Did Constantine ‘invent’ the New Testament?

May 2, 2006
MARK RATHEL
Special to Florida Baptist Witness

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Editor’s note: This article by Mark Rathel, a theology professor at The Baptist College of Florida, is the fourth of five exploring some of the claims of The Da Vinci Code in the weeks leading up to the May 19 release of the motion picture of the same name.

GRACEVILLE (FBW) – Dan Brown’s phenomenal best-seller The Da Vinci Code attacks the essence of Christianity by attacking the deity of Christ. Constantine, the fourth-century Roman Emperor, used the Council of Nicaea to “promote” Jesus from mortal to deity, Brown asserts. To certify this promotion of Jesus, Constantine further “invented” a new Bible by imperial financing that excluded other gospels by the power of the Roman Emperor.

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In The Da Vinci Code, Sir Leigh Teabing makes the following historically inaccurate claims about the New Testament:

• More than 80 gospels vied for inclusion in the New Testament.

• The pagan Constantine collated the documents included in the New Testament.

• Constantine financed an official Bible that highlighted Gospels that depicted the deity of Jesus and excluded earlier gospels that emphasized the human nature of Jesus.

• Historians discovered these excluded gospels in the documents of the Nag Hammadi scrolls.

Dan Brown raises the following issues regarding the origin of the New Testament: What are the Nag Hammadi documents? Were gospels dated earlier than the four New Testament Gospels excluded from the Bible because of a political agenda? Did an official or council decide the contents of the New Testament?

What are the Nag Hammadi documents? In December 1945, an Egyptian peasant named Muhammad Ali discovered the documents known as the Nag Hammadi Scrolls. Nag Hammadi, the site of the discovery, is a village located on the Upper Nile River. Ali discovered late fourth century Coptic (late Egyptian) translations of writings produced in the period 150-250 A.D. A sect called the Gnostics produced the Nag Hammadi documents.

The word “Gnostic” derives from the Greek word for knowledge (gnosis). Gnostics claimed to possess secret knowledge that led to salvation. The knowledge of salvation consisted of the teaching that true Gnostics possessed a divine spark within them. Gnostics denied the incarnation, death, atonement, and literal resurrection of Jesus. Since the Gnostic Jesus is not incarnate, he actually is less human than the Jesus of the biblical Gospels. These gospels do not portray an alternate Christianity, as Brown and others charge, but a religious approach opposed to Christianity.

Were gospels dated earlier than the four New Testament Gospels excluded from the Bible because of a political agenda? Again, with this accusation Brown commits a grievous historical error. Brown claims that 80 gospels vied for inclusion in the church’s Bible; Constantine narrowed the list to four. Even the radical Jesus Seminar recognizes that Brown skews the number of gospels. None of these “alternative” gospels dates earlier than the biblical Gospels.

The Christian church recognized early the special, unique status of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as inspired accounts of the person and ministry of Jesus. In 1 Timothy 5:18 the Apostle Paul quoted Luke 10:7 as Scripture. In the context, Paul attributed the status of Scripture (graphe in Greek – literally “the Writing”) to Luke and Deuteronomy. During Paul’s lifetime, then, the third Gospel existed in written form and the church regarded Luke as equivalent in status with Deuteronomy.

Further, Justin Martyr, a mid-second century teacher in Rome, claimed that the church read the “memoirs of the apostles” or the prophets in worship. Justin placed the memoirs of the apostles (the New Testament’s four Gospels) on equal status as Old Testament prophecy. Irenaeus (c. 180 A.D) argued for the necessity of four and only four Gospels based on the pattern of creation: four compass points, four winds, and four Gospels. Prior to the conclusion of the second century, key church leaders from wide geographical locations affirmed four Gospels as the recognized, inspired books about Jesus.

Constantine did not exclude legitimate gospels; he followed the centuries old practice of the churches. After a period of lengthy persecution, the emperor did commission Eusebius of Caesarea (the famed church historian) to produce fifty copies of the Bible. Yet, it is important to remember that the Nag Hammadi gospels, written between 150-250 A.D., never contended for the honored position of Scripture.

Did an official or council decide the contents of the New Testament? No individual or group made a decision regarding the contents of the New Testament. The church recognized the canon (the English translation of Hebrew and Greek words meaning “a rule” or “measuring rod”) of Scripture as inspired by God rather than creating the canon.

The early church, however, identified criteria important for the acceptance of a book as canonical:

• Did the book have a legitimate connection with an apostle? No apostle wrote any of the Gnostic gospels.

• Did the book enjoy widespread acceptance by Christians from diverse geographical locations? The Gnostic documents experienced limited circulation.

• Did the teachings of the book correlate with the truth? The early church recognized that the Gnostic gospels did not contain good news.

• Did the book edify? By reading the Gnostic gospels, one easily discerns they do not edify as the canonical Gospels.

The New Testament is historically accurate; Dan Brown advocates alternate ahistorical or unhistorical “gospels.” The New Testament enjoys vast archaeological support; Brown’s alternative “gospels” lack any archaeological support for their content. The preservation of the New Testament is remarkable in terms of number of manuscripts and geographical distribution; Brown’s alternate “gospels” were preserved in limited copies and had limited geographical distribution. The New Testament Gospels were written within a generation of the historical life of Jesus; Brown’s alternate “gospels” were written more than a century after the historical Jesus. Modern disciples can have confidence in the New Testament.

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Unveiling the Da Vinci Code

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