What was so wrong with the other books of gospel they didn't use them after the Council of Nicea?

Question

For example, they chose exactly four Gospels from among the over 40 that were in use within the early Christian movement as God inspired, inerrant and infallible. They rejected the rest.

So God didn't inspire 40 people to write things, only 4, and this was decided by man.

What was in those other 36 I wonder.

Roy it was 5. However, if your point is true, then why do 36 out 40 books show Jesus as a human figure where as only 4 show him as divine. It seems to me that the evidence then points to him being human, yet they all would rather have him be portrayed divine so they voted those in instead.

Silverdeege your quote "He talked through a donkey's mouth in the Old Testament, mind you." is ludicrous enough to make me say the person writing it was either high or making stuff up. OF course I don't believe in a takling donkey.

Answer 1

You do realize that most christians have no idea what you're talking about, right?

Most think that the bible is one coherent book, and that it has always existed in its present form since early christianity. They have no idea that the books that make it up were LITERALLY voted upon, and many were left out for various reasons.

the idea tends to shake their faith... and it should.

Answer 2

A good book on this by Ehrman, Bart is The Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew.

It is an awesome book. Basically the other gospels, revelations and acts that were not included had teachings different then what they decided at Nicea. One of the biggest differences was the whole trinity thing. Many of the other books were not used because they taught differing views on Jesus’ divinity or the monotheism of the Christian faith. Many believed Jesus was a god but he was separate from the father.

Answer 3

If you looked more into it you wouldve seen that those other books were written over 200yrs after the 4 Gospels were written. The disciples were dead and gone by then and to be truthful, when Christ inspired the book of Revelation, that was it. Its obvious that you dont believe Gods word and you will do what you can to prove problems or false teachings that arent even there and we can look at people who dont want the bible, hates it or just think its full of crap and see why those other books were written to try and take Christs deity as God away. God promised For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. The new testament is the fullfilling of the old testament Luk 21:33 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

Answer 4

The Council of Nicea was divided among two factions: those who shall Jesus as a wholly divine being and those who saw him as a divinely inspired human. The divine Jesus faction won out in the very close vote over the gospels. The gospels that they chose to have in the Bible show Jesus as God on earth. The gospels that were left out (Philip, Mary Magdalene, Judas, etc.) show Jesus as a much more human figure. Crazy, right?

Some people say that it was a margin of one person that determined the current Gospel situation in the Bible. One person, that's crazy.

Answer 5

I did hear a message at church about this and I don't remember everything, because it was involving a lot of names and dates, but I do remember that for the new testament writings, the council needed to know they were CLOSE followers of Jesus who were writing books of the New Testament. That was the biggest reason. The Gnostic's of the day, who claimed to be Christians, but mixed Christianity with Greek mythology, were also trying to pass off their writings as Christian truths to be added to the Bible. I am pretty ignorant about a lot of these things, but I bet if you contact Focus on the Family with Dr. James Dobson, they could get a tape to you with some better info. Try Family.org on the Internet, I know there was a lot of info. involving the book of Judas and the Da Vinci Code. Always keep learning more! May God bless you in your search!

Answer 6

Research that on the Internet...PBS and Discovery Channel has had many good programs about the other/alternate Gospels (Gnostic Texts, Book of Judas, etc). FYI some of the books contend that Mary Magdeline played more of a role than a male dominated society could bear at the time so she was disregarded and disgraced (The Da Vinci code is loosley based upon some of that writing--IT'S FICTION, but based on bits and pieces of fact).

Suggest you explore a religion that doesn't rely on any Gospels--The Uncommon Denomination WWW.UUA.ORG. PEACE!

Answer 7

"They" did not use them before Nicea either. They are spurious. There was a rigid test that the books had to be measured by. Look into the "test". One of which is that all canonical books had to be authored by someone who had actually seen the resurrected Christ. None of the writers of the other so-called gospels make that claim. The 66 books we use today are the same ones used by the early church after 95.

Answer 8

Look them up.
They make up what is known as the "apocrypha" some of them are even more boring than the books they kept in (if such a thing can be imagined) but others are quite interesting.
I like the story of how Joseph reacted to Mary's declaration that she was pregnant. He proceeds to try and beat her and chases her around the town before he collapses (he was a lot older than she was after all).

Answer 9

What was wrong was that they didn't fit the mold of the men who rejected them. They did not promote the agendas of these men, the religious/political leaders of the time, to build a patriarchal society where women were suppressed and they could rule the masses through fear-based lives instead of the love-based life that Jesus preached.

Answer 10

They did not meet the strict standards of accuracy and authentisity that the counsel set to make sure somebody wasn't just trying to pull a fast one. The is a book out called, "The Lost Books of The Bible." It has most of them in it. Some of the stuff is really "farout" theologically.