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.

First of all, that prayer was adopted from the greeks and modified in the second century. It isn't in the Torah. We have many, many prayers.

Whether the Jews ripped it off from Plato or not (and they did), doesn't change the fact that it's there. This certainly protects the scripture from the calumny, as, actually, the Jews are copying the Gentiles in this, and are not, as they claim, giving us the oral tradition of Moses!

Second, Jewish men have many more religious obligations than the women ever did (because women didn't *need* to do these things to be closer to Gd).

Women in Judaism don't need to do things to be closer to God provided they are living according to their prescribed role in Jewish society, which, in the earliest of times, included not burning the food lest your husband then decides to divorce you. As long as they fulfill their societal roles, then they are the holiest they can be. But this is not feminism or women's liberation. This would require that women can perform ALL of the same duties as men, if they wanted to do them.

Whether women are even allowed to study the Talmud, by the way, is an open controversy still going on today, with the historical consensus leaning on "no."

"The Sages, however, understood that women were excluded from the formal commandment to study Torah, at least in its most comprehensive form (Kiddushin 29b).

One sage, Rabbi Eliezer, went further to forbid teaching Torah to daughters by comparing it to the teaching of “tiflut” (Sotah 21b).

While commentators dispute the meaning of this term, many followed Maimonides’s explanation that unlettered women would denigrate the Torah’s wisdom into trivialities and vanities (Hilchot Talmud Torah 1:13).

Rabbi Eliezer’s stand was so strong that he refused to answer an intelligent query from a woman who was one of his primary patrons (JT Sotah 3:4). While an opposing sage, Ben-Azzai, contended that fathers must teach their daughters, he garnered minimal support (Otzar Hamelech 1:13), with the historical consensus siding with Rabbi Eliezer."

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Judaism/May-women-study-the-Talmud

Compare this with the New Testament teaching on women, and you will find that our views are far superior.

Yes. Jews have always had 'no-fault divorce'. So does America.

In modern day America, most women are self-suffecient, though the practice is still sinful. In ancient Israel, divorcing a woman for any reason whatsoever was horribly destructive to her.

As for the epilepsy thing, I can honestly say that I've never heard of that. I tried to look it up, and all I found was the charge on a bunch of anti-Semitic websites. You did make me curious and I'll keep researching until I find the original source.

Throwing the anti-semite card at me? I googled Gitten 70a, and the first site that pops up is one that has the Babylonian Talmud, and the others are all Jewish websites. I do not see your anti-semite websites:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Gittin+70a&rlz=1C1CHPB_enUS355US367&oq=Gittin+70a&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

Many of the 'weird' traditions have been proven to be beneficial for health.

I can pretty much guarantee that a failure to wait the amount of time it takes to walk half a mile before having sex after taking a pee, will not give your kids epilepsy.

(IE: the rule that a couple can't have sex until a woman's gone a week without bleeding protects her in many ways.

This is from the Bible, not the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud extends this to two weeks.

Some of the stranger ones (like tying your shoelaces in a specific order) are designed to ingrain Gd into your everyday life.

That's not the strangest one you can think of. The strangest one might be in gathering dirt around a toilet and eating it as part of a medical cure.

"To make the flesh close he should bring dust from the shadow of a privy and knead it with honey and eat. This is effective." (Babylonian Talmud, Gitten 69a) On an article with the header Gitten 69a, it does not appear that religious Jews are that confident these days as to the healthiness of all these cures.

"It should be noted that already in the tenth century the Ge'onim ruled that we should not make use of the medicines or procedures recommended by the Rabbis in the Talmud, unless they were checked by contemporary medical professionals who can assure us that they are not dangerous in any way. Later aharonim forbade the use of these approaches entirely, arguing that since we do not understand the underlying basis of the treatments and how they are supposed to affect the diseases, it is likely that making use of them will lead to a lack of respect for the words of the Sages. "

http://steinsaltz.org/learning.php?pg=Daf_Yomi&articleId=1130

udaism does respect women for what they are. We don't try to make women into men or vice versa. We each have our one roles to play.

And yet, in your anti-Christian bigotry, you would not allow us to make the same argument, but instead boast about the superiority and rationality of your religion, when really, its absurdities reach the level of Mormonism or Scientology.

RE: Does your wife keep silent?

Explain this one, ‘It is good for a man not to touch a woman.’ No straight man ever said that, plus the first mitzvot is be fruitful and multiply.

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Let’s explain: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”

Here, “touch” is used in the sense of having sexual relations. This was probably a statement made by the Corinthian Christians, which they asked Paul to agree with. Paul will agree with the statement, but with reservation - the “nevertheless” of verse 2.

1. Why would the Corinthian Christians suggest complete celibacy - which is what they mean by a man not to touch a woman? They probably figured that if sexual immorality was such a danger, then one could be more pure by abstaining from sex altogether, even in marriage.

2. The idea that marriage was a less holy state than celibacy, naturally led to the conclusion that married persons ought to separate, and it soon came to be regarded as an evidence of eminent spirituality when such a separation was final.

And you cannot simply take one sentence in isolation. Paul CONTINUED:

“Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.”

So, In light of the danger of sexual immorality (ever present in the Corinthian culture and our own), it is appropriate for husband and wife to have each other in a sexual sense.

So, the explanation comes thusly:

1. Paul is not commanding the Corinthian Christians to get married (an issue he deals with later in the chapter), but a command to live as a married person, especially in the sexual sense. Paul means that husbands and wives should continue in sexual relations.

2. Paul is not saying sex is the only reason for marriage, or the most important reason for marriage. Paul is simply answering their specific questions about marriage, not trying to give a complete theology of marriage.

3. For more on a complete theology of marriage, see Ephesians 5:21-33 and Colossians 3:18-19.

Suffice it to say that you cannot simply pick one sentence in Paul’s epistle without reading the entire chapter and cross referencing it with what he said in other epistles of his on the same topic.

The complete statement Paul made IN CONTEXT is this:

“Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But I say this as a concession, not as a commandment.”

So, if you want to understand what Paul is trying to say , you have to do some exegesis of the words in the above statement of his. Let’s look at some of his phrases in turn...

a. Instead of a man not to touch a woman, within marriage a husband must render to his wife the affection due her. It is wrong for him to withhold affection from his wife.

b. The affection due her is an important phrase. Since Paul meant this to apply to every Christian marriage, it shows that every wife has affection due her. Paul doesn’t think only the young or pretty or submissive wives are due affection; every wife is due affection because she is a wife of a Christian man.

c. Paul also emphasizes what the woman needs: not merely sexual relations, but the affection due her. If a husband has sexual relations with his wife, but without true affection to her, he is not giving his wife what she is due.

d. Affection also reminds us that when a couple is unable - for physical or other reasons - to have a complete sexual relationship, they can still have an affectionate relationship, and thus fulfill God’s purpose for these commands.

e. On the same idea, also the wife to her husband: The wife is not to withhold marital affection from her husband. Paul strongly puts forth the idea that there is a mutual sexual responsibility in marriage. The husband has obligations toward his wife, and the wife has obligations toward her husband.

f. Render to his wife: The emphasis is on giving, on “I owe you” instead of “you owe me.” In God’s heart, sex is put on a much higher level than merely the husband’s privilege and the wife’s duty.

g. The wife does not have authority over her own body: In fact, these obligations are so concrete, it could be said that the wife’s body does not even belong to herself, but to her husband. The same principle is true of the husband’s body in regard to his wife.

h. This does not justify a husband abusing or coercing his wife, sexually or otherwise. Paul’s point is that we have a binding obligation to serve our partner with physical affection.

i. It is an awesome obligation: out of the billions of people on the earth, God has chosen one, and one alone, to meet our sexual needs. There is to be no one else.

j. Do not deprive one another: Paul rejects their idea that husband and wife could be more holy by sexual abstinence. In fact, harm can come when they deprive one another, as they open the door to the tempter (so that Satan does not tempt you).

k. The word for deprive is the same as defraud in 1 Corinthians 6:8. When we deny physical affection and sexual intimacy to our spouse, we cheat them.

k. Do not deprive: Sexual deprivation in marriage has not only to do with frequency, but with romance also. This is why Paul tells husbands to render to his wife the affection due her. Deprivation in either sense gives occasion for the deprived to look elsewhere for fulfillment - and to destroy the marriage.

l. For your lack of self-control: It might be easy to think that self-control is expressed by abstaining from sexual relations in marriage, but Paul says that to deprive one another is to show a lack of self-control, and a lack of self-control that will leave one easily tempted by Satan.

m. I say this as a concession: God will permit (reluctantly, as a concession) a married couple to abstain from sexual relations for a short time, for the sake of fasting and prayer. But if this concession is used, it is only to be for a time, and then husband and wife must come together again in a sexual sense.

n. Not as a commandment: God does not command or even recommend abstaining from sex within marriage, but it can be done for a brief time for a specific spiritual reason.

o. The principle in this passage is important. God makes it clear that there is nothing wrong, and everything right, about sex in marriage. Satan’s great strategy, when it comes to sex, is to do everything he can to encourage sex outside of marriage, and to discourage sex within marriage. It is an equal victory for Satan if he accomplishes either plan.

p. This can be seen in the way some of the Corinthian Christians thought it was just fine to hire the services of a prostitute (as in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20), and other Corinthian Christians thought it was more spiritual for a husband and wife to never have sexual relations.

q. A Christian husband and wife must not accept a poor sexual relationship. The problems may not be easily overcome or quickly solved, but God wants every Christian marriage to enjoy a sexual relationship that is a genuine blessing, instead of a burden or a curse.

Therefore, Paul recognizes the benefits of singleness, but also of marriage; all is according to how God gifts.

HE SAID:

For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that. But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

SIMPLY STATED, Paul will affirm celibacy, but not because sex itself is evil (as some of the Corinthian Christians thought). Instead, the unmarried state can be superior for some people because it offers a person (if they are so gifted) more opportunity to serve God.

'Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says.' Does your wife keep silent?

And yet:

"a woman may not read (that is, in the law), בצבור, "in the congregation", or church, because of the honour of the congregation;" (Maimon. Hilch. Tephilla, c. 12. sect. 17. T. Bab. Megilla, fol. 23. 1.)

Especially after my posts with Marie, we would have to conclude that your Rabbis (well, at least the more Orthodox ones), are all self-condemned homosexuals and hypocrites. Like this guy:

"Women shouldn't study Gemara. It obscures the differences between the genders and leads to a decrease in god-fearing and mitzvah observance," former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu stated.

In an article published in the Olam Katan pamphlet distributed in synagogue on Shabbat, the prominent Zionist-religious leader explained that women are allowed to study specific verses from the Gemara, which deal with "subjects related to them," but they "shouldn't study Gemara like men."

He even warns against blurring the physical differences between men and women, meanwhile you condemn Paul for doing the same when it comes to the length of hair:

"The obscuring of differences between men and women is forbidden in all respects – in the dress, the hairdo, the manner, and also in their studies," the rabbi explained, warning, "Whenever women violated this ruling… their god-fearing, mitzvot observance and respect for the Torah dropped, instead of rising."

Quoting the sages of blessed memory (Chazal), the rabbi stressed that women's role was to educate and delve into halachic rulings that apply to them."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3412203,00.html

At least we let our women study ALL that God offers, although we forbid them to usurp the authority of the men!

Let’s talk about the issue of Paul women to be silent in church.

What is the CONTEXT of the passage in 1 Corinthians 14?

The context of this passage, and much of 1 Corinthians, is the ORDER and STRUCTURE of the church.

The Corinthian church was noted for the chaos and lack of order that was rampant in that assembly (see verse 33). It is interesting that no elders or pastors are mentioned, and the prophets were not even exercising control (see verses. 29, 32, 37).

Everyone was participating with whatever expression they desired “whenever” they desired. This included tongues and prophesying by women who were taking the lead in the services instead of being submissive, as God’s Word makes clear (1 Timothy 2:11-15).

Apparently, certain women in the Corinthian church were out of order in disruptively asking questions publicly in the chaotic services. It is not coincidental that many modern churches that have tongues-speaking and claim gifts of healings and miracles also permit women to lead worship, preach, and teach.

Women may be gifted teachers, but they are not permitted by God “to speak” in such a manner in His churches. In fact, for them to do so is “shameful,” meaning “disgraceful” (v. 35).

The context of 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 is talking about interpreting and understanding the gifts of tongues and prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:26-32).

Therefore, 1 Corinthians 14:34 IS NOT commanding women to be absolutely SILENT in the church all the time.

It is only saying that women should not participate when tongues and/or prophecy is being interpreted and tested (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22; 1 John 4:1).

This is in agreement with 1 Timothy 2:11-12 which says that women should not teach or have authority over men. If women were involved in deciding whether a prophecy was truly from God, they would be disobeying what the Bible says in 1 Timothy 2:11-12.

Therefore, Paul tells women to be silent when tongues and prophecy are being interpreted so that they will not be disobeying God’s Word.

So, at first glance, this seems to be a blanket command that women are not allowed to speak at all in the church.... BUT ONLY IF YOU IGNORE THE CONTEXT OF THE ENTIRE CHAPTER AND WHAT THE ISSUE IS.

Please note, 1 Corinthians 11:5 mentions women praying and prophesying in the church and does not condemn it.

Therefore, 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 must not be an absolute command for women to always be silent in church. It is a command for ORDER in worship.

RE: The guy had three names. Shaul to the Hebrews, Paul to the goyim and Pauline on Saturday night.

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That would be a good stunt for Bill Maher’s scriptwriters but does nothing for understanding the Bible.

I lived and worked in Taiwan for many years and as a result, I have BOTH an English name AND a Chinese name.

Likewise, Many Taiwanese or Chinese who come to the USA and assumed US citizenship adapt Western names.

CATHOLIC ANSWERS EXPLAINS IT THUSLY:

http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/why-did-god-change-sauls-name-to-paul

Many mistakenly assume the Lord changed Saul’s name to Paul sometime after Saul converted from Judaism to Christianity, which happened during his encounter with Christ on the Road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19). Unlike the instance of Jesus changing Simon’s name to Kepha (Gk. Petros) as a way of signifying the special role he would play in the Church (Mt 16:18, Jn 1:41-42), in Paul’s case there was no name change.

Saul of Tarsus was born a Jew, “circumcised on the eight day, of the race of Israel, or the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrew parentage, in observance of the law a Pharisee” (Phil 3:5). The Hebrew name given him by his parents was Saul, but, because his father was a Roman citizen (and therefore Saul inherited Roman citizenship), Saul also had the Latin name Paul (Acts 16:37, 22:25-28), the custom of dual names being common in those days. Since he grew up in a strict Pharisee environment, the name Saul was by far the more appropriate name to go by. But after his conversion Saul determined to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, so he dusted off his Roman name and became known as Paul, a name Gentiles were accustomed to.

Adopting his Roman name was typical of Paul’s missionary style. His method was to put people at their ease and to approach them with his message in a language and style they could relate to. We should take a cue from Paul as we engage in apologetics work. No, we don’t need to adopt new names, but we should accommodate ourselves to our audiences (and we mean here audiences as small as one person). We want to speak to people in their own styles, so far as we can, and we want to address their particular concerns. We don’t want to raise people’s hackles before we even have a chance to raise issues.

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