Did Paul invent or hijack Christianity?

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.”

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.”

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).

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.

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.

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.

No sarcasm intended here at all. This is the single best defense of the protestant position I have ever read in 17 years of engaging in these debates.

Your first point:Does it matter to the finding of metaphor that He is or is not speaking of a possession? I understand you are trying to establish that the form is not possessive, but in fact, as a matter of logic, His blood and Body are His possession.

Jesus is the single most unique being ever in the history of the universe. He is both fully Human and fully Divine at the same time. He is made up of His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. They are not His possessions, they are His essence, they are what make Him, Him.

Your second point:The shared attribute is the analogical teaching element, and the contrast in category, the "impossibility factor," is the trip wire for spotting the metaphor.

I personally don't see the "impossibility factor" as an issue. Jesus as a divine being is not subject to the same limitations that our bodies and natures subject us to. This is the being that raised Talitiha and Lazarus from the dead, so turning bread and wine into His literal body and blood would be nothing. Keep in mind that God the Father created the entire universe Ex nihilo from nothing.

Your third point:But I do want to understand your grammatical point. "mou" is extremely frequent in the NT corpus as a simple genitive, most often showing possession (although I think the genitive can be broader than that, going to the root idea of "the source of x", hence the "gen" in genitive).

I know that you are aware of the following, but I want others to see my reasoning. The genitive case does refer to possessions, but was not used. The dative case refers to refers to instrumentality, location, or reception and also was not used. That leaves the Accusative and the Nominative both as possibilities. The accusative case refers to the direct object of a verb generally an action verb ie. He runs, She talks, etc.. That leave the nominative which is the subject of the sentence. In this case "This is" "This" being the bread.

All of your examples are good ones, but you left out the one in which a divine being, God the Father, is discussing another divine being, Jesus.

Luke 6:35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him.

καὶ φωνὴ ἐγένετο ἐκ τῆς νεφέλης λέγουσα· οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός· αὐτοῦ ἀκούετε.

Three verses down Luke6:38 And behold, a man from the multitude cried, saying, Teacher, I beseech thee to look upon my son; for he is mine only child:

καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀνὴρ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου ἀνεβόησε λέγων· διδάσκαλε, δέομαί σου, ἐπίβλεψον ἐπὶ τὸν υἱόν μου, ὅτι μονογενής μοί ἐστι·

In the first example the nominative case is used in the second, the accusative case.

This is why I am convinced that they nominative case was used. The genitive tou which could refer to a possession was not and the accusative would have to have a direct object.

But that is not the end of it. I combine that with the Bread of the bread of life discourse at the end of John 6 Joh 6:53 Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.

Joh 6:54 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Joh 6:55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

Joh 6:56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.

This is the second time I have written this. The first time took over an hour and I accidently deleted it. The second took about an hour. This one may be some what disjointed and I apologize in advance for that.

I do to say that it was a pleasure to read your comments. I enjoy reading a well thought out argument even if I do disagree with it.

Security of the believer

John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

John 10:25-30 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

2 Corinthians 5:4-8 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Ephesians 1:13-14 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Colossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

2Corinthians 1:21-22 Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

For which the Greek, from the Byzantine, is:

2Corinthians 1:21-22 ο δε βεβαιων ημας συν υμιν εις χριστον και χρισας ημας θεος ο και σφραγισαμενος ημας και δους τον αρραβωνα του πνευματος εν ταις καρδιαις ημων

The first word in bold above is “bebaion,” the idea of confirmation, frequently used in commercial settings to confirm a bargain. Which of course makes sense of the remaining terms used here, which are also elements of a secured contract.

The second word in bold above is “sphragisamenos,” being sealed is to be marked by the signature, signet ring, or other unique proof of identity, that we belong to God, and this sealing is done by God, who is the one taking action in this verse. We do not and cannot seal ourselves. We do not, by our own powers, have access to God’s “signet ring.”

The third bolded word above is “arrabona,” and indicates what we might loosely refer to as earnest money, but in Hebrew culture conveys more the idea of a pledge of covenant, a security given as a guarantee that the deal will go through, though we only receive part payment at the beginning. See ערב for the related Hebrew stem indicating “pledge.”

Would it make you feel better if instead of "one and done" I had said "Once save always saved" or "eternal security"?

You said my gospel was "one and done" and now you want to hedge a little? Interesting....do you imagine I have no Scripture to back up what I said?

God will not cast out His children: All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. (John 6:37)

He will not LOSE a one: "This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:39,40)

He will not take the Holy Spirit from those He has sealed: In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-- having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:13,14)

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30)

So, yeah, I proclaim with grateful joy that we are saved by grace through faith and not by our works and that is what gives us eternal security. Our faith and hope is in HIM and not in ourselves. He WANTS us to have this assurance:

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:19-25)

Thank you for your very kind words. I hope I will not wear out my welcome by pursuing this a little further. Though to be honest, this kind of moment is so rare on this forum I almost wish I could just enjoy the quietude a little longer before engaging once again. Oh well, forward then ...

SR: Does it matter to the finding of metaphor that He is or is not speaking of a possession? I understand you are trying to establish that the form is not possessive, but in fact, as a matter of logic, His blood and Body are His possession.

V: Jesus is the single most unique being ever in the history of the universe. He is both fully Human and fully Divine at the same time. He is made up of His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. They are not His possessions, they are His essence, they are what make Him, Him.

Of course I do not dispute the uniqueness of the person of Christ. But I am concerned that His uniqueness not be mistaken for a blank check to read into the text things that are not in fact there. Consider. How do we know of His uniqueness? From the clear words of Scripture, words that speak plainly of His humanity and divinity. In those places we only need to let the words speak their ordinary sense to gain knowledge of the extraordinary nature of their subject. We do not work the other way around, assuming in advance we will find a divine Christ and then inflating ordinary words beyond their ordinary sense to say what they really do not say. It isn't necessary. If a doctrine is true, the ordinary sense of the words teaching it will always suffice to carry the burden of that truth.

So here I cannot make sense of your statement that He does not possess, at least in some sense, His own body and blood. If He does not possess it, it is never proper, even now, to say "His body," or "His blood." Yet the Scriptures always refer to His blood as His blood:

1Cor_10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

Eph_2:13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

Heb_9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

1Pet_1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

1Pet_1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

1Jn_1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

Rev_1:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

Those are all possessives. And that last passage is most interesting. The Greek:

λύσαντι ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ

If this blood spoken of by John is not Jesus' own blood, then whose blood is it? God's? But Jesus is God, so it is still His blood. I honestly cannot see how to separate the blood of Christ from Christ in the sense you appear to be proposing. It turns all these possessive genitives on their heads, and I don't see the warrant for that.

V: Your second point:The shared attribute is the analogical teaching element, and the contrast in category, the "impossibility factor," is the trip wire for spotting the metaphor.
I personally don't see the "impossibility factor" as an issue. Jesus as a divine being is not subject to the same limitations that our bodies and natures subject us to. This is the being that raised Talitiha and Lazarus from the dead, so turning bread and wine into His literal body and blood would be nothing. Keep in mind that God the Father created the entire universe Ex nihilo from nothing.

On this I think you may have misunderstood me. I am not suggesting that anything is impossible to God, other than things that would violate His own reason and righteousness. It is impossible for God to sin, for example. But no, this "impossibility factor" of which I spoke is a psychological property of the hearer. It is how certain word patterns are guaranteed to impact the ordinary listener. Going back to my paper map of Texas, if I'm your employer, and I hold that paper up to you and say, "This is Texas, and I want you to go live here," what will you do? Take the paper from my hands and stand on it? I don't think so. You're going to know exactly what I meant, because you already, subconciously, with no effort at all, knew I was not talking about the paper. It's the discrepancy that automatically triggers the recognition that the paper is a reference to something else.

So please don't misunderstand. I know God can do anything. But He's also the one who wired us to hear metaphor. When Romeo says of Juliet, "shall I compare thee to a summer's day," you and I and every reader here has already automatically spotted the "impossibility" of the concrete meaning (Juliet is NOT a day in summertime) and moved on to the lesson of the metaphor, that Juliet possesses attributes of beauty and refreshment that remind one of the pleasures of a summer day. It's all automatic. It would be bizarre to have some later group of thespians come along and insist that some particular summer day really is Juliet, even though there is no evidence whatsoever for such an odd association.

Your third point:But I do want to understand your grammatical point. "mou" is extremely frequent in the NT corpus as a simple genitive, most often showing possession (although I think the genitive can be broader than that, going to the root idea of "the source of x", hence the "gen" in genitive).
I know that you are aware of the following, but I want others to see my reasoning. The genitive case does refer to possessions, but was not used.

Let's stop right there. I am confused by this. You say the genitive is not used in Luke 22:19. It sure looks like "mou" is in the genitive case to me:

Greek Pronoun Chart

Note the Genitive form of "ego" above is "mou," and it is the "mou" which will determine whether it is correct to say "my body," which it is. This is confirmed by my Logos Greek texts (Byzantine and NestleAland), which have complete morphological tagging in place, and both agree the "mou" is genitive.

However, because you are discussing the pronoun "This," I think you are trying to get away from the genitive by finding it absent in some other part of the construct. But as far as I am aware, the "mou" is determinative. This is a possessive.

To continue ...

The dative case refers to refers to instrumentality, location, or reception and also was not used.

We agree on this, no matter which understanding is adopted.

That leaves the Accusative and the Nominative both as possibilities.

My Logos software morphology tags say it is nominative as to "soma," genitive as to "mou."

The accusative case refers to the direct object of a verb generally an action verb ie. He runs, She talks, etc..

I agree that the accusative inflection determines the form of the direct object. However, the examples you have provided are of intransitive verbs, i.e., verbs that only have a subject, and cannot "transit" to a direct object, because there is none. So I'm not sure how this speaks to eliminating the accusative.

That leave the nominative which is the subject of the sentence. In this case "This is" "This" being the bread.

The "This" is the subject of the structure, true. But I thought we were talking about the direct object, "the body," and whether "mou" modifies it to serve as a possessive. Again, it's late, I'm tired, and my doctorate is in law, not Greek, so illuminate me. What am I missing here?

All of your examples are good ones, but you left out the one in which a divine being, God the Father, is discussing another divine being, Jesus.
Luke 6:35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my Son, my chosen: hear ye him.
καὶ φωνὴ ἐγένετο ἐκ τῆς νεφέλης λέγουσα· οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός· αὐτοῦ ἀκούετε.

You doubtless meant Luke 9:35. There is nothing here but ordinary grammar. In "ὁ υἱός μου," the article and the noun are masculine, whereas in "τὸ σῶμά μου" (for Luke 22:19) the article and noun are neuter. This is the exact expression Paul uses when speaking of giving his body to be burned etc. It is the same structure for both divine and mortal beings, because in Greek, that's how you express the possessive. Jesus is God's Son, the sick child is the man's son, the body offered to be burned is Paul's body, and the body held in metaphoric relationship to the bread is Jesus' body.

Three verses down Luke6:38 And behold, a man from the multitude cried, saying, Teacher, I beseech thee to look upon my son; for he is mine only child:
καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀνὴρ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου ἀνεβόησε λέγων· διδάσκαλε, δέομαί σου, ἐπίβλεψον ἐπὶ τὸν υἱόν μου, ὅτι μονογενής μοί ἐστι·
In the first example the nominative case is used in the second, the accusative case.

Again, the reason for the accusative there is most simply explained by the fact that, rather than being the direct recipient of the verb, it is positioned behind the preposition "epi," and needs the accusative to be brought forward as it were to serve as the direct object. There is no special handling in the grammar as a result of deity or lack of it. A possessive is a possessive for both.

This is why I am convinced that they nominative case was used. The genitive tou which could refer to a possession was not and the accusative would have to have a direct object.

And for the reasons given, it does not appear that you have displaced the possessive "mou" as the determinant of possessive status, and that there is therefore no basis for imagining some special ontological construct that gives something other than the ordinary meaning. And if the meaning is ordinary, then the effect of the sharp contrast between the bread and the body, combined with a long tradition of assigning metaphoric meaning to the bread based on the events of the Exodus, there is no reason whatsoever for the disciples to hear anything but the the instruction to remember Christ and His sacrifice of love in the figures of the bread and the wine of this sanctified fellowship meal, just as Augustine taught.

But that is not the end of it. I combine that with the Bread of the bread of life discourse at the end of John 6 Josh 6:53 Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves.
Josh 6:54 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Joh 6:55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
Joh 6:56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me, and I in him.

I understand the argument from John 6 on much the same basis as the one in Luke. But that remains to discuss some other time. It is late, and I have to go to bed. It's been good talking with you.

Peace,

SR

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