Was Jesus' divinity decided by a vote? Were there books left out of the Bible?

Question

I've heard both "yes" and "no" to these questions. Does anybody know and have a reliable source to back up their claim?

Answer 1

There's a book called The Lost Books of the Bible, I forget who collected the stories but it should be easy enough to find out. There are also the Apocryphal books, the Book of Jubilees, there are a bunch. Just start looking and you'll find them.

Answer 2

What you are looking for is the Catholic Bible or the New American Bible, the Protestant Bible leaves these books out.


1. The First Book of Esdras
2. The Second Book of Esdras
3. Tobit
4. Judith
5. The Rest of the Chapters of the Book of Esther
6. The Wisdom of Solomon
7. Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach
8. Baruch
9. A Letter of Jeremiah
10. The Song of the Three
11. Daniel and Susanna
12. Daniel, Bel, and the Snake
13. The Prayer of Manasseh
14. The First Book of the Maccabees
15. The Second Book of the Maccabees

Answer 3

I don't think anyone has reliable sources to back up any claims about God, Jesus, or the Bible. But I have read a lot that there have been books left out of the Bible. I never heard anything about the first question.

Answer 4

All true Christians are followers of Christ (1 Peter 21; Mark 10:21). As you aptly stated, early Christians who were with Christ, never considered him being equal to God (Philippians 2:6). As regards to the holy spirit, Jesus said that his father, not he himself, would send the comforter or helper. Reading this in context clearly shows that the comforter or helper (holy spirit) was not the person of Jesus, thus the third part of the trinity (John 14:23-28). Some argue that John 1:1 is a direct reference to the trinity doctrine, but notice that the verse makes no reference to the holy spirit. Those who argue that verse 14 shows the fleshly manifestation of God, then that contradicts verse 18 which says no man has ever seen God. No, God did not establishes his religion by voting. True Christianity is a Theocracy.

Answer 5

A layman's answer to this would be that Christ's divinity was determined by his followers at that time, that he was crucified and arose three days later. He performed miracles, and he fulfilled what prophets had said was going to happen.

Yes, books and writing have been edited from script of that period and onward for several hundred years. The Apocrypha contains some of those books, not deemed to properly be part of the holy text of the Bible, but worthy to remain as teaching lessons.

Translations have also changed, as more is learned of the ancient languages, and customs. More ancient writing have been discovered, as well, since the King James version in the 1600s. Some translations are suspicious in their differences from mainstream translations.

The main intent of the New Testament is obvious, though, and can be determined by reading it in a modern language version which has been approved by theologians of different religious backgrounds. Taking the Bible literally, as the Fundamentalists claim to do, but don't really, is selective literalism, everyone must, I repeat must be guilty of that.

One timely example of selective literalism is "abomination" A link has been added if anyone in interested in this, however, it is important to be concerned with what God intended by inspiring these people to write and eventually edit writings into what we consider The Holy Bible.

Answer 6

You can find the books that were left out of the New Testament on this site: http://www.earlychristianwriting.com The books that were left out of the Old Testament are called Apocrypha. Just type that word into your web browser. They are on the Internet also. Sorry, but I do not know if Jesus's divinity was decided on the basis of a vote.

Answer 7

Well I could see how you could get both because what was decided by a vote at the Nicean confrence was the concept of the Trinity meaning that Jesus was physically actually one and the same as God, as opposed to a physically separate son of God.

So the question is: is being the Son of God divine enough? I think so, so in my opinion I will give the answer - no.

Answer 8

No, Jesus divinity was decided by His life, the miracles He did and His power and authority. His disciples were all convinced that He is the Son of God, and God long before Constantine was born and the council of Nikea was held. They proclaimed:
You are my God and my Lord! His enemies proclaimed:
No man ever spoke like this man! Even the evil spirits all proclaimed, Jesus the Son of God, are you coming to judge us before the time!
And the the priests and Roman soldiers beat their breasts at His resurrection and said: "He is truly the Son of God!"
They were so afraid, and could not deny the fact, that He really rose from the grave on the third day, just as He prophecied and spoken by the prophets hundreds of years before the event, that the priests and leaders bribed the soldiers to say that His body was stolen by His disciples while they were sleeping. Which is just ridiculous. No soldiers duirng those days, and even today, would dare to admit that they sleep during a watch because that carries the death penalty!

As to your question if there were books left out of the Bible, yes, there are one or two, but they are not what were mentioned by Dan Brown in the Da Vince Code, like the Gospel of Thomas, and the rest which were written at least 120 years after the death of Jesus. They were written from 150 to 240 years after the events. Those pseudo gospels were never included in the Canon, because they contradicted the inspired ones, which are the 66 six books written from 1500 BC, to 96 AD, the last one being by John the Beloved disciple or the Revelator who were all witnesses of what they wrote. The Pseudo Gospels were wiritten by peopel who heard from others who in turn heard it from others, and they in turn heard it from others etc., and so on, at least five or six generations to twenty generations later.

Answer 9

No, that was one the biggest lie against the vaildity of Jesus Christ!!!

The divine nature of Christ was argued from both the Arian and Athanasian points of view, and when the bishops voted on the issue, it was decided in favour of Athanasius by 218 votes to two - not the "relatively close vote" claimed in The Da Vinci Code. (p. 85)

In reality, early Christians overwhelmingly worshipped Jesus Christ as their risen Savior and Lord. Before the church adopted comprehensive doctrinal creeds, early Christian leaders developed a set of instructional summaries of belief, termed the "Rule" or "Canon" of Faith, which affirmed this truth.

All of these so called Lost books that were left out of the bible were not inspired by God, written hundreds years after Jesus and apostles lived, written by the authors of Gnostic Gospels who were proven to be false and wrote about needing Christ for salvation.

Answer 10

every history book and historical television show ive ever seen says that there ARE books left out of the bible written by other people that have accounts of jesus, and there are also books that explain obvious contradictions in the bible. i dont know about your other question, but id immagine that the church had to vote, because they usually take all of the higherups opinions in before they make any decisions.