Paul of Tarsus - the first Christian?

The difference between the teachings of Paul versus Jesus, James, etc. is that Paul was speaking mainly to non-Jews. Salvation by Grace is a revelation to the non-Jew. Works are simply evidence of the indwelling Spirit yet are NOT a requirment to attain that Spirit! For the Jews, however, works were a requirment of their knowledge of what they knew. They were also saved by election if they maintained the genuine works which confirmed their belief...rather than works as a ritualistic effort.

I'd like to try and spring this thread back into life again.1) Progressive revelation. This has been mentioned in previous posts as an explanation for some of the discrepancies between the teachings of Jesus and Paul.This doesn't tie in with Jesus's statements that he alone is the teacher (Mat 23:8), and that the reason of his existence was to testify to the truth (John 18:37).Was Jesus's truth so partial or distorted that a decade or so later Paul had to come and complement it ? Apart from the fact that this doesn't make any sense, it also detracts from the power and accuracy of Jesus's message and also implies failure on the part of his disciples in transmitting it correctly and fully.Furthermore, if we accept that Progressive Revelation is the divinely-chosen mechanism for propagating the gospel where do we draw the line?Why stop at Paul? We can just as easily claim that 19 centuries later Joseph Smith and Reverend Moon revealed some more divine truths under the same mechanism! What makes Paul so special ?------------------------------------------------------------------2) Jesus preached to the Jews while Paul preached to Gentiles. Is another answer trying to justify the conflicting theologies.I could refute this with this verse:John 3:16 - For God so loved the WORLD that he gave his one and only Son (proviso: this is a disputed verse, probably a later add-on)But even without the above verse, this explanation is not satisfactory, given the doctrinal novelties that Paul introduces. If this explanation was true it would mean that:Jews can get saved by loving God and loving one another.
Gentiles get saved only by believing that Jesus died for their sins, etc.
Jews are born without sin.
Gentiles are born with sin.
Jews are worthy enough to atone for their sins themselves.
Gentiles aren't worthy enough to appease God and have to be justified by accepting Jesus's sacrifice...and other such comical differences that would -in effect- make up two religions, a Jewish one and a Gentile one.------------------------------------------------------------------3) The entirety of the Bible. is another get-out-of-jail card Paul's followers use. 'If it's in the Bible then it must be true' goes the argument.All I will say on this is that the Bible is but a selection, a pick-n-mix of the sources available to the early church. It didn't appear in a puff of smoke all ready to read but was put together by men with their own criteria and motives. A number of texts and gospels was left out by Man's choice, not Gods. Even among the different canons there are different inclusions and exclusions of texts.Anyone who invokes this premise as justification does nothing but publically place their faith in Man and not in God.Finally, I'd like to close with the following question:If Satan exists and wishes to corrupt God's message and stop mankind from being saved what would be a damn good way to do it ?

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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."

I don't believe that Paul & Jesus have conflicting theologies.I do believe that Martin Luther's theology conflicts with both Paul and Jesus, and Paul is often blamed for Luther's theology.From Paul: "He who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap everlasting life. Therefore do not grow weary in DOING GOOD, for in due season you will reap, if you do not lose heart."From Paul: "For what the Law could not do, because of the weakness of our bodies, God did. By sending his own Son...God condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk by our body, but by the Spirit."Paul is blamed for teaching that God sent his Son so that it wouldn't matter whether we fulfilled the righteous requirement of the Law. This is clearly not Paul's teaching. It was brand new to Martin Luther. This is not true except in a very technical, nitpicky sense. Yes, Barnabas and Clement were left out, and 2 Peter, Jude, James, Hebrews, and the Revelation made it in. Yes, Enoch and the Book of Wisdom were left out, and yes, the Masoretic version of Jeremiah made it in.Making an issue of this is like saying you didn't get Thanksgiving dinner because your cranberries were canned rather than fresh. The turkey's the heart of that meal, and the heart of the Scriptures was never at question. You can begin with late 1st and early 2nd century writings like the Didache, the Letter to Diognetus, Clement's Letter to Rome, and Ignatius' letters, and you can read through to Alexander, Eusebius, and Athanasius, and you will find the same set of Scriptures being discussed and debated.There's as much controversy now as there was then, and over just as many books. The Catholics have 7 more than the Protestants. The Orthodox use even more. The Ethiopian Orthodox use even more, and the Assyrian Orthodox Church of the East has only 22 books in the New Testament. Nobody says these groups are using a "pick-n-mix of sources."It is true that Protestants have to do a jig and dance to make their doctrine, which they blame on Paul, line up with Jesus'. In fact, many say that Jesus' Gospel is no longer true, because Jesus preached first and died later, with his death negating his preaching by changing all the rules.However, their doctrine came from Martin Luther, not Paul. The strongest evidence for this is that if you made an issue of numerous quotes from Paul, like the ones I gave above, you would be thrown out of their churches.The issue is Luther, not Paul.

I think the biggest problem is that Paul and John are favorites for quotemining. Paul in particular is used this way and since he often wrote long and pretty involved letters, pulling a line or two out of context is easy and can be used to prove most anything.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I think he is blamed because most of luthers views are based on his writings most of all.fundis also use many of the writings of paul to prop-up the belief in orignal sin, enough though its not really talking about it but the church did take out parts that people had been using and called them heretical, and many of the books are in the canon are thier to foster a certian belief, such as the trinity Maybe it is true with luther, but state that orignal sin is not part of the beliefs of the early church or any of the believers and the fundis will trot out paul talking about adam bringing death into the world ( really it was cain.)
It is really an issue of fundis not wanting to accept that the religion they believe now is not the one that jesus preached or the first believers believed.
i mean one of the sects didn't even believe jesus was god, but only the spiritual son of god

isn't that exactly what a 'pick-n-mix' of sources is ? doesn't your last sentence contradict the previous one ? yes, the same set of Scriptures is being discussed but each discussion has with its own flavour and twist of interpretation. After all, Paul based his theology on Jesus' life, but he just took events out of context and proportion (e.g. Jesus' death) to fit his own views. I take your point about Luther, however Luther didn't just make things up from scratch. He based his theology on Paul's teachings and Paul is the one who first mentions justification by faith, Jesus as atonement sacrifice and the 'born in sin' concept.Yes, Luther may have taken things to the next level but it was Paul who got the ball rolling.

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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."

I think you hit the nail on the head there, reverend!

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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."

My point was that in a technical sense, yes, it is. However, you were suggesting that this was due to or produced some sort of division, or that the books were chosen over doctrinal issues. There's no evidence this is true. The differences between Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestants are not due to the few books that are questioned.Thus, on a practical level, the churches both then and now are using the same canon. Out of what context and what proportion? It's doubtful that Paul knew much at all about Jesus' life, as he never mentions it, and he never quotes one sentence from Jesus that is repeated in the Gospels. He was pretty clear that he preached from revelation and visions, not from Jesus' life.As far as out of context, there was no context to be out of. You have nothing to compare it to, except Peter's general epistle and the Gospels. Whether he over-emphasized Christ's death in relation to what the Gospels say is highly debatable. The Gospels were produced and read in churches that also read and agreed with Paul's letters. I think there's plenty of emphasis on Jesus' death in the Gospels.A also think that the description of Paul's message as "Jesus died so you can go to heaven and what you do hear doesn't matter" is completely bogus.>>however Luther didn't just make things up from scratch. He based his theology on Paul's teachings and Paul is the one who first mentions justification by faith, Jesus as atonement sacrifice and the 'born in sin' concept.<<Justification by faith is mentioned in every book in the canon, and in every book that almost made it into the canon. Jesus as a sacrifice (the NT doesn't ever use the word atonement for his death) is also everywhere. The born in sin concept was first mentioned in Psalms quite clearly (Ps 51). It is mentioned only in passing and in a very questionable manner by Paul.Before you go saying Paul invented something, you have to establish that it's not there in the Gospels, since that is what you are comparing him to.The issue is not justification by faith, Jesus' sacrifice, or being born in sin. Those can all be found in the Gospels or in Psalms. The issue is whether behavior has nothing to do with God's reward. That is not taught in the Gospels, nor in the writings of the Old Testament. However, it's not found in Paul, either.For Paul and for everyone for 1500 years, that meant that faith would actually make you righteous and transform your life so that you would be rewarded at the judgment rather than punished (Rom 2:6ff, Gal 6:8,9, 2 Cor 5:10; Eph 5:3-5; etc., etc., etc.). Martin Luther invented the completely new and unheard of doctrine that what you did had nothing to do with entering the kingdom of heaven.Just because someone bases their bizarre theories on someone else's writing doesn't mean that someone else can be blamed for the bizarre theory. If that were true, then we can hold science responsible for the Answers in Genesis' opinions.

That is true, but that doesn't mean we should continue blaming Paul for Luther's bizarre misinterpretations of Paul's writings. I devoted five years of my life to almost exclusively studying the early church between the time of the apostles and Nicea. As far as I know, what you're saying here is not true. I never saw a hint of that. Can you tell me where you're getting this from?In the 4th century and later, people tampered with writings to back up Trinity doctrines. The long version of Ignatius' letters are a great example. It was a little late to tamper with the Scriptures, though, because they were too familiar to the church. 1 Jn 5:7 did get added, because it was a great place to slip something in there. However, that's a late addition, and there's no evidence that there are any other Trinity based additions. Certainly no whole books are in the canon to back up the Trinity. The canon was almost completely set by the time there was a Trinitarian controversy in the late 3rd century. Which sect? Gnostic sects believed that the god that created the world was created accidentally by an "eon," an emanation of the unknowable God, called Sopia, or wisdom. However, they have as much to do with Paul, the Gospels, and the canon as Plato or Cicero do; which is nothing.I don't know anything about a Christian sect that believed Jesus wasn't God. The only controversy in the early church over Jesus and God was modalists, such as Sabellius and Praxeas, who believed that Jesus and the Father were both the one God (just one person) performing different functions.Even Arians, who didn't arise until the late 3rd century, believed that Jesus was divine, created by the Father as his first creation before all the angels. (This wasn't that much different than what the church had believed all along; they just believed that the Son was created from the Father's own essence or being, not from nothing like the rest of creation.)

Despite the arguments we're having, Legend, I quite agree as well that the issue is as RevDG put it: "It is really an issue of fundis not wanting to accept that the religion they believe now is not the one that jesus preached or the first believers believed."That is the point. I just don't care to see Paul lumped together with Luther's spiritual descendants.Historically, Paul's churches, John's churches, Peter's churches, Thaddeus' churches, and any others that we know about, including James' church in Jerusalem, were in fellowship with one another, believing basically the same things, despite occasional tiffs over the date of Passover and other minor things. The men who wrote the Gospels and the churches they were a part of were all together with Paul's churches.

I think we need to understand Jesus before we can understand Paul's take on Jesus. Then we need to understand Paul's take on Jesus before we can understand Luther's take on Paul.Unfortunately, the fundies go at it backwards - they project Luther's ideas back on Paul and Paul's ideas back on Jesus.I try to read Paul with a how-does-this-relate-to-Jesus? attitude rather than a where-did-Paul-screw-up? attitude.Edit: capitalized "Paul" in subtitle - no slight to Paul intended. This message has been edited by Ringo, 2006-04-11 11:46 AM

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Sorry, using the trinity was a horrible example now that i think about it as for the sect they were known as ebionites, a group of pre-church followers of christ and john the baptist Ebionites - Wikipediabut i agree we shouldn't use paul to try to back up the non-biblical beliefs of fundis
he was pretty fixated on somethings really shouldn't add something he didn't believe

Ebionites: Their name came to mind when I was reading your earlier post, but for some reason I didn't follow up on that thought. I learned a little about them, including that they didn't believe in the divinity of Jesus. It's embarrassing I didn't recognize your reference to them.Wikipedia had more about them than I've read in one place before. I only knew them from footnotes in the writings of the fathers. Very interesting.Thanks.

sure np, i didn't know there was a sect/group who didn't believe in some divinity for jesus eather

Hi truthlover, ok then. Not in the way Paul suggests it. Paul adds a new rationale to justification: that humans are not worthy enough to appease God and therefore Christ did the justifying for them on the cross (Gal 2:21, 3:11-13). He focuses on the unworthiness of men as an indication that the crucifixion was needed for justification. This concept is first found in Paul's letters, to my knowledge. where ? sacrifice is mentioned throughout as a ritual the Jews did to appease God and there are numerous passages to indicate that it was a 'bad' ritual (Isaiah 1:11, Jer 7:22, Hosea 6:6, Psalms 40:7, 50:8-15, Mat 9:13, 12:7, Mark 12:33). At best, it was a purely symbolic ritual (Lev 16) of sin transference. The sacrificial animal took upon it the iniquity of the offender so that he could be reconciled with God.Paul is the first one to take this concept literally and, uniquely, apply it to Jesus (Romans 3:21-25, Ephesians 5:1-2) apparently in ignorance of the passages I mentioned above.Furthermore, Paul takes it one step further by suggesting that this sin transference doesn't only cover our OWN sins nut ALSO the original sin, which is (hear, hear) transferrable from generation to generation, (Rom 5:12, I Cor 15:22)Again, this is a first occurrence in Paul's teachings.In the synoptics Jesus described his crucifixion as 'ransom' (Mat 20:28, Mk 10:45). Ransom is something one pays to gain someone's freedom. Modern Christians use this -out of context- to justify Pauls' view of atonement sacrifice. However, at the time of Jesus, the word was almost exclusively used to describe the money a slave paid their master so that they could be set free. When Jesus says he's the ransom it's much more likely that he refers to his life in exchange for the freedom of his followers or compatriots from Roman persecution or even a metaphorical reference to his life of servitude to his fellow men, rather than a symbolic gesture to appease an angry God that would pose a mutitude of theological problems (e.g. who made the sacrifice / can god sacrifice to himself / etc) and would also go against his Jewish background and knowledge of the scriptures. sorry I should have made myself clearer. I meant born *with* sin, i.e. born sinners. Psalm 51 states being conceivedin sin which is something different. Paul, on the other hand, says "...as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned". The implication is clear: when we are brought into this world, we carry Adam's sin with us, we are born sinners.Again, this is one of Paul's novel ideas. well, in Romans 3:28 Paul concludes that the law by itself doesn't justify man. You might remind me of verse 31 but IMO this is pretty muddy territory, just Paul covering his ass. The essence of Romans 3 is that justification without faith is impossible. From there it was only a small step for Luther to say that you didn't have to do anything to get saved.This message has been edited by Legend, 04-11-2006 08:01 PM

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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."