What Happened at the Council of Nicaea?

From ancient aliens to grand conspiracies, there is a lot of bad history out there. It seems this is becoming more and more prevalent within the circles I'm ostensibly in. So this video will be addressing some of the bad history I've been seeing. Evidently, there are many people who think Jesus was invented at the council of Nicaea or that the council decided on the final state of the biblical canon. Both of these things are false. One would have to pass over a lot of history to make these claims. The first council of Nicaea in 325 was definitely a defining moment in the history of Christianity, but not in the way some people may think. So today, I will be exploring what really happened at the council of Nicaea.

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Sources:

Lee Martin McDonald - The Biblical Canon

Philip Jenkins - Jesus Wars

Bart Ehrman - Lost Christianities

Bart Ehrman - The Triumph of Christianity

Burton L. Mack - Who Wrote The New Testament?

Diarmaid MacCulloch - Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

Aloys Grillmeier - Christ in Christian Tradition V.1

Leo Donald Davis - The First Seven Ecumenical Councils

William G. Rusch - The Trinitarian Controversy

[sdaniels]

"Diocletian had no desire to hurt the Cristians, although some people did suffer and die." Yeah. That tends to happen when you are sentenced to death. Deception by omision or passive voice is still deception.

[kingswarriors]

Finally a neutral doco on the council of nicea.. I am a christian and I appreciate your neutrality on this aspect.

[stefanhensel]

It's amazing to see a dedicated atheist correcting some widespread anti-Christian bullshit. Thank you for that.

[ngusumakofu]

Wow, thanks to this video, I now realize how wrong I was. Used to think the canon was agreed upon at the council of Nicea. And I believe I first got that idea from non other than the freaking history channel.

[akl]

What do you mean by saying Eusebius was the first person to "set forth a clearly identifiable list of NT scripture"? Didn't Marcion do that long before Nicaea?

[doknbox]

I am a Christian and I found this video to be a great explanation of the Council of Nicaea and many of the early controversies that faced the early church. It disturbs me just how naive Christians are about the formation of the New Testament. I'm going to check out your other videos.

[millennialseeker]

"It's not what people think that is the problem. It is what people think is right that is so darned wrong that is the problem." --W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993)

[franklucas]

Basically, the Senate & Congress has to put the "Ideas" into legislative session, with the nays & yays then the President signed it into law, becoming the new entity of Christianity.

[SickAcousticCovers]

This is basically the same as what I heard had happened. The Christian leadership of the time used philosophical and rhetorical approaches to formulate and present a standard designed to appease different groups in regards to God and his nature.

They didn't seek for inspiration through prayer and study, or by appealing to anyone who had authority from God to interpret these things, such as a prophet. They put it to a vote. To me, it explains why many Christians today have a narrow view when it comes to interpreting what the scriptures are truly saying. These man-made creeds stifle spiritual understanding and make it seem as though a vote by (presumably) well meaning people is (by and large) the end all be all of what is acceptable to believe about the nature of God.

[AntiCitizenX]

Nicely done. I think the point about Constantine threatening everyone with exile is extremely significant. It forced everyone to pick a side and impose the illusion of consensus. If anything, most attendees didn’t really care about the issue, and they just went with the more popular view to avoid losing their homes.

[halfhouse]

Well-researched and objective in its presentation. It helped fill in the gaps in my knowledge about that very fateful event.

I have one question: was it at this council that the books of the Bible were chosen?

[delbertosborne]

Where did you get your information from. What source.🤔

[garrickworthing]

Arius's opponent before and during the Council of Nicaea was not Alexander of Alexandria but Athanasius of Alexandria. You can confirm this by googling these names.

[Hegeleze]

You either missed or didn't stress one of the most important issues - there were around 2, 000 bishops at the time and only about 10% of those attended to vote on the controversy. Also, there is some interesting controversy about there being others who were travelling there and the vote was given before they arrived... I will need to look this up in the literature, but I distinctly remember it.

[primopierre]

What does the records say about all the other christian churches that did not join the Council of Nicea? Is it highly likely that there are those churches who did not join the Council?

[markjeffries]

Question: What is your source of information about Diocletian?

[BanjaraHillbillies]

I am currently an atheist. I was a priest in the traditional Anglican Church for 21 years. I taught Seminary level Patristics and early Christian history. I would use this video in my classes. Very well done. I was expecting it to be full of errors, and I was pleasantly surprised!

[ianrwood]

Excellent summary of Nicea - Thank you. I don't think any other historical event has had so much crap written about it when the evidence of what really happened is so clear.

[BobJones-dqmx]

Question? When were the 27 books of the NT ratified by the church? Date or another council? Same question for OT? Thanks

[aburaeese]

إِنَّ مَثَلَ عِيسَىٰ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ كَمَثَلِ آدَمَ ۖ خَلَقَهُ مِنْ تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ قَالَ لَهُ كُنْ فَيَكُونُ

Verily, the likeness of 'Iesa (Jesus) before Allah is the likeness of Adam. He created him from dust, then (He) said to him: \Be!\" - and he was. (Aali Imran 3:59)"