Peddling Stupidity To The Masses

So I'm watching DayStar last night, and the "Fall Sharathon" is in full swing. I turned it on just in time to hear the latest Judaizer-du-jour talking to Joni and Marcus Lamb (the network founders) about his new book. I'm not going to mention his name or the name of the book simply because I don't want to give this shmoe any more free pub than he's already getting.

His whole point was, and I quote, that "Jews and Christians weren't separate groups until the Council of Nicea in the year 325."

That's weird. I wonder if anybody told St. Stephen that before he was stoned to death. If he would have known that they were all just one big group, he might not have worried about all that Jesus talk.

Or St. Paul. Didn't he get the memo that Christians and Jews were one group? Just what was his malfunction with all that persecution business? It must have been some kind of misunderstanding. I can only imagine what happened when Mr. Roper showed up.

St. Justin, who was writing around 150 or so, apparently didn't have a clue either. Hell, he was writing the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew for nothing. You wouldn't think you'd need a discussion of the sort that Justin envisions if the opposite party is part of your own camp. Something about preaching to the choir comes to mind.

All facts aside, let's consider the rationale promoted by our Judaizing colleagues for all this.

Basically, Constantine convoked Nicea I because he was trying to Christianize all these pagans and none of them could do so because they weren't familiar with Judaism. It was therefore necessary to separate Christians from their Jewish roots so that the pagans wouldn't have to learn stuff about Judaism AND so that nobody would think Jerusalem was important and instead "look to Europe as the home of Christianity."

If you just said, "Huh?" just trust me that you aren't alone.

And here I was thinking that it had to do with that Arianism business. Oddly enough, Constantine, the Pope, and everybody else who was at the Council seemed to think the same thing. For the sake of comparison, here are the canons from Nicea I. Jerusalem is mentioned a grand total of once, down in Canon 7. Jews aren't mentioned at all until the close of the synodal letter, and the reference there is about the date for celebrating Easter. Constantine and Co. must have been really crappy record-keepers if they couldn't even come up with a single note discussing the whole reason why they were meeting in the first place.

It was a sad sight to see the camera shots that cut away into the audience to show all these poor people being duped by these guys. It is quite striking to see how historical fact is abused by such folks with such impugnity. Pray for them and their victims.