Epistles of Paul as the Word of God?

[SoyLeche]

It's very hard to tell if you are joking. Please tell me you are joking.......

First, without getting into another debate, the bible is not perfect. If you truely believe this then there is no need for any other books (i.e. Book of Mormon, Quran...etc).

Also remember The OT and the NT have been assembled and compiled into what is known as the bible by a group who decided (censored) what would make the grade or what wouldn't.

Just because it was put in a book of collected writings doesn't make it truth. The group that compiled the scriptures scrutanized and decided what was truth for the masses and put these scriptures together. If anything the "bible" is an incomplete work of collected writings especially since the discovery of the dead sea scrolls and other scriptures that never made it in.




No offense but IMO I believe that this is a naive understanding of the power of the people who assembled the scriptures, scrutanized them and compiled what "they" felt was the word of "God."



I guess you're right...because says he had a vision...or heard a voice of a man whom he never met or spoke to, who called himself Jesus..to Paul... Then Paul must have been telling the truth and it certainly could not have been Satan....There is not room at all to even think it was satan.....hmmmmm...I see your point....

Please read the fine print in my post.

 

[wizanda]

In the excellent book Christ or Paul?, the Rev. V.A. Holmes-Gore wrote:

"Let the reader contrast the true Christian standard with that of Paul and he will see the terrible betrayal of all that the Master taught....For the surest way to betray a great Teacher is to misrepresent his message....That is what Paul and his followers did, and because the Church has followed Paul in his error it has failed lamentably to redeem the world....The teachings given by the blessed Master Christ, which the disciples John and Peter and James, the brother of the Master, tried in vain to defend and preserve intact were as utterly opposed to the Pauline Gospel as the light is opposed to the darkness."

The great theologian Soren Kierkegaard, writing in The Journals, echoes the above sentiment:

"In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense: Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther. in his reformation, failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down. making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ"

The brilliant theologian Ernest Renan, in his book Saint Paul, wrote:

"True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock. the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology."

Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, has been called "one of the greatest Christians of his time." He was a philosopher, physician, musician, clergyman, missionary, and theologian. In his The Quest for the Historical Jesus and his Mysticism of Paul he writes:

"Paul....did not desire to know Christ....Paul shows us with what complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded....What is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of Jesus?....The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus, and does not appeal to its authority....The fateful thing is that the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of Jesus, but displaces it."

William Wrede, in his excellent book Paul, informs us:

"The oblivious contradictions in the three accounts given by Paul in regard to his conversion are enough to arouse distrust....The moral majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, his ministry among his people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete ethical-religious content of his earthly life, signifies for Paul's Christology nothing whatever....The name 'disciple of Jesus' has little applicability to Paul....Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes, at least in part, the religious and theological warfare of the present day"

Rudolf Bultman, one of the most respected theologians of this century, wrote in his Significance of the Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul:

"It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the words of the Lord in support of his....views. when the essentially Pauline conceptions are considered, it is clear that Paul is not dependent on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is -- to all intents and purposes -- irrelevant for Paul."

Walter Bauer, another eminent theologian, wrote in his Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity:

"If one may be allowed to speak rather pointedly the Apostle Paul was the only Arch-Heretic known to the apostolic age."

George Bernard Shaw, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925; in his Androcles and the Lion, we read:

"There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus....There has really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul upon the soul of Jesus....It is now easy to understand how the Christianity of Jesus....was suppressed by the police and the Church, while Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official faith."

Will Durant; in his Caesar and Christ, he wrote:

"Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be found in the words of Christ....Through these interpretations Paul could neglect the actual life and sayings of Jesus, which he had not directly known....Paul replaced conduct with creed as the test of virtue. It was a tragic change."

Martin Buber, the most respected Jewish philosopher of this century, wrote in Two Types of Faith:

"The Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is completely opposed to Paul"

In one of the best books on early Christianity, Those Incredible Christians, Dr. High Schonfield reports:

"It was not only the teaching and activities of Paul which made him obnoxious to the Christian leaders: but their awareness that he set his revelations above their authority and claimed an intimacy with the mind of Jesus, greater than that of those who had companied with him on earth and had been chosen by him....It was an abomination, especially as his ideas were so contrary to what they knew of Jesus, that he should pose as the embodiment of the Messiah 's will....Paul was seen as the demon-driven enemy of the Messiah....For the legitimate Church, Paul was a dangerous and disruptive influence, bent on enlisting a large following among the Gentiles in order to provide himself with a numerical superiority with the support of which he could set at defiance the Elders at Jerusalem. Paul had been the enemy from the beginning. and because he failed in his former open hostility he had craftily insinuated himself into the fold to destroy it from within."

 

[Vassal]

I guess you're right...because says he had a vision...or heard a voice of a man whom he never met or spoke to, who called himself Jesus..to Paul... Then Paul must have been telling the truth and it certainly could not have been Satan....There is not room at all to even think it was satan.....hmmmmm...I see your point....

Nothing that Paul wrote changes Christian doctrine. All of Christian doctrine comes from the Old Testament, and the New Testament is the fulfillment of the things prophesied about in the Old Testament. Paul’s letters are included in the Bible, as opposed to someone else’s, because of the vision he had, but just merely claiming he had a vision is not why his letters are considered inspired. Paul’s vision is authentic because the letters he wrote to the different communities are consistent with what was taught before he came along (Atonement for sins through death on a cross, Faith alone for salvation, etc...). If Satan had appeared to Paul, then why would Satan want Paul to start preaching about Christ to the Gentiles so that they could also be saved? If it was Satan that appeared to Paul then what Paul wrote would conflict with what was already written in previous scriptures.

 

[wizanda]

Mat 12:43-45
(43) When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
(44) Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
(45) Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
Gal 1:16-18
(16) To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:
(17) Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia (dry place), and returned again unto Damascus.
(18) Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.
Mat 10:5
(5) These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
Mat 23:14-15
(14) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
(15) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
Rev 3:9
(9) Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

Loads more and as written two edged E-sword makes light work of it.....

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Please read the fine print in my post.

I know.....

I was just offering my opinion......

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Nothing that Paul wrote changes Christian doctrine.

I have no problem with this statement at all. We can clearly see that through Paul's mission is where christiantity is born.

All of Christian doctrine comes from the Old Testament

I'm not too sure about that. IMO you can strip off most of the OT and go by the NT and "I" don't believe Christianity would be different than what it is today. I do understand the OT foretelling the coming of a messiah born of a virgin as well as his bloodline but I don't see much more of the OT as being needed for christians to live the life they live today. Well there is the ten commandments.......

If Satan had appeared to Paul, then why would Satan want Paul to start preaching about Christ to the Gentiles so that they could also be saved?

As I recall, Paul was too busy hiding in baskets and running city to city from the Jews. They were going to kill him. They were blocking gates and patrolling the area looking for him. This leaves the gentiles. When Paul told them Jesus sent him to them so they might be saved as well they were "glad." Why would they be glad? Surely Jesus got around to saving them in his mission. Well, we read that he didn't, with the exception of the woman begging him to save her daughter and even then she was almost escorted away from him.


Matthew
10:5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:

10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.


15:22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O my master, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

15:23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

15:24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

This was his commandment to the deciples. Christians will see it another way and use other quotes to try and back up what they say and that''s ok with me. To me, Jesus' orders were clear.

This is what Paul says...

Acts
9:15 But Jesus said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:

Just my onpinion....

If it was Satan that appeared to Paul then what Paul wrote would conflict with what was already written in previous scriptures.

True....


Ofcourse, this is just my opinion. I certainly don't presume to speak for others here.

 

[doppelganger]

Rudolf Bultman, one of the most respected theologians of this century, wrote in his Significance of the Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul:

"It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the words of the Lord in support of his....views. when the essentially Pauline conceptions are considered, it is clear that Paul is not dependent on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is -- to all intents and purposes -- irrelevant for Paul."

Of course, this could just as easily support the conclusion that at the time Paul was writing the epistles, the stories about the character Jesus with the teachings, as we have come to know them in the Canonical "gospels," had not yet been written.

 

[wizanda]

On that one also, somewhere (I think it was) off religious tolerance site……on how people who had studied character recognition, through writing styles and don’t attribute most of the epistles to Paul…..
Though on the ones they do…also checked and the same things apply that he is a Pharisee (Zechariah 11 prophecy foolish shepherd, who is blind in one eye) and re-writes it to his own liking, else we would have still a growing world commune like was before Saul/Paul murdered everyone….and then lied to finish the job…..
As the more you fight anything, the stronger you make it…
so he joined it….

The thing that still gets me is the “angel of light appears on the road to Damascus”…..
and then the “angel of light told me to stop = must be Satan in disguise”…….


mmmmmm???
Satan means accuser of the soul….
so no where, is it mentioned other then being as so…..
someone was telling porky’s and then got people to eat them also as if it is allowed or is good for you internally……

 

[doppelganger]

The thing that still gets me is the “angel of light appears on the road to Damascus”…..
and then the “angel of light told me to stop = must be Satan in disguise”…….

That's from Acts. Paul's account is in Galatians.

 

[LongGe123]

I kno this thread has been dead for ages, but I just wanted to ask a quick question about Paul which I'm un-clear about: Where did paul get all his info on what to preach? I know he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, but wasn't that only for afew seconds? I know from Galatians 1:11-12 its says that Paul wrote :

11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. 12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

But when did Jesus actually tell Paul the gospel? Would you say its the Holy Spirit working within him? Thanks for any replys.

 

[Mr. Peanut]

Hi!

Yea, hath God said...? FIrst lie.

Yea, hath God said through Paul...? Another lie.

The Bible is true and trustworthy and God's Word from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation.

Cheers!

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I kno this thread has been dead for ages, but I just wanted to ask a quick question about Paul which I'm un-clear about: Where did paul get all his info on what to preach? I know he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, but wasn't that only for afew seconds? I know from Galatians 1:11-12 its says that Paul wrote :

11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. 12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

But when did Jesus actually tell Paul the gospel? Would you say its the Holy Spirit working within him? Thanks for any replys.

I do not think Jesus ever did Tell or teach Paul anything...
That is why they differ so greatly to the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.
As much as he could he avoided contact with the other apostles who would have been able to recount Jesus teachings to him... the 15 days or so he spent in Jerusalem with Peter, seems to be more by way of a sending out to preach elsewhere( gentiles)rather than messing with the mission to the Jews.
As the Gospels were not yet written they were unavailable to him. There is no evidence he ever knew what they would later contain concerning Jesus.

 

[rocketman]

I do not think Jesus ever did Tell or teach Paul anything...
That is why they differ so greatly to the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.

Frankly I've never understood this view. They seem to mesh perfectly to me. The gospels tell us what happened, and Paul, an expert in the law, tells us why. Makes perfect sense to me.

Most scholars believe that whoever wrote Luke also wrote Acts. The implication there to me is that both sides of the story are well connected.

 

[Muffled]

This may make me look thick, but i don't understand how the letters Paul wrote to places like Ephesus and Rome can be the word of God.
I mean, they were letters - not prophecies or story telling - but letters of correspondence and explaining of Church matters.

How do these letters become God's breathed word? Could someone explain it for me please?

The letters are God breathed by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

The letters are God breathed by the Holy Spirit.

As far as anyone knows they were dictated by Paul to a scribe.
"God breathed" and the Holy spirits involvement, seem to be a matter of conjecture,
even less certain than that they were dictated.

 

[Muffled]

1st Zechariah 11 so you realize this was God's plan to begin……also that inheritance and grace are cut off from Yeshua being murdered 2nd

Even just them 2 points is enough…yet to continue here is the old list I made, yet now have loads more…..


1. Christ said he came to fulfil the law and not to end it. Paul said he came to end the Law, and if we are in Christ we are free of the Law.

2. Christ said that we are judged by the commandments; Paul said we are free of them, if we are in Christ.

3. Christ said that we should not judge, Paul said that the spiritual may judge and should not be judged.

4. Christ said that God is the judge, Paul said Christ is.

5. Christ said that the inheritance is from God and they killed him to try and steal it, as in the parable of the vine dresser; Paul said that we have an inheritance because of Christ’s death.

6. Christ said not to sacrifice the innocent, Paul praised the fact that Christ died.

7. Christ said that God is the lord of the living; Paul said that we should remain with Christ in death.

8. Christ showed that reincarnation happens, as he said John was Elijah, Paul said we only live once.

9. Christ said God is spirit, Paul said Christ is the image of God; breaking the second commandment.

10. Christ said he was sent and was a servant and a son, Paul said Christ is equal to God and even said he was God.

11. Christ said to worship God, Paul said to worship Christ.

12. Christ said to be one in God, Paul said to be one body in Christ.

13. Christ said that faith in God is powerful; Paul said that faith is "the faith" and so turning its meaning in to church attendance.

14. Christ showed and said to have faith in God; Paul said have faith in Christ.

15. Christ said have one father, Paul said he had begotten people in Christ so making him a father to them.

16. Christ said that we should want of nothing and trust in God, giving up wealth and helping the poor after his death, 3 thousand people were practicing this. Paul ended this and then said if we don’t work we don’t eat, and even went back to work while preaching him self.

17. Christ said it will be hard for a rich man to enter heaven; Paul aspired to have wealth and for two years he rented his own house.

18. Christ said we have forgiveness for forgiving others; Paul said we have forgiveness in Christ.

19. Christ said we are justified by our words, Paul said we are justified by Christ.

20. Christ said God would show mercy to the merciful, Paul said we have mercy in Christ.

21. Christ said to be like children to enter heaven; Paul said not to be like children.

22. Christ said to be the light of the world and to show the bad through love how to be good, Paul said to have nothing to do with bad people and push them out.

23. Christ and the Bible said wisdom will make you shine in heaven, and he said that we should increase the talents we are born with; Paul said to be simple in Christ.

24. Christ said, if you help collect in the harvest (works) you will receive your reward, Paul said it is not by works but by faith in Christ alone.

25. Christ said don’t make vain repetition in prayers; Paul established it as a way to pray, through the wording he used and the Pharisee ways he showed.

26. Christ said hate self and love through God's love, then this is unconditional, Paul said who doesn’t love them self’s.

27. Christ said women can be sisters (equal), Paul said they should remain lower.

28. Christ said we should remember him through the sharing of bread (start of acts, only bread); Paul said to remember him through wine.

29. Christ said that his disciples should only drink water; Paul made the drinking of wine (communion) a religious Ritual.

30. Christ clearly showed and said do not worry about being accepted by man, Paul said to be accepted by many.

31. Christ said take up your cross and follow me, as the cross was a symbol in many cultures for God. Paul turned the cross into only a symbol of Christ’s death, and caused it to become idolatry.

32. Christ said he came to bring division, meaning that we all follow God; Paul said Christ came to bring peace.

33. Christ said God is the teacher, Paul said him self is a teacher.

34. Christ said God and the kingdom of heaven is within you, Paul said that a fake prophet would say that God is within you.

35. Christ warned of those who say the time is near, Paul preached the time is near.

36. Christ said invite the poor to your house and feed the hungry, Paul said let the hungry eat at home, and showed to only invite friends for food.

This is good for the purposes of the OP but for refutation it would be better if you started a new post.

Here is my response to #1:
Ro 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ; that ye should be joined to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God.
Dead to the law and joined to Jesus equates to Jesus becoming the fulfillment of the law.

 

[Darkness]

The Bible is true and trustworthy and God's Word from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation.

Well, then God is a genocidal maniac.

"Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ***."

The letters are God breathed by the Holy Spirit.

You know this how?

 

[rocketman]

Well, then God is a genocidal maniac.

God allows everyone to die eventually. God has offered to reverse all genocides, not just the ones that were convenient for him.

Genocidal? Yes, by our standards. Maniac? No. There is a much bigger picture at work.

 

[Darkness]

Genocidal? Yes, by our standards. Maniac? No. There is a much bigger picture at work.

Care to explain?

 

[rocketman]

Care to explain?

[I need to point out that my answer needs to be viewed in the context that I don't believe we have an eternal soul, I believe god can destroy the soul as Jesus said, and therefore I don't believe there will be eternal suffering for us etc etc]

Your quoted genocide event isn't nowhere near as bad as killing the whole world by drowning. That would have been a better charge I think.

Nevertheless, God himself will take your life eventually, it makes little difference if he gets someone else to do it, or how they do it.

But before we even get to any of these later scriptures we need to ask why he allowed Cain to kill Abel, let alone anything that happened later on. We need to ask why he allowed Satan to be a catalyst to accelerate a cascade of sin. We need to ask what kind of god would deny us eternal life and why.

Then we will do much better to understand why he also said he hates violence, why he said that he wishes that no one had to die, and how he longs for everyone to be saved, and how to him all are alive, not dead.

The bigger picture of course is not easy to see if we dwell only on the mortifying horrors of what he has allowed and even pushed for. (Funny, nobody complains if violence saves their own life.) The sooner this tragic drama of 'man in charge' comes to an end, the sooner he can get things back to the way he wanted them to be in the first place, without violence or suffering of any kind.

Giving us free agency was a massive risk. Once our negative side was revealed it's too late to put the genie back in the bottle. Better to do what it takes to get the lessons over with. Once eternity is given it can't be taken back (or it wouldn't be eternity). The stakes are therefore enormous. No one can be allowed to 'do a lucifer' and be given eternity with the idea that sin is ok and doesn't matter. No one can be allowed to be locked in forever with misery in them. There is no other way except to live through and understand the consequences of our negative side. I don't know how many people he intends to make, but the sooner this violent show wraps up the better.

Is the suffering now worth enduring to gain an eternity later on? No contest.

God of-course is the only being who can commit genocide and still be able to reverse it later on (which he promised he will do). And that applies to him letting everyone die, not just some pre-emptive action between two already barbarous groups in some ancient land designed to elevate a certain group for a certain purpose. He also let himself become a physical personal victim of our violent solutions, so nobody can lecture him on just how wrong violence is.

Should we be pi**ed off with God for letting people suffer? I say yes, it's ok to be, or we'd have an odd sense of justice if we weren't. Does God allow people to get hurt, even command that they be hurt? Yes, no argument from me. Does God give a **** about it? Does he know what he is doing? Actually, yes. And that's what many people don't seem to get.

We have to take all of God's words into account, not just those that bother us.

Genocidal, yes, by our standards. Maniac, no.