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Quote by: Sonart .
Me being one of them, although I do try to show as little disrespect to belief as I can.
I will probably not read Eisenman's book, simply because I don't find the minutiae of ancient gnostic religious dogma all that fascinating. What does fascinate me, however, is that the Dead Sea scrolls seem to be among a wealth of competeing scriptures, some contradictory, that were eventually cherry-picked in the Council of Nicaea, in 325 AD, to create the New Testament.
Odd that the written Word of God should be the result of such a pedestrian political process.
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Not odd, that the bible coming out of Nicaea is as it is. The Roman's had long applied the Law of Nature to legal matters. They ruled over many city/states each having their own legal systems, and often people from different city/states would have legal conflicts. In Roman court, they took what was common in both legal systems to come to a legal decision. The Nicaea council applied this same principle to religion. They took what was common from many sources and declared it to be God's truth. No deciet was intended. It was just a method for determining truth or what is best. Like democracy- majority rules.
If this is what most people think, then it must be so. At least it is the best reasoning we have.
This included ancient Sumerian stories carried by Hebrews, Egyptian theology, the mysticism from Persia, and Hellenic philosophy making Christianity decidedly different from Judaism.
I don't think Christianity would have survived if I hadn't been for Paul making it okay for non circumcised people to be considered part of the new faith. Remember that circumsicion was about God's covenant with his chosen people. I don't think this should have been changed, and I think Christians should follow the bible more closely.
I'll be back with information about Hellenized Jews, do you want anything else?