Arn't most xians paulitarians?

Question

"My long-time view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of two seemingly immiscible parts--the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas Jefferson attempted to excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn't much left when he was done, but it was an inspiring document." (Letter to Ken Schei [author of Christianity Betrayed and An Atheists for Jesus]) - Carl Sagan

"Where possible Paul avoids quoting the teaching of Jesus, in fact even mentioning it. If we had to rely on Paul, we should not know that Jesus taught in parables, had delivered the sermon on the mount, and had taught His disciples the 'Our Father.' Even where they are specially relevant, Paul passes over the words of the Lord."-Albert Schweitzer

"Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ."

"Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ."

-Wil Durant (Philospher)

"Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in." (U.S. News and World Report, April 22, 1991, p. 55)

-Carl Jung (Psychologist)

Bishop John S. Spong (Episcopal Bishop of Newark)

"Paul's words are not the Words of God. They are the words of Paul- a vast difference." (Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, p. 104, Harper San Francisco, 1991)

-Bishop John S. Spong (Episcopal Bishop of Newark

Answer 1

I have been saying this same thing to my religious friends ever since I read the bible and first began understanding Christianity. Why don't more Christians see this?

In fact, Paul is just another example of the corruption of what may have been a pretty decent philosophy.

Answer 2

Isn't Bishop Spong a homosexual? It would not be surprising that he should reject Paul's letters to fit in with his own philosophy. Being a bishop may give him position but doesn't necessarily mean his relationship with God is great. He may be a fine man as a person, but that does not mean that God's anointing rests on him - if he starts rejecting the faith of the church the Holy Spirit will focus on pulling him back to the gospel message.

Carl jung wasn't a christian. He is well regarded as a pyschologist by society in general. He embraced both dark and light from his dreams, so was more Indian in many of his religious ideas.

Schweizer was an unusual individual and didn't hold to orthodox christian ideas.

Paul doesn't seem to have met Jesus personally, except via his Damascus revelation and possibly later revelations. So he'd leave those knowledgable to investigating what Jesus said in his life to provide that knowledge to the church. The Holy Spirit was sent in Jesus' place, which is where people who don't believe in Christ have a missing gap in their ability to understand the development of the early church. The Holy Spirit was sent to continue Christ's ministry. He is the Spirit of God and can impart revelation supernaturally to believers (and performs other ministries to Church and the non-believing).

Answer 3

I think your thesis is excellent - the irony is that without Paul we probably wouldn't know anything about Christ. He was the one whose zealotry and determination spread the word enough and established a backbone to Christianity which made it possible.

And not all of Paul is awful, the "if I have not Love" passage (Corinthians 14) is a high point of the New Testament if you translate "agape" as "Love" as it should be rather than "Charity" as it usually is. Also, for all his prejudices and docrtinal problems with sex etc he did say "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life", thus encouraging us not to take too legalistic a view of Christianity. You will also see that often when he makes a particularly sweeping statement he adds "I am showing you a Mystery" - in other words his words are to be taken metaphorically/mystically and not literally.

Nonetheless, ror me personally, the Christ message is the Gospels, Acts and the First Epistle of John plus. Paul is secondary and Revelations is visionary metaphor and NOT to be taken literally.

Add to this Gnostic Gospels and the vision of Greek Christianity (neo-Platonism, Sophiology) and you have what I understand to be Christianity.

Answer 4

I have great respect for Bishop Spong, and the others you quote. But the fact remains, most of Paul's letters predate the gospels. So how do we know at all what the "real" Jesus said?

Answer 5

Interesting that Hosea, inspired of God as ALL THE WRITINGS IN SCRIPTURE ARE, would say:
"they are ever-learning, but never come to the knowledge of the truth".

What are they ever-learning? the writings
of Durant, Jung, Spong, listening to any
man who comes down the pike, instead of to God.
Do you even know the three Biblical languages as to be able to read the manuscripts to understand them? What great credentials might you have to dispute the Word of the Living God? Or is it just
some writings you have dug up in order to try to destroy a Sacred Text?
If I were you, I'd stop setting yourself up as an enemy of God, and come to the knowledge that that cute little "x" won't save your sorry butt.

Paul had no motive to write of his own accord; he was beaten, mocked, ridiculed,
jailed, shipwrecked, and may I remind you that Paul (once Saul) was expressly against the Christian in that he even specially requested paperwork signed and ready to give him authority to drag christians to their death, just on the possibility that he might run into some.
Use common sense for once: what exactly did Paul as a man, have to gain by what he did? Riches? Recognition? No but rather an entire life with the real possibility of being murdered at any time, even besides
the torment that was his daily. He had nothing whatsoever to gain, and everything
to gain by continuing his original path against Christians.

YOU HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT GOD GAVE A GRAPEFRUIT.

Answer 6

Absolutely true. Though they probably don't know it, so few people, even Christians, see the almost completely self-contained Pauline theology as Fundamentally separate from the stuff that Jesus got up to.
Thanks for the quotes.

Answer 7

Absolutely.

Paul was a Roman, and his doctrinal arguments about Christianity completely changed the religion.

For instance in the NT Jesus is asked by a Gentile to heal her child. Jesus tells his deciples to tell her that he wasn't sent to the dogs, but to God's chosen people(the jews). She said even the Dogs get table scraps, and jesus granted her wish.

It is very clear that Jesus believed that he was a Messiah for the Jews, but Paul had other plans.

He argued that Salvation was just as much for Gentile as it is for Jews. This was important to him, being a Roman and having many Roman friends and family. He changed the course of Christianity, and essentially saved it, because the Jews were anihilated by the Romans, shortly after, and Christianity may not have survived.

It seems impossible to believe that God would spend 4000 years keeping the Jews seperate from the gentiles, commanding them to kill entire towns and killing Jews who mixed with them, only to turn around and accept them into his chosen flock. It doesn't make sense unless you are Paul and create a doctrine of salvation that fulfils Old Testament Law.

Answer 8

Confusing is it. Most likely it is because your Jesus never existed. Paul had a vision and that was about the extent of it. Parables was an easy method to use when trying to make someone into a God. Most of the parables were direct copy from the Mythra religion with bits here and there from the Old Testament.

Answer 9

RAT,
I do not believe so. I believe that MOST Christians are just that. I believe that the words of Paul were also inspired of GOD thru the HOLY SPIRIT and that they are a very important part of our BIBLE. I am sorry that you evidentally are not interested in our FATHER'S WORD. Have a wonderful week.
Thanks,
Eds



.

Answer 10

It's a very interesting point to think over. The letters from (or ascribed to being from) Paul are the earliest record of teaching theology we have and the only one in the bible. But as I've often said, Paul was speaking out of his own mouth, not being controlled by God or whatever. I have often said that if we give weight to Paul's theology, we have to also give some weight to the theologians who came after him.