of their culture. That and the fact that the Sea Peoples (aka Philistines) did not arrive in the Levant until about 1200 BCE tells us that the dating of any possible Genesis as real history is impossible before that. We know from location citing, that the Patriarchs were not related, and that the priest-authors invented the "family" of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, meaning that the Patriarchs are mythological, as well as unrelated. Camels were used in the Southern trade route to Arabia, where they transported the gum, ointments, tragacanth and labdanum mentioned in Genesis. The trade was at it's height around 700 BCE, making it the approximate likely date for Joseph, in case he ever existed. That being said, he was probably a myth as well.

How do we know that? Because Genesis is a conflation of J-1, the Yahwist-1 source, with J-2, E, and P. The "4 source hypothesis" was originally proposed by the French phsyician Jean Astruc in his monumental work, published in 1753, which forever changed our view of the Bible and the way it was written. His discovery forms the basis of present day scholarship by every mainline Biblical Studies department in the world and is confirmed by most scholars, including Dr. Cuthbert Simpson, who was Sub-Dean and Professor of Old Testament at the General Theological Seminary, in the US, in his chapter of Albright's Interpreter's Bible.

The most important early historical person we know of in the history of Isra-EL is Deborah. She organized the tribes (Judges 5) in combating their neighbors. Judaism should therefore rather be called Debra-ism. She is the Mother of the Nation and actually existed, whereas Abraham did not.

Jean Astruc noticed that the name of God alternated in the Genesis text and he and scholars in the years to follow, were able to figure out what the probable source documents were. They separated the ones that were used by the Judean priests, who combined the J-1 (Yahwist doc) with J-2 and E (Elohim doc) and added their own P (Priestly) material. There is also evidence for further work, which is called "R" for "redactor". This multiple source "hypothesis", has been accepted by scholars for hundreds of years, except for a very small radical fringe of fundamentalists who refuse to accept the facts that are lying right in front of them. The reason Abraham was created as "Father of the Nation", is that he was associated with local geographical sites from the Kingdom of Judah. The Judean priests were trying to centralize and give importance to their own location in Judah by making Abraham hold primacy of importance, thus giving Judah, (and themselves) primacy. This is all proven by the archaeology. There is another theory which proposes that since J is more concerned with women, women's issues and more sensitive to women, that at least one of the major authors of J was a female. Dr. Richard Elliot Friedman does not discount this. In fact, in his book "Who Wrote the Bible?", written in 1987, Dr. Friedman raised the question of whether or not J was a woman. In comparing J with E, he pointed out that the J documents originate from the Judean court, "from a circle in which both men and women had a certain status. The possibility of J being a woman is thus much more likely than with E. More important, the J stories are, on the whole, much more concerned with women and much more sensitive to women than are the E stories."

This became what is known in Biblical scholarship as the Source Hypothesis, or Documentary Hypothesis. There is no longer any dispute in scholarly circles about this hypothesis. Why ? Because it it confirmed by 6, independent sets of supporting evidence.
1. The linguistic dialect in each source is known, and can be documented as separate by decades, or longer.
2. The terminology for the same idea, person, object, or place is different in each source.
3. The content of each of the sources is different.
4. The "flow" of the story works if the source materials are combined.
5. The same known sources are similar or connect to the same known sources in other books.
6. The inferred political motivations for each source matches the material and it's apparent goals.

A lot of the J traditions came from Sumeria, the Enuma Elish and the Gilgamesh Epic. They were used as sources for the Creation myth and the Flood myth.


Compilation of the New Testament

The assemblage of the New Testament is a very interesting process and a highly complex one. It can, however, by summarized relatively simply as follows.

Various Christians wrote books explaining the history of the Christian Church (including Gospels about the life of Christ and more general histories such as the Acts of the Apostles) and letters addressed to specific communities and persons (such as the letters of Saint Paul) and also what are best considered to be “open letters” (such as Hebrews). There were hundreds of different documents circulating around, all of them purporting to the authentic Christian teaching and accurate history and doctrine.

However, many of these documents were not what they claimed to be – they were forgeries not written by the people whose names they bore, or were heretical documents advancing novel notions about Christ. Some of these documents have survived today – examples are the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Thomas. Neither of these documents were written by their alleged authors – they are late forgeries designed to cash in on the success and popularity of Christianity.

Out of all these hundreds of documents – many of them forgeries – the current 27 book New Testament appeared. This process took a long time – roughly 300 years went by from the writing of the last book of the New Testament (Revelation) until the list was finalized.

The list was compiled by the bishops of the Catholic Church. Initially, local canons were assembled by individual bishops. These canons were lists of books which could be read aloud in Churches at Mass. Despite the fact that these canons were independently assembled they bore a great deal of similarity to each other – because the Catholic bishops were all using the same criteria to determine which books should be included. They looked to see if the books were written by an apostle or someone who was reporting the words of an apostle. They checked to see how much the book was being used by other bishops and priests in their Masses, and also looked at how often the book was quoted by the Church Fathers in their writings. Only those books which “scored” favorably on all three of these criteria made it into their canons.

In the early fourth century Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire and it became possible for the bishops to meet without being imprisoned or killed by the pagan authorities. Beginning in the late fourth century and continuing until the very early fifth century the Catholic Church met at a number of councils where the canon of the Bible was debated. Since Emperor Constantine made christianity the official religion, and banned all others under threat of death, it spread quickly...

That work better for you?

No, not really. With the NT, there is no still no mention of contradictory texts, oral traditions, or that they wanted to tell their own version of the account.

I agree completely with the NT account provided.

"Initially, local canons were assembled by individual bishops. These canons were lists of books which could be read aloud in Churches at Mass. Despite the fact that these canons were independently assembled they bore a great deal of similarity to each other – because the Catholic bishops were all using the same criteria to determine which books should be included. "

No Nicean Council involvement. The NT was assembled separately multiple times, and they all came to similar conclusions.

Can you please explain who these scholars are that discount the OT writing process and why they oppose it?.

Isn't it interesting how Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire? They had the best minds in the world. As they conquered nation after nation, they took the best of their weapons and military tactics. They incorporated the Greeks philosophy and logical thinking. They took the best of the best wherever they found it. They had been exposed to many religions, and eventually, they chose Christianity. They were so sure it was right that they banned every other religion.

(Oops. Argument from authority again! : )

This is why the year is "2015". We count the years from the birth of Christ.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

This is why the year is "2015". We count the years from the birth of Christ.

Not quite. The Gregorian Calendar counts years from the year 1 (there is no year 0). Trouble is, we don't know exactly when Jesus was born, assuming historicity. If there was an historic Jesus, cases can be made for his birth being anywhere from 4 BCE to 8 CE.

Boru

[Simon Moon]

This is why the year is "2015". We count the years from the birth of Christ.

And today is Friday in the month of January.

Friday was named after the Norse goddess Freya, and January was named after the god Janus.

What's your point?

[Esquilax]

Isn't it interesting how Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire? They had the best minds in the world. As they conquered nation after nation, they took the best of their weapons and military tactics. They incorporated the Greeks philosophy and logical thinking. They took the best of the best wherever they found it. They had been exposed to many religions, and eventually, they chose Christianity. They were so sure it was right that they banned every other religion.

(Oops. Argument from authority again! : )

If you know it's a fallacy then why are you still using it?

This is why the year is "2015". We count the years from the birth of Christ.

Yes, due to a meddling Pope centuries after the supposed- and curiously unevidenced!- event of Jesus' life happened, not due to some in built mechanism of date keeping.

Oh, and also? In an increasing number of circles we use C.E and B.C.E, not B.C and A.D. So... I guess that's a strike against the existence of Jesus?

[Simon Moon]

This is why the year is "2015". We count the years from the birth of Christ.

I hope you don't believe that the present calendar, the one that dates the present year as 2015, dates back to Jesus' time.

It wasn't introduced until 1582, and it wasn't adopted by over half of Europe until more than a century later. Britain didn't adopt it until 1752.

[goodwithoutgod]

Bob96, christianity is the dominating religion because emperor constantine decided he saw a message in the sky indicating this was the god that would protect him during combat, and after surviving that battle, he decreed it the official religion, banning all others by threat of death.,he then presided over multiple councils in Nicaea.

In reference to the OT and NT, allow me to recommend you a couple books...

Moule, C. F. D., The birth of the New Testament. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. Print

Boadt, L. (1984) Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. New York. Paulist Press.

and these as well..

Lieu, Samuel N. C., and Montserrat, Dominic, Constantine: History, Historiography, and Legend. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.

O'Collins, Gerald, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

all of which are christian scholar textbooks.

In regards to constantine's impact, a paper I wrote on this, cited, peer-reviewed, and published.

Any analysis of the impact of Emperor Constantine on the councils of Nicaea is bound to be one of controversy and debate. It is my position that Emperor Constantine had an inappropriately heavy and undue influence on the various councils that strived to answer various questions of Christianity. We must begin with the immeasurable impact that Emperor Constantine had on the spread of Christianity, and his successful suppression of incumbent Roman pagan beliefs. Legend has it that Emperor Constantine saw two stars cross in the sky, in which he took to be a sign from God that Christianity was the only true faith. Eusebius, in his written work Life of Constantine, claimed that Emperor Constantine had thought long and hard about which God to ask for help in the upcoming battles.

His decision rested on honoring his father’s God alone. He claimed that in his sleep the Christ of God appeared to him with the same symbol that he saw in the sky earlier in the day, and commanded him to make a likeness of that sign, and to use it as a safeguard for all future engagements with enemies (Stewart 67). While his conversion to Christianity in 312 CE was not truly the moment Christianity came to be the official religion of the Roman Empire, it definitely was one of the major contributing factors for its subsequent acceptance.

Emperor Constantine conducted a religious-based crusade against Licinius in a war to rescue Christians on the east from further persecution. In the years 312 CE to 313 CE, Emperor Constantine began a systematic policy in which he gave honors, privileges and financial donations to the Christian church and their clergy. In 324 CE, as the unchallenged controller of the East, he prohibited by Royal decree any cultic activities which until then fell under the traditional religions of the Roman Empire, and this is when the status of Christianity as the official religion of the state and its rulers was affirmed (Lieu 7).

Constantine used his imperial power to protect and support the Christian church. He was a sincere if somewhat simple believer. He knew portions of the Old Testament and perhaps the basic outline of biblical history, and he could summarize the story of the Gospels. For Constantine, God was a providential Judge who supports the righteous and destroys the wicked, and he believed that the church had to be unified if it was going to offer pleasing worship to God. Constantine expended an enormous amount of treasure on churches; it was used both on buildings and, with the emperor’s explicit encouragement, on establishing ministries of mercy to the poor, sick and the widows(Leithart 302).

Emperor Constantine also wanted to end the growing controversy between Arius, a priest in the church of Alexandria, and his Bishop Alexander. Bishop Alexander became concerned when he noticed a growing number of clergy members accepting and encouraging Arius’s views which went against the accepted teachings of the church in regards to the relationship between God and Jesus. Emperor Constantine called for the Council of Nicaea which was considered to be the first ecumenical Council of the church because bishops from both the eastern and western parts of the world would attend.

Emperor Constantine attempted to give the Council of Nicaea an inspiring opening speech designed to bring the 300 bishops in attendance to a focused unity. He even reminded them that Christ had instructed them to forgive one another. “… As soon as I heard that intelligence which I had least expected to receive, I mean the news of your dissension, I judged it to be of no secondary importance, but with the earnest desire that a remedy for this evil also might be found through my means, I immediately sent to require your presence. And now I rejoice in beholding your assembly; but I feel that my desires will be most completely fulfilled when I can see you all united in one judgment, and that common spirit of peace and concord prevailing amongst you all, which becomes you, as consecrated to the service of God, to commend to others” (Stewart 73).

Arius and his followers were in the minority against their counterparts from the West. Both groups presented arguments from Scripture, essentially canceling each other out. Part of the problem was that the scriptural terms used in the debate (such as father and son) were too ambiguous. The Arians exploited this ambiguity, insisting that it is only logical that he father must exist prior to his son. The Orthodox countered that the Arians were taking the analogy too literally (Albl 154). Then the debate began on the specific terminology for the Creed that they were trying to promulgate. They needed to be able to define the son’s relationship with the father in a philosophically precise term.

In the end however, the two sides refused to come to a common agreement over the term Homoousios, which means “of the same substance,” meaning that God the father and the son are not just alike in some way, but that they actually share the same divinity. The Arians wanted to make a small change by adding a letter to make the word homoiousios, which means “of similar substance”. When it was time to finish business and sign the Creed, 17 bishops remained opposed. Emperor Constantine threatened to depose these bishops and send them into exile. Two of the 17 bishops stood their ground and were subsequently deposed and exiled for their efforts (Stewart 73).

How is it possible to affirm that Jesus is somehow God while avoiding the undesirable conclusion that there are two gods? If they adopt John’s language, namely that Jesus is the logos become flesh, is this logos to be thought of as God properly speaking or some lesser divinity? How is it possible, if at all, for Christians to affirm that God “becomes” something when Christians also affirm that God is eternal and unchanging? These questions created conflict and confusion within the Christian movement as it spread across the Mediterranean world and increasingly interactive with Greco Roman culture and thought. Such confusion ultimately led to the need for Christian theologians and bishops to provide a conceptual framework in which to speak properly and consistently about Jesus’ identity (Mueller 121).
Some religious scholars concede that Emperor Constantine not only convened important council’s sessions, but also either presided over them, or appointed a Royal official to preside in his place. This reduced the very role of bishops and councils such as Nicaea and Tyre to utter insignificance by assimilating them to members of the Imperial consilium, whose advice was not binding on the Emperor. All decisions taken at the Nicene Council were made by Emperor Constantine alone, since he could completely disregard the advisory opinions of the bishops whom he had summoned to the Council (Lieu 8).

Other religious scholars contend that Emperor Constantine’s influence was minimal, and that he merely sat in on the councils out of personal interest. “He attended some of the councils and contributed to discussions but did not chair any council or determine the outcome” (Leithart 304). However, when we look at the Council of Nicaea of 359 CE, we see that Emperor Constantine again took a prominent role of control in the theological debate. Once the foundation of Christianity as a predominant religion of the Empire had been successfully established, Emperor Constantine later relinquished some of his control and influence by putting a seal of approval on the rulings of bishops declared at councils. The governors of provinces were not even allowed to rescind what they had decided, for he said the priests of God were more trustworthy than any magistrate (Lieu 10).

The first Council of Nicaea in 325 CE was called together by Emperor Constantine, and it worked to establish a settlement of the issue of the relationship between father and the son. The focus primarily was on defining Jesus Christ as a deity. Establishment of the Holy Spirit was largely unaddressed until after the father and son relationship was settled in 362 CE. After Nicaea, some bishops continued to prefer a term which had been discussed and rejected by the Council: homoiousios, in the sense of the son ‘being of like substance’ with the father. There were other bishops who were antagonistic to the term homoiousios because it was not biblical (O’Collins 184). Seven years later, the Trinitarian terminology was officially adopted after first Council Constantinople. Even Thomas Aquinas acknowledged that some words used in the churches official declarations are not biblical, but insisted that “the urgency of confuting heretics made it necessary to find new words to express the ancient faith about God” (Albl 155).

In its letter to Pope Damascus, a post conciliar synod confessed ‘one divinity, power, or substance’ in ‘three most perfect hypostasesin’ (O’Collins 185). At the Trinitarian level, Constantinople I reaffirmed the Nicene Council confession of faith that the son was ’of one substance’ with the father, as well as teaching the divinity of the Holy Spirit (O’Collins 186). Thus, the official establishment of Christian doctrine regarding the Trinity of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit was initiated. If It was not for the overbearing presence of Emperor Constantine upon the proceedings, to include the threat of deposing any opposing bishops to what he considered to be the way forward, Christianity would not be what it is today.
The councils findings were that God’s very self is encountered in Christ, not just a creature of elevated status, not a proxy. Jesus is the personal manifestation of God in the world according to the Christian tradition. A good analogy would be that God is like the sun, and Jesus is like the sunlight emanating from the sun. The same substance, the same source, and yet different in form and function.

If it was not for the overwhelming presence of Emperor Constantine at the various councils, deposing of bishops with differing views, issuing of decrees banishing all other forms of religion except Christianity, and his political, military, royal and financial support of Christianity, there is a good chance that the world’s dominant religion today could’ve been Mithraism. It is hard to conceive that Christianity would be the worldwide influential religion that is today if it were not for the impact of Emperor Constantine.

Works Cited:

Leithart, Peter J., Defending Constantine. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010. Print.

Lieu, Samuel N. C., and Montserrat, Dominic, Constantine: History, Historiography, and Legend. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.

O'Collins, Gerald, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

Mueller, J.J., Theological Foundations: Concepts and Methods for Understanding the Christian Faith. Winona: Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications, 2011. Print.

Albl, Martin C. Reason, Faith, and Tradition: Explorations in Catholic Theology. Winona: Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications, 2009. Print.

Stewart, Cynthia., The Catholic church: a brief popular history. Winona, Mn: Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications, 2008. Print.

---

This is why the year is "2015". We count the years from the birth of Christ.

I hope you don't believe that the present calendar, the one that dates the present year as 2015, dates back to Jesus' time.

It wasn't introduced until 1582, and it wasn't adopted by over half of Europe until more than a century later. Britain didn't adopt it until 1752.

he may even think jesus was born on 25 december...

[Ravenshire]

Well, I can see that the thread has deviated from the original point. However, I think I'll just leave this here anyway. Maybe Bob will learn something. Always assuming he's interested in learning and not just propping up his ridiculous religion.