Paul of Tarsus - the first Christian?

Well, here we are in Accuracy and Inerrancy, a Science forum, and you are bringing in external judgments of the validity of various Bible books, and I normally don't want to argue the Bible along these lines, so I may have to bow out of this discussion.To me the Bible is ALL "credible evidence" of what a Christian is to believe and I won't split it up. If you can argue your points WITHOUT basing them on external judgments of the validity of the different books I could possibly discuss it all with you, but I won't accept external judgments. This may mean that I just can't discuss it at all in a "science" forum.Paul is equivalent to the synoptics and to John. They are all canon, all determined by men led by the Holy Spirit to be the word of God. If you reject the judgment of these historical leaders of the Church I won't go there. Acts is no less inspired than any of the other books. There is every reason to believe Luke is its author, and no reason to impugn his thinking or Paul's theology.Acts 1-9 doesn't even mention Paul, it's about the growth of the early church, the almost exclusively Jewish church. The movement out from the predominantly Jewish church to the predominantly Gentile church is the main message of the last part of Acts and it is the message of Jesus Christ Himself and the Holy Spirit who commissioned Paul to take the gospel to the Gentiles.Since I believe Paul got his theology from God I think there's really nothing for us to discuss after all. I should have realized this at first. I believe this is getting too hung up on terminology. The word of Jesus does refer to himself on many occasions, and obedience is certainly required of a believer. I see no contradiction. It was all determined by men led by God to be God's own word and that's how I read it. Facts about who wrote what when are interesting in this regard but should not be used to discredit any part of it. Yes works FOLLOW upon true faith, and all of it is GIVEN by Christ Himself, including the will and the power to obey. We WILL be judged on our deeds, but in Christ our deeds done in faith are accepted. Yes, the Law is holy and perfect and ONLY Christ could fulfill it, only a perfectly sinless man could fulfill it, which He did both by obeying it perfectly and by dying so that sinners who CAN'T fulfill it might fulfill it through Him -- being justifed by His obedience and His death in our place. Yes, and the kingdom of heaven is populated by believers only, among whom this distinction will be made. Again, I was originally curious about how you make the split between Paul and Jesus but I realize now that I just can't go there. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to persuade you from your view, as mine is simply based on accepting the whole as inspired by God, and I don't regard the unbelieving scholars as useful for understanding it, but read believing theologians and scholars instead.Sorry, I guess I'm copping out.

I'm not really bringing in external judgments other than the general consensus on the chronological order that the relevant parts of the Bible (Paul, James, Synoptics and John) were written. I was going to use that to put forward the argument that (i) there are theological differences between John / Paul, on one hand and the Synoptics / James on the other and that (ii) based on the historical / chronological context where those were respectively written, the Synoptics / James view would represent the view closer to what Jesus taught. That's all. I understand that, but you too have to understand that a thread with an opening post about how Paul taught ideas alien to Jesus, would, inevitably, lead to statements of what's credible evidence and what isn't . John's theology is much more developed than that of the synoptics and more in line with that of Paul, IMO. Jesus's teachings, in the synoptics, express a theology much simpler than the semi-mystical, convoluted theology of Paul and -to a certain extent- John. James again, blatantly contradicts Paul on the matter of salvation. So, I don't call Paul's teachings equivalent to the synoptics' and John's. I was just saying that you shouldn't be using Paul's first, second or third-hand accounts (Acts) in order to justify Paul's teachings Obedience in what? I'm just pointing out the context. The churches Paul is addressing through his epistles didn't have the words of Mark, Matthew, et al, to go by. Acts tells us that Paul founded most of these churches. They would have known what Paul told them about Jesus. And Paul, in his letters anyway, tells them practically nothing of the teachings of Jesus. He just requests belief that Jesus was who Paul said he was, not in what Jesus said or did. Well, if the views of two different sources contradict each other, shouldn't we use the facts about who wrote what when to determine which is closer to the truth ? that's fair enough, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to persuade you from your view either . I respect your decision.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

If it's all the Holy Spirit, all the Spirit of Christ, there are no contradictions. But you should be able to point out what you think the differences are without reference to who wrote what and when, no? I'm curious enough to follow the argument as far as to see what you think Paul contradicts in Jesus' teachings, and John in the synoptics, etc.

Well, you have someone making the claims of what Jesus said and the theology he was promoting. That is true.However, we do not have any writings FROM him, just writings ABOUT him from people who had a specific viewpoint to push.

Its because of Dispensationalism...which explains the difference and why.
http://www.bijbel.nl/things_that_differ.htm Look at the book here, online. This book explains why Paul preached a different Gospel than did Jesus and the "little flock" of the twelve apostles.

this is from Catholic.net - Catholics on the net.

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The current dating of the four Gospels, accepted by the biblical establishment, which includes scholars of every persuasion, is: Mark 65-70; Matthew and Luke in the 80s; John in the 90s.

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http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html makes the following -supported- assertion:

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There is no reason to date ANY of the Gospels later than 70 AD, although such dating may be permissible in the case of John;

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As for James, Snyder makes a good case for dating it around 55AD, which would actually increase the plausibility of it having been written by James himself (http://jacksonsnyder.com/arc/2003/paulonjames.htm).

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

When it comes to the asserstion from J.P. Holding (AkA Robert Turkel), he does not back up his claims with any valid scholarship. He will, however, use insults, ad homenin attacks, and just plain be rude to anybody to questions his claims.The catholic.net reference is within the time frame for each of the Gospels I meantioned, but they tend to be on the early part of the estimate. Although I suspect they are on the conservative side of the matter, I also think their scholarship is good enough to be considered mainstream.As for James, at the Peter Kirby web site, Epistle of James, Peter Kirby writes

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Kummel presents the reasons that most scholars suspect James to be a pseudepigraph (Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 412-3):

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1. The cultured language of James is not that of a simple Palestinian. Sevenster's evidence that the Greek language was much used in Palestine at that time and could be learned does not prove that a Jew whose mother tongue was Aramaic could normally write in literary Greek. Most of those who defend the thesis that James was written by the Lord's brother must assume that it achieved its linguistic form through the help of a Hellenistic Jew, but there is no evidence in the text that the assistance of a secretary gave shape to the present linguistic state of the document, and even if this were the case the question would still remain completely unanswered which part of the whole comes from the real author and which part from the "secretary."

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2. It is scarcely conceivable that the Lord's brother, who remained faithful to the Law, could have spoken of "the perfect law of freedom" (1:25) or that he could have given concrete expression to the Law in ethical commands (2:11 f) without mentioning even implicitly any cultic-ritual requirements.

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3. Would the brother of the Lord really omit any reference to Jesus and his relationship to him, even though the author of JAmes emphatically presents himself in an authoritative role?

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4. The debate in 2:14 ff with a misunderstood secondary stage of Pauline theology not only presupposes a considerable chronological distance from Paul - whereas James died in the year 62 - but also betrays complete ignorance of the polemical intent of Pauline theology, which lapse can scarcely be attributed to James, who as late as 55/56 met with Paul in Jerusalem (Acts 21:18 ff).

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5. As the history of the canon shows (see 27.2), it was only very slowly and against opposition that James became recognized as the owrk of the Lord's brother, therefore as apostolic and canonical. Thus there does not seem to have been any old tradition that it originated with the brother of the Lord.

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He has a lot more quotes from other people too.

Hello Phat. I don't know if you have studied the criticisms of dispensationalism but if you haven't here are some to consider: I'm not really up on the controversy but I know there are different versions of dispensationalism, so any of these references may not address your version but should have something to say that's relevant.

Do the disciples of Christ REALLY seem like they had any viewpoint of their own to push? Or the personal courage to preach their own ideas? ALL they have is what Jesus taught. They weren't zealots, they were ordinary Jews, many of them fishermen. I really don't get this idea that somehow the writers of the NT had an agenda of their own. They teach what was revealed to them and otherwise they have nothing else.I don't think the Buddha wrote down his own teachings either for that matter.{Edit: Never mind, I just read part of your post to Legend. Clearly you are willing to believe anything but what the Bible simply presents itself to be. Oh well. End of subject.}This message has been edited by Faith, 05-31-2005 08:53 PM

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To me the Bible is ALL "credible evidence" of what a Christian is to believe and I won't split it up. If you can argue your points WITHOUT basing them on external judgments of the validity of the different books I could possibly discuss it all with you, but I won't accept external judgments. This may mean that I just can't discuss it at all in a "science" forum.

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Well said. I, for one, applaud both your honesty and your conclusion.

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As for James, Snyder makes a good case for dating it around 55AD, ...

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Snyder's assertion that is vapid nonsense. To the extent that parallels are real, they could just as easily reflect the pseudepigraphic James being written with Paul in hand.

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[tektonics.org] makes the following -supported- assertion: ...

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How truly disingenuous. Having just quoted a consensus of the "biblical establishment", you move on to a source which rejects consensus dates. You opportunisticly cherry-pick vapid and disparate positions in a way that, in my opinion, hardly warrants respect.

Matthew 10:4

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Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot There's two for a start.The son of Zebedee, James and his brother John, were called 'Boanerges' for a reason, and it wasn't because they were flower arrangers. Once they realised that Jesus wasn't the messiah they had to concoct some sort of story, otherwise they would have some serious egg on their faces. They preached about a guy who turned out not to be the messiah, they couldn't take the public humiliation so they made a lot of stories up. Anway, what would you rather do? Live a fairly comfortable life preaching or back to the fishing boats? Buddha didn't insist on people following his teachings. He also never condemned anyone to eternal damnation if they chose not to follow his teachings. What a nice guy, relatively speaking of course.Brian.

If you don't think he's making a good case, maybe you could substantiate your assertion, like ramoss did.

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[tektonics.org] makes the following -supported- assertion: ...
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Deut.32.8 writes:

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How truly disingenuous. Having just quoted a consensus of the "biblical establishment", you move on to a source which rejects consensus dates

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...sigh....yes,because I wanted to support my original statement: by quoting tectonics I showed that if you listen to them
you can conclude that the synoptics were written between 40-70 AD.Did you even bother reading the previous posts?!

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

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If you don't think he's making a good case, maybe you could substantiate your assertion, like ramoss did.

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I'm sorry, but which part of do you think warrants 'substantiation'? I would think the point self evident, unless you can suggest some reason why A||B implies "a good case" for A->B but not B->A.

Most translations have "Simon the Canaanite" not "Zealot." In any case a member of the Zealot party would have been FAR from happy with this Messiah who turned out not to be leading Israel to victory over the Romans. Where would he get the motivation from his personal political position to preach this crucified failure of a Messiah?Judas? What makes him somebody who would promote the Messiah Jesus? He sold him out. Fishermen with personality. So? Nothing there to show they'd make anything up. They'd go back to fishing and ponder their deep disappointment for the rest of their lives if Jesus had not risen from the dead and sent power from heaven. They were simple honest men, not at all the kind who would make things up. That's just ridiculous. Non sequitur. Doesn't matter what you think of his character, this is about the authenticity of teachings that are written down by others. There is no lack of authenticity implied in either case.