Our Lord Jesus Christ, Lord or Man? Options

During my internet years, I found info like Jesus married Maria Magdalena, went to India and studied there, that he did not die on the cross. I'm not sure what to believe in. Yesterday, I finished reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and in it I again read what I've found + Sarah, Jesus's daughter and how Constantine used the "perverted" new testament to make a god out of Jesus to win the Catholic over the Pagan. Altought the book has errors, it is still an interesting read.

What is your opinion on this? Jesus, the Lord or -just- a man?

During my internet years, I found info like Jesus married Maria Magdalena, went to India and studied there, that he did not die on the cross. I'm not sure what to believe in. Yesterday, I finished reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and in it I again read what I've found + Sarah, Jesus's daughter and how Constantine used the "perverted" new testament to make a god out of Jesus to win the Catholic over the Pagan. Altought the book has errors, it is still an interesting read.

What is your opinion on this? Jesus, the Lord or -just- a man?

While the Da Vinci Code is good read and even not so bad as a movie I wouldn't take it for word. Much of what Dan Brown preclaimed as "Fact" was proven not only untrue but simply made up. For a writter I think it does good for him in his tale spinning for the readers to approach the book as though much of it was true. While deceptive, I think its an excellent way to get people to actually thing about just how honest the Church.

Constantine is an interesting subject. He was a Roman general contending for the title of Emperor amungst three others in a time when the days of Roman glory had wanned. The empire at the time was actually divided into three territories where each general claimed to be the true Emperor. The gist of the story is that Constantine and another general descided to team up against the 3rd. Constantine had an advisor who was a Christian, and probably a mystic as well. Before going into battle against this 3rd general the advisor instructed Constantine to paint the Phi-Chi (the P with the X) symbol on each of his soldiers shields. His own soldiers, who were pagan, at first refused as they thought it would curse them Yet Constantine insisted. They eventually defeated this 3rd dude. (I wish I could remember specific names but I'm not good at that) and because they won dispite bad odds Constantine paraded about with the Phi-Chi as his standard while claiming *a mirricale had happened* (this where we get stories that Constantine had a vission from God). While Constantine did convert we don't actually know if he was ever really baptized or not.

The point of all this backround information is that at the time there were many christians throughout the Empire, especially in the east. Christianity was no longer a minor sect that was viewed as a meager cult. If I remember correctly there were actually as many Christians as Pagans. Constantine was a vissionary. He wanted Rome to regain its former glory and he saw that his empire was divided into many different religions, religions being the opiate of the masses, he saw Christianity as a unifying force. The problem was there wasn't a clear deffinition about what exactly Christianity was. All one had to do was get baptized and claim to worship God, accept Jesus as the Massiah and celebrate the Holy Eucharist and anybody could to it. There wasn't even a clear understanding about the role of Christ in the Christianity other than was the incarnation of God's son but the holy trinity had not yet been divised. That was not until a second coucil was called - but thats another story.

So what Constaintine did after defeating his rival was he gathered the major theologians of the day and created the council of Nicea. At this council these theologians selected the four gosspels we know today and several other books out of the Torah (Genesis, Exudus, Levicticus I can't remember all of them). Combined these and formed the Old testiment. This was carefully created by this council, not Constantine. All Constantine wanted to do was create a Catholic - universal - church that he, as Emperor could proclaim as the true word of God. He may or may not have had an actual hand in the content of the Old Testiment we do not know for sure. This Church would be headed by a figure called the Pope who supposedly could trace his lineage to St. Peter [edit] St. Paul, not Peter[/edit] who was crusified in Rome. This is how Constantine legitmized his claim that the Catholic church was indeed the true word of God and all else was heracy. However the Pope would not hold any real power until, I believe Pope Benedict I, bought off the Huns and thoroughly established the Catholic Church as the political mechanism to the old Roman Empire.

So as you can see all Constantine did to influence Christianity was use Christian symbols on his military standards and hold a council that descided, for the world, a universal form of Christianity. It is at this pivitol moment that the Bible was created and all other gosspels were declaired herecies and ordered destroyed. Its known that some 33 gosspels existed at the time, possibly more and they were influenced by a variety of cultures, Eastern and Western. Only 4 were actually used in the Old Testiment. The amount of knowledge, let alone "truth" about Jesus, hs disciples and more, that was contained in these other gosspels we will never know. And a few did survive - The Gosspel of St. Thomas and Marry Magdaline are a couple examples. It is these surviving Gosspels that much of the conspiracy theories in the Da Vinci Code were based on. And indeed that content of these Gosspels do tend to contradict the Bible, which is exactly why they were left out. If they had been included, the Bible never would have made any sense. But the Council of Nicea did not portray Mary Magdeline as a whore. That was done by much later Catholic philosophers.

Now, Kinjo, you asked about Jesus the Lord vs Jesus the man there was second council, I'm not sure of the facts but I believe it was called the Council of Ephesus, I think this was after Constantine. It was here that this very debate was hashed out and actually lead to a division in religious faiths. I forget the name of the two factions that emerged but it was the idea that Jesus the Lord that was accepted by the Catholic Church and the others in the east who believed in Jesus the man were deemed Heretics. I think this lead to the formation of the Eastern Orthadox Church but I don't have my history notes in front of me so don't take that as gosspel. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Now for some closure: Once Constantine defeated his rival he and his ally co-ruled in a shakey alliance. His ally was still pagan and indeed so was Constantine's wife. Eventually this all fell through and the two Generals fought to a stand still and this lead to the division of the Western and Eastern Empires. Even though the West remained Pagan it did still tollerate Christians and so Catholicism stayed alive and continued to grew amungst Christians. Ironically, while Constantine's ultimate dream was to unify the Roman Empire he actually permanently divided it.

Now when talking about the relationship between Jesus and Marry Magdeline, their blood lines and the death of either I think we can all see why there is so much grey area. I hope this helps if you understand more about Christianity Kinjo (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

This post has been edited by Acid09: Feb 7 2007, 04:49 PM