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kellychaos
Aug 13th, 2003, 12:09 PM
I read an interesting article on the emperor Constantine and his mission to convert pagans to Christianity. According to the article, he backed Christianity because he saw that it was "the winning horse" in the battle between paganism and itself. It is said that he fused the two religions in an effort to sell Christianity by making such concessions as moving the Sabbath, which used to be Saturday, to Sunday, "Day Of The Sun", to appease old pagan customs. Further, it is he that was the main force at the "Council Of Nicea" that gave the push to proclaim Jesus a divinity without heir. (There intence speculation that Mary Magadalan (sp ?) was not only his not only his wife but the mother to a surving royal bloodline of the two). No surviving bloodline gave the church more expansive power because then they would be the only route to Divinity. The article also stated that the Bible was a result of a commision paid by Constantine to fit the Bible to his political needs and that the testimonies of the Bible that showed the more human traits (such as the "Dead Sea Scrolls" ) were left out in a deliberate attempt to make Jesus more deified. Well, anyway I'm ramblimg because this is new to me. Does anyone have more info on this. I'm intrigued.

Sethomas
Aug 13th, 2003, 12:17 PM
The idea that Jesus had children was only popular among the Gnostic Christians, so it's highly unlikely that anyone such as Constantine would have to excert any effort into debunking it. It's asinine to say that the Dead Sea Scrolls were deliberately left out because they weren't even discovered until the 20th century. The Old Testament adopted by the early Christians was simply the Jewish texts used until the Jewish Synod of Jerusalem around the year 70 AD, hence it includes books of the Septuagint that were dropped out of Torah and abandoned by Protestant reformers. If memory serves, Constantine wasn't even present at the Council of Nicea.

ItalianStereotype
Aug 13th, 2003, 12:29 PM
If memory serves, Constantine wasn't even present at the Council of Nicea.

he was there. hell, he was the one that called the council. he presided over the events himself because of the schism of the Donatists and the Meletians, if he had not been there it would have been just another synod of the bishoprics.

Sethomas
Aug 13th, 2003, 12:32 PM
Yeah, I know he called for the council, but I was thinking that either the emperor or the Pope was absent and that really stuck out.

Protoclown
Aug 13th, 2003, 12:41 PM
Kelly, where did you read this article? If it was online, can you post a link?

kellychaos
Aug 14th, 2003, 01:16 PM
The idea that Jesus had children was only popular among the Gnostic Christians, so it's highly unlikely that anyone such as Constantine would have to excert any effort into debunking it.


Wouldn't it have served his purposes to squelch the idea that there was any other road to divinity other than the Roman Church. Consider also the fact of the Bible's denegration of Mary Magdalan (and most women in the Bible, really) as a prostitute when recorded history shows that not only was she NOT a prostitute but she was of royal blood (House of Benjamin).


It's asinine to say that the Dead Sea Scrolls were deliberately left out because they weren't even discovered until the 20th century. The Old Testament adopted by the early Christians was simply the Jewish texts used until the Jewish Synod of Jerusalem around the year 70 AD, hence it includes books of the Septuagint that were dropped out of Torah and abandoned by Protestant reformers.


Actually, I meant the Gnostic scrolls. Sorry, I was going from memory. Anyway, in regards to the "Dead Sea Scrolls" you act as is the western worlds "discovery" of something is the only one that counts ... as in Columbus "discovered" America like their weren't natives there and for which evidence has been found that he wasn't the first european in North America anyway. My point is that how do you know that Constantine (or his men) did NOT find, gather and burn those testimonies/gospels of the Bible that didn't fit his political agenda. I mean, what would he care? It's not as if he was a devout Catholic or anything. He received his baptism on his death bed for crying out loud.

If memory serves, Constantine wasn't even present at the Council of Nicea.

He called for, assembled and presided over the council. I remember that much from my "Western History" and "Comparative Religion" courses.

ItalianStereotype
Aug 14th, 2003, 01:36 PM
I mean, what would he care? It's not as if he was a devout Catholic or anything. He received his baptism on his death bed for crying out loud.

that was not necessarily politically motivated. Gibbons wrote that "the sacrament of baptism was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the promise of external salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity, there were many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutory rite, which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege, which could never be recovered." this is the most likely explanation, at least.

Sethomas
Aug 14th, 2003, 02:04 PM
My point is that how do you know that Constantine (or his men) did NOT find, gather and burn those testimonies/gospels of the Bible that didn't fit his political agenda.

I've noticed a growth among Protestants in the sophomoric presumption that anything written immediately after the time of Christ should be treated as Scripture. It's absurd how many books are out there about New Testament apocrypha. Maybe it's regression for the fact that the New Testament is an anthology inarguably compiled by the Roman Catholic Church, and they're striving for a more indidividualistic intellectual foundation.

Back to your statement, the it's extremely improbable that Constantine sought the destruction of dissident Christian literature because so much of it remains intact. I mean, if a Roman emperor really did order its destruction, his cranks did a really shitty job of carrying it out. Every once in a while we find something like the Nag Hammadi codices that really stick out among original sources, but that's simply explained by their very unpopularity in their own time.

El Blanco
Aug 14th, 2003, 02:49 PM
when recorded history shows that not only was she NOT a prostitute but she was of royal blood (House of Benjamin).


Since when is "woman" not synonimous with "whore"?

My point is that how do you know that Constantine (or his men) did NOT find, gather and burn those testimonies/gospels of the Bible that didn't fit his political agenda.

Do you have any proof whatsoever he did?

Sethomas
Aug 14th, 2003, 03:06 PM
For that matter, so what if he did? It's not like God would inspire canon only to see it destroyed before it has the chance to flourish.

FS
Aug 14th, 2003, 07:24 PM
The videogame (and novel) Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned tells an interesting fictional theory about the descendants of Jesus, drawing in the Freemasons, the French village Rennes-le-Chateau and to a much lesser extent, alchemist vampires (thrown in mostly as horror flavor). It's still fiction of course, but largely derived from historic facts.

kellychaos
Aug 19th, 2003, 02:25 PM
FS,

You should read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. It's along the lines of what you mentioned and is what inspired me to further look into the relevant info on the internet. The only problem is that neither the internet nor a work of fiction can truly be called a valid source of information. I'm going to have to continue my reading off-line in the non-fiction area. Any ideas?

Proto,

I didn't save the link where I found the info. I retried it on Google and couldn't remember the keywords I used to bring it up. You're welcome to try with keywords like: Magdalan, Constantine, Nicea, Holy Grail, Masons, ect.

mburbank
Aug 19th, 2003, 02:55 PM
i thought you meant, like, John Constantine, the guy from swampthing who got his own book, and i was all going to go 'hey, wipe, wrong forum'.






now what do i do?

Cosmo Electrolux
Aug 19th, 2003, 08:57 PM
Adrienne Barbeau had really great titties.....

mburbank
Aug 20th, 2003, 12:17 PM
I'll say! They were great in "John Carpenter's 'The Fog' " too!

Cosmo Electrolux
Aug 20th, 2003, 12:59 PM
I wanted that woman so bad......damn. :(

mburbank
Aug 20th, 2003, 01:09 PM
And then there's Maude.

Cosmo Electrolux
Aug 20th, 2003, 01:13 PM
I watched that show religiously....I think I was actually imprinted by Adrienne....damned imprint vunerability....

edit: damned public schools.....:(

mburbank
Aug 20th, 2003, 01:26 PM
Wow. We're old.


Did you know Conrad Baine has an identical twin brother? And the he once guest hosted an episode of SCTV? And that they mostly refer to him not by his name, which I can't recall, but as 'Conrad Baine's Twin Brother'? And that the other guest host is Deforest Kelly, but it's really Dave Thomas playing Deforest Kelly? And that I don't mean the Dave Thomas who founded Wendy and liked Orphans?

FartinMowler
Aug 20th, 2003, 01:48 PM
And the he once guest hosted an episode of SCTV?

I remembered that episode :) It's funny when I was reading in the TV section Jixby was mentioning SCTV I remarked that I was surprised that he had seen this show and I was happy that it was a fond memory as it was for me. It would be fun to try and get some thing going where mockery members would try and come up with episode type writing and make characters akin to SCTV. Banter is fun for a while but substance has a better outcome.

kellychaos
Aug 20th, 2003, 02:30 PM
And then there's Maude.

Then new theory is that Stonehenge is actually a symbolic representation of a huge couple-thousand-year-old vagina (if you look at it from a "bird's eye view"). Coincidence?! :eek

El Blanco
Aug 20th, 2003, 03:59 PM
Kelly, have you read Angels and Deamons? Same author as the divinci code. I think its the same hero, too.

mburbank
Aug 20th, 2003, 07:06 PM
LOOOK OUT! CONRAD BAINS IDENTICAL TWIN BROTHER! AND HE'S READING THE DAVINCI CODE! WITH HIS STONE VAGINA!

Cosmo Electrolux
Aug 20th, 2003, 08:02 PM
speaking of tits, did you see the Rita Renrette issue of Playboy?
The woman made ME want to run for congress....

mburbank
Aug 21st, 2003, 09:27 AM
Look, Cosmo, if you have to drag this conversation into the gutter...

kellychaos
Aug 21st, 2003, 11:59 AM
I've noticed a growth among Protestants in the sophomoric presumption that anything written immediately after the time of Christ should be treated as Scripture. It's absurd how many books are out there about New Testament apocrypha. Back to your statement, the it's extremely improbable that Constantine sought the destruction of dissident Christian literature because so much of it remains intact.


I wasn't alluding to Scripture AFTER Christ. I was simply saying that there may have been EXISTING gospels that did not agree with his agenda which were gathered and destroyed and some of which that he never found. As for the "shitty job" part: If there truly were miracle upon miracle in Biblical times, I would actually expect a whole lot more Scripture than is present today. If that's the case, what happened to it? In fact, what happened in Jesus' whole life between the ages of 12 and 30 or so? Aren't you even curious about why those years are absent in recorded history? Is it that he didn't do anything intereseting in the intervening years? I doubt it. BTW, I'm agnostic if anything. This is more or less an intellectual quest into an area in which some authors have made some valid empirical points and asked questions that piqued my interests. I don't mean to offend.

Kelly, have you read Angels and Deamons? Same author as the divinci code. I think its the same hero, too.

I just discovered him thru a friend. Apparently, he has five or six novels out. I'll try that one next.

mburbank
Aug 21st, 2003, 03:07 PM
I had a sophomoric Growth. The doctor gave me an ointment and it cleared up.

Cosmo Electrolux
Aug 21st, 2003, 09:00 PM
I'm sorry..It's not often I get to converse with intellegent adults...about grown up topics like tits...I get carried away.

Sethomas
Aug 21st, 2003, 10:01 PM
I wasn't alluding to Scripture AFTER Christ. I was simply saying that there may have been EXISTING gospels that did not agree with his agenda

Learn your vocabulary dude. In Christianity, a "gospel" is a narrative on the life of Christ. Therefore, THERE WERE NO EXISTING GOSPELS BEFORE CHRIST. There were indeed a great deal of apocryphal writings that were popular among the tribes of Israel that didn't make the cut into canon. Contrary to your assumption, there's no shortage of that stuff. Go to www.newadvent.org and look up "apocrypha" if you don't believe me.

If there truly were miracle upon miracle in Biblical times, I would actually expect a whole lot more Scripture than is present today.

You're neglecting the fact that there was roughly a 500 year period between the period when these miracles allegedyly took place, and to me it's actually remarkable how much scripture survived through the bottleneck of centuries of oral history. Keep in mind that the first people to actually write down the Old Testament were the Alexandrian Greeks in the middle of the third century BC.

In fact, what happened in Jesus' whole life between the ages of 12 and 30 or so?

Okay, it's nice how you jump from talking about the weather of the Gobi desert to the price of oranges in Florida. We've all seen the movie Dogma, dude, so don't think you're shocking anyone. If you ask me, it makes perfect sense to say that Jesus studied Torah and built furniture for all those years.

AChimp
Aug 21st, 2003, 10:12 PM
If you ask me, I think Jesus was out drinking and whoring during those years.

Baalzamon
Aug 21st, 2003, 11:09 PM
If you ask me, I think Jesus was out drinking and whoring during those years.


I couldnt agree more

El Blanco
Aug 22nd, 2003, 12:16 AM
Dude, your mom was in Galilee way back then?

AChimp
Aug 22nd, 2003, 12:30 AM
Damn straight. And you know what that makes me?

THE SON OF THE SON OF GOD. Bitch. >:

Sethomas
Aug 22nd, 2003, 02:36 AM
Does that mean you'd sit on God's knee while he told you stories and fed you Werthers Originals?

BaronVonBoner
Aug 22nd, 2003, 02:59 AM
Those commercials were great. :lol

ItalianStereotype
Aug 22nd, 2003, 03:20 AM
I read your post. I want that second of my life back.

AChimp
Aug 22nd, 2003, 09:56 AM
Does that mean you'd sit on God's knee while he told you stories and fed you Werthers Originals?
Yep. And I also got to lick the creamiest Werthers in all Creation. So creamy is it, that it was deemed pure ambrosia and therefore too pure for the taste buds of Man.

mburbank
Aug 22nd, 2003, 10:25 AM
Are we not talking about Adrienne Barbeau anymore? 'Cause she had a balcony you could do Shakespeare from.

AChimp
Aug 22nd, 2003, 10:45 AM
My threadjack is better than your threadjack! >:

mburbank
Aug 22nd, 2003, 10:56 AM
Is that what you're calling it these days? A 'threadjack'? 'Cuase maybe it's just me, but thaat doesn't sound very hot.

Cosmo Electrolux
Aug 22nd, 2003, 11:00 AM
retrocrush.com has an awesome Adrienne gallery....I love that woman.....well, parts of her anyway....:/

AChimp
Aug 22nd, 2003, 11:44 AM
>:

Very well, Max. You can have this thread... >:

Cosmo Electrolux
Aug 22nd, 2003, 11:48 AM
my name is Cosmo.....:(

kellychaos
Aug 22nd, 2003, 12:07 PM
I wasn't alluding to Scripture AFTER Christ. I was simply saying that there may have been EXISTING gospels that did not agree with his agenda

Learn your vocabulary dude. In Christianity, a "gospel" is a narrative on the life of Christ. Therefore, THERE WERE NO EXISTING GOSPELS BEFORE CHRIST.


My vocabulary is fine. I was talking about GOSPELS written about Christ during his life that survived up to the point of Constantine's reign.



You're neglecting the fact that there was roughly a 500 year period between the period when these miracles allegedyly took place, and to me it's actually remarkable how much scripture survived through the bottleneck of centuries of oral history. Keep in mind that the first people to actually write down the Old Testament were the Alexandrian Greeks in the middle of the third century BC.


So why did THOSE particular parts survive? Is it truly miraculous or were they chosen for an intended purpose? Your point about the oral history is interesting, though. You accept everything everything that was told orally through the ages that was later written down in the Old Testament as fact but other things that were told down through the ages (some of which people had painstakingly coded into music, art and literature so they wouldn't be lost to posterity) as false. I truly don't see what makes one or the other more valid to you. Who confirmed that they WERE more valid. Constantine? The Holy Roman Church? Members of the "Council Of Nicea". THAT was my point.


Okay, it's nice how you jump from talking about the weather of the Gobi desert to the price of oranges in Florida. We've all seen the movie Dogma, dude, so don't think you're shocking anyone. If you ask me, it makes perfect sense to say that Jesus studied Torah and built furniture for all those years.

I'm not trying to shock anyone and I've never seen "Dogma". It's always been a question that stuck out in my mind. Don't you find it curious that a large chunk of his life is missed in the telling? Aren't you curious? I'm not trying to detract from Jesus accomplishments. I'm merely asking why, especially since his religious philisophy is somewhat different than that of the Old Testament. What were his influences that made him lean that way.

P.S. Don't get angry with me because you've had the same questions. I'm only asking.