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Goodbye Jesus

Apostle Paul Vs. James / Jesus


Eugene39

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My understanding of Scripture is that Paul possibly invented his own method of salvation. The Scriptures which can be used for my argument are Romans 3:27 to Romans 4:3 as opposed to James 2:20-24 and Matthew 7:21-27. A reading of the OT will also show that the prophets believed in faith plus works. Why is Paul's method of salvation used as Christianity's path to heaven, instead of using the Son of God's method.

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One of my friends is BIG on this kick. Its called "rightly dividing the KJV" and boy does he blast any christian who even squeaks anything about any sort of 'works'. I actually think this doctrine was born out of necessity because the obvious truth is that the gospel doesn't do a damn thing to change a person in any permanent way, so they have to have something to teach.

This gets them off the hook because the catch phrase now is 'I can't wait to trade in this vile body for a new one at the rapture'. They don't have to bother with trying to do better by the 'power of the holy spirit' because it no longer matters.

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My understanding of Scripture is that Paul possibly invented his own method of salvation. The Scriptures which can be used for my argument are Romans 3:37 to Romans 4:3 as opposed to James 2:20-24 and Matthew 7:21-27. A reading of the OT will also show that the prophets believed in faith plus works. Why is Paul's method of salvation used as Christianity's path to heaven, instead of using the Son of God's method.

 

I have just posted on Suzy page some good info on Paul. If you can't find it I will send them to you.

That is where massive conflict comes home to roost - when one researches Paul, the gospels are not even the same. It would appear that much of Paul's gospel was based on Mitherism, which was rife in Tarsus and had spread too much of Europe from Persia. It was widely believed in Rome.It is incomprehensible that we as xtians could believe that the entire gospel of Paul was through a mystical vision. He mentions nothing of jc's life only his spiritual death, which again is based on paganism. His entire gospel is gnostic and contradicts the 4 gospels. He appeared to create havoc within the 'church' and totally ousted Peter of his position of being an apostle to the gentiles. His usage of pagan sayings in his epistles is interesting, when so many believe that the NT ( I call it Not Testament) is the word of god via KJV of course!! It seems that xtianity is the product of Paul's teachings as it follows blindly this false apostle as we ex xtains well know!

This is a vast subject, but interesting. So much has been written about him - not much good is written of those who have seen through him. He was a liar, a cheat and an imposter a false apostle. A deluded person who has influenced billions. Scary eh -when he goes the NT goes poof!!!!

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I looked to see where you might have posted the links for Suzy, and didn't see anything. Did you sent them to her as a private message?

 

Several months ago, a Christian was complaining in a note on Facebook how Christians seemingly have no better morals than others. My two cents were that the belief is very common among Christians that Paul had done away with the law, so "clean living" doesn't matter now. Someone else posted that I mis-understood what Paul was saying. All I did next was post the Scripture references of Romans vs. James for them to look at themselves. The writer deleted their note, so that discussion was over. Oh, well. Wendyshrug.gif

 

Yes, Mithraism is a very interesting subject. My understanding is that mithraism excluded women, thereby eliminating around half of the population. If Paul was influenced by such, maybe that explains his views on women. Oops, another can of worms!

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@ Observant Noahide

 

Can you give me the links to where I can find this information about Paul?

 

 

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Guest Valk0010

You might be interested in checking out the theory that paul clashed with peter on doctrine and paul won out, which is why the NT got formed the way did.

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One of the books I have found very interesting on this topic is The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity by Hyam Maccoby.

 

Enjoy!

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I think the reason is Paul (assuming he existed) was a very good evangelist. He converted a sizable amount of people to his version of Christianity and made sure that anyone propagating another version was thoroughly disdained and excommunicated. Combined with his fantastical testimony, people simply couldn't get enough of Paul. They focused on his epistles and then interpreted any other biblical text through the Pauline lens. This focus on Paul can be seen in the book of Acts where he is one of the central characters. Also, it's interesting that the author/s of the Pastoral epistles chose Paul for their authority and also the Petrine (one of them, can't remember which one but most likely 2 IMO) epistle refers to Paul's writings to not only lend weight to itself but to Paul's letters as well.

 

As for Paul inventing his own method of salvation, I definitely agree. James appears to be contrasting against Paul (James quoting the same text as Paul in Romans but coming to a different conclusion) and his version of salvation not to mention Jesus' path as seen in the synoptics. I think current soteriology is based on a mixture of the teachings of Paul and the gospel of John. Though he preached faith it is still pretty obvious that he expected moral living from his converts; how these things intertwined exactly I am not too sure. Talking about his view on women makes me think about the speculations I heard about his self hatred. The main one being that he was a closet homosexual. Anyways, best not to sidetrack the post :)

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Don't forget, Paul was a Roman, so even if you were to completely discount him being influenced by Mithraism, he all ready had the cultural misogyny.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

This is definitely where the true Christians are separated. There is a group out there, I believe, who understands faith and works, and believes on Jesus. I believe that group is saved, but I believe most people are deceived. I think Paul was an apostle, because Peter mentions Paul. Also, it can't be denied that it talks about Abraham being justified by faith, etc., in the Old Testament. And it's not like Paul preached one thing and someone else preached something different, because Paul also said he beats his body into submission so that he's not disqualified, and he says "You have not yet resisted to the shedding of blood", and he says that he's running a race, and someone is kicked out of the church for adultery.

 

The kind of person who stands there and watches christians stoned to death and thinks it okay doesn't really change. I don't care who mentions him, whoever he was he was an anal control freak who hated women and loved being in charge. Complete contrast to Jesus who left people alone to make their own decisions, and who seemed to realise that doing the right thing comes from the heart, not from fear of punishment.

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Hey, if an admin or someone else sees my post, can someone delete my two previous posts? I can't seem to delete them and I kind of regret posting them. Thanks.

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  • 2 months later...

I had no idea that Islam agreed with me on the issue of Paul inventing his own method of salvation, or in other words, incorporating pagan religious ideas on salvation. Here's an interesting read on this.

 

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/629/

 

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I had no idea that Islam agreed with me on the issue of Paul inventing his own method of salvation, or in other words, incorporating pagan religious ideas on salvation. Here's an interesting read on this.

 

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/629/

 

 

A lot of people agree with you on the subject of Paul. Many believe Paul made up his own version of Jesus after his experience where Jesus appeared to him and changed his name to Paul. Modern Christianity has less to do with Jesus' teachings than it has to do with Paul's teachings.

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Why is Paul's method of salvation used as Christianity's path to heaven, instead of using the Son of God's method.

 

The simplest answer is that it is easier, and thus more appealing, particularly to non-Jews who weren't used to the set of rules that "faith plus works" would follow. Plus, Paul's teachings had more on common with Gnosticism, which was popular at the time.

 

Respectfully,

Franciscan Monkey

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Iesus spoke of the coming Kingdom of God that dwells inside a person's heart. When all of man comes to god, then god's kingdom will be on earth. Paul was hung up on the passion of Iesus' suffering and god's 'plan of salvation' for us all. What makes Paul's version in error is that his gospel sounds like modern churchianity which has always made me believe that perhaps the writings of Paul were written in much later years of the Christian church when these doctrines Paul wrote concerning church ceremonies were already in place. In any event, there are so many discrepancies of doctrine, I don't spend much time defending the babbles view of Iesus or Paul. In my mind, the church invented Paul and his writings to justify its own doctrines.

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