May 29, 2006
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Cover Up
Do you think the early church would cover up unfavorable information and present the Bible that gave their version of the truth?
Do you think the early church would cover up unfavorable information and present the Bible that gave their version of the truth?
Comments (172)
1st
Probably. It’s human nature to do things like that.
No I dont think so, I thought everyone was going by the bible
yes i think so. government does it all the time and the church was like a government then. they made rules, laws, and controlled everything.
4th
of course.
I’m not religious so I wouldn’t know!
no man!! TOp ten
no TOP TEN
mmhmm.
nope
ahah you’ve read or watched the da vinci code recently
ehhh….who cares
nope
no
Hopefully we have more faith that that.
no
!~nicole~!
The Catholic church will change anything for what they think is their benefit.
But God would not have allowed His word to be altered. THAT He would protect so that we could know the truth.
It is a possibility of something that could happen. The problem with that theory is that in the earliest form of the church, there wasn’t a specific, organized government in control. Each area had their congregation with their leaders and such. It wasn’t until later that a church like the Catholic church came up. Would the early church try to hide this information? I don’t think so. They would confront it, as you can see in many of the letters in the Bible and early church leaders. To try to hide it wouldn’t solve anything because the people who are passing around the ideas are still alive and spreading them. Covering it up and just sitting there with fingers in your ears going “La la la, I can’t hear you” wouldn’t do a thing. I could probably rant on this for a while, but that’s a pretty good start.
no i dont think so
mabye
I believe the Bible is God inspired, and not just man’s attempt to shed good light on themselves. If it were that, I think Peter would have been less….flawed. He’d have made sure that he was painted in a much better light.
Marcion tried that with creating his own canon of the bible in the 2nd century. This caused the official canon to be created to prevent people from changing the bible. The bible we have is due to the prevention of people changing it to fit their own personal theology.
no
nope, becaue if thet would we would have found out by now
Maybe. From what I’ve studied, there were a lot of conferences, meetings, and social divisions over what the “orthodox” version of the Bible / Christianity was going to look like in the beginning. But also keep in mind that there was a lot less cynicism about religion back then, so I don’t know that they were “covering up” anything to be malicious. From what I understand, it was more like rearranging things to try and get the philosophy and organization of the church down. Just my take on things.
nope
Yes
I think they would change the truth so the content is in thier favour.
Yes, I would guess that this has been done.
Most definitely–they already do!!
yes, i do think they are capable of it…
The “early church” as in the, “new testament church?” NO, I don’t believe they hid anything. If you’re talking about the Church of England, who knows what the heck they did…
yes, to an extent. Spin wasn’t invented by Fox news
definitely. There were some people who really didn’t have good morals, and would do anything for power.
Obviously.
x__Stephany
Chances are that if there was evidence they were wrong they wouldve just adjusted the religion accordingly so theyd have a better position to get money from if they were the kind of people who would cover stuff up, besides it’s impossible to believe that happened when you look at just how many manuscripts we have, it wouldve been impossible to supress it.
It’s sadly possible, perhaps even probable. There is corruption everywhere.
Yes, because that’s what every writer of the Gospels did. Notice inconsistencies, ie, shepherds at Jesus’ birth in Mark and kings at birth in Luke? Every gospel isn’t an interpretation of Jesus: I can’t trust any single one as hard fact.
it is possible.
It’s a possibility. A good possibility.
If King Henry could alter the church so he could divorce, it’s a possibility they altered other things to fit their needs.
For football_ninja44, the kings weren’t at Jesus’ birth, they showed up about two years later. You have to read it closely to understand that.
Human nature, yes. Early church, no. The Holy Spirit was directing the church and the scriptures.
If you are referring to the Gospels of Thomas, Mary, etc., scholars have proven that these are 2nd century writings. There is only speculation and conspiracy theories concerning a cover up.
No doubt about it!
For one thing we read nothing about the childhood/adolescents of Jesus. In the Bible. Where did it go!?
Honest theologians agree and acknowledge that the Bible has been changed more than once to reflect the current “agenda” of the church. Lessee…the word Masturbator for arsenokoites being changed to homosexual, for instance.
Shalom!
Everyone likes to cover up unfavorable information, but I don’t think that played a part in the formation of the Christian scriptural canon.
It would be hard for the biggest religion in the world to be covering up so much ground. In something studied and read about so much, don’t you think it would have been uncovered long ago. I also agree with what RvL1978 said.
No, not a chance.
Well, what does history tell us? (DaVinci and Dan Brown aside
)
WAIT YOU MEAN THE CHURCH HAS LIED BEFORE
OMGZ I’M SO DISILLUSIONED
YOU MEAN THE POWERS THAT BE MISINFORM THE PEOPLE TO FURTHER THEIR OWN AGENDA
That’s it man.
My idealism is gone.
Ehh…I’m really not too sure on this one.
no
No, that feat could not be pulled off under the scrutiny of the early church’s opposition, regardless of today’s “armchair” theologians’ opinions.
they didn’t. read your bible.
absolutly!
wait… I just actually read that clearly. (sorry, my brain was elsewhere…)… yeah, I think they would, and I think they have… but not in the ”normal” churches… I mean it happens in the heretical type churches that pose as being Christian.
yes, but only because they really did have the truth and they presented the bible as objective truth. anything not truth is left out. i happen to agree with them. oh, and the books they chose are the most historically accurate. amazing, isn’t it?
Not the early church per se’ but Constantine would and he had a pretty firm grip on the bishops.
But by the time of Constantine, much of what the Bible is and Christianity in general was already developed and not easily changable.
yes, absolutely.
yes.
Too much DaVinci Code shyte all over the place! Argh.
Yup. Of course.
The people of the early church were just human, yes?
Then definitely.
The only good thing about that book was that I read it to keep my relatives from bothering me. And the only good thing about the movie was Ian McKellan. Man…that guy is HOT. If he wasn’t gay and about 60 years older than me, I’d date him.
The scariest thing in the movie wasn’t the creepy monk. It was Tom Hank’s mullet.
absolutely. even though the church is “the church,” it is still not perfect and is shady in its own right.
Hey, that sounds like the government!
It wouldn’t surprise me. But I’m sure its something humans still do.
Just early church?
The Canon was sealed before most of the gnostic gospels were written.
Notta. We had an interesting speaker at church yesterday, talking about the Da Vinci Code and the line in the books that says that history is written by winners. He referred to the book of Daniel. Daniel prophesied to the king of Babylon – not even going to try to spell his name – that there would be I believe 4 empires after his, and there were. He even prophesied a Greek empire – at a time when Greece did not even exist. Of course, this happened. His point was, history was not written by the winners, it was written by God and he is in control today.
If you want to read a good book check out, The Gospel According to the Da Vinci Code, by Kenneth Boa and John Alan Turner. This book is more concerned on how and why people in society today could believe the things written in Brown’s book. With discussions on relativism and post modernism, they bring up some good points.
For people who say that it is “Just Fiction” please read a sampling of the 5 star reviews on Amazon and see just how many people do believe what is written in that book. They believe it to be well researched and the truth. Dan Brown himself believes it, check out his website. When Brown is asked what he thinks about critics that are out to disprove the conspiracy, his answer is something to the effect of “We obviously disagree.” That is why Christians are talking about this movie and book. It is not “just fiction” it does give the wrong perception to alot of people. It is not only the right, it is the duty of Christians to try to clarify the truth to those who don’t know what it is.
Alot of people see that the truth is relative to what each person deems as true. This can’t be. If an apple is an apple for me, it can’t be an orange for someone else. Therefore, for Christians, the truth is that Jesus Christ is God. This means that if he is God – which the evidence is pretty strong that he is, then there isn’t any other savior and yes, ALL of the other religions are wrong. It’s not a matter of Christians being intolerant, it’s a matter of truth.
OK, I’ll shut up now!
I think the early church had errors because they were human. But anything recorded in the Bible I believe is totally true. And as you probably know, that whole thing with the Da VInci Code is just drudged up heresy. Back then they were called Gnostics. And I think Paul, or someone even addresses it in the Bible. The “Book of Judas” is also a gnostic book.
anyway, you have an interesting site…I think I’ll subscribe to you…
duh
Nope. I agree with RagazzaBella5.
they’ve done it before. Purgatory, scrips, Vrigin Mary, saints. The list is endless.
tough issue…if you mean “early” church as in the assembly that existed during the era of the new testament, then no…they were already being hotly persecuted for their beliefs, so what would be the point in covering anything up? noone would ever live and die so boldly to cover up something that was a mere lie.
but if you mean the early church that was responsible for canonizing scripture, i would only go so far as to say they later got into a habit of misinterpreting what they canonized (i am of course referring to what became the catholic church)…the canonization wasnt a means of “covering anything up,” but was a reasonable process of uniting all the common beliefs and writings already held by the Assembly…and differentiating what was made up (such as Gnostic beliefs). if they had tried to cover anything up to make it more appealing to others, then Scriptures would encourage everyone to be worldly, and not demand what is impossible of every human soul…perfection, and selflessness.
That depends on wich early church you are refering to. In the early days of christianity there were many versions of the religion, some of wich havent survived. I really like this topic though. The history of the early church is facinating, just as long as you dont get to caught up in all the concpirecey theorys with no basis in fact, and all the biased and inacurate information that is often pushed on us as fact.
NO
Its more than a maybe. Read the Christ Conspiracy you would be suprised at all the things they covered up and copied from old religions.
no… they had no reason very early on to hide anything… The first four gospels would have some mention of a relationship if there was one. The early church had no reason to hide anything…
i believe God is bigger than we can imagine. i believe that His word is exactly that. and i believe it contains exactly what he desires. human’s cannot contain God.
THE CHURCH SUCKS
None of us truly know…
Yeah
If they accepted it, i think the church would’ve adjusted their beliefs accordingly. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have included it. simple enough. For example, i wouldn’t go including the recently discovered Gospel of Judas if i didn’t think it was right… No need to cover it up though.
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There’s no need for speculation on that. Naturally, that is exactly the process which occurred, well documented in most cases. Otherwise the Bible would contain nifty books like Judith, wouldn’t it?
I just read Judith in Anglo-Saxon class, it’s fun.
*sigh*
The church is not beyond anything… Simply since it is a product of man… The church was not made by god…
If the church is capable of inspiring 4 crusades that resulted in the rape, robbery, manipulation, and murder of millions of people of all kinds of religious background
If the church is capable of establishing itself as a political power rather than a spiritual one to the point where the pope was once considered the strongest man in Europe capable of directing armies
If the church can lead to an inquistion…
If the church is capable of having priests prone to deviant behavior…
Then it is possible for an organized religion to decieve…
All of what I said above was only a few of the countless things that were inspired and committed by man in the name of religion and for the sake of ambition or desire… I don’t think its possible to completely rule out the possibility of a massive lie committed by the early church especially since it is again, a product of man… flawed and vulnerable to human nature… as well having been more or less in existence for two millenia… it would be impossible to know whether there was such a lie made two thousand years ago
aboslutely NOT
Yes.
I don’t even feel the need to explain this one, they’ll cover up anything.
of course.
what government or church etc. wasn’t corrupt in the “early” days. Besides, I doubt anyone could question “the truth” back then, it was all – here is what the “truth” is and thats final.
I don’t think it was the early church that did it. I do believe the destruction the gnostic gospels occured around 300 AD. During that time period, yes. However, the time between Christ and then, no.
I don’t know about their motives, but there is evidence that there is more than one version of many books, some with significant doctrinal differences. With entire sections of some books either added or deleted, you can’t help but wonder about the story behind it. The same goes for varied translations where a word is implied to have one meaning in one version and another meaning in the next. Many of the scribes making copies of letters, etc. were not professional scribes. Inaccuracies were commonplace. It is a wonder we have any semblence of agreement at all.
Yupp, but I can’t say too much considering I’m Jewish.
Man is capable of that sort of thing, but God is more capable of preserving His Word.
That’s pretty erronious an accusation on many levels. For one, the Bible is no man’s self-glorifying work. It is the inspired word of God (2 Tim. 3:16). Therefore, unless you’re going to call God a liar — which, by definition, would make Him not God…
Secondly, if that was their intent, they did an awful job of it. Look at the Corinthian church, especially the middle of 1 Corinthians. They were ALL messed up!
Definitely
I am certain that the church chose the correct gospels and letters and excluded those that were incorrect. I firmly believe that God led the early church in making these decisions.
To answer your question though, yes. The church promoted the gospels and letters that it felt were correct and discouraged the reading of those that were not. This is akin to historians discounting the publications that state that the holicaust never occurred and endorsing those that state the truth.
That may have been possible, considering the amount of corruption within the early chuch. Although, that really doesn’t matter now because our spiritual leaders, in my case the pope, act through the holy spirit. And if the Bible is just a bunch of crap the early church made up, they would know have realized that by now and would have rewrote the true story.
2 Timothy 3:13 beside the Bible is its own best commentary! I also agree with Jesus_Freak_58 if there ws anything unfavourable it would have come up long ago!
No, there were too many witnesses to the events that took place still alive. Many who were not part of the church would have been quick to point out the inconsistancies. Also, the early church had far more immenant concers shuch as just surviving the purges that were taking place in the Roman Empire.
yes
Sure, especially if they benefitted from it.
Yes, of course. It’s simple marketing. For those who think the Church would never do anything wrong…Crusades. Inquisition. Witch hunts. People do bad things in the name of their God all the time.
Of this I have NO DOUBT! The church is the original government.
No, and I say that because if it were true it must not really matter. Because I think that God would have in some way done something about it at this point in time. And whatever he would have done would have been big enough to realise. And even if it were true it could have only been something that is simply not realivant enough…like it would have had to be on a subject that didn’t matter when it came to real life and death.
So no. We would have found out by now anyway.
No, and I say that because if it were true it must not really matter. Because I think that God would have in some way done something about it at this point in time. And whatever he would have done would have been big enough to realise. And even if it were true it could have only been something that is simply not realivant enough…like it would have had to be on a subject that didn’t matter when it came to real life and death.
So no. We would have found out by now anyway.
No, and I say that because if it were true it must not really matter. Because I think that God would have in some way done something about it at this point in time. And whatever he would have done would have been big enough to realise. And even if it were true it could have only been something that is simply not realivant enough…like it would have had to be on a subject that didn’t matter when it came to real life and death.
So no. We would have found out by now anyway.
No way, the Author would not allow it.
This whole Da Vinci Code controversy is getting old. What section will you find this book under? FICTION. Talk to anyone who knows church history, and they will tell you that a lot of the book is conjecture. As far as the Catholic Church editing the Bible- yes, I believe it could happen, because it did. If you’ve heard of the Gospels of Thomas or of Judas, these are works that were taken out- because they were not considered to be divinely inspired. There were several sects that branched off from early Christianity, such as the Gnostics, and many of them were cults that misunderstood fundamental Christian ideas. They read the existing gospels- the records that had been written down by contemporaries of the first Apostles or their successors, as they preached them- and rewrote them according to what they thought really happened. Some of these new gospels preached, among other things, the evil nature of humanity, suicide as the preferable path, and male superiority. So yes, whoever the large council of old guys was who considered what should go in the Bible, they took out the stuff that was clearly a misinterpratation.
Wow, who knew my boring church history class would actually come in handy?
the early church would not have “covered up” anything because the other side would have published and fought against it. all of the early heresy trials are proof of that > one side waged war with the other and eventually a consensus was realized… they waged war in heresy trials… they published tracts and treatises… they had rival factions fighting in the streets… but cover up is not what they were about.
the truth was too important to alter, and there were other methods of determining which was God’s truth.
as far as the Roman Catholic church is concerned, that church was still part of the greater church centered around Constantinople until around 1100 CE, not at all what i would call the ‘early’ church…
they probably would just to get what they want
and the Gnostic gospels were discredited in heresy trials because they claimed that there was a select elite who had ‘secret” knowledge from God that was not available to regular Christians… this went against everything that Christ had stood for… so those gospels were not destroyed ,but were discredited…
just as Kaballistic teachings in Judaism rely on hidden knowledge, and its followers are seen as part of an elite that knows “more” and “more truly” than mainstream Judaism, or the Sufi sect of Islam, the same is true of the Gnostics in Christianity…
the reason certain books made it into the Bible we know today is because those were the books that most Christians throughout the world used… a representative sample was taken to make the canon the most comprehensive and most representative of the teachings of Jesus as passed down to the early church
I think they probably already have. And no, I’m not talking about the Da Vince Code controversy.
No.
[ariana]
Nope. The wrath of God would come down on their heads if they did.
Yes. They were a budding faith and they knew they wouldn’t last long unless they did something about it. They forged several documents of a bureaucratic rather than theological nature. Take The Donation of Constantine for example. It was a document from the Orthodox Patriarch at the fall of western Rome that gave the Pope the spiritual authority over religious and temporal institutions. It was proven false during the Renaissance. Forgot the name of the critic. I’ll have to look it up again. I took a course of European history and it was in my textbook. The book was called European Civilzation (by Jackson Spievegel). I turned the book into my school last week but anyway…if you can’t trust the bureaucracy you can’t trust the theology.
I think it’s been changed…pieces left out, pieces added in, whole books burned….There’s evidence that was done in the early orthodox church to stamp out the gnostics. I think man is perfectly capable of destroying just about anything he wants if he doesn’t like it and it doesn’t help him meet his own wants.
I don’t think God would have somehow stepped in and prevented anything from going too wrong, either. I think that God created the universe, set his toys into play, and watches it all on a big screen TV, essentially.
And if we’re going to go with the whole “God let the gnostics be stamped out because they were wrong” thing….then why do we have their gospels popping back up again? Obviously God didn’t do a good job of getting rid of all of them…
i think they would, and i think they did. i also think much of the language of the bible has been distorted by translators-probably some of whom had their own agendas to promote. not to mention the writers of the bible themselves-they were human and therefore had their own biases which can be seen in their writings if you look closely. that being said, the bible is not absolute. i think it contains absolute truth, but the bible as a whole is not absolute or inerrant.
Why on earth would they not?
i believe they show the truth in a type of way we would see as a good thing
yea
“No, there were too many witnesses to the events that took place still alive.”
Weren’t some of the gospels not even written down untill a couple of decades (if not lifetimes) after Jesus passed away? People act as if the Bible was written all at once, when it’s really a conglomerate of various writings collected over time. Many of the stories were passed down by word of mouth and only written down a long time later.
If they suck. Supa talking to you Dan.
Yes. The fact that there was much resistance in publishing the Bible or conducting services in language that the population might actually understand is a sign of that.
hahaha yeah they would hide it!!! Why live in self gratification, sexual indulgence and moral freedom when you can pretend to have a standard that restricts your life from the “fun stuff” all the while knowing that your purpose is made up and there’s no reward later!?
If you read the New Testament you’ll find a whole bunch of problems that arose in different churches and people. If they tried to cover them up, they did a lousy job of it.
Becker
ya, of course. I mean, the story is always told the way the winners want it. just look at any history text book. Let’s face it, the Bible was written by people, not faxed to earth directly from god. and people always have an agenda. let’s look at it this way — in the time before Christ, Homer’s “Odyssey” was considered divinely inspired in much the same way the Bible is viewed now by its followers.
Wow such a diversity of answers… but who’s right? (That’s a rehtorical question- in my eyes) I think faith that can be shaken by a book sold in the fiction section and labeled as such is little to no faith at all. I have searched high and low for truth and I fight and serve so that people are not killed for their belief in Christ or for weraing shorts in Baghdad… I am appaled at how we use our freedom for our selfish desires. The bible is most deffinately the unaltered word of God and the change in my life is proof to that.
If you think about it, the church, early or otherwise, is already telling it’s version of the truth. Does God exist, and if so, what are His plans for us?
I was listening to a liberal talk show on the radio last night and the host kept bashing Republicans, conservatives and Christians. (On a side note, it’s interesting that these are always lumped together. Can’t you be just one of the three without being the other two?) The topic was embryonic stem cell research. He was using the argument that since embryos are being DESTROYED all the time in the process of In-vitro fertilization and no-one seems to care about that, then it’s wrong to complain about using embryos for stem cell research. (That is a good topic in and of itself)
The point I’m trying to make is that He was using his INTELLIGENCE to dismiss the SUPERSTITION of believing in GOD. It’s an argument that you hear all the time. “If you can show me proof of God, then I believe.” is another comment you hear alot. The question is, whould they? If I could prove right now that God existed, would that cause everyone to believe in Him? I don’t think so. Think of the stories in the Bible. God interaceted with them, performed miracles, TALKED with them and that STILL wasn’t enough for them.
Each of us will learn the TRUTH only after we die. And that is only true if there IS something after death.
I don’t think the members of the early church blocked unfavorable information. Think about the people described in the Bible already. Think of all the sins and flaws already describing the ‘main characters’. Wouldn’t the early leaders be shown in a more favorable light than how they are if it was being altered?
Good question. I think it is possible that an attempt was made to do something like that. But I think that God will protect His word and make sure that the truth is presented even if man attempts to dillute or distort it.
It is a faith thing.
L,r
there has been a lot of research done on the bible and it’s authenticity
one of the important things considered was motive
why would people go through so much just for a lie?
if the bible was in fact a lie, and the early church lived by it,
why?
people in the early church were persecuted, tortured, etc. in crazy ways like
fed to lions, stuck on poles and used as lamps
why would they endure through that for a lie?
because the lie was that fun? to see people believing in a lie?
humans might have a tendency to lie, but not over life
also, in the early church, it wasn’t a government like church
i twas a fellowship of people. meeting together, having relationships with eachother
and helping others live through life
so, in short, they could’nt find a motive for people to make up the book and/or the religion
RagazzaBella5 got it right.
i hope not.
well if you think about it, every word in the bible was inspired by God, every word…
so i doubt that the early would take out parts of the bible to cover up such things. all you have to do is look as far as genisus to find stuff that doesn’t seem to make any sense at all; genesis 9: 18- 28. here noah gets drunk and his son sees him naked, so noah curses his son’s sons. still to now i have not been able to come up with an explanation from any theologian. but did they take this out? no. because the bible is just as much a book to help as live a “christian” life as it is a book of history. taking apart of history out, leaves us with an incomplete picture of that story or time.
therefore none can be added or taken out of this book.
Yes, they do, and we have scholarly evidence and studies on this already.
I think that depends upon what you mean by “the early church.” The apostles and early disciples would probable not cover anything up. I don’t think the selection of which books to include in the bible represented any kind of coverup either. But by 800AD, the church was into some bad stuff that it would cover up. Is that still early?
I do and they did. It’s all about propaganda and spin. The church wants sheep who sit mindlessly in the pews and drop cash-filled envelopes into the baskets.
Way to ask difficult questions to lots of people who don’t know the right answer…
You’re asking about the early church? Like, pre-500 AD? Then no, the church wouldn’t keep secrets from its followers. Now, once the pope and the church government started to come in, the church began to keep all sorts of things secret — including the Bible!!! Fortunately, people like Martin Luther infiltrated the corruption of Catholicism and managed to translate the Bible into the common tongue, so every literate person could read it. Ever since, the church as a whole has kept no secrets.
I think the question presupposes a church organization that was unified in thought and action. Reading into the history of early Christianity shows otherwise. In some cases, such as the rejection of the “not the same but similar substance” Christology of Arius, the majority of the church was definitely unified; of the roughly 300 bishops who took part in the First Council of Nicaea, at most five counted themselves on the side of Arianism. (To be blunt, Dan Brown completely misrepresents this, as well as many other things, in The daVinci Code.) On the other hand, the disagreement on the “filioque clause,” only about 60 years later, was a large part of the Great Schism that split the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.
My point is, to picture the early church as some sort of giant monolithic secret organization is, well, silly. I would probably agree that the RCC became secretive (and attempted to become monolithic) over the centuries, but the only reason we’re tempted to picture the early Church that way is because, frankly, we don’t know church history very well.
To bring Dan Brown back into it again: that’s how he works. He takes areas of knowledge in which the average reader is likely to be ignorant (and unlikely to look things up on their own) and makes those his playground. Take his earlier novel, Angels and Demons, for example. At one point, as the Robert Langdon character chases the shadowy Illuminati, we “learn” that the Latin words NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM on the back of the dollar bill mean “a new secular order.” Of course, if you bother to pull out your Webster’s Dictionary, or even use the online version, you’ll find they actually mean “a new cycle of the ages.” But how many people bother to check?
To be fair, nearly all authors of fiction take liberties with the truth — IIRC, Ursula K. LeGuin once wrote that “all writers are liars.” Fair enough — except Dan Brown insists on page 1 of each novel, and on his website and in his talks, that so much of what he writes is based on “documented fact.”
I’m an open-minded guy, and I follow the philosophy that one should not attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. Yet I find that to believe Dan Brown is merely someone’s dupe takes rose-colored glasses thicker than I can comfortably wear.
Weren’t some of the gospels not even written down untill a couple of decades (if not lifetimes) after Jesus passed away? People act as if the Bible was written all at once, when it’s really a conglomerate of various writings collected over time. Many of the stories were passed down by word of mouth and only written down a long time later.” – mightymarce
The gospels were written around 40-60 AD, mostly 2 or 3 decades after Jesus died. The Old Testament was passed down in very small part by word of mouth, but that wouldn’t seem so incredible if you realized that everyone back then could quote the entire thing, so there wasn’t really much room for error.
Jesus worked with the erarly church to remember him, with the very words that he had spoken. It was so important to condense everything. Jesus told them that the new scriptures that were being written in the form of letters, would be put in the Bible for generations ahead to read. To tell the truth was something that Jesus told them to do. However, he indicated that anything else that he had not identified as scripture to be written down, would never be included. He went around, meeting people, dressed in disguise, introduced to people of high degree, as James.
“I think it’s been changed…pieces left out, pieces added in, whole books burned….There’s evidence that was done in the early orthodox church to stamp out the gnostics. I think man is perfectly capable of destroying just about anything he wants if he doesn’t like it and it doesn’t help him meet his own wants.
“I don’t think God would have somehow stepped in and prevented anything from going too wrong, either. I think that God created the universe, set his toys into play, and watches it all on a big screen TV, essentially.
“And if we’re going to go with the whole “God let the gnostics be stamped out because they were wrong” thing….then why do we have their gospels popping back up again? Obviously God didn’t do a good job of getting rid of all of them…” – Merlin
Ah, where do I start? The Gnostic Gospels weren’t eye-witness accounts. They didn’t show up until well after the deaths of the people whose names are on the documents. Also, the don’t all agree, and they don’t agree with the original Gospels. Therefore, they were rightly marked as heresy and fakes. There are an insane number of problems with Gnosticism. Also, God interacted with His universe a lot…HOW DO YOU THINK JESUS GOT HERE?!? God has His reasons for everything. Questioning His actions is dangerous.
> Not a doubt in my mind. It still happens today in a few churches I’m sure. We all want to be right, but too bad, someone is bound to be wrong. (ghosting Walter Chronkite) ‘and that’s the way it is’…….
Peace
the bible is true, jesus did not get married…it says in the bible that the church is his bride, not mary magdaline..and there is no blood line, the DaVinci code is wrong on many levals…
I think the modern Church is covering up, mostly unintentionally, truths known to the early church (namely Christian Universalism, but others as well)
When you consider that nearly all of Jesus’ apostles were martyred for sharing the good news of Jesus, if it wasn’t true- they would have politely denounced him. But that didn’t happen. They knew that Jesus was their Lord and Savior- and the church grew from their witnessing.
I think that they’d at least make the story they gave us have as much truth as they could possibly put in there, and that if they did cover up a story, they’d have really good reasoning to. I mean, they wouldn’t just go around telling us the wrong stories for nothing or telling us the wrong stories because they’re prejudice in some way. It’s the Vatican. You’d think they’d moved past predjudism.
Just read Angels and Demons.
And the things made up in the Bible are things that were changed usually out of predjudice because it was written by all men, but the Vatican would never do that.
Yes, because it is in human nature to do so. Also, Bibles were copied by hand back then. It would be VERY easy to make mistakes or alter what you are writing. Lastly, not everyone could read back then, so the majority of the people would not know the Bible was reforming & changing.
I would also like to add that things like Christmas were not originally Catholic. Christmas used to be a pagan ceremony/feast which celebrated the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Pagans used to make wreaths with green branches to symbolize the circle of seasons, a tradition we now view as Catholic. You see, the Catholic church integrated these things into their culture, just using different reasons (Christmas celebrating Jesus Christ’s birthday instead of the coming of Spring) so that pagans would be more willing to join the church.
Sorry about the last comment about people not knowing what the Bible said. I was not aware that they had it ALL memorized in their head. That’s really interesting!
DavidbivaD writes:
there has been a lot of research done on the bible and it’s authenticity
one of the important things considered was motive
why would people go through so much just for a lie?
if the bible was in fact a lie, and the early church lived by it,
why?
Um, assuming that question qualified as research, it would be the sloppiest research ever, because it posits, unstated, an untrue dichotomy: either the early church was lying or the events described in the Bible are true.
What if… the early believers were just… wrong?
Personally, I think it takes more faith to believe in such a successful elaborate coverup than it does to believe the Bible.
I think that the church in its early years was just as corrupt as it is now. this means that the leaders at the time may have wanted to present a more unified view of jesus than what was present in all of the books at the time. this led to the creation of the Bible and of the Apocrypha.
The question should not be “would” they, for men are capable of any level of misdeeds.
The question should be “could they”? Could men possibly to keep the Truth of God’s Word hidden away like an adolescent boy hides a Playboy magazine under his mattress?
The answer is “no”.
All histories have biases. I’m sure they covered up some things.
Definitely.
I’m an agnostic person so I can’t really say lol.
-elizabeth
It really doesn’t matter if I think so or not, because it’s obvious that is what took place. There are scores of books that were simply left out, such as the Gospel of Nicodemus and the Apocalypse of Peter. The various councils held by the Roman Catholic church determined the canon, and there has even been some alteration since then.
The Catholic church–what the Bible calls the “Great Prostitute”–did. It perverted the Bible, as well as Christianity in general. That’s why I’m a die-hard Baptist evangelist.
yes.
Duh. It makes them money.
This is a very touchy subject. After reading and seeing The DaVinci Code, many people will rethink their faith in the early church and possibly the bible. I for one, belive that “covered up” information could merely be a possibility. Of course, there are millions of theories on this subject. Though I’m always up for a debate for either sides, it’s the curse of an open mind.
yes
The question really should be, “Is your God big enough to clearly communicate His truth? Even to preserving it from human adulteration if necessary?” What would it take for Him to do that? Can we know whether He did or not? How?
Who cares?
Seriously, though, the answer to this question can be found by simply looking at the bibles used by Protestants and Catholics today. The Catholic Bible has at least one more book than that of the Protestants… If the Church can justify it now-a-days, with the church somewhat ‘organised’ then They surely could have done it then.
There is also plenty of evidence found that leads to this, but still, I must go back to my other comment and say who cares? If the church did remove something, it was either a: unimportant, or b: damaging or considered false. Either way, it wsa removed for a reason.
I wouldn’t call it a cover-up exactly. I think it would be more of a compromise, so that the religion was acceptable and appealing to everyone. Honestly, I wouldn’t doubt it if they had done such a thing. However, assuming that you’re most likely referring to “The DaVinci Code,” I don’t think that’s something they would try to cover up. -shrugs-
Of course! The only reason religion exists is to control people.
Definitely.
That’s what the early church did! Then Martin Luther realized what they were doing, researched, and posted his 95 Theses.
The early church:
The first-century church guided by the original twelve and Paul and others: no
The third and 4th century early Catholics: Yes
Enter the Apocrapha and other writings.