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I was reading that they had been kept away from the public because the Vatican was concerned something might turn up which would damage Christianity.
No, that's not true. At first there was skepticism about their authenticity, and then when a team of senior scholars was assigned groups of texts to analyze and publish, they basically sat on them for years. It was a big feather in a scholar's cap to have been assigned some scrolls fragments, and they either took their sweet time, didn't look at them at all, or assigned their analysis to grad students who didn't really know what to do. Slowly stuff was published, like a concordance of words appearing in the scrolls, and an old professor of mine, Martin Abegg, developed a computer program that sifted through that concordance and grouped all the words according to fragment and then slowly reconstructed the contents of each fragment. He published this work and that really put pressure on the people who oversaw the scrolls. There were copies of the scrolls kept in Yarnton, just outside of Oxford, and by a couple private scholars in the United States. Another of my old professors, Martin Goodman, had control of the scrolls in Oxford and was contemplating releasing them with the help of another scholar. Fortunately for them, when one of the owners in the States died, they left the copies to the Huntington Library in California, and the library released them. Now that the scrolls had been publicized, the people who oversaw them had their hand forced, and they basically reassigned all the fragments to other scholars and their critical editions were slowly published.
There was no theological controversy, it was just a bunch of members of the old boys club taking too long with their assignments.
I was reading that they had been kept away from the public because the Vatican was concerned something might turn up which would damage Christianity.
There were a few thousand fragments found in the caves, of which only a few have been studied to any great extent; most of them are so fragile that they are only removed from protective storage for five or ten minutes at a time.
It's taken so long to release them because five or ten minutes every day does not add up to a whole lot of time
Keep in mind, it was Constantene who decided on which books go into the bible, in spite of what you were told, and there are a lot on missing ones, some speaking of the life of Jesus.
Many that are pretty far fetched.
The book of Thomas speaks of Jesus's first miracle, where Joseph the carpenter had a board a foot to short, and Jesus lengthened it.
There were a few thousand fragments found in the caves, of which only a few have been studied to any great extent;
Actually there are critical editions of every last one of them published. The series is called Discoveries in the Judean Desert, and every last letter of every last fragment is closely examined. Many of my friends have authored volumes in the series.
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Originally Posted by FredNotBob
most of them are so fragile that they are only removed from protective storage for five or ten minutes at a time.
That's not true, but the research is done with hi-res photos, not necessarily the fragments themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FredNotBob
It's taken so long to release them because five or ten minutes every day does not add up to a whole lot of time
If you have another explanation, I would love to hear it.
Emperor Constantine, who was Roman Emperor from 306 CE until his death in 337 CE, used what motivates many to action - MONEY! He offered the various Church leaders money to agree upon a single canon that would be used by all Christians as the word of God. The Church leaders gathered together at the Council of Nicaea and voted the "word of God" into existence. (I wish to thank Brian Show for pointing out in his rebuttal to this article that the final version of the Christian Bible was not voted on at the Council of Nicaea, per se. The Church leaders didn't finish editing the "holy" scriptures until the Council of Trent when the Catholic Church pronounced the Canon closed. However, it seems the real approving editor of the Bible was not God but Constantine! This fact is revealed in the second counter-rebuttal to Brian Show's first rebuttal to this article. This counter-rebuttal makes the following important statement and backs it up with FACTS - "Therefore, one can easily argue that the first Christian Bible was commissioned, paid for, inspected and approved by a pagan emperor for church use."
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Canon lists were around for centuries prior to the Council of Nicea, and there's not a shred of evidence anywhere that Constantine had anything whatsoever to do with developing of finalizing the canon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim_a49
Emperor Constantine, who was Roman Emperor from 306 CE until his death in 337 CE, used what motivates many to action - MONEY! He offered the various Church leaders money to agree upon a single canon that would be used by all Christians as the word of God.
No such thing ever happened.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim_a49
The Church leaders gathered together at the Council of Nicaea and voted the "word of God" into existence.
Actually Nicea addressed only the nature of Jesus' relationship to God and a date for easter. The canonicity of two books were on the docket, but they were never discussed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim_a49
(I wish to thank Brian Show for pointing out in his rebuttal to this article that the final version of the Christian Bible was not voted on at the Council of Nicaea, per se. The Church leaders didn't finish editing the "holy" scriptures until the Council of Trent when the Catholic Church pronounced the Canon closed. However, it seems the real approving editor of the Bible was not God but Constantine! This fact is revealed in the second counter-rebuttal to Brian Show's first rebuttal to this article. This counter-rebuttal makes the following important statement and backs it up with FACTS - "Therefore, one can easily argue that the first Christian Bible was commissioned, paid for, inspected and approved by a pagan emperor for church use."
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A laughable piece of pseudo-scholarship. I didn't see a single primary text brought to bear on the question. I saw forced inferences and assumptions being leveraged with naked assertion. The author's understanding of the political climate and the political and religious conventions of the time is deplorable, and his massaging of what little evidence he actually brought to bear was transparent. I saw no facts that actually supported his argument, but you're welcome to try to produce any if you think they exist.
This is a subject I don't plan on really getting into, mainly because I am not that well versed on it, however the evidence abounds, and the church apologists struggle to deflect the true origins.
a simple google search will bring a pile of scholarly literature that seems to have more credence than the churches versions.
Here is a good place to get lots of hits.
did constantine decide what books belong in the bible
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