A friend who styles himself as “Reverend” on one of his Facebook pages posted this meme as a comment that it was “Pervasive…”

• “The relationship with Jesus sold to people mirrors that of a relationship with an abusive partner, The same mental tricks are used. You're nothing without me, you aren't worthy of my love, you need me to be whole, I can save you, only I know what you need, you must submit to me, if you leave me there will be hell to pay. It's a scam, and an obvious one to a thinking mind.”

I had saw another posting when responding to a thought about heaven, it seemed to me as if he was lukewarm on the idea of heaven. I cant quite understand that. So I wrote:

• The most negative possible spin on so many positive things. Oi vey! If all that is true and all there is to it, why bother at all with bible, reverend, church etc.? You are entirely free, if God, Jesus, and the Bible really is this terrible to ignore them, just have a good life now, and who cares about the after…. Its kinda like refusing to breath because air is polluted. But even that doesnt do justice to this brand of twist….
• sorry Raj, I really do respect your request to have a safe space here, these are obviously issues real people contend with. I have even thought on these ideas myself, noticed the possibilities to say things like this, bride of christ, all that. Weird vain thinking I didnt feel the need to further indulge.
• But I was kinda floored the other day to see you have a “reverend raj” account, and yet made a comment that seemed at best very lukewarm about the idea of heaven. How can this be? The sentiments in this meme, if taken to throw out everything in the Bible that could be related, dont seem to leave much left. For me, I dont entirely agree with the church you left behind, but this meme is such a stretch of misrepresentation of so much, it seems like Satans best way to douse everything associated. What is left to base any hope on?

Someone else responded with a meme on “How You Got Your Bible”, with four sections to it:

1. Constantine and his bishops VOTED a bunch of books AS THE WORD OF GOD (325 AD) (Don't just believe me. Go look it up“)
2. They pick and chose what they want in the bible. Then burn all other pre-christian document that proved the religion was fictitious. (391 AD) (Black Ankhwakening)
3. In order to make the religion popular they kill everyone who dont agree with the new religion and made laws prohibiting any public talk about religion. It was illegal to disagree with the church. (380 AD)
4. But today christians running around with the bible don't know that what they are believing in was purposefully planned out for them to believe by men.

That wasn't quite how the process of deciding on canonicity was described in Bruce Metzger's college textbook on canonicity. So I looked into a few things…..

This was my initial response:

• OK, that is one way to view what happened at the Council of Nicea. (It is interesting the meme doesnt mention the commonly accepted name of that council.) “And his bishops” is rather slanted, at that time Constantine was still in the process of learning and being a candidate for baptism, there was already a pope who was the actual leader of those bishops, not Constantine.

• Those are some rather serious issues just in the first paragraph of this meme. Gives me a very cautious view of the rest of the assertions.

• Dr. Bruce Metzger in his textbooks on canonicity also point out that the council had to deal with an incredible number of clearly counterfeit documents that were vieing for popularity.The council had to throw out documents with clearly questionable pedigree. Interestingly, they also didnt agree very well with well accepted documents of early Christianity, or the Old Testament. The odd pedigree documents clearly seemed to be the fake news of their day. What was left, ended up in the Bible.
• Some of the 'fake news' of the day does survive to the present day. (So it wasn't actually all burned up, another strike against the meme's claims). Gospel of Thomas being an example. Such present a picture of Jesus that is rather out of line with what is presented in the accepted books of the Bible. Are they a true alternative clear narrative that is just an alternate eye witness telling, or are they cleverly invented frauds?
• If there was an abundance of frauds, it seems God needed to have just a council to weed things out, made of men to work through, just like God worked through men to write the books. It seems reasonable that God would do such, it makes no sense to give the inspiration, then allow the inspired writings to drown in a sea of counterfeits.
• The meme might be true, but given the problems I noted in first paragraph, it has the feeling of a conspiracy theory spin. The truth might not be at the extremes, but possibly somewhere in the middle.

It turns out that was not even entirely correct. That is the problem in responding to a meme. However, it did trigger me to do some more research, and I learned more about the process from reputable sources.

It was during this council that there was a beginning of creating the list of the books in the modern Bible new testament was approved. Encyclopedia Britannica does not list creating an authoritative list of the books of the Bible as one of the achievements of this council.

According to the international Bible society:

• “It was actually not until 367 AD that the church father Athanasius first provided the complete listing of the 66 books belonging to the canon.”
  • He distinguished those from other books that were widely circulated and he noted that those 66 books were the ones, and the only ones, universally accepted.
  • “The point is that the formation of the canon did not come all at once like a thunderbolt, but was the product of centuries of reflection.”

However they go onto say:

• “Nor is there a single date when we can say that the canon of the New Testament was decided. In the first and second centuries after Christ, many, many writings and epistles were circulating among the Christians. Some of the churches were using books and letters in their services that were definitely spurious. Gradually the need to have a definite list of the inspired Scriptures became apparent. Heretical movements were rising, each one choosing its own selected Scriptures, including such documents as the Gospel of Thomas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Epistle of Barnabas.”

• “Gradually it became clear which works were truly genuine and which mixed truth with fantasy. By the end of the fourth century the canon was definitively settled and accepted. In this process Christians recognize the providence of God in providing us with his written revelation of himself and his purpose with the universe.”

Source: https://www.biblica.com/resources/bible-faqs/how-were-the-books-of-the-bible-chosen/

Alternative Title: First Council of Nicaea

Council of Nicaea, also called First Council of Nicaea, (325), the first ecumenical council of the Christian church, meeting in ancient Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey). It was called by the emperor Constantine I, an unbaptized catechumen, who presided over the opening session and took part in the discussions. He hoped a general council of the church would solve the problem created in the Eastern church by Arianism, a heresy first proposed by Arius of Alexandria that affirmed that Christ is not divine but a created being. Pope Sylvester I did not attend the council but was represented by legates.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/event/Council-of-Nicaea-Christianity-325

From the encyclopedia Britannica:

“Catechumen, a person who receives instruction in the Christian religion in order to be baptized. According to the New Testament, the apostles instructed converts after baptism (Acts 2:41–42), and Christian instruction was evidently given to all converts (Luke 1:4, Acts 18:25, Galatians 6:6). As the number of Gentiles in the church increased, instruction became more definite. In the 4th century, with the rise of heresy, detailed doctrinal teaching was given. But by this time the postponement of baptism had become general (Constantine was not baptized until he was at the point of death), and, therefore, a large proportion of Christians belonged to the catechumenate.”

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/catechumen

CITE Contributor: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Article Title: Catechumen Website Name: Encyclopædia Britannica Publisher: Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. Date Published: July 29, 2013 URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/catechumen Access Date: June 12, 2019