Posted on 06/24/2014 2:13:28 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Recently, a friend emailed me with a very common claim, namely, that, “Paul hijacked Christianity with no personal connection with Jesus and filled his letters with personal opinions.” This could be rephrased in the more common claim: Paul invented Christianity.
This claim is especially common among Muslim apologists who use it in an attempt to explain why the Qur’an simultaneously affirms Jesus as a true prophet while also contradicting the Bible at every major point. However, since my friend is not a Muslim and is not coming at the issue from that angle, I will just deal with the question more broadly.
My friend alleges that some of the “personal opinions” of Paul that were interjected into the New Testament include: “slaves obey your masters; women not to have leadership roles in churches; homosexuality is a sin (though there is Old Testament authority for this last, Paul doesn’t seem to base his opinion on it).”
“None of [of the above] were said by Jesus and would perhaps be foreign to his teaching,” he wrote. “I think Paul has created a lot of mischief in Christianity, simply because he wrote a lot and his letters have survived.”
Let’s deal with this point-by-point.
No personal connection to Jesus
Paul, in fact, did have a personal connection to Jesus. This is revealed in the famous “Damascus road” accounts in Acts 9:3-9, Acts 22:6–11 and Acts 26:12–18. Paul refers back to this experience elsewhere in his letters, though it is only laid with this level of detail in Acts, written by Paul’s traveling companion Luke.
The only way one can maintain that Paul had no connection to Jesus is to rule out the conversion experience of Paul a priori based on a presupposition. Of course, I can argue that such a presupposition is untenable, but that would take an entire post to itself. For the sake of brevity, I would just point out that it is illogical to employ such reasoning. It would go something like, “It didn’t happen because it couldn’t happen because it can’t happen therefore it didn’t happen therefore Paul had no personal connection to Jesus.”
Personal opinions
Yes, Paul does interject his personal opinions into his writing! However, when he does, he clearly delineates what he is saying as his personal opinion as an Apostle.
For instance, in dealing with the issue of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul clearly distinguishes between his own statements and the Lord’s.
In 1 Corinthians 7:10, Paul says, “To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord)…” and in 1 Corinthians 7:12, Paul says, “To the rest I say, (I, not the Lord)…” This example shows that Paul was not in the business of putting words in the mouth of Jesus. Paul had no problem showing when he was giving his own charge and when it was a statement made by the Lord Jesus, as it was in this case (Matthew 5:32).
Yet it is important to note that other Apostles recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture from the earliest days of Christianity, as seen the case of Peter (2 Peter 3:15–16).
Paul’s “personal opinions” and the Law
Out of the three examples, two are directly from the Mosaic Law. Obviously the Mosaic Law couldn’t have stated that women should not preach in the church because the Church did not yet exist and wouldn’t for over 1,000 years.
The claim that there is only Old Testament authority for the last of the examples is false. The same goes for the claim that Paul does not base his statements on the Law.
It is abundantly clear that Paul actually does derive his statements on homosexual activity from the Law.
For instance, in 1 Timothy 1, Paul mentions homosexuality in the context of the type of people the Law was laid down for (1 Timothy 1:9-11). This short list indicts all people, just as Paul does elsewhere (Romans 3:23), showing that all people require the forgiveness that can only be found through faith in Jesus Christ.
When Paul deals with it elsewhere, he mentions it in the context of other activities explicitly prohibited by the Law (1 Corinthians 6:9-11), again going back to the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ sets apart (sanctifies) His people and justifies them.
As for the command for slaves to obey their masters, this is regularly claimed to be objectionable by critics. By way of introduction, is important to distinguish between what we have in our mind about the institution of slavery as Americans and the institution of slavery as it existed in Paul’s day. After all, Paul explicitly listed “enslaverers” (or man-stealers) in the same list mentioned above (1 Tim 1:10). Since the entire institution of slavery in the United States was built upon the kidnapping of people, it is clearly radically different from what Paul spoke of. Furthermore, the stealing of a man was punishable by death under the Mosaic Law (Exodus 21:16). The practice of slavery in America would never have existed if the Bible was actually being followed.
Paul also exhorted his readers to buy their freedom if they could (1 Corinthians 7:21) and instructing the master of a runaway slave to treat him as “no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother” (Philemon 11). Paul grounded his statements in the defense of “the name of God and the teaching.” Paul said that bondservants should “regard their masters as worthy of all honor,” not just for the sake of doing so, but so there might be no chance to slander the name of God and the gospel.
The fact is that Paul knew the Law quite well (Philippians 3:5-6) and the Law does deal with slavery.
Ultimately, the claim made by my friend requires more fleshing out on his end and some evidence on his part in order to be more fully dealt with.
Paul’s teachings foreign to Jesus’ teachings?
This is another common claim. First off, one must ask if this statement implies that Jesus would simply have to repeat everything Paul said and vice-versa or else they would remain foreign.
The fact is that there is nothing contradictory between Paul’s writings and Jesus’ teaching. One must wonder why Luke – a traveling companion of Paul and the author of Luke-Acts – would have no problem writing the gospel that bears his name if he perceived such a contradiction. Furthermore, one must wonder why this apparent conflict was lost on the earliest Christians, including the Apostle Peter, who viewed Paul’s letters as Scripture (see above).
In affirming the Law (Matthew 5:17), Jesus affirmed all that Paul that was clearly grounded in the Law. Furthermore, if there was a real contradiction between Paul’s writings and the teachings of Jesus, Paul would have been rejected, instead of accepted as he has always been.
The Christian community existed before Paul became a Christian, as is clearly seen by the fact that he was persecuting Christians (Acts 8:1,3), and he even met with the leaders of the early church. They did not reject Paul, but instead affirmed what he had been teaching (Galatians 2:2,9). This makes it even clearer that Paul could not have invented or hijacked Christianity.
As for the claim that Paul has had such a large impact “simply because he wrote a lot and his letters have survived,” all one has to do is look at the other early Christian writings that survived in order to see that is not a valid metric.
We have seen that the claim that “Paul hijacked Christianity” is without evidence. While I have taken the burden of proof upon myself in responding to this claim, in reality the burden of proof would be on the one making the claim in the first place. No such evidence has been presented and no substantive evidence can be presented since Paul did not invent Christianity or hijack Christianity or anything similar to it. Instead, Paul was an Apostle of Jesus Christ commissioned to spread the gospel, something that he clearly did by establishing churches and penning many letters under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we can still read today.
When one reads the gospels and the other writings contained in the New Testament, the message is cohesive and clear: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Ro 3:23), God demands complete perfection (Mt 5:48) and all we have earned through our sin is death (Ro 6:23) and hell. Yet God offers the free gift of eternal life to all who repent and believe (Mk 1:15, Ro 10:9–11) in Jesus Christ, who died as a propitiation (Ro 3:25, Heb 2:17, 1 Jn 4:10) for all who would ever believe in Him (Jn 6:44) and rose from the grave three days later, forever defeating sin and death. Those who believe in Him can know (1 John 5:13) that they have passed from death to life (Jn 5:24) and will not be condemned (Jn 3:18), but will be given eternal life by Jesus Christ (Jn 6:39-40). Paul and Jesus in no way contradict each other on what the gospel is, in fact the four gospels and Paul’s letters (along with the rest of the New Testament) form one beautiful, cohesive truth.
It most certainly is - Your Master spoke it, and that makes it law to a disciple. It MUST be followed if the Teacher said it.
And incidentally, each covenant was ratified into the next, so ALL the covenants were IN Moses, and when Moses was ratified, All the covenants were added to the Messianic Covenant. Every_single_word of YHWH will certainly come to pass.
God is the giver of the Mosaic law, and He is also the author of the New Covenant. In abstraction, they have equal force, as the Lawgiver is the same, but we do not live in an abstraction, but time. Jesus accounts for this by providing a sunset clause to the Mosaic covenant, “Till all be fulfilled.” Thus it is as against Torah (understood here as the words of God by which we live) to neglect the realities of this new and better covenant as it would have been to neglect the realities of the Old Covenant while it was still in force. It is the same Lawgiver.
But it is not all fulfilled. Neither the law, nor the prophets... And last I looked, heaven and earth have not passed away... So the sunset clause cannot yet apply.
For that reason, I mean to enjoy my bacon (and I truly do - one of my favorite foods), because my God has liberated us from the tutelage of the signs and shadows, for which we have no need (other than to learn of Him in foreshadow)[...]
Perhaps true, if you understand the signs and shadows, else your tutor remains at your disposal.
as we have the living reality of Christ, whom we ignore to our peril, and whose directive for us in the New Covenant are every bit as forceful as any command thundered from Sinai.
Exactly true - And if we love YHWH, we will keep his commandments.
And what, now that we have this liberty, is Torah, the word of God to us lately, in these last days before the final establishment of His Kingdom? It is to love Him with everything we have, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. The Torah seen through the veil of Moses is a weak and flickering light by comparison to the glory of Gospel light we now have in Christ. Why should we retreat into the weaker light? We won’t. It would be an insult to the Spirit of grace.
TRUE. And HOW to love Him, and HOW to love our neighbor is found with specificity in Torah, and demonstrated, interpreted, in the testimony of Yeshua. YHWH does not change, and He Himself has said His Torah is eternal. Yeshua's words are also eternal, because Yeshua said it ALL (the spirit of prophecy IS the testimony of Yeshua the Messiah). To say it is changed, nullified, would be very premature in my observation.
As for your specious contentions about the alleged Hebrew prototext [...]
My comment is not specious.
[...] it is pure, unadulterated speculation.
Not exactly true - There is history of such a thing... but close enough. You will note that my own position cares less about the Hebrew originals than it does the anthropological and cultural necessity to look at what we have through Hebrew eyes. Nonetheless, it is the errata that proves my point - Because of that, I believe as I do.
There is no logical necessity that idiomatic Hebrew or Aramaic word patterns were part of an earlier text form, when they could just as easily have been a natural artifact of Jewish writers writing in Greek.
I believe you are mistaken. An Hebrew word pun is a deliberate, poetic play on words. There is intention there that clarifies or adds information to the text. It is not mere idiom. And it is utterly invisible to the Greek.
BTW, I am aware of the discussion about Matthew. The evidence is hearsay. The patristic evidence does not show that Matthew wrote a Hebrew Gospel intended to be used authoritatively. It is even possible he wrote in Greek first and later revamped it to Hebrew for local use.
Perhaps, but it would make far more sense for him to write in his native language, and evidence exists of an original in Hebrew. But it is a moot point until an Hebrew version arises. Thus, while I am enamored of such a thing, I can but use what we have, which is why I do not fight strenuously for it (whether or not is immaterial). I have simply stated the proofs in history that go toward it's existence, which somehow offends many people - Perhaps because it is outside of their personal, comfortable paradigm.
That’s a good a speculation as any other [...]
Well no, it is not, but I will let you have it, as it seems to be of little profit to argue either side of the issue.
[T]he medieval Hebrew Matthews don’t count, as a) they are late documents with no provenance showing they preceded the Greek Matthew (for which fragments exist as early as the First Century), and b) they appear to have been written with a slant to deflect Christian missionary efforts among the Jewish communities in which they were found (See Shem-Tov - what a mess, apparently a medieval Hebrew translation of an earlier Latin text, put into service as a tool against Christians!)
In fact, Shem Tov was used to defend Jews in Spain against the Roman church, who would deport them and seize all they owned If they could not debate successfully and/or would not convert. So the circumstance for the Shem Tov is indeed nefarious, but the other way around... Unless you are comfortable with your Nicene Creed being delivered at the point of a sword...
And like the Hebrew artifacts in the Greek NT, provenance has little to do with it - It is the artifacts within the text that point to an origin other than the Greek. I do not claim the Shem Tov is correct. What is interesting about it is the places where it is at variance with the Latin and the Greek, in harmony with the Aramaic, and particularly for me, the places where it stands against the Pharisees - Why would Orthodox Rabbinical Judaism prepare a text that opposes their own authority, OR that defends Yeshua LEGALLY (as a Rabbi) better than the Greek?
My point in Shem Tov is very limited - a verse here or there... My arguments are a matter of textual criticism, and have been blown entirely out of proportion by people who don't understand what textual criticism is.
So no, there’s no legitimate evidence the NT as a whole was originally Hebrew.
Except those nasty little inexplicable word puns and some fairly reliable history (as reliable as anything the Roman church has spewed).
Quite the opposite. Luke was a gentile. He wrote in excellent Greek style. Clearly he thought in the language in which he wrote.
It is interesting to me that Luke translates almost seamlessly into Hebrew...
Paul likewise, whose mission was to the Gentiles, would have a hard time getting his epistles read if he foolishly wrote them in Hebrew.
Except that they were likely being read in the synagogue.
The Ryland fragment, a portion of John, was in Greek, and dates to the end of the first or the beginning of the second century, nearly contemporaneous with the Apostle John himself. Any theory of the manuscript evidence that fails to account for these and many other factors supporting Greek as the predominant original language is a theory with it’s head firmly planted in the sand.
You forget that the very same thing was said about the Masoretic Text for hundreds of years - Until the Dead Sea Scrolls, which suddenly pushed it's authority back to the proto-Masoretic... From Medieval times to somewhere near 200 years BC. The age of a document is not it's only defense. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And pride goeth before the fall.
And Rome permits it as well; as long as it is the rhythm method.
My Grandpa always referred to us as “rimshot” and the 4 rhythm boys.
OOOooooh...
This is what the Wesleyan Discipline says:
(11) Abortion. The Wesleyan Church seeks to recognize and preservethe sanctity of human life from conception to natural death and, thus, isopposed to the use of induced abortion. However, it recognizes that there maybe rare pregnancies where there are grave medical conditions threatening thelife of the mother, which could raise a serious question about taking the lifeof the unborn child. In such a case, a decision should be made only after veryprayerful consideration following medical and spiritual counseling. TheWesleyan Church encourages its members to become informed about theabortion issue and to become actively involved locally and nationally in thepreparation and passage of appropriate legislation guaranteeing protection oflife under law to unborn children.
I guess the alternative is letting the mother and possibly the child BOTH die.
Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ.
(Why can't Paul make up his mind?
you might recheck the URL you linked to and see Bobby Darin's name; yes, it was a cover by him but you linked to him. I would prefer it that they bite each other and themselves rather than the ceaseless effort to snatch hopes of salvation away from whomever -
Now that you explain yourself, one can see why you linked that song; Do your well intentioned sentiments apply to those biting and devouring the hopes of salvation pertaining to those Mormons that still remain here, albeit few. Few are more zealous or conservative than them.
Nay, she is not off the hook and should be watched carefully. It could be a mistake and bad choice. The Catholic Church is firmly against ordination of women, basing the doctrine on multiple pillars, a defense in depth so to speak. You might attend a Catholic mass as an observer to see how holy women behave in church, and let me know if you observe something contrary to Paul's two passages about women in this regard. She is not an ordained minister, and I do not foresee the holy catholic apostolic church ordaining women, except it be the "great apostasy." If it falls, I expect it to be the last to fall in another great martyrdom. Are there any Protestant denominations that have approved homosexual marriage that do not have female clergy leading their churches ? And not just the Protestants and their branches, look at Conservative Judaism (Reformed Judaism and Reconstructed Judaism were a given), which fell into the same trap. Paul was very clear that, generally speaking, women were more susceptible to deception than men and his two passages, Timothy and Corinthians are staring at us. Rather than ask if Paul changed Christianity, ask if the Gentiles believe what he wrote as it is written If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.
as certain also of your own poets have said, It would strain credulity, at that.
A certain wise remarked there are two principal reasons people leave the holy catholic apostolic church, poor catechism and unconfessed sin. Now to why they refuse to come I would suggest another two, ignorance and willful rejection.
To the contrary - Kosher is the norm in Judea among Hebrews. It is YOUR claim that is extraordinary, not mine.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
'Abolish' and 'fulfill' are Rabbinical terms - Wouldn't it be useful for you to find out what they mean?
I kinda like Acts 111:4-7
Ahh, yes... The 'Meats and Sheets' vision. Two things:
First, it shows Peter declaring that he was keeping kosher 15 YEARS after the cross.
Secondly, Peter interprets the dream himself at the house of Cornelius: 'Do not call unclean what YHWH has made clean' was referring to the Gentiles, who were never made 'unclean'.
Next.
So if we don't obey the Torah, what are the consequences? Saved or not?
According to Yeshua:
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
(e-Sword:KJV)
Apparently, those who do and teach Torah are favored, but those who don't still get in. So it doesn't seem to be a matter of salvation (as I have always stated).
Torah is for the criminal... The lawless ones. Those who sin. It is there to show what sin is.
We are no longer obligated to obey it to maintain a right relationship with God because that's not how a right relationship with God is maintained under the new covenant.
But if we love YHWH, we will keep his commandments. And His commandments are not grievous.
All the blessings and curses of the OT do not apply to born again believers because God is dealing with people in a new way, the way of Christ, instead of the old way with the letter of the Law.
No, the curses do not apply. There is nothing that says the blessings don't remain.
It's no longer *If you do this, then I'll do that.*
Oh, but yes, it is - The ONLY thing that stands between you and destruction is a covering of the 'Better Blood'.
NOW it's grace and mercy, us being seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit in us, who is the guarantee of our redemption until we acquire possession of it, that we are washed and cleansed and forgiven, having the righteous requirements of the Law met for us and in us by virtue of the fact of being in Christ, being credited to our account.
It has always been about grace and mercy. And if we love YHWH, we will keep his commandments.
That's not proof. That's speculation and opinion.
No, it is proof positive of strong Hebrew and Aramaic influences upon the text.
Proof is texts, physical fragments of ancient writings.
No, it isn't. As I have said elsewhere on this thread, the same was said of the Masoretic Text. The Greek/Latin tradition was older by a long shot. Yet the proofs within textual criticism were strong enough for all of Protestantism to adopt the Masoretic tradition instead.
And now, archaeology and anthropology have largely proved the Masoretic, primarily through the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bar Kochba letters. By your standard, until the DSS apeared, you should have been fighting for the Roman church wrt the Old Testament. Older is not necessarily better. Nor is it necessarily proof.
Denial of Christ as the Messiah and thinking that law keeping will get them salvation is also so what’s your point?
>>First, it shows Peter declaring that he was keeping kosher 15 YEARS after the cross.<<
No it doesn’t. I shows that he was NOT keeping kosher. The whole thing started because he was eating with the Gentiles.
Acts 11: 2 And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, 3 Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.
So clearly the Jews were angry with him because he was NOT keeping kosher. He had been told in a dream that nothing was unclean. Why would you try to twist what was said?
He was told in the dream that he was to eat everything and that nothing was unclean.
Acts 11: 9 But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
Now why would you Hebrew wanna be’s want to go back and emulate the Jews and go against what God says?
Um, duh! They were after all Hebrew who spoke Aramaic. The New Testament however was penned in the common language of the day to reach a larger audience which was Greek.
This Hebrew wann be and sacred name nonsense really needs to stop. It’s contrary to what the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles to write.
HE is the true meaning of the Torah.
Then don't you think He would look a lot like Torah? Speak things readily comparable to Torah? Show things that Torah follows? He did, but if you don't understand Torah, you cannot see that.
It all pointed to HIM.
Well, not ALL. There are subplots and texts too.
He was not just a "Great Prophet and Rabbi sent to show the people the true meaning of Torah".
To the people on the ground at the time, that is exactly what He would necessarily have to be.
The Torah was given to show the true meaning of the Messiah. You are putting the wrong thing in the place of preeminence. The Torah is not above the Messiah.
I am not - I try to keep Torah because I love YHWH and follow Yeshua...
He is the embodiment and fulfillment of the Torah. It foreshadowed Him and He fulfilled it.
But it is not fulfilled. There is much in the law and much in the prophets that is left undone. To leave them undone makes YHWH a liar. I flatly won't go there.
The Torah is not above Him. It leads to Him.
Correct - keeping Torah leads to Messiah. If we love him, we will keep his commandments. and one of his commandments was to do and to teach Torah. It cannot be more simple than that.
And no, I do not believe that Jesus still keeps the Torah now. The Torah was a copy of the heavenly truths; the heavenly reality, Jesus Christ.
Then you must discard the old testament and particularly the prophets... There WILL be a kingdom in Israel. Yeshua WILL sit upon the throne of David. And Torah WILL go forth from Jerusalem, and the whole world WILL keep it, to include the sabbath and holy days. The prophets declare it in no uncertain terms.
After Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension the focus is on the Gentiles not the Hebrew people. It’s time the Hebrew wanna be’s realize that. It’s a new dispensation the old having been set aside.
Why must this "dead horse" continue to be beaten? In numerous OTHER threads, your contention for Hebrew NT originals have been disputed by clear and undeniable evidence. Why is this such an important point? We already know that Jesus spoke Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek - probably even Latin - to those people He came in contact with during His earthly presence. That the inscription over His cross was written in three languages is also known. Why is it improbable, then, to some that when it came time to WRITE DOWN His teachings and the continued revelation from the Holy Spirit, He would have them write in the lingua franca of Greek? All those idioms and puns and whatnots are easily explained by this and there is NO need to further argue the point. Besides, if anyone wants a Hebrew translation, it is available today and can be crosschecked to determine if English-speakers are missing out on anything.
I'd love to be able to know both Hebrew and Greek as they were spoken in the first century, but I'm not an ancient Hebrew and Greek scholar, so I will depend upon those that are and read their commentaries to learn the deeper context sometimes missing in the English. It's a wonderful opportunity we have today to do that, but I am sure that the Gospel is clear no matter what language a person speaks - that is the power of God unto salvation to all those who believe - to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
If, according to you, the Torah can never change, then why aren't those curses still applicable today?
What you continue to defend is your version of what "obedience" to Jesus' commands really mean. Though Jesus ratifies every one of the Ten Commandments - imposing their spirit over the letter, we do not find Him doing the same for the 603 OTHER components of the Mosaic Law. There's a reason for that. Jesus is our righteousness - He fulfills ALL righteousness in our place - and it is why we are also justified THROUGH faith in Him, our Redeemer. So, yes, Jesus DID say if we love Him we will obey His commandments and that His commandments are not "grievous". He also said ALL the commandments could be summed up in, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt. 22:37-40)
If we obey this with all our hearts - through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we will be demonstrating we are His disciples and that we love Him.
The entire underlying premise of that teaching is that the New Testament as we have it today from the Greek is corrupted. It also says that God did not keep His promise to preserve His word for ALL generations but that it has been hidden for millennia. Mormonism is also based on a similar concept.
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