Was the Bible created by a Roman Emperor named Constantine?

Answer 1

No it was not. The Old Testament was written by Jewish writers long before the Romans were around. This is called the Jewish or Hebrew Bible. The first translations were in Greek. The eldest one was the Septuagint which was said to have been sponsored by Ptolemy II of Egypt (reigned 285-246 B.C.), which was the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament and is also called the Greek Old Testament. The various translations gave rise to what is called the Christian Old Testament, which usually featured more than 24 books of the original Hebrew Bible, However, they were deliberately arranged in a different order.

The Gospels of the New Testament were derived from oral traditions of the second half of the first century A.D. Paul, who wrote the Pauline epistles of the New Testament, lived from c. 5 to c. 67. The Canon of the New Testament is an agreed-upon set of 27 books which was completed by 150 . This set of books was perhaps in use as early as 200. The first known use the word canonised for this set of books first bishop was in 367 (thirty years after the death of Constantine) by Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria. The first council which accepted the canon of the New Testament may have been the Synod of Hippo Regius in North Africa which was held in 393, fifty-six years after the death of Constantine. Ten disputed books were excluded from the canon. The entire text of the Greek Bible (Old and New Testament) is contained in the four great uncial codices.

Constantine the Great reigned as sole emperor from 324 to 337. He held the Council of Nicaea (the first ecumenical council) in 325. It purpose was to settle the dispute between mainstream Christianity (the Latin or western Church and the Greek or Eastern Church) and a dissident Christian doctrine, Arianism. This council had virtually nothing to do with the forming of the canon. There have been suggestions that some manuscripts were burned at the order of Constantine. However, there is no mention of such a thing actually happening at the order of Constantine or at Nicaea. The document by the Arian which claimed that Christ was a created being was abandoned by Arian themselves because of the strong resistance to it. It was torn to shreds in the sight of everyone present at the council.

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