The council of Nicene comes to mind as well.
It sure does, along with all the other ecumenical councils since, where they've removed/added to/rewritten/reinterpreted the supposed "unchanging" word of god. Wasn't it at the first Nicene Council where they elevated the Jesus character and story from a normal man appointed by god to be his son later in life, to the supposed son of god from birth?
If I'm not mistaken it was also when the new testament was trimmed down from fifty something books containing the "unchanging" word of god to the twenty seven we have now.
No, it was not at all like that.
1. As we can see from extant pre.nicene texts (including resently found papyri) the council of Nicea did not change the texts Also that would have been impossible considering the great independence every episcopal see enjoyed by that time and the many schismatic groups that kept a jealous watch over everything the majority church did.
2. No, the story of the virgin birth fpr example originated in the 1st century. Also the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ. Paul in the epistle to the Romans assumes an Adoptianist Christology (as you describe it), as does "Mark", but in "John" Christ is already clearly regarded at a celestial being and the son of god, who has come to earth. The oldest fragments of the gospel of John are from the early 2nd century. Beside that all extant pre-nicene suthors hold a similar view (exept a few Adoptianists, whose writings are lost). Of course they also quoted frequently from the books of the NT.
3. It is true that some books, that were regarded as canonical by many pre-nicene authors, were excluded from the bible by the councel.
1. The whole point of the first council was to unify the multitude of christian sects into a homogeneous group so they'd stop warring and killing each other, there were changes and omissions within the texts, none of the sects were completely happy with the outcome, it was after all it was forced on them by Constantine.
There were no changes of the extent your post suggests. That was my whole point. Jesus was not regarded as a human prior to the Nicene councel. They didn't invent Christianity, the councels were just decisive steps in the development of Christianity as we know it.
No, there was no "warring and killing each other" between the Christian sects prior to the Councel of Nicene. There were quarrel all the time, but no bloodshed. They were all persecuted by the Roman state only 10 years ago.
You better not teach me about early church history. You better not.
Hang on, wasn't one of the main thrusts of the first council to decide weather or not Jesus was eternally divine or not? Wasn't that question specifically with reference to some sects arguing that he was divinely chosen as apposed to divine by birth? You don't think that that would have been a major rewrite for many of the sects? So the sects weren't rioting and having violent clashes in the streets of the Rome empire? The pamphlet wars between the sects didn't exist?
You must distinguish between sects and schisms.
From the beginning of Chrisianity there were different sects. One of them, the Ebionites, indeed saw Jesus as a mere human, chosen by God to be the Messiah. They observed the Mosaic law, rejected Paul es heretic and had no virgin birth. Others on the contrary, the Gnostics, did not believe that Jesus even had a real body at all. The formative Catholic Church did not seek unity with such movements, but comdemned them. So indeed, they was a continouus war of pamphlets.
As for schisms, there were a few in former times, both for personal and for doctrinal reasons. But they really became a big issue only, when the Church suddenly had gained unexpected power by the support it enjoyed under Constantine. The main conflict that led to the Councel of Nicene was the question, if Jesus was eternal or created. Created means, he was created prior to all other creation. You know, Jesus is the "Word of God". Everything else was created by God "through" Jesus, his Word. It's very odd. So both parties regarded Jesus as divine being, both taught that he was with God before he "came into the flesh". But some said, he was there forever, and some said he was not. It sounds strange, but this detail was a BIG issure.
The violence in the street began
after the councel of Nicene. Because it actually didn't settle anything.