Voting On the Bible

MY SEVENTH GRADE Social Studies teacher from 1967-68 assigned year end grades for our class, locked his classroom door, left the building, and never returned. Chastened by our intolerable behavior, he made an about face career-wise, and pursued his true passion, the ministry, Episcopalian style. He was twenty five when he left the education profession, and, now in his early eighties remains active within his congregation. He looks even more handsome in his vestments than in teaching attire. Like everybody, we reconnected in recent years on, as you might suppose, Facebook. As Nietzsche said: "When thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into thee". That Facebook. Nearly all of his posts concern his ministry; pictures of churches with beautiful architecture, pictures of ornate alters, of himself in his vestments, and such. I never post enything: I only type in responses to the posts of others, only positive, to avoid trouble. He posted an image of a Catholic saint, and in his subtitle indicated that this particular gentleman had attended as a delegate, the Council of Nicea, courtesy the Emporer Constantine. Curious, I typed in the question: which way did he vote? By this I meant, which of the many versions of the gospel of christ did this particular gentleman prefer be included in the newly organized canon of the New Testament, which, after all, was the purpose of the Council of Nicea, to establish, once and for all, a scriptural canon, thus unifying the disparate local parishes into a single, uniform religious faith. (Constantine, like all new converts to religion, was zealous.) He ignored my question, arousing my concern. I messaged him, assuring him that my question was not intended to annoy or poke fun at his post, but rather, to educate me. To this he responded, rather patronizingly I thought, that he likes my inquiring mind, and that he assumed I was poking fun at him, and thought my question was funny. Alas, misunderstood again. I still want to know: who voted for what, indeciding what to leave in, and what to leave out. According to Chistian historian Bart Ehrman, no fewer than fifty seven versions of the gospels were considered for inclusion, and the fammoue fab four we have today are what was eventually included. Yes, the Holy Bible was assembled by a vote of the attending clerics at the Council of Nicea. How else? By divine revelation accompanied by a storke of lightning? Had the vote gone differently, we might now be reading the gospels of Barnabus and Mary, which indeed were extant, rather Mathew, Mark, and so on. All fifty seven of the proposed versions of the gospel, so I understand, were written by unknown authors, inclluding the ones finally settled upon. They first appeared in fluent ancient Greek, indicating that the various authors were all well educated scholars in some Greek city or another, possibly Corinth, among other possibilities. The fact that they were named after close associates of Jesus Christ demonstrates that, in the ancient world, if you wanted you writing to be read, you attracted attention to it by ascribing it to some famous person, somebody other than your own unknown self. Many if not most ancient documents are thus, in essence, forgeries. Nobody knows who actually wrote the gospels. Nobody ever will. We know which gospels were elected for canonization. But do we know for sure who was in in attendance at Nicea, and precisely which way the various attendees voted? I don't recall getting this information from Bart Ehrman. I thought my seventh grade social studies teacher might know more than I. For the first time ever, he disappointed me. I guess I'll never know. If only he had taken me seriously.