Jordan Peterson on history: what the evidence says · JRE #877
SUBJECT: HISTORY
The short answer
Peterson claims the New Testament was constructed by Roman Emperor Constantine and a group of bishops who added and removed material. Historians find no basis for this. The Council of Nicaea (325 CE), convened by Constantine, addressed the Arian controversy over Christ's divinity and produced the Nicene Creed; none of its surviving records or eyewitness accounts (such as Eusebius or Athanasius) mention any decision about which books belonged in the New Testament.
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
But the New Testament, of course, was constructed by Constantine and a series of bishops. They took things out. They added things.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Historians find no basis for this. The Council of Nicaea (325 CE), convened by Constantine, addressed the Arian controversy over Christ's divinity and produced the Nicene Creed; none of its surviving records or eyewitness accounts (such as Eusebius or Athanasius) mention any decision about which books belonged in the New Testament. The 27-book canon instead emerged gradually through centuries of use and consensus among Christian communities, both before and after Nicaea, with disagreements over some books (e.g. Revelation) persisting among churchmen decades after the council. The popular idea that Constantine or a council of bishops assembled the New Testament traces to a much later (ninth-century) legend and was widely popularized by Voltaire and, more recently, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, not to any historical record from the period.