Bob LeChevalier <lojbab at lojban.org> wrote in message news:<3c9fjuo2tbtioiehk55sdphv3c9lvc0v1a at 4ax.com>...
> The Nicean Council made the final decision in what was already more or less
> determined - which writings pertaining to Christ would be considered part of
> the canon, and what order would be canonical. If the Council made any
> translation of the Bible it would have been into Latin or possible Greek, but
> the oldest surviving text of the entire Bible is the Vulgate, which I believe
> came from a century after the Nicean Council.
Actually the idea that Nicaea made some decisions about the bible is a
net-legend. I got suspicious a while ago, and thought I'd look up
every contemporary writer who mentions the council and see what they
said. None of them say this, and in fact the content of scripture
seems to have been something agreed between the two sides, since the
Arians complained that the homoousion wasn't in the New Testament.
All the refs at http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html.
The canon of scripture seems to have just growed.
> I'd offer you a raft of web cites on this, but I figure that as an amateur
> scholar, you might prefer to look and verify the history of the KJV and of
> the Nicean council for yourself. But let me know if you need pointers.
Well said.
All the best,
Roger Pearse
