Christianity invented by "Paul" & NOT by Jesus

[Mister Emu]

It basically is true that Paul (if indeed he existed) invented much of modern Xianity, and certainly never knew or heard of an earthtly Jesus.

My guess is you haven't actually read the Epistles of Paul...

Romans 1:3
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;

1 Corinthians 1:23
...But we preach Christ crucified...

1 Corinthians 15:3
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins...

1 Corinthians 15:4
And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day...

1 Corinthians 15:5
And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:

1 Corinthians 15:14
And if Christ be not risen, then [is] our preaching vain, and your faith [is] also vain.

Here we have a flesh and blood Christ born of David's line, who was crucified, who died for our sins, who rose from the dead, and who was seen by the apostles after having risen...

 

[Hope]

I did read them and they have little merit.

My sources come from

http://www.atheists.org/christianity/didjesusexist.html

First of all, when I read a good, scholarly "report" about something, I expect at least some decency and objectivity. Your article has neither. The blatant belittling language used towards the beliefs of Christians, and the flippant dismissal of certain points, shows a flagrant bias, and makes me hesitant to believe much of what is thrown out as "fact." I suggest a better source.

Gary Habermas is excellent. He is fair, balanced, does not resort to name-calling and belittling to make his points, and does not dismiss things out of hand. He simply presents good scholarship. He points out, for instance, that most respectable scholars these days no longer question the existance of Jesus, as your article claims. I've provided his great critique of G. A. Wells, upon whose theories most of your article's claims rest. It contains a good refutation of the whole pauline theory too. I'd love to hear your opinions on this article after reading it in its entirety (as I did yours). Apparently G. A. Wells is not such a great scholar, after all. Perhaps yours is the argument that has little merit.

http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/crj_summarycritique/crj_summarycritique.htm

 

[wizanda]

Yeshua/Jesus Vs Saul/Paul Points

1. Christ said he came to fulfill the law and not to end it. Paul said he came to end the Law, and if we are in Christ we are free of the Law.

2. Christ said that we are judged by the commandments; Paul said we are free of them, if we are in Christ.

3. Christ said that we should not judge, Paul said that the spiritual may judge and should not be judged.

4. Christ said that God is the judge, Paul said Christ is.

5. Christ said that the inheritance is from God and they killed him to try and steal it, as in the parable of the vine dresser; Paul said that we have an inheritance because of Christ's death.

6. Christ said not to sacrifice the innocent, Paul praised the fact that Christ died.

7. Christ said that God is the lord of the living; Paul said that we should remain with Christ in death.

8. Christ showed that reincarnation happens, as he said John was Elijah, Paul said we only live once.

9. Christ said God is spirit, Paul said Christ is the image of God; breaking the second commandment.

10. Christ said he was sent and was a servant and a son, Paul said Christ is equal to God and even said he was God.

11. Christ said to worship God, Paul said to worship Christ.

12. Christ said to be one in God, Paul said to be one body in Christ.

13. Christ said that faith in God is powerful; Paul said that faith is "the faith" and so turning its meaning in to church attendance.

14. Christ showed and said to have faith in God; Paul said have faith in Christ.

15. Christ said have one father, Paul said he had begotten people in Christ so making him a father to them.

16. Christ said that we should want of nothing and trust in God, giving up wealth and helping the poor after his death, 3 thousand people were practicing this. Paul ended this and then said if we don't work we don't eat, and even went back to work while preaching him self.

17. Christ said it will be hard for a rich man to enter heaven; Paul aspired to have wealth and for two years he rented his own house.

18. Christ said we have forgiveness for forgiving others; Paul said we have forgiveness in Christ.

19. Christ said we are justified by our words, Paul said we are justified by Christ.

20. Christ said God would show mercy to the merciful, Paul said we have mercy in Christ.

21. Christ said to be like children to enter heaven; Paul said not to be like children.

22. Christ said to be the light of the world and to show the bad through love how to be good, Paul said to have nothing to do with bad people and push them out.

23. Christ and the Bible said wisdom will make you shine in heaven, and he said that we should increase the talents we are born with; Paul said to be simple in Christ.

24. Christ said, if you help collect in the harvest (works) you will receive your reward, Paul said it is not by works but by faith in Christ alone.

25. Christ said don't make vain repetition in prayers; Paul established it as a way to pray, through the wording he used and the Pharisee ways he showed.

26. Christ said hate self and love through God's love, then this is unconditional, Paul said who doesn't love them self's.

27. Christ said women can be sisters (equal), Paul said they should remain lower.

28. Christ said we should remember him through the sharing of bread (start of acts, only bread); Paul said to remember him through wine.

29. Christ said that his disciples should only drink water; Paul made the drinking of wine (communion) a religious Ritual.

30. Christ clearly showed and said do not worry about being accepted by man, Paul said to be accepted by many.

31. Christ said take up your cross and follow me, as the cross was a symbol in many cultures for God. Paul turned the cross into only a symbol of Christ

s death, and caused it to become idolatry.

32. Christ said he came to bring division, meaning that we all follow God; Paul said Christ came to bring peace.

33. Christ said God is the teacher, Paul said him self is a teacher.

34. Christ said God and the kingdom of heaven is within you, Paul said that a fake prophet would say that God is within you.

35. Christ warned of those who say the time is near, Paul preached the time is near.

36. Christ said invite the poor to your house and feed the hungry, Paul said let the hungry eat at home, and showed to only invite friends for food.

There may be more, yet this is a start to many of things that are contradictory between Paul and Yeshua.

 

[wizanda]

People who have understood Paul is Anti-Christ

In the excellent book Christ or Paul?, the Rev. V.A. Holmes-Gore wrote:

"Let the reader contrast the true Christian standard with that of Paul and he will see the terrible betrayal of all that the Master taught....For the surest way to betray a great Teacher is to misrepresent his message....That is what Paul and his followers did, and because the Church has followed Paul in his error it has failed lamentably to redeem the world....The teachings given by the blessed Master Christ, which the disciples John and Peter and James, the brother of the Master, tried in vain to defend and preserve intact were as utterly opposed to the Pauline Gospel as the light is opposed to the darkness."

The great theologian Soren Kierkegaard, writing in The Journals, echoes the above sentiment:

"In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther. in his reformation, failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down. making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ"

The brilliant theologian Ernest Renan, in his book Saint Paul, wrote:

"True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock. the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology."

Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, has been called "one of the greatest Christians of his time." He was a philosopher, physician, musician, clergyman, missionary, and theologian. In his The Quest for the Historical Jesus and his Mysticism of Paul he writes:

"Paul....did not desire to know Christ....Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded....What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?....The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority....The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it."

William Wrede, in his excellent book Paul, informs us:

"The oblivious contradictions in the three accounts given by Paul in regard to his conversion are enough to arouse distrust....The moral majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, his ministry among his people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete ethical-religious content of his earthly life, signifies for Paul's Christology nothing whatever....The name 'disciple of Jesus' has little applicability to Paul....Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes, at least in part, the religious and theological warfare of the present day"

Rudolf Bultman, one of the most respected theologians of this century, wrote in his Significance of the Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul:

"It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the words of the Lord in support of his....views. when the essentially Pauline conceptions are considered, it is clear that Paul is not dependent on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is -- to all intents and purposes -- irrelevant for Paul."

Walter Bauer, another eminent theologian, wrote in his Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity:

"If one may be allowed to speak rather pointedly the Apostle Paul was the only Arch-Heretic known to the apostolic age."

George Bernard Shaw, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925; in his Androcles and the Lion, we read:

"There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus....There has really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul upon the soul of Jesus....It is now easy to understand how the Christianity of Jesus....was suppressed by the police and the Church, while Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official faith."

Will Durant; in his Caesar and Christ, he wrote:

"Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ....Through these interpretations Paul could neglect the actual life and sayings of Jesus, which he had not directly known....Paul replaced conduct with creed as the test of virtue. It was a tragic change."

Martin Buber, the most respected Jewish philosopher of this century, wrote in Two Types of Faith:

"The Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is completely opposed to Paul"

In one of the best books on early Christianity, Those Incredible Christians, Dr. High Schonfield reports:

"It was not only the teaching and activities of Paul which made him obnoxious to the Christian leaders: but their awareness that he set his revelations above their authority and claimed an intimacy with the mind of Jesus, greater than that of those who had companied with him on earth and had been chosen by him....It was an abomination, especially as his ideas were so contrary to what they knew of Jesus, that he should pose as the embodiment of the Messiah 's will....Paul was seen as the demon-driven enemy of the Messiah....For the legitimate Church, Paul was a dangerous and disruptive influence, bent on enlisting a large following among the Gentiles in order to provide himself with a numerical superiority with the support of which he could set at defiance the Elders at Jerusalem. Paul had been the enemy from the beginning. and because he failed in his former open hostility he had craftily insinuated himself into the fold to destroy it from within."

If anyone knows other people, who have seen the truth, please add them in the comments and I will add them to the list.

 

[wizanda]

They are all old articles, and loads more could be added.....
Other points that spring to mind...like Jeremiah 23 Paul defiles each word....on what is a fake prophet...
Using the neighbour’s words and saying “he says”.
The Burden of lord.
Oracles of the lord.
Dream tells a dream.

“Is Saul among the prophets” is a proverb (meaning it stands, through time)?

(Habakkuk 2) Who collects up pledges, that are not their own, Yeshua or Saul?

 

[Seneca]

Todays christianity & concept of crucification was invented by Paul & NOT Jesus or any of his REAL companions:-


Paul never met Jesus while Jesus was in this world:-
ACTS 22:3 I(Paul) am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.
Also Acts 9:11, and 21:39
Then this former persecuter of followers of Jesus converted :-Acts 9:1-20


Then he made-up a gospel:- Did any other disciple claimed like “MY Gospel”???
ROM 2:16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.
ROM 16:25 Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
1COR 7:17: ….this is the rule I(Paul) lay down in all the churches


All who receive divine revelation get some kind of proof like miracles etc. BUT Paul did NOT provide any proof rather threatened who asked for proof:-
2COR 13:2 I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare:3 Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward is not weak, but is mighty in you.


While ppl did NOT agree to Paul’s invented-story of “CRUCIFICATION”, Paul got angry with them:-
GAL 3:1:O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose(Paul’s)eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
Another translation of same verse tells that jesus was just “PORTRAYED” as being crucifixed,So there was NO real crucifixion, it appeared so:-
GAL 3:1:You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.



Early followers of Jesus DID NOT believe what Paul proclaimed & Paul was a self-proclaimed disciple(i.e., an imposter):-
GAL 1:6: I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one(Paul) who called you by the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel(of true disciples of christ like Peter).
A man(Paul) who NEVER met Jesus while he was in world, declares that Peter (who was the only disciple witness of attempted crucifixion) was wrong.
Gal:2:11 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong


& other disciples contradicted with Paul:-
1COR 3:4 For while one saith, I follow Paul; and another, I follow Apollos; are ye not carnal?

2COR 11:4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
2COR 11:5 For I supposeI was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.



Paul who never saw alleged crucifixion, proclaimed repeatedly that he was the ONLY one given the knowledge of crucification:-
EPH 3:3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) 5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed (so no one before Paul believed that Jesus was crucified)unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; 6 That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs,(Jesus was sent ONLY for JewsMT:10:5-6&15:24&LK:19:9-10 So the religion Gentiles r following is NOT from Jesus but from Paul) and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: 8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

Jesus was a Jew.

Christianity as it is today is the work of the 'early Christians' such as Paul and developed and modified over many centuries into what we have today. I would be surprised if any Christian were to contend that Jesus created Christianity as we see it today. Religions, like everything, have a beginning and evolve

 

[logician]

First of all, when I read a good, scholarly "report" about something, I expect at least some decency and objectivity. Your article has neither. The blatant belittling language used towards the beliefs of Christians, and the flippant dismissal of certain points, shows a flagrant bias, and makes me hesitant to believe much of what is thrown out as "fact." I suggest a better source.

He points out, for instance, that most respectable scholars these days no longer question the existance of Jesus, as your article claims. Apparently G. A. Wells is not such a great scholar, after all. Perhaps yours is the argument that has little merit.

Sorry, the "bandwagon theory" by scholars with an axe to grind cuts no ice with me. I take it you haven't read Freke and Gandy's "The Jesus Myteries" or "The Laughing Jesus", a little more modern that G.A. Wells. Nobody has answered the question I posed that since there were many remarkably similar tales like the Jesus story prevalent before Xianity, why do all these represent mythological beings, but Jesus "must" be real?

I'm not holding my breath.

 

[athanasius]

Christianity invented by "Paul" & NOT by Jesus?

Thats not true, Paul didn't invent Christianity. Jeff the god of Biscuits did!!!

 

[logician]

The key word here is "invent".

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Benign6...." Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination..." Ezekiel 13-7

 

[athanasius]

The key word here is "invent".

Who "invented" the false religion of atheism??? Athel?????