Pauline Christianity, What is it?
Pauline Christianity is a term applied to what some perceive as the religious teaching unique to Paul’s writings and distinct from the gospel of Jesus. That is, Jesus taught one thing, and Paul taught something completely different. Those who believe in a separate Pauline Christianity believe that the Christianity of today has little to do with Jesus’ teachings; rather, it is the product of Paul’s s conjecture of those teachings, his opinions, all of them developed many years after Jesus walked the ground.
Some believe that the New Testament is a unified whole: that the Gospels
present a compilation of the life and work of Jesus the Messiah; that Paul’s
Epistles explain what he thought to be the meaning and scope of Jesus’ work and
how to apply it to daily living. For example, (Mathew 28) narrates the story of
Jesus’ resurrection, and in Paul’s (1 Corinthians 15) he attempts to explain
the significance of the resurrection. (Mark 15:38) claims the temple veil being
torn in two when Jesus died; in (Hebrews 10:11-23) Paul attempts to explain the
import of that event. Paul’s opinions have become a Gospel message even though
he never met Jesus, except by an unsubstantiated claim. Furthermore, the
gospels were all written before Paul’s opinions as presented to the letters he
wrote to the seven churches he established. His sources of information are
therefore all suspect, except for his self established claim.
Those
who believe in a ‘Pauline Christianity’ believe the following story:
Jesus, a great teacher, considered himself to be the long-awaited Messiah
for the Israelites. He believed that God would overthrow Rome and bring His
kingdom to earth. In preparation for this, Jesus taught a message of
unconditional love, tolerance, and non-judgmental acceptance of everyone. Alas,
Jesus’ mission of inaugurating a new earthly age failed when the Romans
crucified him.
Jesus’ followers, believing that God had raised their rabbi from the dead,
continued to meet in Jerusalem under the leadership of James, Jesus’ brother.
Their intention was to await the still-coming kingdom and continue observing
Jesus’ brand of enlightened Israelism. But along came Saul of Tarsus, who faked
a conversion in order to infiltrate the remaining followers of Jesus. Peter and
James and others who had actually known Jesus were suspicious of Saul, a
Pharisee who had never met Jesus.
Then Saul, who started calling himself ‘Paul’, had a stroke of genius. He
artfully combined traditional Hebrew ideas with those of pagan Greek
philosophy, creating a new religion that could appeal to both Israelites and
Gentiles. He began preaching that Jesus was actually God, that Jesus’ death was
linked to the ancient pagan Israelite system of sacrifice that one could be
saved by simply believing that, and that the Mosaic law was now obsolete.
Paul’s zealous missionary activity and persuasive writings took his new
‘gospel’ around the Roman Empire. The Jerusalem Church, including Peter and
James, disowned Paul as a heretic and cult leader.
After the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Israelite Assemblies, and
believers scattered, but the Gentile Church founded by Paul increased its
influence. One of Paul’s fervent followers wrote the book of Acts, which gave
Paul legendary status with its glowing portrayal of him as the hero of the
replacement church. Later, four unknown writers gathered scraps of information
about Jesus and wrote books they called ‘Matthew,’ ‘Mark,’ Luke,’ and
‘John’—but Paul’s theology, already dominant in the church, tainted the later
writers’ perspective. Thus, Paul’s religion won out over Jesus’ religion.
In short, Paul was a charlatan, an evangelical huckster who succeeded in
twisting Jesus’ message of love into something Jesus himself would never
recognize. It was Paul, not Jesus, who originated most of the ‘Christian
belief’ of today from his writings that are mostly conjecture, and his own
opinions.
Commonly, those who do not hold to Pauline Christianity believe the following:
1) Jesus was not divine. He never claimed to be God (YHWH), but claimed to be ‘the
son of man’ over 69 times. He never said he was God the son. The Hebrew
name of ‘Jesus’ is Yahshua, which means ‘Yahweh is Savior.’ Yahshua never
intended to start a new religion, or even to be recognized by anyone as a
‘savior.’ He came to announce the Kingdom of Yahweh, (Matt. 5:17; 23) to First
Century Israel dwelling in Palestine.
2) The Greek NT Bible is not an inspired book (no one claimed that it was) and
it is riddled with contradictions. None of the NT Bible, except possibly the
book of James, was written by anyone who knew Jesus. There are fragments of
Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels, but it is difficult to discern what it is he
really said. All of it is hearsay, since all were written many years after the
execution of Jesus, and no one knows who wrote the Gospels
3) Paul’s ‘conversion’ was either a personal hallucinogenic experience or an
outright fraud. The three places in Acts of the NT that talk about the
conversion of Paul do not agree. His claims to be an apostle were attempts to
further his own authority among the new believes, and appear to be self
appointed, Paul was not chosen by the 11 Apostles.
4) Pauline theological ‘inventions’ include a) the deity of Jesus; b) salvation
by grace through faith; c) salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus to please
God; d) the sinless nature of Jesus; e) the concept of original sin; and f) the
Holy Spirit. None of these ‘new doctrines’ were accepted by Jesus’ true
followers, because none can be found taught in the Hebrew Bible.
5) The Gnostic Gospels may be closer to the truth about Jesus than are the
traditional four accepted (by Constantine Roman) approved Gospels of the
compiled Catholic Bible.
Those that deny the concept of ‘Pauline Christianity’ also represent the belief
that not all written in the Bible is the inspired word of YHWH the Almighty of
the Hebrew Bible, even though some of it could be when there is such a claim.
They believe Jesus was a prophet to First Century Israel that he taught the
coming/presence of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ but deny his divinity, his Jesus’
atonement, and consider the trinity as being contrary to what is taught in the
Bible.
Note: Some of this information comes from the following website:
http://Gotquestions.org/Pauline-Christianity.html
Some of it has been revised, and information added by AOYCascade.com
The article is close to the Beliefs about Paul/Saul by AOYcascade.
For a complete Statement of our belief, see
https://AOYcascade.com/Documents/Statement-of-belief.html
Presented for information and study purposes