Paul E. Garcia
Professor Jeremy Pilarski
English Composition I
13 November 2012 Searching for Answers Its reputation so grand, that hardly anyone doubts its authenticity. A book so old, yet few ask of its origin. All we are told is that its author is God. In some cases, it is all a civilization has ever known. To believe in the Bible in our era with so little proof and evidence seems difficult to many of us. Apparently, faith is stronger, and it’s what keeps religion alive. But there has to be something beyond that. Something that’s more reliable and firm. That is why we search for answers. Unfortunately, faith isn’t always enough. The four main gospels in the Bible that we know of are those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. What most of us don’t know is that these weren’t the only ones written. Imagine the amount of people in that era who decided to write about Jesus’ trials. His life was recorded by thousands of followers across the land. A tale so interesting and compelling, but it was scattered and unorganized because people’s accounts on facts and occurrences differed. The word spread and about 300 years after the crucifixion of Christ, the number of his followers had multiplied which led to Christianity becoming a major movement throughout Eastern Europe. The Bible wasn’t a published book until someone with enough power and a clever plan got their hands on the loose pages that were the gospels. You may know him as Constantine the Great. He was the current Roman Emperor in 325 A.D. Few know that in his day, Rome’s official religion was a pagan cult based on sun worship— and Constantine was the head priest. The more Christianity expanded, the more of a threat it became as to omitting other religions, including Rome’s. The Emperor foresaw the consequences and withdrew sun worship as their religion. While doing so, he unified Rome under a single religion: Christianity. Some would say it was a business decision, a brilliant one at that. But the pagans didn’t make a complete exchange of religion but more of a fusion. He created a kind of hybrid religion and many components from the cult were transferred over. In The Da Vinci Code, Brown said, ”Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic Saints….The pre-Christian god Mithras—called the Son of God and the Light of the World—was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday of Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus” (232). Doesn’t that sound familiar? Constantine then held a famous gathering called the Council of Nicaea, composed of 300 or so religious leaders of varying faiths and beliefs. Many decisions were made here that influenced not only Christianity, but Jesus himself, including his divinity. Until then, humanity saw Jesus as a mortal being. Outstanding nevertheless, but viewed as a human. The idea of Christ being the Son of God was proposed during the council and voted on, a close vote at that. The council upgraded his status to a deity and he was known as a divine figure. We have to understand that before Constantine intervened, Christianity wasn’t yet a religion. It was a movement that inspired millions to a better life. Again I quote The Da Vinci Code, “It was all about power…. Christ as Messiah was critical to the functioning of Church and state….claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from his original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power….Constantine took advantage of Christ’s substantial influence and importance. And in doing so, he shaped the face of Christianity as we know it today” (Brown 233-234). There was one more loose end to tie before Constantine’s goal was achieved. There still existed thousands of documents depicting Jesus as a mortal, contradicting the idea that the Council was attempting to publish and that’s exactly what Constantine did. He financed and published an organized Bible, one with only those gospels that concurred with their story and could support it. This version omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and amplified those that made him godlike. The earlier gospels were gathered up and burned. Fortunately for us, not all of them were found by him. Throughout the 1950’s, a series of documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls—which happen to be in Hebrew— were found in a cave near Qumran near the Judean desert. They are composed of seven scrolls and one thing they all have in common is that they all include gospels and scriptures that can’t be found in today’s bible. In fact, not only does one of them not concord with the bible at all, but it heads in an entirely different direction. In the books of Ezekiel and Daniel, the Bible speaks of a final war at the End of Days. The War Scroll takes a different approach by describing a seven-staged dispute between the Sons of Light led by the Prince of Light (known as Michael, the Archangel), and the Sons of Darkness, assisted by a nation named Kittim, headed by Belial. The confrontation would last 49 years and end in the victory of the Sons of Light. The Coptic Scrolls, also known as the Nag Hammadi Library, were found in Upper Egypt in 1945 and consists of 13 ancient books filled with gospels and apocalyptic texts that also can’t be found in our Bible. These scrolls were written by early Christians and contain direct quotations from Christ himself, undocumented of course. Very little has been taken from the codices because the Church has made an enormous effort to keep them concealed. A lot of this evidence claims that the Bible is a man-made book and this doesn’t benefit the Church at all. An interesting theory that has been thrown out there is that Jesus was a married man. In the Gospel of Philip, he says, “And the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene. Christ loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her mouth”. It is also believed that in Da Vinci’s the Last Supper, Mary Magdalene is sitting on Jesus’ right side, not one of his apostles. If you analyze her features, you will realize that the character is no doubt a female. Her face is much softer than those of the apostles and the way she has her hands folded is very feminine-like. Another observation made is that their clothing mirrors each other’s. Jesus wears a red robe with a blue cloak while Mary wears a blue robe with a red cloak. Also, if you look at Jesus and Mary as two-dimensional figures, you’ll see that they form the letter M. Conspiracy theorists have said that it stands for Mary or matrimony, but it isn’t certain. A commonly over-looked fact is that in Jesus’ era, for a Jew to be wed-locked was religiously important and customary. If he is in fact the King of Jews, then wouldn’t he be married? Other accusations have been made as to Jesus parenting a royal bloodline, but that is besides the case. I still believe the Bible an iconic piece of literature, even though it has lost its grandeur through time. In my opinion, there are still more scrolls out there waiting to be found and revealed, broadening our perspective towards humanity’s origin and our beliefs.

Works Cited Pearse, Roger. "The Council of Nicaea (Nicea) and the Bible." The Council of Nicaea (Nicea) and the Bible. N.p., 26 Aug. 2000. Web. 3 Nov. 2012. <http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html>. Scaruffi, Piero. "The Historical Jesus Christ." The Historical Jesus Christ. N.p., 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2012. <http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/jesus.html>. "The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls." Digital Dead Sea Scrolls. The Israel Museum, 1995-2012. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/>. Pagels, Elaine. "The Lost Books of the Bible - The Dead Sea Scrolls." The Lost Books of the Bible - The Dead Sea Scrolls. N.p., 2003. Web. 9 Nov. 2012. <http://www.thelostbooks.com/nagham.htm>. "The Gospel of Philip -- The Nag Hammadi Library." The Gospel of Philip -- The Nag Hammadi Library. Trans. Wesley W. Isenberg. Harper Collins, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html>. Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2003. 232-234. Print Da Vinci, Leonardo. The Last Supper. 1498. Oil on canvas. Santa Maria Delle Grazie (Church), Milan.