Paul - False Apostle & First 'christian'

Smoke · Dec 25, 2007

BUDDY said:
Rubbish. If Paul was a false teacher, then why did the other apostles and disciples not call him such publicly? In fact, from what we know about the early church, Paul had to correct James and Peter about there attitude concerning Gentiles in the church as for a time, they would not fellowship with those Gentile converts to christianity and even told them that they must be circumcised in order to receive salvation.

Your argument shows that there was conflict between Paul and those apostles who actually knew Jesus.

BUDDY said:
Also, the Apostle Luke wrote the book of Acts which tells the story of Pauls conversion.

Luke was not an apostle, and there's no reason to think that Luke ever knew Jesus.

BUDDY said:
Also, Peter was the one who first converted Gentiles, not Paul. Paul corrected him later, but Peter was the first one to preach Jesus to Gentiles and baptise them.

Peter was the first to accept Gentiles into the Jesus movement, but that doesn't mean that he did so on Paul's terms; as you've noted above, he and Paul had different ideas about Gentile converts.

Mr. Peanut · Dec 26, 2007

Paul tells people how to be saved by placing their trust in Christ. Proud, arrogant, wicked people do not want to hear the good news of the free gift of salvation, so they don't like Paul.

Smoke · Dec 26, 2007

Mr. Peanut said:
Paul tells people how to be saved by placing their trust in Christ. Proud, arrogant, wicked people do not want to hear the good news of the free gift of salvation, so they don't like Paul.

Yes, that's it. Anybody who's not convinced by the claims of your religion is proud, arrogant and wicked. There can be no other explanation. How lucky there are humble, modest and virtuous people like yourself to point it out.

Mr. Peanut · Dec 26, 2007

MidnightBlue said:
Yes, that's it. Anybody who's not convinced by the claims of your religion is proud, arrogant and wicked. There can be no other explanation. How lucky there are humble, modest and virtuous people like yourself to point it out.

Glad I could be of service.

!Fluffy! · Dec 27, 2007

Popeyesays said:
Well, the Book of Acts shows a fair amount of dissension surrounding Paul vis a vis the opther Apostles.

It was the testimony of James the elder that convicted Paul in Roman court.

Regards,
Scott

I'm sorry to say it Scott but I have to strongly disagree. Before his audience with Nero in Rome, Paul was never formally charged. As a matter of fact Acts makes it clear that the Jews could not even come up with any witnesses OR substantiated charges for either Felix or Festus to act upon, and Agrippa was clearly disgusted by the temple priest's attempted manipulations.

Perhaps you are referring to this incident recorded in Acts, which was an internal church council, not involving the Roman judiciary:

49 A.D., the Jerusalem Christians, under the leadership of James, the brother of Jesus (not the apostle James), called a council to address the objections of Paul and Barnabas to their position that a person could not be saved who was not circumcised. In essence, upon arriving back to Antioch from what is miscalled Paul's "first missionary journey", Paul and Barnabas heard this heresy and got right in the face of those promoting it.

The miraculous deliverance experienced on this missionary journey (recorded in Acts 13 and 14) could not have gone unnoticed by the massive Christian church in Jerusalem, a church in which "a great company of priests were obedient to the faith" (Acts 6:7), a church in which the sect of the Pharisees had at least some say (Acts 15:5), a church which by 57 A.D. had "many tens of thousands who believed (Acts 21:20- myriades should be translated "tens of thousands" rather than "thousands").

Since Paul had no "authority" from the Jerusalem church, it seems they just had to belittle the work that Jesus Christ was doing through Paul. And so, when Paul and Barnabas got back to Antioch upon completion of the mission they had been called to execute, the message awaiting them was "well Paul, what you did was nice, but none of those people became Christian because none were circumcised."

The Epistle to the Galatians is Paul's answer to the "sentence" of James at the Jerusalem council. Paul's answer is, "they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me." (Gal.2:6).

But again this was in 49 A.D., eight years before Paul's final trip to Jerusalem and long before he appeared before Nero.

[source: Paul's Affivavit to Nero in 62 AD

The source's author postulates, and after study and reflection I agree with him, that Paul's and Luke's writings original purpose was not what we think it is. Quite likely they were part of a compilation of documents presented by Luke in Paul's case before Nero.]

As to James: Josephus tells us that that in the interim between Festus' death and the arrival of Albinus to replace him, the high priest had James, the brother of Jesus, thrown off the temple wall and killed. This occurred in 62 A.D. at the very time Paul appeared before Nero, there was no way James could have been in Rome.

humbly submitted for your consideration,
!Fluffy!

Something to think about:

To think that Matthew, Mark, John, Peter, James, and Jude together comprise only 44% of the New Testament, while Paul and Luke occupy 56%, is a fact well worth considering. Why is this so?

After 30 or more years in the ministry, teaching and studying God's Word, and lately being forced to learn some of the rudiments of Law because of an out of control government, the answer becomes crystal clear to me. Paul is the only apostle who appealed to Caesar (Nero) and it appears that the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were two parts of an affidavit that Luke submitted to the Roman Court in support of Paul. Paul's Epistles would also have been part of the court record and therefore preserved under the authority of the Roman government as Paul originally wrote them. This cannot be said of any of the other writings of the New Testament.

DallasApple · Dec 27, 2007

I've always wondered why Paul was not married..He was a Jew and he was not a young man(I dont believe) when he recieved his instruction from the resurected Jesus Christ..But then he said not everyone can be like me then so each man should have one wife rather than burn with desire...

I know there isnt an answer...But it just makes me curious why he even before he became Apostle Paul...that is when he was still Saul why he was never married..

Blessings

Dallas

Scuba Pete · Jan 4, 2008

Mestemia said:
I find it rather interesting that the life of the most important man to ever walk the face of the earth was overlooked, but they kept a rather close accounting of the weather.

The point of scripture has never been one of history. It's purpose is to bring us to faith. Let's be glad not all of it WAS written down:

John 21:24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. NIV

McBell · Jan 4, 2008

Scuba Pete said:
The point of scripture has never been one of history. It's purpose is to bring us to faith. Let's be glad not all of it WAS written down:

John 21:24 This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. NIV

{sarcasm}
Yes, because the twenty plus year gap is so much better....
{/sarcasm}

lew0049 · Mar 16, 2008

Mestemia said:
{sarcasm**
Yes, because the twenty plus year gap is so much better....
{/sarcasm**

It's not as if his followers carried around a laptop and/or a pen and paper. Who else would have written about him during this time? The romans? A random person who saw him would not write about him and even if he did, it would contain such minimal information. Plus, the chances of it surviving and being passed on during ancient world?

logician · Mar 17, 2008

Schizophrenic Paul likely never existed, another made up personage by the early literalist forgery machine:

The Apostle Paul. Rabbi Saul – Could it all be a fabrication?

kai · Mar 17, 2008

BUDDY said:
Rubbish. If Paul was a false teacher, then why did the other apostles and disciples not call him such publicly? In fact, from what we know about the early church, Paul had to correct James and Peter about there attitude concerning Gentiles in the church as for a time, they would not fellowship with those Gentile converts to christianity and even told them that they must be circumcised in order to receive salvation.

Also, the Apostle Luke wrote the book of Acts which tells the story of Pauls conversion. Also, Peter was the one who first converted Gentiles, not Paul. Paul corrected him later, but Peter was the first one to preach Jesus to Gentiles and baptise them.

Paul seems to do a lot of correcting with the deciples?

lew0049 · Mar 17, 2008

logician said:
Schizophrenic Paul likely never existed, another made up personage by the early literalist forgery machine:

The Apostle Paul. Rabbi Saul – Could it all be a fabrication?

Haha, that website actually made me laugh - I wonder why you never give any type of in-depth response or possibly pose a question? If you don't think Paul or Jesus existed then state your reasons, but the points made on that website show absolutely nothing.

I'm sure if you look hard enough, you could find a website that claims George Washington didn't exist either.

Captain Civic · Mar 17, 2008

lew0049 said:
I'm sure if you look hard enough, you could find a website that claims George Washington didn't exist either.

He didn't; he was a fictitious character used as a founding father and to name one of their cities. :areyoucra

logician · Mar 18, 2008

Captain Civic said:
He didn't; he was a fictitious character used as a founding father and to name one of their cities. :areyoucra

There are mountains of evidence showing that George Washington, and for that matter, Julius Ceasar existed. There is essentially no unforged historical evidence that the Bibilical Jesus was nothing more than a work of fiction.

gnostic · Mar 19, 2008

buddy said:
Rubbish. If Paul was a false teacher, then why did the other apostles and disciples not call him such publicly? In fact, from what we know about the early church, Paul had to correct James and Peter about there attitude concerning Gentiles in the church as for a time, they would not fellowship with those Gentile converts to christianity and even told them that they must be circumcised in order to receive salvation.

Of course, you are forgetting that Luke, who is supposedly have written the Acts, as well as the gospel, was a very close associate of Paul.

Luke could have written the Acts that would favor Paul more so than the original apostles. It would not be implausible to suspect Luke of being biased.

And clearly Luke was not beyond exaggerating in his narrative, such as the Mary's virgin conception and Jesus' birth.

A. Ben-Shema · May 5, 2008

DallasApple said:
I've always wondered why Paul was not married..He was a Jew and he was not a young man(I dont believe) when he recieved his instruction from the resurected Jesus Christ..But then he said not everyone can be like me then so each man should have one wife rather than burn with desire...

I know there isnt an answer...But it just makes me curious why he even before he became Apostle Paul...that is when he was still Saul why he was never married..

Blessings

Dallas

Saul/Paul and Yehoshua/Jesus were both born around the same year and neither of them seemed to be married.

PLU ~ Bob

Jeremy Mason · May 6, 2008

Mestemia said:
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Expect the parts which Paul flat out states is his own opinion and NOT from God.

Who needs to study?

There is only one part of Scripture that Paul states this is not form God. Can you show me more?

1 Corinthians 10: 10-11
10To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

Charity · May 6, 2008

logician said:
Schizophrenic Paul likely never existed, another made up personage by the early literalist forgery machine:

The Apostle Paul. Rabbi Saul – Could it all be a fabrication?

How do we know that you exist? How do we know that you are not a made up personage? How do we know that you are even a real person....Someone could be just trying to fool us....We can't know that you are real, just because you say you are. Have you tangible proof?

Do you read the bible? Have you ever studied it? If so give me one reason , one scripture where you might form the opinion that Paul was a schizophrenic. You must have some theory as to why you have made this diagnosis. And if you say in essence that he never existed then how could he have been classified a schizo. If a person doesn't live he can't have a disease. So which is it, you believe he lived, he was a schizophrenic? He never lived, so therefore he could not have been a schizophrenic? How long will you halt between two opinions? Think about it, we don't want to contradict ourselves?

This has nothing to do with what either one of us believes as far as religion, I respect your choice. I am just curious as how you can have conflict and classify someone with a mental illness, and then in the next few words say he likely never existed?

crystalonyx · May 6, 2008

Actually, a real Paul probably never existed, the books of the NT attributed to him were probably written by 2 different authors, hence the seeming schizophrenia. The gnostic Paul certainly never saw a real physical Jesus, believing in a spiritual Christ only.

Charity · May 6, 2008

crystalonyx said:
Actually, a real Paul probably never existed, the books of the NT attributed to him were probably written by 2 different authors, hence the seeming schizophrenia. The gnostic Paul certainly never saw a real physical Jesus, believing in a spiritual Christ only.

Since Paul's good friend was Luke, a physician, And a fellow worker in the gospel, Don't you think Luke might have noted the fact, if in reality, Paul was mentall ill. Luke wrote the Book of Luke and the Book of Acts. He was a companion of Paul and wrote the letters to Theophilus telling of their journey. Luke's authorship is supported by the Muratorian Canon, A.D. 170

You got it right :clap But we allready knew that Paul didn't meet the "real", "physical" Jesus. Since he was not called to the ministry until after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. That is why the writings by Luke and Paul didn't occur until A.D. With Paul writing most of the New Testament, even while enduring pain and suffering, He remained loyal to his teaching.

Peace Charity

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