Hatred of Paul

[Wertbag]

I hadn't come across this before but there seems to be a fair number of people who hate Paul. 

One commentator said:

"Jesus was circumcised, Paul rejected circumcision..The OT Laws commands the circumcision on the eighth day. The reason why Christians are not circumcised is because they follow paul. They have broken the covenant of Circumcision according to Jesus himself (5:19), (Genesis 17:14) (Genesis 21:4) , (Luke 2:21) (Acts 15:1) ,, while paul changed this at (Galatians 5:6)

Jesus taught Salvation comes through Faith and Works, paul distorted it and invented that it come by faith only...while Jesus WAS VERY CLEAR and taught that salvation is attained by keeping the commandments, physical prayer, fasting, and observing the Law of Moses.(Mat 17:21) (Mark 9:29) Paul neglected these commands (Ephesians 2:8-9) and distorted the Path to Salvation preached by Jesus. 

Jesus and all the Bible prophets taught that Physical Prayer is commanded..(Genesis 17:3) (Joshua 5:14) (Daniel 9:3) (Matthew 26:39) while the false apostle paul rejected these laws, he disobeyed the physical prayer to God.and He distorted the prayer and directed it towards His Prophet, Jesus (Philemon 2:10) .. and more and more of his lies against God of the Bible and Jesus

 Jesus said "DO NOT CALL ANYONE ON EARTH YOUR FATHER; for ONE IS YOUR FATHER, HE who is in heaven"(Matthew 23:9) which is 100% true,,but the deceiver paul said "For I BECAME YOUR FATHER"(1 Corinthians 4:15) .. 

for God sake,,how it can be clearer ! no one ever can follow God and Jesus and in same time follow paul and satan teaching ,,as both are totally the opposite. "

 

I'd never heard of this idea but there were quite a few commentors agreeing or adding to the issues they had. 

Has anyone seen this before? Is it common? 

[Geezer]

I can recommend the book,  “The Fabricated Paul” by  Hermann Detering. The author presents evidence that Paul was a literary character not a real person. 

[Hierophant]

Oh yes, I have heard plenty of this over the years. There is a specific ring leader of this movement:

 

Douglas Del Tonto

 

He runs a website called jesuswordsonly. As usual, he disagrees with everyone else and that you should only read the gospels to hear what Jesus had to say. This, and every other website out there is exactly why I left Christianity. There is no consensus on how to read the Bible; the whole Christian movement is rife with conflict regarding what "truth" is. It is just so insane that you will lose your head trying to figure it out. I mean really, if God wants all man to come to the truth as is stated in 2 Peter, it should not be this difficult.

 

You know what makes me do a double take with these guys? They will say that Paul is a false apostle, and his writings should not be in the Bible, but then they automatically assume everything in the gospels is an accurate snapshot of Jesus' ministry. Why do you believe that some of the Bible is false, but yet you believe everything from John back is true? How did you come to that determination?

[Geezer]

I would say  that Jesus made it unambiguously clear, in the Gospels, that Judaism was the one true religion, and that the law would never pass away. Actual historians generally agree the book of Acts is fiction. Jesus never said anything about starting a new religion to worship him.

 

Dr Robert Price addresses the problems with Paul in his book,  The Colossal Apostle. Price like Detering, believes the evidence suggest Paul, like Jesus, was a literary character. Many historians believe Simon Magus and Marcion were the authors of “Paul’s” Epistles and the founders of Christianity.  They were Gnostics and Christianity is a Gnostic religion.

[Geezer]

There was only one gospel story, with three additional revised and edited versions. Dr.Richard Carrier makes a good case for the original gospel story being fictional rather than historical.

[LogicalFallacy]

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/paul.htm

 

This site goes into why they think that Paul was not real.

[Dexter]

On 1/21/2019 at 12:25 PM, Wertbag said:

I'd never heard of this idea but there were quite a few commentors agreeing or adding to the issues they had. 

Has anyone seen this before? Is it common? 

 

Fun fact, discrediting Paul is also a popular way of claiming the Bible, or at least the New Testament is pro-homosexual (or... at the very least... neutral on the matter). Yes there is Leviticus and Deuteronomy but, hey, that's all old covenant stuff and Jesus made a new one. And Jesus really didn't speak a word on homosexuality. So far as we know anyway. His message was grace and compassion so clearly it's graceful and compassionate to allow people to love whomever they want. 

 

The only New Testament passages written explicitly about homosexuality were written by... hold your breath and wait for it... PAUL! 

 

So, if Paul was a false profit, then the NT is notably quiet on the matter of homosexuality. I mean, "sexual immorality" is still mentioned but that's open to wide interpretation. Now, all that said, this is still some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to try to get the Bible to support homosexuality but with Paul out of the equation, it gets a lot easier (and infinitely more problematic at the same time). But whatcha gonna do? 

[Myrkhoos]

15 hours ago, Dexter said:

His message was grace and compassion so clearly it's graceful and compassionate to allow people to love whomever they want. 

 

 

I think this is not the WHOLE image of Jesus as depicted in the Gospel. He admonished the pharisees, he starts beating the people in the temple, he admonished his disciples, he ups the punishment for sin as mental and verbal sins are enough for one to be sent in Hell. Again he warns people quite often about the gnashing of teeth part. Also he said He should be first to be loved, beyond blood relatives and friends. 

 

And he not saying anything about homosexuality is like saying he did not say anything having sex with animals. This was also outlawed and punishable by death. This was so clear to everyone in the 1st century Jewish community where he was preaching that he did not need to say anything extra.

 

Paul, however writes his epistle to the Romans, and well, Romans were known for their sometimes depraved sexual conduct, in the eyes of the Jews so they needed this observation.

 

On a side note, it seems quite clear that sexuality in general, I mean biological sexuality was seen as something quite troublesome to the first Christians. I mean Jesus was celibate and a virgin, his mother was the same, all the apostles left their wives. In the Orthodox tradition, fun fact, it is considered the the groom in Cana, left his wife and became Simon the Zealot, one of the 12.  It seems that virginity and celibacy were the ideal form of life for them. Even today, in Orthodox Christianiaty, monasticism is called the "angelic life".

 

And really, it does require only mental gymnastics for someone to integrate LGBT and Christianity, it requires flat out denial of reality. Textual reality and historical reality.  I am sorry, but those who think it can somehow match seem to live in self-imposed delusion.

 

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

Also notice that Paul never actually met Jesus... he simply had a vision of him once during a particularly intense nervous breakdown, and yet he has the gall to consider himself equal to the Apostles. This is actually a glaring hole in the bible canon and you might notice a lot of theologians make a special point of insistently calling Paul, "The Apostle Paul" over and over... (whereas sometimes they'll call Peter or John simply by their first names and assume you know they're apostles by context) because they know Paul's apostleship is questionable and they have to push this belief through the brute force of the power of suggestion. On close inspection he appears to be just some guy who claims he met a famous person he never met and hijacked an emergent religious movement with his own personal beliefs, and later organizations found his writings useful for promoting things like authoritarianism and misogyny. 

[◊ DestinyTurtle ◊]

On 1/28/2019 at 1:36 PM, Myrkhoos said:

... all the apostles left their wives. In the Orthodox tradition, fun fact, it is considered the the groom in Cana, left his wife and became Simon the Zealot, one of the 12.  It seems that virginity and celibacy were the ideal form of life for them. Even today, in Orthodox Christianiaty, monasticism is called the "angelic life".

Really? Wow. I didn't know that. These people really thought that abandonment was a just and holy thing? 

[Prometheus]

Modern "Christianity" is not Christianity at all, but a cult built around the rabid and egomaniacal teachings of Paul. As such, I refer to modern Christians as Paulians.

 

Bring up any criticism of Paul to a Paulian (aka "Christian"), and they will become immediately grieved as you are attacking the very foundation of their dogma.

[Geezer]

The Church of Christ is an example of Pauline worshippers. They believe every word Paul spoke, or wrote, came directly from God. The 12 Apostles never “got it”, so Jesus was forced to find someone else (Paul) to finish His work and mission. Paul wasn’t God incarnate but he was #3 in the chain of command, at least in the minds of those in the Church of Christ. 

 

 

[Wertbag]

So Paul was the Joseph Smith of his time? Some guy who was down on his luck figured out how to convince the already superstitious of his divine orders. Those orders included making him rich and powerful. 

[Geezer]

11 hours ago, Wertbag said:

So Paul was the Joseph Smith of his time? Some guy who was down on his luck figured out how to convince the already superstitious of his divine orders. Those orders included making him rich and powerful. 

 

I don’t believe Paul or Jesus were real people. The evidence leans towards both of them being fictional characters in a fictional story. Those that believed those stories were the ones that created an empire ( Christianity and the Christian Church) and then became powerful & wealthy. 

[Hierophant]

@Geezer

 

Do you have some resources to look at regarding the mythist theory of Paul? I have seen different stuff on Jesus from Richard Carrier, David Fitzgerald, and Robert Price, but I have not seen anyone make a good argument that Paul was made from whole cloth. Mythicism in general is confusing to me, in that, I don't understand the motivation of why someone would sit down and undertake such a task. I do understand it from a Midrash point of view, but some of the stories in the gospels don't appear to be Midrash.

[Prometheus]

22 hours ago, Geezer said:

The Church of Christ is an example of Pauline worshippers. They believe every word Paul spoke, or wrote, came directly from God. The 12 Apostles never “got it”, so Jesus was forced to find someone else (Paul) to finish His work and mission. Paul wasn’t God incarnate but he was #3 in the chain of command, at least in the minds of those in the Church of Christ. 

 

 

 

Interesting, I never knew that about the COC (I suppose they don't use that acronym much).

Although they never explicitly made the argument you present here, my extended family on one side is entirely religious, but spans or has spanned a breadth of sects from Presbyterian to Church of the Brethren to, I suppose, Baptist and Evangelical, and nearly all of the family members I know well have found most of their spiritual refuge in the writings of Paul, who was the most oft-quoted author throughout my childhood.

 

To the OP (@Wertbag), I suppose by "a fair number" you mean a fraction of a minority of Christians.

[Geezer]

3 hours ago, TinMan said:

@Geezer

 

Do you have some resources to look at regarding the mythist theory of Paul? I have seen different stuff on Jesus from Richard Carrier, David Fitzgerald, and Robert Price, but I have not seen anyone make a good argument that Paul was made from whole cloth. Mythicism in general is confusing to me, in that, I don't understand the motivation of why someone would sit down and undertake such a task. I do understand it from a Midrash point of view, but some of the stories in the gospels don't appear to be Midrash.

 

The Fabricated Paul by Hermann Detering. You might also check out The Colossal Apostle by Robert Price.

[Wertbag]

7 hours ago, Prometheus said:

I suppose by "a fair number" you mean a fraction of a minority of Christians.

Absolutely, it was a vague throw away term simply to indicate that the idea didn't appear to be coming from one person, but discussions seemed to get dozens if not hundreds of people agreeing. I have no idea how common this idea is, I was purely asking the question to gain some understanding and I think the responses here have been great to that end. 

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

On 1/23/2019 at 11:40 AM, Geezer said:

There was only one gospel story, with three additional revised and edited versions. Dr.Richard Carrier makes a good case for the original gospel story being fictional rather than historical.

 

I have a very good feeling now that all of the Bible is fiction with some historical fiction and very little fact mixed in here and there. I have you to thank for that geezer. 

 

DB

 

[Myrkhoos]

On 2/9/2019 at 5:50 PM, DestinyTurtle said:

Really? Wow. I didn't know that. These people really thought that abandonment was a just and holy thing? 

Well, There is that saying in the Gospel of giving everything up for God. If you abandon people for God than that is good. Of course now the Church has lots of canons about leaving marriage for monasticism and does not really support it, but there many cases in the lives of saints of wives and husbands leaving their spouses to follow a monastic calling. Not the majority in any case, but that was a reality. Then again there is this saying that if you leave your parents to follow God in monastery he sends an angel to take care of them. So, yeah. Things get balanced in some way in this or the other life.

[megasamurai]

I always found the contradictions on gender issues interesting, and this seems to be proof that people tampered with these letters. I do not really believe the Jesus/Paul myth theory and I am a believer that there were people named Paul and Jesus who were Jewish teachers who had very high self esteem. My family is going through chaos as my uncle got a divorce from his wife and she wasn't the best person. My family believes she was evil because she didn't submit to her husband. The hierarchy allows for peace and can be justified with utiliterian ethics. Without this, fighting and chaos ensue. Submissive relationships are healthier relationships. Can anybody argue this point? I know they view feminism as evil and that damn dirty liberals want egalitarian marriages. 

[Geezer]

On 1/27/2019 at 8:47 PM, Dexter said:

 

Fun fact, discrediting Paul is also a popular way of claiming the Bible, or at least the New Testament is pro-homosexual (or... at the very least... neutral on the matter). Yes there is Leviticus and Deuteronomy but, hey, that's all old covenant stuff and Jesus made a new one. And Jesus really didn't speak a word on homosexuality. So far as we know anyway. His message was grace and compassion so clearly it's graceful and compassionate to allow people to love whomever they want. 

 

The only New Testament passages written explicitly about homosexuality were written by... hold your breath and wait for it... PAUL! 

 

So, if Paul was a false profit, then the NT is notably quiet on the matter of homosexuality. I mean, "sexual immorality" is still mentioned but that's open to wide interpretation. Now, all that said, this is still some pretty impressive mental gymnastics to try to get the Bible to support homosexuality but with Paul out of the equation, it gets a lot easier (and infinitely more problematic at the same time). But whatcha gonna do? 

 

Christians have historically “interpreted” scripture in ways that confirm their own groups beliefs & traditions. Some versions allow female pastors/ministers by interpreting scripture that prohibits female preachers as “cultural” rather than a command from God. 

 

There are versions of Christianity that openly accept gay members & Pastors. I assume they have “interpreted” scripture in a way that allows them to be receptive to the gay community.  Christianity is nothing if not flexible. 

 

 Cherry picking scripture is as old as Christianity itself. If a person can’t find a version of Christianity they like, then they really haven’t put much effort into their search.

[Wertbag]

On 2/11/2019 at 11:10 AM, TinMan said:

Mythicism in general is confusing to me, in that, I don't understand the motivation of why someone would sit down and undertake such a task.

There are plenty of examples of Mythicism, in that I don't believe anyone claims there were actual people called Ra, Zeus or Zenu, but there were certainly people who claimed to be gods. As to why... Power, control and wealth would be the most common answers. I have heard it said that if a wiseman was an advisor and was asked questions that he didn't know then to keep his favoured position he could invoke a god of the gaps, knowing full well that no one else could prove him wrong.