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| Q: | The other evening I was talking to a woman who said at one point she was a devout Christian, but that the more she studied, the more falsehood she found in Christianity. She said that the Bible as I know it is incomplete, because the first woman was actually Lilith, who was chased out of the garden of Eden when she refused to be subservient. She also mentioned that Christ was given His divinity in the conference of Nicea, and before that no one thought that he was God. Now I am convinced of Christ's divinity and that Eve was the first woman, but where did the tale of Lilith come from, and why would some one doubt Christ's divinity based on the counsel of Nicea? | ||||||
| A: | Lilith is not a historical figure. In Semitic mythology she was as you describe her: cast out of Eden for refusing to submit to Adam and then replaced by Eve. This Lilith myth found a place in some pre-Christian Jewish literature. As you know, this literature does not have a place in the Old Testament and was never accepted by most Jews. According to the Bible the Second Person of the Trinity has been God from eternity. He became truly human without ceasing to be God. The writers of the New Testament believed this. The earliest worship forms of the Christian Church confessed this. The baptismal creeds and statements of faith of the ancient church expressed this truth for two hundred years before the Council of Nicea. The Council of Nicea (325) and the Council of Constantinople (381) gave brief and clear form to this faith in the words of what we call the Nicene Creed: "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father." The Council and the Creed were not creating or inventing new doctrine. They were confessing what the church believed from the beginning. There is no reason to doubt Christ's divinity "based on the Council of Nicea." | ||||||
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