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At the beginning it must be said that the following conclusions
have come from a long period of trying to prove Christianity,
but seeing in the process the contradictions and inconsistencies
between what Paul taught and Jesus. After many years as committed
Christians it was very painful, but having prayed many times to
be shown the truth - whatever the cost, this web site is
a summary of the results.
Most Christians do not realise that they are following the teaching
of Paul and not that of Jesus. Jesus taught that the people of
Israel should practice the law of Moses in its pure and original
form : see the beginning of Matthew 23. Paul taught that all that
was done with and the work of Jesus had been to make all that obsolete.
Where do we find that in the gospels? Where do we find Jesus saying
his death would be a substitute sacrifice to end all sacrifice
and that his blood would cleanse from sin?
I urge you if you are a Christian to make a study of the law in
the Pentateuch (the Torah) and then compare it with the teaching
of Jesus. You will see he is a Rabbi, with the mission of warning
Israel if they did not repent and return to the Torah without all
the additional burdens the religious leaders had added and practise
again the social laws that gave social justice for the poor (where
debts were cancelled every seven years and land returned to its
owners) then the wrath of God was coming. This was the message
of John the Baptist also : so we have the testimony of two, as
in the times of the prophets.
What we know of Paul comes from his own writings and those of
Luke in Acts. It has to be said that the book of Acts is mostly
about the Acts of Paul!
It seems Luke's main reason for writing the book of Acts was to
support Paul for reasons we will come to later. Paul is not mentioned
by the other writers of the New Testament, except Peter in a letter
where he says Paul is hard to understand .
Luke was a travelling companion with Paul and so greatly influenced
by his teaching
It seems John Mark, a cousin of Barnabas, also accompanied Paul;
a point to remember if he was the writer of Mark's gospel.
Luke certainly used words, phrases and teaching peculiar to Paul.
For instance he uses the word " justify" so much more
often than the other gospel writers - 5 times, whereas in all the
others gospels it occurs only twice: both in Matthew.
He uses the idea that Jesus is the last Adam in ch. 3 v38 where
he says Adam was the son of God - compare this with ! Cor. 15 v45.
The doctrine of grace comes in Luke 7v 50.
Paul claims a superior revelation directly to him (there was no
other witness to it) yet never met Jesus in the flesh He was supposed
to be in Jerusalem at that time so why was he not a disciple then - Jesus
could have called him then. His letters were written before the
gospels yet no mention is made in the gospels of his revelations
and teaching which are additional to that received by the other
disciples.
God is sovereign, but also says he changes not (Malachi ch . 3
v) and neither does His word, so why should Paul be an exception?
Jesus said "it is by their fruits you shall know them "so
we shall look at the fruit Paul produced later.
Paul never mentions he was born in Tarsus - it is Luke who tells
us In Acts 9v 11. 21v 39, and 22 v3 . If it was " no mean
city" why does he not speak of it? Paul says he is all things
to all men and does say what it suites him at the time and to the
company present. Paul wanted to be known as coming from Jerusalem
with a strict Jewish and Pharisaic background which gave him status
with Gentiles, but the Jews saw through it.
Only Luke tells us that Paul trained under Gamaliel, which is
probably not true, because of Paul's youth and other reasons we
will come to later. This is not to say Luke lied - he was just
passing on what he was told.
In writing Acts Luke is trying to bridge a gap that had arisen
between the church in Jerusalem and the church established by Paul
among the Gentiles.. What Luke wants to say is that if a man like
Paul, who was allegedly well educated in Judaism and a Pharisee
learned beyond his years, had decided that Christianity was the
true Judaism how could there be a problem? There needed to be continuity
between the old and new covenants, Judaism and Chri stianity, and
Jew and gentile.
But Paul has this sense of uniqueness which separates him:
- A special revelation. In effect he is putting himself on a
level with Moses .
- His brand of Christianity is new and different and not a sect
of Judaism
- Not only was it special at the beginning, but he has had other
experiences since - see 2 Cor. 12 v2&3.
- He had special marks on his body which no one else then claimed
(Gal. 6 v7).
- He received instruction about the eucharist directly (1 Cor
11). He instituted the communion as we know it now as a replacement
for Passover, which those at the last supper know it was not,
because it took place on the eve of the preparation day not the
eve of Passover (see John's gospel especially ch 19. V 31 & 42)
Paul's origins.
It is often said that Paul's unique background was the reason
why he was chosen as the apostle to the gentiles.
Paul was born in Tarsus and the Ebionite writings claim he was
born of gentile parents who may have been proselyte Jews, but Paul
greatly desired to become a devout Jew and so went to Jerusalem.
There he fell in love with a Jewess, so he was circumcised and
became a full Jew studying to be a Pharisee to win her. But he
did not get her ! (This could explain his bitterness toward women).
The Ebionites did not accept the teaching of Paul, or the first
two chapters of Matthew. They did not believe in the divinity of
Jesus or his virgin birth . They practised Judaism and followed
the teaching of Jesus . After AD 70 the Jewish church was scattered
with all the Jews and Jerusalem, now a Roman city called Aelis
Capitolinum, had an exclusion zone of 10 miles to Jew and Christian
for 70 years. So when they came back it was a gentile church of
the Pauline following.
Paul's writings show muddled thought and a way of arguing not
consistent with Pharisaic or Rabbinical style. In fact it shows
his origins and education in a gentile pagan society with the mystery
cults and Greek way of using diatribe for argument. Romans especially
shows this style where an imaginary opponent asks questions which
you have chosen to make your point and you answer. Paul never uses
parables or the typical idiomatic sayings of Rabbi Jesus or any
typically Jewish teacher.
It could be argued that this is because he is writing to gentiles
so he uses their way of thinking : BUT he uses ideas from the Jewish
scriptures and twists them to suit his doctrine. A Rabbinical way
of reasoning is by comparing. If a rule applies to a minor thing
it must apply to a major. If two passages seem to disagree, then
a third must be found that brings the two together. Rabbis taught
that God created the world by his word - the Torah . The study
of it takes a life time and nothing in it could be changed -" not
a jot or tittle" would pass away" . But Paul says the
law is slavery even though it was given to Israel when they just
become freed from slavery. In Galatians ch. 4 Paul makes Hagar
the mother of Israel under the law still (when she was the mother
of Ishmael) and Sarah the mother of the free gentiles (when she
was mother of Isaac father of Jacob father of all the Jews!). This
twisting of the original to make a point that obviously is not
true is offensive to Jews, and no wonder Peter found him hard to
understand!
If you study what Paul says about himself and his conversion and
what Luke says in Acts you will see that there are inconsistencies
and contradictions. The three accounts in Acts do not agree on
what was seen and heard by the others present on the road to Damascus.
Ananias is a Christian in Acts 9 and a pious observer of the law
in Acts 22.
The accounts in ! Cor. 11 v32 and Acts 9 v 22-25 do not agree
about Paul's escape from Damascus.
How could Paul's revelation be so different from the teaching
the disciples received face to face, that it caused two confrontations
in Acts 15 and 21? Compare what is said here and Paul's behaviour
(after it being agreed to let off new believers from circumcision,
as God fearing gentiles who partly practised Judaism were, he,
in the next chapter circumcises Timothy because he had a Jewish
mother. Either you are giving up all the law demands or not! (see
Romans 2) with his account written to the Galatians of that meeting.
He was very bold to the gentiles but not so when he encountered
those who had actually been with Jesus. After his conversion he
was very slow to go to see them - it would have been normal to
long to talk at length with those who had spent years with his
Lord.
Paul saw all the law as obsolete as regards salvation and a new
covenant was in force.
Compare this with what Jesus said in Matthew 5 v 18 & 19 and
Matthew 23 v2 . If everything the disciples knew and understood
was going to change and God was moving the goal posts would not
Jesus have explained and warned them? The only new covenant they
knew about was in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 where God promised
to give the people of Israel a new heart to be able to keep his
laws by the power of his spirit. The Jews were not expecting a
messiah who would die for their sins because their scriptures did
not say such a person would come. Where does it say in Isaiah 53,
or anywhere, that a substitute sacrifice would be made by a son
of God that would end sacrifice and their sins be washed away by
his blood? Even Daniel chapter 9 is referring to the ending of
the high priesthood in AD70 - if these two passages prophesy what
happened to Jesus why are they not used over and over in the new
testament? Daniel is only mentioned as to the abomination that
causes desolation,
by Jesus, warning of the destruction of the temple. Why do the
writers of the birth stories not use it? The Jews cannot be blamed
for rejecting Jesus as messiah - that was someone who would make
Israel free of her oppressors and restore the kingdom as it was
in David's day, and that is what the people wanted Jesus to be
:a warrior king to free them from the Gentiles and poverty.
Paul comes into conflict with the elders in Jerusalem in Acts
21. He seems to know there is trouble waiting for him there(see
ch. 20 v22). The elders tell him thousands of Jews have believed
there and are all zealous for the law, but they have heard Paul
teaches the Jews who live among the gentiles to stop practising
the law. They advise him to join in a purification ceremony to
show he still practises the law, and he does! So confronted with
the authority of the apostles he gives way. Now this brings the
question : who was right? What teaching had the apostles from Jesus
that makes them so sure? If Paul was sure he was right in his new
revelation why does he not stick to it? What is the significance
for Jewish converts to Christianity today? Would Jesus have asked
them to stop practising Judaism? This is why I ask : who do
you follow Paul or Jesus?
In 1 Thessalonians 2 Paul says " we apostles came" but
he is self appointed and none of the apostles travelled with him.
In Jerusalem he is surrounded by enemies and the Romans take him
into custody to protect him. Now in a desperate situation he reveals
he is a Roman citizen - why not before when suffering (of which
he often boasts). It has been suggested that he bought his citizenship
foreseeing the need for it.
Jesus never taught the disciples alone - it was always in groups.
Why would Paul be singled out over them for the teaching for the
church founded on Jesus. Or is it?
All the teaching we have about church meetings, what women can
and cannot do, the gifts of the spirit, the so-called "rapture" ,
the meaning of baptism, and the communion.
He says the Gentile church is a mystery until it was revealed
to him, but the Jews always proselytised and accepted converts.
That God would save gentiles is shown in the book of Jonah (much
to Jonah's disgust - but that was the lesson to be learned). As
Jews have spread over the world together with their scriptures
in our Bibles those two witnesses have been there for those whom
God would draw.
Paul and the Eucharist.
Paul was very influenced by pagan rituals. Mithraism was prevalent
at the time where there was bread representing the body and flesh
of the god, and wine representing the blood of the god. This was
a sacrificial offering but was also partaking of the god. Jesus
asked his friends to remember him when they had a meal. This was
not the Passover meal as it was the day of preparation. The Passover
lamb was not a sin offering, and was not a sacrifice at the temple
as other animals that were sin offerings, but it did save the people
of God from death. Jesus knew his death would be for political
reasons to stop many being killed in riots at the great gathering
for the feast.
When Jesus speaks of the new covenant he is using the same words
used by Jeremiah in ch. 31 verses 31 -34. What John writes in his
ch. 6 shows how shocked the Jews were by the thought of eating
the flesh and blood of a god.
Wh at Paul has done to a simple thing - a remembrance among friends
with simple visual aids has opened the way for all sorts.
Paul and Baptism
Converts to Judaism were baptised to cleanse from ritual impurity
and so to be able to enter the temple and eat holy food. That of
John the Baptist was for repentance and so similar to converts
entering a new life. The Jews use the Mikveh bath for new beginnings
a various points in life - after menstruation, before marriage,
before Shabbat, before the main feasts etc. It is not to wash away
sin or connected with dying and rising again, but is connected
with a new birth or beginning.
Paul's concept ignores repentance and makes baptism the means
of the convert sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ - a
rite of entry into a mystery.
If Jesus was the sinless son of God why was he baptised? Of what
did he need to be repentant or be cleansed ? It was a new beginning
for his ministry.
When he said to Nicodemus that he needed to be born of water and
the spirit to enter the kingdom he meant he needed a fresh start
and the power of the spirit, which a Jew would understand.
If Paul ever was a Pharisee he abandoned that style of reasoning
and doctrine. He says the Torah was given by angels; not directly
from God (Gal. 3 v19 & Acts 7 v53). The word used in Galatians
means " ordained" or" commanded by" . Paul
does not want his followers to believe God spoke directly to Moses
(but see Deut. 4 v12 & 36). This is to undermine the eternal
truth and authority of the Torah. He, of course, claims to have
been spoken to directly.
Paul and the Death and Resurrection of Jesus.
The Pharisees believed in a resurrection for those who had lived
a righteous life and that resurrection was the recovery of human
life. For Paul it is becoming divine.
When Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 it is about spiritual bodies.
To a Jew the resurrection of Jesus did not prove his divinity any
more than that of Lazarus.
The Jews see the death of Jesus as a death of a martyr, not a
sacrifice. A martyr dies because they will not change what they
believe and so go willingly to death: Jesus said " I willingly
lay down my life." A sacrifice has no say in it - it is a
victim.
Isaac was a sacrifice, but God stopped it.
In Judaism the sacrifice dies, not for the sinner, but for the
sin.
The Passover lamb died so that Israel could leave Egypt - it was
nothing to do with sin. The sins of the nation were dealt with
on the day of atonement . Why did not Jesus die on the day of atonement?
Paul says the law cannot save, but to a Jew that is not the point.
A Jew is saved by being in the covenant, and the animal sacrifices
only atoned for unwitting sin. For deliberate sin there had to
be repentance and reparation.
Paul says you have to be included in the death and resurrection
of Christ and so become divine by adoption. Paul misuses scripture
by dressing up pagan ideas in parallels in the Torah and Jewish
language. Paul's Christianity is a mystical religion disguised
as a fulfilment of Judaism. Paul does not teach what Christ taught
and is not a follower of Christ, or a Pharisee, which makes him
a liar. Paul hardly mentions repentance - which was preached by
Jesus and John the Baptist. Jesus warned of his death and resurrection, but
never said it would be a sacrifice. In fact in the gospels
the word sacrifice comes only once in Mark 9 v49 about a sacrifice
needing to be salted.
Paul and the Kingdom.
Why should everything be earthly for Jews and little of the afterlife
and for gentiles its all looking to the afterlife and little in
this world? The Jew was first so surely he is the pattern? The
promises for the Jews are earthly.
Compare 1 Cor. 15 with John ch. 3. Paul has taken the truth Jesus
spoke about flesh giving birth to flesh and spirit to spirit and
made it go so far as to say flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of
heaven (of God) and the resurrection of the body is spiritual.
There is little else in Paul's writings about the kingdom of God,
yet Jesus teaches a great deal about it and it seems to be a real
kingdom here on earth: especially in the parables in Matthew 13.
The Jews expect an earthly kingdom to be formed by the Messiah.
This is apparent in the book of Revelation, which is a very Jewish
book. Jesus did promise that the disciples would sit on thrones
judging (leading) the 12 tribes of Israel at the renewal of all
things, and would be repaid for all that they had lost including
fields and wives, which sounds of this world!
Paul and Satan.
The Pharisees did not see the devil as a fallen angel, with much
power. But as an entity acting as an adversary (the meaning of "satan" which
is a Hebrew word for an adversary) carrying out the will of God
as an angel of death or an accuser. Paul's dualism is more like
Gnostism, and because of him we have the idea that demons are everywhere.
This together wth the "god of this world" has led to
Charismatics praying against and taking territory from satan and
his demons.
Here again Paul differs from Jesus and the Jews. In 2 Cor. 4 v4
he calls satan the god of this world who has blinded those of the
world. Luke and Matthew have differing accounts of the temptation
of Jesus by satan . Luke who was Paul's disciple says the world
was the devil's to give. Does satan really blind people or is it
that God has not enlightened them? It is God who makes the light
shine in the darkness.(John ch.1)
Paul says satan has blinded the world so they cannot believe,
But in Romans 9 he says God has hardened the hearts of the unbelieving
Jews . Why should Jews be hardened and gentiles blinded? Why should
gentiles have such a different mode of salvation from that given
to the Jews. If it is to be so different why choose a Jew to die
for both? Why would God spend 2000 years teaching the Jews about
it all only to change everything without any warning or explanation?
That, as we would say today, is a mega moving of the goal posts! God
has declared he does nothing without speaking through his prophets
first. (Amos ch 3 v7)
The results of Paul's teaching.
The effect that Paul had on Christianity is not doubted, but the
question is has he spread the Christianity understood and practised
by those disciples who were with Jesus and taught by him for three
years and who were, like him, Jews? Or has Paul started a new religion
that was to replace Judaism not fulfil it?
The gospels do not give the picture that Jesus was starting a
new religion at all, but was turning the hearts of the children
back to the fathers, from where they gone astray.
What Paul has passed on the western Christianity is replacement theology,
not a fulfilment or even a progression. This has alienated the
Jews -" the lost sheep to whom Jesus came" and added
much fuel to the fire of anti Semitism.
His teaching has enabled such denominations as the Restoration
movement to say God has finished with the Jews and the church is
the new Israel.
Also his teaching is loved by the Roman Catholics, who practise
the idea that celibacy is to be preferred in the service of God
. This is unlike Judaism where all priests had to be married, and
apart from the Essenes married was the normal state for everyone.
Paul and Anti-Semitism.
In 1Thessalonians 2 v 14-16 Paul says they have become like the
churches in Judea by being persecuted by their own countrymen.
The Jews in Judea are accused by him of killing Jesus and also
the prophets. They drove out Paul and his disciples, yet try to
stop him from preaching to the gentiles. Here is another example
of Paul's muddled thinking : 1. If they drove him out why should
they then care what he said to the gentiles? They would care about
what he was doing to undermine Judaism, but would not care if gentiles
were converted to his form of Christianity, AS LONG AS it did not
lead to Anti-Semitism. 2. Why was HE driven out of Judea, but the
other disciples allowed to stay. The church in Jerusalem was tolerated
because it was seen to be a sect of Judaism. Paul's brand of Christianity
produced conflict with both the new Christian sects of the Ebionites
and Nazoreans as well as the orthodox sects of Judaism.
In Romans 11 Paul says the mission to the Jews failed because
they rejected Jesus (but Jesus said he had come to the lost sheep
of Israel - had he failed?) Paul says salvation had come to the
gentiles because of the sin of the Jews, as if this was all a part
of the plan, but Jesus said he had sheep of another fold (John
10) and there would be ONE flock and one shepherd. So why would
there be a new apostle with a new message for the gentiles?
What Paul is saying is that the Jews acted like Judas in betraying
Jesus, so they are now seen as Judas and Christ killers. All the
suffering of the Jewish people is seen as witnessing to the" truth" that
Christianity is meant for gentiles now and the Jews are lost unless
they convert.
All the sins of society became heaped on them as scapegoats - see
Isaiah ch 53.
In Jonah ch.1 v 14 those who threw him into the sea prayed " do
not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man - YOU oh Lord
have done as you pleased!"
It was both Jews and Romans who put Jesus to death.
If Christianity depends on his death should we not be grateful
to them instead of blaming them?
next section : Isaiah 53
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