There were lots of writings that the early church had that were destroyed by Constantine. So, Constantine, in the Nicaean Council in 325, got all of the writings and letters that had been written, that they were using to preach from, took them all to that Council, decided which ones were acceptable, and then burnt the rest. Then they selected from the remaining writings during the Council of Carthage in 385, determining what they considered acceptable, which later became what we now know as the Bible, τὰ βιβλία, a library of books and letters. I don’t believe that God made the choices; I believe they did.
In the original version, there were different numbers of books. For example, what Protestants now refer to as the Apocrypha included 11 additional books. Some of the books Jesus quoted from, like the Book of Jasher, the Book of Enoch, and the Book of Jubilees, were among those not included in the final selection. I believe there were several such books that were referenced but ultimately left out.
Now, why didn’t they include them? Why did they include certain other things? Well, there seemed to be a bartering going on, from what I can understand, that there was a “Well, I want this one, and I want—well, if you’re having that one, we’re not having this one.” It wasn’t an inspired selection, that God told them to put these books in and take those books out. The Ethiopian Bible has 84 books, I think, and that’s one of the oldest recognised Bibles. The Protestant took all of those others out. Even the original King James had the Apocrypha in it, and then they took it out.
So, which books were the books that were in the Carthage one? Well, more than the 66 books that are in the present one—that’s the Protestant version. I remember asking people, “Well, why are these books not in the Bible?” and they were like, “Well, they’re not inspired.” That’s just nonsense. That’s just an excuse for saying, ‘Well, we don’t want these books because…’
And some are letters or documents that were written that were too controversial or complicated for them to accept. Because remember, why were they making a Bible? Because people couldn’t read, generally. You know, probably like less than 10% of the population could read. So, someone had to read it. So, why were the letters read out in the church? Because most people couldn’t read. That’s why they read them out.
So, they weren’t producing a Bible so people could read it. They were producing a Bible so they could actually say, “This is what we are going to tell people,” and they can’t hear anymore. Because, essentially, then what happened was, “Well, we’ve got a Bible, we don’t need to hear God anymore. God doesn’t speak anymore. He’s spoken through the Bible.” That’s what happened primarily.
And then, because most of the Bibles, in the Roman aspect of things, were done in Latin, they were written in another language, which most people couldn’t read because they didn’t really speak Latin. It was a written language, but it wasn’t the common language of the early church. Greek was, but it became the Roman language. And who could read that? Priests. So then it became a priestly thing to tell people and mediate. So it became a mediatorial system to control people because people couldn’t read it for themselves.
So someone had to read it. Well, what are they going to read? They’re going to read the bits [they like]. And well, then, how do people know what it’s saying? Well, because they’re telling them what it’s saying. So then you’ve got doctrine and theology being set by the Pope, effectively, who is “God’s vicar on Earth,” who has the divine authority to say what’s right and wrong. Which, seemingly, for me, is the Holy Spirit’s job, to guide us into the truth and lead us into the truth.
Sons of Issachar 