Was Christ's Divinity and the Bible invented at the Council of Nicea?
Was the divinity of Christ invented at the Council?
The following link is to the John Ankerberg website but you need Adobe Acrobat to
read it because it is a .pdf document.
On the Ankerberg program, Erwin Lutzer was quoting from the Davinci Code, where
the author Dan Brown has created fictional characters talking about the Council of Nicea, saying that the deity of Christ
was invented at Nicaea.
It is a popular argument of JW's to say that this council invented the deity of Christ
and the Trinity, when in fact they only affirmed what the scriptures always taught.
All one has to do is go to the New Testament to see that it was taught then.
In fact I think the vote at the council was 316 to 2 according to Erwin Lutzer affirming
the deity of Christ.
The main one to oppose the deity of Christ was the reason that they convened the council
in the first place. Arius of Alexandria was similar in beliefs to the Jehovah's Witnesses of today.
JW's and Catholics like to say that these councils created these things, when in fact
they only affirmed what the scriptures said and the main body of believers already believed.
Here is an excerpt from the Ankerberg document and they are quoting from 'The DaVinci
code'.
Hopefully, You will see how dangerous this kind of talk is, especially when seeing
that six million people have read the DaVinci Code.
"At this gathering. Teabing said, 'many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted
upon-the date of Easter, the role of bishops. The administration of sacraments, and of course, the divinity of Jesus.'
[Sophie] 'I don't follow. His divinity?
'My dear, ' Teabing declared, 'until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His
followers as a mortal prophet...a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.
A mortal.' 'Not the Son of God?' 'Right,' Teabing said. 'Jesus' establishment as 'the
Son of God' was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.'
'Hold on. You're saying Jesus' divinity was the result of a vote?' 'A relatively close
vote at that,' Teabing added.."
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, pg. 233
For the rest of the article go to:
The next link is not a pdf document so everyone should be able to read this.
This site, quotes the same words from the DaVinci Code but responds differently, though
also with a good conclusion.
It also defines Gnosticism and also gives the reason Gnostic teaching and books were
rejected.
"In other words, by the New Testament period, there was already a core of documents
and ideas by which Christians could evaluate other documents. The New Testament documents already manifest a concept of 'orthodoxy,'
or at least criteria by which truth and error could be distinguished. Among the second-century lists of authoritative Scriptures,
never are gnostic texts listed—not even by the unorthodox Marcion in about 140. There was never a time when a wide selection
of books, including gnostic ones, were widely deemed acceptable."
BJ Maxwell 04/24/2006
