Are Muslims right about Paul?

[Deadtroopers]

What? Are you suggesting that Paul met Jesus before he ascended? If so, can you provide any verse which confirms this claim?

I wouldn't hold your breath; but while we are waiting what evidence can you provide that Christ descended, let alone was incarnated?

 

[Deadtroopers]

Paul was inline with the messages of Jesus Christ as well as all of the other prophets. One key example comes from the Old Testament itself as to WHY we are not to follow the old Hebraic laws any longer.

"The waters of Meribah at Rephidim offer another example of type in the Old Testament that points toward Jesus Christ. In Exodus 17, the Israelites were without water in the wilderness, and they criticized Moses with enough anger that he thought they might stone him. When he called on God for help in the matter, God told Moses to strike the rock with his staff. He did so, and the rock split and poured out enough water for all of them.

The same scenario took place a second time at Kadesh in Numbers 20. Again, the Israelites were without water and again Moses fell on his face before the LORD. This time, however, God told Moses to simply speak to the rock so it would produce water. Moses was still furious with the Israelites for their rebellious hearts, and rather than obeying God , he struck the rock again, twice. The water streamed out and the Israelites and their animals drank, but God didn’t let it go. He told Moses to speak to the rock, and His reasons had such significant import that God made an example of Moses over it. After 40 years of Moses’ putting up with the Israelites and their faithless complaining, God denied Moses entrance into the Promised Land. He let Moses gaze on it from a mountaintop, but Moses the Lawgiver did not get to enter the land of rest. Moses did not do exactly as God had asked. The Rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10: 4). Moses implied to the people that God was angry when He actually wasn’t, and Moses failed to represent God faithfully. He represented the Law. He did not represent God’s grace. What’s interesting is if he had done what God told him to do, those two events would foreshadow the first and second comings of Christ. Only the first occasion involved the rock being smitten. Without realizing it, Moses broke the model and was therefore denied entry into the Promised Land."

Missler, Chuck; Stolebarger, Dan (2014-08-28). The Feasts of Israel (Kindle Locations 136-142). Koinonia House. Kindle Edition.

So this is just one example of why Christ trumps the old Hebraic laws and customs. Christ is the rock upon which we rest our faith and belief in. Paul was completely in line with Christ.

Oh, please. You misunderstand Paul if you think he repudiated the Covenant. How many times does he insist he is just as good, observant and righteous Jew as any other? See John G Gager 'Reinventing Paul' for a good discussion, and bibliography for further enquiry.

 

[Deadtroopers]

"Over one hundred years later, in about 180 AD..."

Early church? Really?

Well that is "early church". Before that what you had was just one more Jewish Messianic sect.

 

[Deadtroopers]

"What? Are you suggesting that Paul met Jesus before he ascended? If so, can you provide any verse which confirms this claim?"

No I can't. The few verses that exist are describing a vision, a convenient devise to use by writers who wish to give Paul authority he did not have among the early followers of Jesus and to remove the requirements of adhering to the Jewish faith which Jesus had.

Logic and close examination of the events make me think that Jesus met Paul and convinced him of the truth of his claim to be the Messiah. Not least of which was proof that he had survived the attempts by the Temple authorities to kill him.

Read the book; Paul was getting his stuff from a cosmic Christ and scripture mining and so was every other apostle. You don't think Cephas and the others wouldn't have squashed him with the unanswereable if true "We were his mates, Jacob is his brother. Give over with the lies."?
I think you left your brain in the hall.

 

[Deadtroopers]

Isn't it a bit fishy that 80% of the NT letters were written by a man who was not one of Jesus' twelve apostles? Not only that, Paul never even quotes Jesus' words in any of his letters! Yet most hold the writings of Paul in an elevated fashion. Many Christian scholars actually think that Jesus' words and parables were spoken under the "old covenant" and no longer applicable. They believe that only the words of Paul are what is meant for the "church age". ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME??

You have things backwards. The twelve are a later literary invention of whoever wrote the text attributed to Mark. Paul, the genuine Paul, and the other epistle writers that can be placed before the cataclysmic Jewish Revolt are our only remotely secure source for what the Jewish sect that generated the Christian Jewish cult looked like. That the one bears almost no resemblance to the other is just how the chips fall.

 

[Deadtroopers]

This is not true at all.

"The poor", "the Way"; these and others were generic descriptives that fell out of use by the majority as they moved towards the classical understanding of their cult. They were retained by, and became descriptive of, those sects which clung to an earlier; but still not original; form of the cult.

 

[Deadtroopers]

Are they right about anything ?.

Depends who you mean and what you mean by right. These stories, legends, myths or whatever you wish to call then, were generated like weeds from one another over a couple of centuries ether side of the year 1. They were all being asserted as true within the space of a few years of them cropping up by varying numbers of people. What came later to be seen as 'heresies' (that term is just a misuse of a neutral Greek word meaning sect or school by the way) were as far as I can see usually an earlier form of the cult. They didn't have the tools to distinguish one from the other in the way we do and it wasn't their mindset anyway. I think they can be largely forgiven for interpreting things in ways that made sense to them and didn't run to much counter to their cultural milieu. There is no excuse for the practice to continue in the modern era though; but it helps you see that if large numbers of modern folk can't get their heads around it when awash in the knowledge and tools to do so that those 1st to 3rd century folk and later had no chance.

 

[Deadtroopers]

Muslims had the benefit of hindsight. Islam was founded in the late 600AD. They had plenty of time to study and be selective about what they put in the Quran. Remember the prophet Mohammad was illiterate and could not read what the scribes wrote. He could only recite from memory his conversations with Gabriel. The Quran was compiled by scribes.

How does that square with him being a successful business man trading as far afield as Damascus? There is a conflict here. Which is the legend? Or is neither remotely factual?

 

[psychoslice]

Depends who you mean and what you mean by right. These stories, legends, myths or whatever you wish to call then, were generated like weeds from one another over a couple of centuries ether side of the year 1. They were all being asserted as true within the space of a few years of them cropping up by varying numbers of people. What came later to be seen as 'heresies' (that term is just a misuse of a neutral Greek word meaning sect or school by the way) were as far as I can see usually an earlier form of the cult. They didn't have the tools to distinguish one from the other in the way we do and it wasn't their mindset anyway. I think they can be largely forgiven for interpreting things in ways that made sense to them and didn't run to much counter to their cultural milieu. There is no excuse for the practice to continue in the modern era though; but it helps you see that if large numbers of modern folk can't get their heads around it when awash in the knowledge and tools to do so that those 1st to 3rd century folk and later had no chance.

Yes, just as I thought, its all made up.

 

[Deadtroopers]

Unbelievers especially Muslims hate Saint Paul the most!

No we don't. I for one think; no matter how good some of Jesus' lines in the Gospels; that Paul was the closest to what Christ was about.
But you will have gathered I think this and what the other epistle writers were on about; and Cephas, John, James and Peter for that matter; was a long way removed from what you have come to think is Christianity.

 

[Deadtroopers]

I don't agree but I believe it behooves you to provide evidence, otherwise you are just whilstling Dixie. (I believe the expression means living in fantasy since the south will never rise again)

Careful there, I wouldn't rule anything out from happening in your somewhat crackpot country. Reagan, Bush2; case rested.

Regarding his claim. It can't be supported by an honest reading of the texts; discounting the forgeries and interpolations created to distort them.

 

[Deadtroopers]

I believe you are in error saying that Jesus is under the law. He is the law. It serves Him.

You probably can't even get such an interpretation from John. The sense is almost always that law serves man.
Paul as I understand him views the law as death to Gentiles. If they take it up and leave off so much as a dot ot tattle. Of course if they take it up wholesale; snipping and all; they are Jewish; not Gentile anymore; and so saved under the earlier covenant. I don't find a replacement theology in Paul; I find a theology that extends salvation to all who will come in. In that sense thy are neither Jew nor Gentile. It's difficult to tease out because it has become garbled; deliberately and otherwise; in transmisssion as well as being perverted by later forgery.

 

[Deadtroopers]

However, I believe that is not what the law said at all.

More to the point where does Jesus say this rather than Caiaphas(?) saying he says it? Oh, and I just noticed Annas, the high priest, packs Jesus off to Caiaphas; also described as the high priest. Throughout Jesus speaks as if he is not a Jew. This Son of God claim, whether or not the author has the law right or either of these high priests are breaking it, isn't there as far as I can see. I think all this equals late tertiary bollocks.
How can anyone think such drivel is the "Word of Gawd"tm in this day and age?

 

[Deadtroopers]

You have credible sources for that?

Tea leaves?

 

[Deadtroopers]

Is it against the Torah to be a "son of God"?

"I said, "You are gods (literally "elohim"), and all you are children of the Most High." Psalm 82:6

Yeshua also claimed to be the son of God. As we have seen from Psalm 82:6 as quoted above, YHWH even calls men gods because they are His "children". To a certain extent, Scripture indicates that each of us can claim the title of god, and son or daughter of God! Yeshua as much as said, "so what's the big deal about me claiming to be the son of God?" when he quoted the same Psalm to the religious leaders after they got all bent out of shape over the same issue.

Yeshua answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I said, You are gods'? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the son of God'?" John 10:34-36

Being a son of God does not make one equal to the Father. This rationale by the religious leaders in John 5:18 was leveled as an accusation so they could find some grounds on which do away with Yeshua. Though being a son of God who came from heaven is not the same as being YHWH, it still made Yeshua much greater than the religious leaders, and many of them were threatened by it. "
Who is Yeshua

He might be a stopped clock; but give him his due (dont even think about it !!); he's right.

 

[Deadtroopers]

Actually, it is much worse. Yeshua uttered the name YHVH in front of the High Priest which was why he tore his robes. The son's of Aaron were prohibited in the Torah from tearing their robes, however, the Pharisees had made a fake "oral" law which permitted the High priest to do such upon hearing the sacred name of YHVH being pronounced. It was a fake oral law which put Yeshua to death, not the claim to be "the son of God" which was a not a blasphemous title.

Whether or not the oral Torah is "fake" (and there are more grounds than you think for it being legitimate; and give over with the pot/kettle nonsense; much of the stuff you are flying is much later twaddle.) this goes to evidence of how much later this stuff is and how much more likely literary creation.

 

[Deadtroopers]

Do you have any credible sources to back your opinion not taught in any university anywhere, in any credible scholarship?

He fails to see this only makes sense in retrospect, I don't think anyone was ever guilty of blasphemy in claiming to be a Messiah or Anointed One, which is all Christ means. The Power he bigs up is a circumlocution to avoid blasphemy!LMAO.
This is all wild invention based on a bone-stupid misunderstanding and misapplication of the texts. Mind you that is what they were all doing, including the august likes of Philo Judaeus; not to mention the Dead Sea crowd and the Muslims later. So I shouldn't lambast him: this is the standard practice of Midrash and Pesher the Abrahamic crowd have indulged in from time immemorial. We don't seem to have a head-banging emoticon.

 

[Deadtroopers]

The early church that followed Yeshua were most likely Ebionites, as it means poor ones, as he stated to do; they also believed the commandments let them ascend to heaven as Christ taught.
So what is written at the start of Acts, of thousands of people giving up wealth, and living in a big commune are most likely Ebionites.
That is what Paul was attacking, as it challenged the wealthy versions of Judaism (Pharisees and Sadducee).

Christianity is ascribed to Paul and Simon peter's ministry in Antioch, and modern day Christians have to accept Paul's teachings, not Christ's.

The Nazar were not Christians, they were more likely Nazarites within both the Essenes and then the Ebionites, which were more in keeping with the teachings of Yeshua.

How many times must this be repeated: Paul is the only one preaching Christ that we know of directly; through him we know others were also preaching a Christ; but they seem to have been trying to restrict that Christ to their fellow (Hellenistic) Jews. Paul doesn't differentiate how they are all talking to this Christ. The other apostles never seem to have done the obvious and said "We're JC's mates, and get thisne of us is his brother. We never heard any of this ****e. This guy admits he banged his head; talks to people who aren't there; and that he never even met Jesus." That would be job jobbed and we would never hear of Paul again. Instead he is our earliest and most reliable witness to the early cult and everyone makes him out to be the source of the bulk of later Chistianity! Just how is that possible on any of the daft versions being pushed here?

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

The Ark has been found.

The Ark was not lost, just secured in a safer place ....

 

[Unification]

The mainstream interpretation of Paul was that the Law of Moses was completed in Jesus. Christians do not believe they are meant to follow the Law of Moses anymore. It seems that Jesus taught his followers to keep the Law until "heaven and earth pass away". Muslims also believe in the continued validity of the Law of Moses. Is this not the reality behind almost all Christian doctrine?

Christians and Muslims are both in error. Neither understand what the law means, spiritually. It's literal to them, and veiled/covered. It is made complete "IN" Jesus... Neither do they understand what or who the Christ is and how he's resurrected within a human. Heaven and earth passing away are the leaving of Father and Mother and the two becoming one. (Husband and wife) in other words... Spirit and Body. Leaving the natural, literal, outward elements of our conditioned world's created within. Paul understood this, and speaks a lot of the "mysteries" of God and of the mind and consciousness. The light was revealed in him. He's just misunderstood. Doesn't help that the "early church man empire fathers" corrupted a lot of the writings for their vain buildings. For the Christians and western world paradigm of man's wisdom and doctrination, they are still brainwashed and conditioned by their minds to believe and be naive to anything they are told by mankind, which is also spiritual adultery.