In 325AD the "official" Bible was adopted How did the powers that be decide which writings to exclude?

Question

The "official" Bible excluded many writings and accepted only those that supposedly were "inspired by God"

Answer 1

Now this is a Cut-n-paste , but isnt, because I have done my own research on this and typed it up and saved it to "My Documents" so it is my own words, but saved and cut-n-pasted in answer to your question.

How the Word of God came to be written
OLD TESTAMENT
The authors of Hebrew Scriptures are not as identifiable as those of the New Testament. The Books arose in the midst of the law given by Moses and the prophets sent by God to the children of Israel. The first 5 books (The Law) were written by Moses almost entirely. The remainder of the Old Testament is composed of the prophets and writings in the Hebrew canon, whereas the English Bible includes the following categories: historical books, poetic books, and prophetic books. These books include such authors as Samuel, David, Joshua, Solomon, and the Major Prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and a number of lesser-known figures who wrote smaller books called the Minor Prophets. Each of these authors presents his words as being the Word of God.

NEW TESTAMENT
The New Testament was written by apostles of Jesus Christ and companions of the Apostles, Letters were written to individuals, churches, or larger groups of persons either to conform the truth of Christianity, engender belief in Christ, Correct problems in the local churches, or argue against error. The Book of Revelation also seeks tp present God’s plan for the end of the age.

HOW THE INSPIRED WRITTINGS WERE PASSED DOWN
OLD TESTAMENT
The Old Testament was written between 1440 B.C. and approximately 400 B.C.
The Laws of Moses was maintained in the Hebrew community by the priests of the temple. Later books continued to be deposited with these leaders until the destruction of the temple and then found their way into the teaching community begun by Ezra and continued in the synagogues. Trained scribes copied biblical texts by hand until the modern printing press came into use. The copies of the Masoretes of the ninth century A.D. are very close to the recently discovered Dead Sea scrolls, which originated a thousand years earlier.

NEW TESTAMENT
The New Testament books were copied by local Christian communities and passed from one to another for decades before an entire collection was made. Since the early letters were written on papyrus, they wore out rapidly and required regular copying. In the early fourth century A.D., fifty copies of the entire Old and New Testament Greek Scriptures were made at the order of the first Christian emperor, Constantine. It is likely that the Vaticanus and Sinaticus codex’s, two of the longest early manuscripts to survive, originated from this order.

WHAT IS THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE?
The word canon is a word used to identify the writings of the prophets, the apostles, and their companions, which are inspired by God and authoritative for truth pertaining to doctrine and life. It means “rule” or “standard.” A book is not inspired because it is declared to be canonical but is considered inspired. Therefore, the church discovered the canonicity of the Old Testament books; it did not determine or cause their canonicity.

HOW THE CANON WAS DECIDED
The books accepted by the Jewish community originated over a period of approximately one thousand years. The first question regarding writing’s acceptance was whether the book was written by a prophet of God. Generally the book would have statements of “thus says the Lord,” or “the word of the Lord came.” Second, miraculous signs or accuracy of fulfillment served as confirmation of a prophet’s message. Third, the book had to be internally consistent with the revelation of God found in the teachings of other canonical books, especially what God gave through Moses.
The first question for the church to answer about a books inclusion in the canon accepted by Christians was whether it came through the apostles of the Lord or through persons under the guidance of an apostle, such as Luke. Second, the book had to come with the power of God and be effective for changing lives. Third, it must have been generally accepted by the people of God. This latter test refers first to the ones who received the book and next to the transmission in the church. Determination of the New Testament canon took place over a period of years, reaching its final form at Synod of Carthage in 397.

THE MANUCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE
Old Testament
Fragments of the Hebrew Scriptures number in the Tens of Thousands, the majority dating between the third century B.C. and the fourteenth century A.D. The greatest attestation to the Hebrew Old Testament is the manuscripts found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which mostly date from the third century B. C. to the first Century A.D.

New Testament
Manuscript evidence for the New Testament is abundant. There are more than five thousand existing copies, many with New Testament books entirely or largely intact.
Also there are several older translations of the New Testament into languages like Syriac, Coptic, and Latin that survive in thousands of manuscripts. No work of antiquity even approaches the New Testament for authenticity.

Answer 2

First of all, the "official" Bible was not adopted in 325 AD. That is a myth. Constantine simply agreed to print 50 copies of the Christian Scriptures as a gift. At that time, there was no "official" Bible, so they only copied the texts that were read publicly in the Christian lectionaries.

The Church of Carthage adopted an official list of books for their own Bible, but that had nothing to do with the rest of Christiandom. The Carthage list was officially adopted at the 6th Ecumenical Council in the 7th century.

Truth is, the Bible did not serve the same function in the ancient Church as it does in Protestant denominations today. Assuming that the Church cut out certain 'controversial' doctrines from the Bible makes for a sexy story, but it is utterly ridiculous. Even a shallow reading of the Church Fathers reveals that the Bible was used as a resource, and not as the arbiter of Orthodox doctrine. In other words, official doctrines were determined by the common practices of the Church, and the Bible was used to shed light on Church doctrine. In modern Protestantism, the Bible is considered the sole source of doctrine for the Christian faith. So, people who do not understand the historical role of Scripture in the Church mistakenly assume that the ancient Church had some reason to cut out Biblical texts that conflicted with the "official" doctrines of the Church. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The only books that were excluded from the "official" Bible were the Book of Revelation, the Apocrypha and the book of Esther, all of which ended up being included anyway. The books that were in dispute in the ancient Church were all eventually accepted. Examples of disputed books are the Pastoral letters of Paul, James, Jude, I - III John, I - II Peter. That is why those books are still placed at the back of modern Bibles. The further you go back in time, the fewer books Christians were willing to accept. People who think that Church excluded books in the final version are mistaken - it was the other way around.

Some people claim that certain gnostic texts were intentionally excluded from the Bible. The truth is that most (if not all) of the gnostic texts are late works that were produced hundreds of years after all of the books in the modern Bible. The canon of Scripture was established by common use in the Christian Churches long before any of the gnostic texts were even written, and there is no record that any of those gnostic texts were considered for inclusion among the Christian Scriptures. Most gnostics would have been appalled at the suggestion that their books would end up in the Bible - the gnostics practiced a secret form of paganism that was only open to the few. Those who were not members of the inner circle were completely excluded.

Answer 3

Actually the 325 Ecumenical Council of Nicea was the start of many Ecumentical Councils that continue to this day that determine what is the 'true' Christianity (i.e. the Catholic Church's recent removal of Limbo as being the place unbaptised babies go at death). The Councils were made of men (emphasis) who were considered top clerics of their day. Constantine wanted a religion that unified people rather than all these sects and cults, both pagan and Xtian, for political purposes. It was tearing Rome apart, for one thing, particularly this guy Arias of Alexandria. I really think the bottom line was politics and controlling the masses. As for the Bible, I think there were so many books, writings and varieties that they just tried to put something cohesive together. How they did it, who knows?... they were just considered the experts. Were they correct? Not everyone agreed then, or agrees now.

Answer 4

Probably a lot like how Congress writes a law or a studio writes a script.

Get 30 - 50 ministers or priests in a room and try and get them to agree on much of anything. Especially when they defeate something like 2Romans, which one Church represented may have an original of from Paul or what they beleive is Paul.

In reading what was removed I tend to agree with their choices, but I think a Bible with ALL the scriptures would be a nice idea. I don't really think there is one. One that also includes the stuff removed or not included by the Pharasees

Answer 5

a blue star panel came together and agreed how it would be done behold! presto fizzo it was over and done. who was on the panel? i don't know. must have been like congress and there must have been a vote until the had a concenus. the ones left out they just didn't think would help and consider it contradicted what they wanted to get across to the masses the ruled, so to speak. just a practical move to get on with organizing society and making them observe the laws of man and god as it was written. then they had to circulate the bible, advertise the bible, preach the bible and gain an overwhelming grassroots support. during the spanish inquistion they really got people adhereomg tp bibical dogma (must have been 50 ways to get burned at thestake.) but it was written and they could pull out the great book and justify all the torture and killing. the bible ensured law and order for the royalty in all nations in europe.

Answer 6

That wasn't the reasoning at all.
The writings chosen were put in because they mostly agreed with the then-current thinking about christian dogma. There was, in fact, never ANY discussion about which writings were or were not "inspired by god" (the conference was fairly well-documented, do a google search). The biggest debate was around the book of revelation (not called that at the time) -- many of the assembled bishops didn't want it in because they thought it was too abstract and they thought that most of the prophecies in it had already come true, that they were already in the "last times." Funny, huh? :)

Many of the writings that were excluded were done so because the group thought they were "redundant", repeating what was told in other writings. Not because they weren't "inspired by god." It was holiness by committee -- and like most committees, the end result was a poor compromise, not a grand success.

Answer 7

One of the ways (there are many) is that they chose by majority text. If you have 20 texts that claim Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead, and one that says He didn't die until He was 72, you keep the 20, set aside the 1. If you wanted to find out about a recent plane crash and picked up 10 news papers and started reading about it, 9 say it was flight 21 out of Atlanta, crashed 5 minutes after taking off and 200 people were killed, and 1 says it was flight 16 out of Detroit, crashed upon landing in NY and 100 people were killed, you wont use the 1 paper for refference to that event, because either its lying or not talking about the same event as the other papers are.

Answer 8

Is the Catholic Church the “Mother of the Bible”? And what about Christians’ not having seen a complete Bible before the end of the fourth century? And about no mass distribution of the Bible being possible before Gutenberg invented printing? Let us calmly and soberly reason on this very controversial subject in the light of the Bible and the facts of history.

The Catholic Church claims to be the “Mother” of the Bible by reason of her Council of Carthage, 397, at which she set the canon of the Bible as far as she was concerned. In this canon she listed not only the sixty-six books generally accepted but also seven books of the pre-Christian Apocrypha, which “hidden” books had been rejected by the Great Sanhedrin at Jerusalem. As to the merit of these apocryphal writings Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate used by the Roman Catholic Church for many centuries, says: “All apocryphal books should be avoided; . . . they are not the works of authors by whose names they are distinguished, . . . they contain much that is faulty, . . . it is a task requiring great prudence to find gold in the midst of clay.”

According to modern Bible scholars such as Goodspeed, collecting of the letters of Paul began before the year A.D. 100, and in a few more decades the four Gospels were also being circulated as a group. Six of the ten ancient catalogues dating long before A.D. 397 list the same canon as we have today, and early in the third century, or some 175 years before A.D. 397, Origen gave the same canon in his Hexapla (six Bible versions in one). So, in view of the fact that there was general agreement on what constituted the Bible canon long before the year A.D. 397, and in view of the Catholic Church’s adding seven apocryphal books thereto, it is clear that she cannot lay claim to being the “Mother” of the Bible.

Christianity, for within fifty years of its birth it became a publishing faith, not only exhausting or using to the full the scroll but pioneering in the use of the codex, a manuscript in book form with pages and a cover. We are told that the early Christians were a book-buying and book-reading people as well as a book-translating and book-publishing people.
However, when apostate Christianity fused with pagan religion, worldly philosophy and religious traditions to form the Catholic Church, a change took place. Concerning this Goodspeed says: “In the Middle Ages publication as a business practically disappeared. The copying of manuscripts was still carried on to some extent in the Scriptoriums of some convents and palaces, but for the most part it was single copies that were made, and there seems to have been none of the old wholesale production; copies were not from dictation, as they had been in the ancient book factories.”—Christianity Goes to Press.

Answer 9

that is a study that would take approximately a week of faithful reading and researching. Documental evidence, and other things were used to decide what stayed and what did not. Regardless, the message is the same. Jesus is God's son, came into to save world. He did not come to condemn the world, but that through Him, the world would be saved.

Answer 10

This has been discussed here so many times. Maybe you could do a google search and find out just why the Egyptian book of the dead is not part of the New Testament.

Answer 11

I would believe that which writings were chosen to include or exclude were based on what types of control the catholic leaders wished to impose at that time.