Jesuism / Anti-Paulism / Questioning Paul / Jesus's Words Only - Or: why Paul of Tarsus was a false prophet

[Iwasamwillbe]

The bulk of Anti-Paulism can be condensed into three points:

1. Pauline fulfillment theology is in direct and irrevocable contradiction with not only the Old Testament, but Jesus's own words, proving that he is a false teacher. Jesus himself said that the Old Testament was still valid until the universe was destroyed (Matthew 5:18). As the universe has obviously not been destroyed, the Old Testament is still valid. One could argue about the "till all be fulfilled" clause, but that refers to Old Testament prophecies, many of which (like Daniel's apocalypse) clearly have not all been fulfilled.

2. The entity that Paul supposedly met on the road to Damascus ("supposedly" because Paul contradicts himself on the story), was not Jesus Christ, or at least not the true Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ explicitly told his disciples that when he returned, all the world would see it (Matthew 24 : 23-27). This would mean that he contradicted himself, if Paul truly met him on the road to Damascus, because only Paul (and maybe a few others) saw him, despite his light being akin to, or even brighter than the sun. In fact, the entity that Paul supposedly met is very likely to actually be Satan himself, appearing as light to fool, demonically inspire, and/or coerce Paul, especially given the "messenger of Satan" that "the Lord" gave Paul in order to beat him.

3. Pauline theology is rife with paganism and belief systems wholly unorthodox to Early Jewish Christians, from the concept of divine "grace" (from the Graces, the Roman variant of the Charites, Greek minor goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity, and fertility), to the false Jesus's "it is hard for you to kick against the goads" quote (a line almost, if not directly lifted from Euripides's play the Bacchae, in which the pagan god Dionysus says the same thing almost, if not word-for-word), to elements of early Gnosticism (the rampant dualism between "flesh" and "spirit"), Platonic and Socratic spiritual mysticism, Stoicism (Paul's talk of elemental spirits comes to mind), and Greco-Roman mystery religion (Dionysus, who "Jesus" quoted, was part of several mystery religions, at least one of which, Orphism, had him as a sort of resurrection deity).

There is, of course, far more, but this is the (very oversimplified) gist of it.

For further reading:

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Questioning Paul - The Truth About Paul

questioningpaul.com

What do you think about this, Kiwis?

 

[Marco Fucko]

Sounds like a protestant fundamentalist sect, also reminds me of the Scottish (I think) protestants that declared the Pope as the Anti-Christ.

 

[Poiseon]

I'm not religious. I can't really comment on this beyond saying that everybody has a right to their faith. Now why anyone wants to worship a deity who's a total cunt is beyond me.

 

[Sīn the Moon Daddy]

I'm not religious. I can't really comment on this beyond saying that everybody has a right to their faith. Now why anyone wants to worship a deity who's a total cunt is beyond me.

Don't talk about my daughter that way

 

[Iwasamwillbe]

Sounds like a protestant fundamentalist sect, also reminds me of the Scottish (I think) protestants that declared the Pope as the Anti-Christ.

Neither one are exactly even "Christian" in the normal sense of the word, let alone Protestant Christian.

It's more Tanakh + Gospel + non-Pauline New Testament, with the Tanakh (especially the Torah) taking primacy.

 

[Marco Fucko]

Neither one are exactly even "Christian" in the normal sense of the word, let alone Protestant Christian.

It's more Tanakh + Gospel + non-Pauline New Testament, with the Tanakh (especially the Torah) taking primacy.

I'm not super educated in theology but I believe the Torah is accepted as the "laws of Moses" under Christianity, and since they are claiming Jesus as sole prophet they probably believe he's the messiah too. I guess using "protestant' as a catch all for non-Catholic and non-Orthodox Christianity might be overly broad, but you run into a lot of wacky subdivisions in America, like the snakehandlers in the South.

 

[The Shadow]

The codification of the books of the bible is an interesting subject I've wanted to dig into for a long time. The road to the New Testament's commonly accepted books that are canonical, and what was discarded as apocryhpa, can make for some interesting reading and discussion. I feel that Anti-Paulism is more or less an expression of dissent from the early Church Fathers' choices.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

This was way more interesting than I thought it would be.

 

[nagant 1895]

The old testament law is a covenant between God and the Jews. It applies today as strongly as it did on the day of its creation but it was made for Jews only.

Spoiler: bible stuff

Hebrews 8:13
"By speaking of a new covenant, He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear."
The entire Old Testament is the story of human inability to follow simple rules while blaming everything except their own fallen and sinful nature. Paul correctly understood that the message of Jesus (grace through faith) was to be delivered to the whole world and acted as a completion and compliment to the Ten Commandments and 620 Mitzvah. Paul may have expounded on the doctrine of Grace but he certainly wasn't the only apostle to do so.
Peter 2:24-25 is an often quoted passage: "He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls,"

 

[Yaito-Chan]

This is something that I have been thinking about recently and I'm glad to see that I am not the only one doing so. I cannot agree more with anti-Paulian stuff. Without getting into theology, my problem with Saul is that his "works" were clearly a justification for the priestly castes to rule of over the lives of individual Christians and Christian nations on the basis of "spiritual morality." (Think fundamentalists Baptist sects or the Catholic church.) This is using the concept of "sin" as a means to tell someone what they should or should not do. The OT does the same thing with priestly justification, but I am still in the process of reading it and I don't have an argument for that yet.

It's interesting to note that Jesus says in John 8:11 "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." If one has the Word, then they will not "sin." If they will not "sin," then they can live by their own morals and laws, which will coincide with the Word and the New Covenant, rather than whatever morals and laws are pressed on them by "higher authority" of debauched priests or rigid pastors. If were are talking about the political sphere, I like Evola's (whose views of Tradition can also apply to Christianity, it's a shame he disagreed with it so much) opinion that religion in Tradition societies always yielded to the kingly castes and not the other way around like you frequently saw in Medieval Europe.

 

[qu_rahn]

Imagine having dozens / hundreds of loyal brothers & sisters who actually knew Christ and then trusting a smug newfag like Saul to spread the gospel

 

[hyacinth bucket]

Just addressing the three points posted:

1) God's moral law is the ten commandments, which is the law Jesus is referring to in Matt. 5:18. That's the law he's not abolishing. In the Torah God also laid out atonement for sin and other rules to keep the Israelites separate from the people around them while remaining close to Him. By Jesus' time, those rules had gotten so ridiculously rigid and legalistic (due to humans adding to them) that no one could follow them completely. The Pharisees were the self-appointed judges eager to pounce on even the smallest of infractions, which was oppressive. That's the "law" that Jesus did away with.

God's moral law is permanent; the atonement ceremonies and extra stuff humans added to make themselves superior to others is canceled through Jesus's death and resurrection. We don't have to slay the fatted calf to be forgiven anymore. That's what Paul is saying.

2) The "return" Jesus is referring to is the time when He comes back in the last days. Jesus "appeared" many times to many people after his resurrection. As far as the shining glory thing is concerned, he's Jesus. He can appear any way he wants.

3) I'd have to do more research on what they're talking about, but as mentioned in the thread above, Paul wasn't the only writer to talk about grace.

All that said--I do agree that if we're not careful, it's easy to equate Paul's letters with Jesus's words, which is a mistake. I tend to think that Jesus gives instruction and Paul and the other epistle writers give application. Jesus' purpose on earth was to save the world. He had apostles and disciples for a reason--to help spread the word of saving grace during their time and throughout the future.

 

[DocHoliday1977]

That's cause the man "Saulus" who changed his name to "Paulus" knew Yoshua (Hebrew name for Jesus) before He was crucified.

They were both rabbinical students under Gamaliel and from my research, were kind of competitors in the school for the best "grades". Paul came down from Tarsus to Galilee to be trained as a rabbi due to Roman law forcing the Judeans in Jerusalem to allow other Jews to be taught. So sent they Gamaliel, and thus Pauly and Yoshy were educated. Jesus began his solo ministry as a rabbi while Paul began to assume the pharisee doctrine and Jewish political theory. That's why James was beheaded and Stephen was stoned. Paul knew Jesus personally and thought He was blaspheming and faking. At Paul's "CONVERSION" (I don't know why it's called that) But Jesus supernaturally appeared and blinded him cause he was causing genocidal mass murder of people who either followed Jesus, knew Jesus personally, or was related to Him.

Then, Paul became a follower Jesus believing he was the true Messiah. His missionary journeys were him traveling in the Roman Empire to tell other Jews that the Messiah had come and along the way, converted Gentiles as well.

Just addressing the three points posted:

1) God's moral law is the ten commandments, which is the law Jesus is referring to in Matt. 5:18. That's the law he's not abolishing. In the Torah God also laid out atonement for sin and other rules to keep the Israelites separate from the people around them while remaining close to Him. By Jesus' time, those rules had gotten so ridiculously rigid and legalistic (due to humans adding to them) that no one could follow them completely. The Pharisees were the self-appointed judges eager to pounce on even the smallest of infractions, which was oppressive. That's the "law" that Jesus did away with.

God's moral law is permanent; the atonement ceremonies and extra stuff humans added to make themselves superior to others is canceled through Jesus's death and resurrection. We don't have to slay the fatted calf to be forgiven anymore. That's what Paul is saying.

2) The "return" Jesus is referring to is the time when He comes back in the last days. Jesus "appeared" many times to many people after his resurrection. As far as the shining glory thing is concerned, he's Jesus. He can appear any way he wants.

3) I'd have to do more research on what they're talking about, but as mentioned in the thread above, Paul wasn't the only writer to talk about grace.

All that said--I do agree that if we're not careful, it's easy to equate Paul's letters with Jesus's words, which is a mistake. I tend to think that Jesus gives instruction and Paul and the other epistle writers give application. Jesus' purpose on earth was to save the world. He had apostles and disciples for a reason--to help spread the word of saving grace during their time and throughout the future.

The reason why Paul and Jesus sound alike is that they had the same teacher. Gamaliel was a well known Jewish teacher and scholar and the grandson of Hillel. Hillel was the father of a certain school of Jewish faith (based on the Torah) that said one must follow YHWH with your heart and keep His laws in your heart and opposed the School of Shammai that leaned heavy on the Midrash and the outward "social" actions.

Jesus CAN make an appearance to any one He wants to. Still does to this day. Example is a young girl who recovered from an illness or accident in Oklahoma and said He held her in His lap before she would recover completely.

But Paul was VERY educated and knowledgable in Torah history, Jewish mystic history, and YHWH mystic history and doctrine and knew everything Jesus knew and could teach it very well. I'm pretty sure Jesus recruited for that endeavor. He could take Jesus' sayings and find the OT verse, law, or doctrine to back it up like Isaiah 53, and Daniel's prophecy of Jesus' birth.

What Paul and Peter and the other apostles did was take the Teachings of Christ and align them with Jewish history and mysticism and further explain to people who wanted to follow Christ. They took the Torah (10 commandments) and made a personal spiritual law that every person - gentile or jew can follow and strive to live. Not a government law like the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Sanhedrin had done. Those men were using the Torah and the Midrash to excuse raping, stealing, corruption, and murder in Judaea and Jerusalem. They were the ones who crucified Jesus cause if He were made king, he'd have every right to execute them. They would also ransack Jerusalem during Titus' invasion and burned down the Temple. They stole the gold out and all the people's food and left them to be captured and sold into slavery.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

A.) It depends what you think is meant by the fulfillment of the law. You reference Matthew 5, so let's talk about that. You're exactly right, Jesus says the law will never pass away. He then immediately launches into a sermon about how merely obeying the letter of the law misses the point, but it's not just about an easy going, less restrictive grace either. In the case of divorce, Jesus gives an EVEN MORE stringent requirement for his followers than the Mosaic law does.

So what does he mean when talking about the fulfillment of the law? Well, he actually says it right there in Matthew 5, immediately before saying the law is eternal. Don't hide your light under a bushel. The purpose of the law (not just the Ten Commandments, but things like not eating pork) was for the Jews to be set apart from the people around them. And the purpose for THAT was so that all the nations of the world would know that there is a God in Israel, who is in fact God over all the world.

What Jesus is saying here is "If you think the Law of Moses is there so the so-called experts can jerk each other off over how good you are at it, you haven't understood the first thing about it."

That, more than anything else, is what the Jews got wrong. Instead of taking the word of God to all the nations, they kept it to themselves. Who ended up taking the Gospel to the Gentiles?

Paul.

Which is not to say that James and Peter were wrong in trying to get Jews to follow Jesus. Far from it. What they WERE wrong about was circumcision, and everything that goes with it. Jesus is what the law was pointing toward all along, God come in flesh. Now that that's happened, there can't be any division. God doesn't have two separate peoples, Jew and Gentile, marked and set apart by circumcision. Every man, woman, and child on earth belongs to God. To continue to follow ritual purity laws would defeat the purpose.

2.) I'm going to address Daniel's apocalypse here, because it's the same set of events as discussed in Matthew 24. This is a prophecy of the fall of the Second Temple, sacked by the Romans in 70AD. It would take a VERY long post to explain why this is the case, but I'll do it if I have to. Here's the short version. To Jews, this WAS the end of the world, the destruction of the center of their religious life. Tacitus, of all people, uses similar apocalyptic language when discussing an attack on the Temple (Histories 5:13), talking about battles between angels and gods departing from the temple. (He's talking about an earlier part of the war here, not the final destruction in 70, but you get the point.)

Also note the parallel passage in Luke 21. Instead of saying "the Abomination of Desolation" like Matthew, Luke says "when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies". He does this because he's writing to Gentiles and he knows his readers won't get the reference to Daniel. Apocalyptic metaphors of this sort are intended to invest human events with cosmic significance. They weren't intended to be photorealistic accounts of those events.

This is also the only way for it to make sense when Jesus says "some of you standing here will be alive when it happens".

As far as what Paul saw on the road to Damascus, I think that's one of those things you believe on the basis of other things. In his own account of his conversion in Galatians, he doesn't mention this event at all, although that obviously doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Acts was written (more than likely) by the same author as Luke, who was one of Paul's traveling companions but not present at his conversion. I doubt Luke forgot his own version of the account in such a short space.

I figure there are two possibilities. First, Luke is recording Paul's own account with high accuracy, and Paul is simply telling the story in different ways for different audiences. People do this all the time. It's not a nefarious deception, it's just how stories work. Second, it's possible that Luke has taken some slight liberties with Paul's exact words. It's basically certain that he does this in at least a few places in Acts. For example, Paul's speech in Athens. There is NO WAY Paul had the chance to speak at the Areopagus and only talked for a few minutes. Luke is most likely summarizing there. He may be doing something similar with Paul's conversion stories.

D.) The translation of "flesh" and "spirit" had always been contentious. (DISCLAIMER: I don't read Koine Greek. I'm relying on the authority of scholars I trust, especially NT Wright on this specific point.) But I don't think it's as dualistic as you're imagining. In context, when Paul talks about the flesh, he's talking about the curse of Adam. These days we might call it original sin. The fact that we as humans are moral failures when we know it's not supposed to be that way. Paul detested THAT kind of flesh, and rightly so. But it's not because he was imagining that being a disembodied spirit would be better.

While grace found a new form of expression in Paul, it's hardly a new invention in Jewish thought. The Law itself was a gift of grace, something given freely by God to the Jews. They were certainly familiar with the idea of God cutting people slack for human failings. So I guess I'd have to know a little more about what you have in mind here.

As far as kicking against the goads, is it possible that this is simply a stock phrase in Koine Greek? A cursory Google search shows it to be in use before Bacchae. But I'm way outside my expertise on that one.

I get REEEEEEEEEEEEEEAL twitchy when people start talking about dying and rising gods. That category had mostly been discarded by scholars. But nevermind that. Let's talk about Paul's own words. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is clearly talking about a very physical, very Jewish picture of resurrection here, not some kind of pagan, Platonic corruption. The Greco-Roman world basically doesn't believe in resurrection for humans, but Paul absolutely does, and sees Jesus as the prototype of this resurrection. This is exactly NOT how a Hellenist conceives of the afterlife, such as it might be.

I don't know enough about the elemental spirits or the Dionysus quotes to comment.

I would say one other thing in closing: Some pagan philosophy may be entirely correct. Christians don't need to assume that non-Christians are wrong about everything. There are plenty of instances in the Bible of people who have never heard the name of Yahweh being far closer to God than his supposed loyal followers. Who's to say pagans can't get it right sometimes? Should Paul reject good ideas just because Jews and Christians didn't think of them first?

 

[DocHoliday1977]

A.) It depends what you think is meant by the fulfillment of the law. You reference Matthew 5, so let's talk about that. You're exactly right, Jesus says the law will never pass away. He then immediately launches into a sermon about how merely obeying the letter of the law misses the point, but it's not just about an easy going, less restrictive grace either. In the case of divorce, Jesus gives an EVEN MORE stringent requirement for his followers than the Mosaic law does.

So what does he mean when talking about the fulfillment of the law? Well, he actually says it right there in Matthew 5, immediately before saying the law is eternal. Don't hide your light under a bushel. The purpose of the law (not just the Ten Commandments, but things like not eating pork) was for the Jews to be set apart from the people around them. And the purpose for THAT was so that all the nations of the world would know that there is a God in Israel, who is in fact God over all the world.

What Jesus is saying here is "If you think the Law of Moses is there so the so-called experts can jerk each other off over how good you are at it, you haven't understood the first thing about it."

That, more than anything else, is what the Jews got wrong. Instead of taking the word of God to all the nations, they kept it to themselves. Who ended up taking the Gospel to the Gentiles?

Paul.

Which is not to say that James and Peter were wrong in trying to get Jews to follow Jesus. Far from it. What they WERE wrong about was circumcision, and everything that goes with it. Jesus is what the law was pointing toward all along, God come in flesh. Now that that's happened, there can't be any division. God doesn't have two separate peoples, Jew and Gentile, marked and set apart by circumcision. Every man, woman, and child on earth belongs to God. To continue to follow ritual purity laws would defeat the purpose.

2.) I'm going to address Daniel's apocalypse here, because it's the same set of events as discussed in Matthew 24. This is a prophecy of the fall of the Second Temple, sacked by the Romans in 70AD. It would take a VERY long post to explain why this is the case, but I'll do it if I have to. Here's the short version. To Jews, this WAS the end of the world, the destruction of the center of their religious life. Tacitus, of all people, uses similar apocalyptic language when discussing an attack on the Temple (Histories 5:13), talking about battles between angels and gods departing from the temple. (He's talking about an earlier part of the war here, not the final destruction in 70, but you get the point.)

Also note the parallel passage in Luke 21. Instead of saying "the Abomination of Desolation" like Matthew, Luke says "when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies". He does this because he's writing to Gentiles and he knows his readers won't get the reference to Daniel. Apocalyptic metaphors of this sort are intended to invest human events with cosmic significance. They weren't intended to be photorealistic accounts of those events.

This is also the only way for it to make sense when Jesus says "some of you standing here will be alive when it happens".

As far as what Paul saw on the road to Damascus, I think that's one of those things you believe on the basis of other things. In his own account of his conversion in Galatians, he doesn't mention this event at all, although that obviously doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Acts was written (more than likely) by the same author as Luke, who was one of Paul's traveling companions but not present at his conversion. I doubt Luke forgot his own version of the account in such a short space.

I figure there are two possibilities. First, Luke is recording Paul's own account with high accuracy, and Paul is simply telling the story in different ways for different audiences. People do this all the time. It's not a nefarious deception, it's just how stories work. Second, it's possible that Luke has taken some slight liberties with Paul's exact words. It's basically certain that he does this in at least a few places in Acts. For example, Paul's speech in Athens. There is NO WAY Paul had the chance to speak at the Areopagus and only talked for a few minutes. Luke is most likely summarizing there. He may be doing something similar with Paul's conversion stories.

D.) The translation of "flesh" and "spirit" had always been contentious. (DISCLAIMER: I don't read Koine Greek. I'm relying on the authority of scholars I trust, especially NT Wright on this specific point.) But I don't think it's as dualistic as you're imagining. In context, when Paul talks about the flesh, he's talking about the curse of Adam. These days we might call it original sin. The fact that we as humans are moral failures when we know it's not supposed to be that way. Paul detested THAT kind of flesh, and rightly so. But it's not because he was imagining that being a disembodied spirit would be better.

While grace found a new form of expression in Paul, it's hardly a new invention in Jewish thought. The Law itself was a gift of grace, something given freely by God to the Jews. They were certainly familiar with the idea of God cutting people slack for human failings. So I guess I'd have to know a little more about what you have in mind here.

As far as kicking against the goads, is it possible that this is simply a stock phrase in Koine Greek? A cursory Google search shows it to be in use before Bacchae. But I'm way outside my expertise on that one.

I get REEEEEEEEEEEEEEAL twitchy when people start talking about dying and rising gods. That category had mostly been discarded by scholars. But nevermind that. Let's talk about Paul's own words. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is clearly talking about a very physical, very Jewish picture of resurrection here, not some kind of pagan, Platonic corruption. The Greco-Roman world basically doesn't believe in resurrection for humans, but Paul absolutely does, and sees Jesus as the prototype of this resurrection. This is exactly NOT how a Hellenist conceives of the afterlife, such as it might be.

I don't know enough about the elemental spirits or the Dionysus quotes to comment.

I would say one other thing in closing: Some pagan philosophy may be entirely correct. Christians don't need to assume that non-Christians are wrong about everything. There are plenty of instances in the Bible of people who have never heard the name of Yahweh being far closer to God than his supposed loyal followers. Who's to say pagans can't get it right sometimes? Should Paul reject good ideas just because Jews and Christians didn't think of them first?

Paul specifically berates the other apostles over forcing gentiles to conform to circumcision. He says that Gentiles are not Jews and should not be put out as subhuman Christ believers. The Jews of that day were violently racist and mistreated people abominably including other Jews.

The doctrine of the resurrection was a point of hot contention between pharisees and sadducees of the the Jewish political system in Jesus' time. That was due to the fact the Sads had incorporated the pagan belief that when people die, that's it, it's over. (I think ancient Sumerian)

Pharisees believed otherwise. But even that belief is very old dating back to Noah times and Creation when God promised Adam and Eve a descendant that would be born God and take all sin on himself and be sacrificed for it (as a lamb) (This also has to do with Enoch and Elijah having disappeared bodily without dying and never returning)

As far as pagan practices, both hellenism and Ba'alism has been mixed into Judaism for thousands of years. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had mixed Ba'alism and Judaism for years to keep their people from traveling to Jerusalem to the Temple. That was one of the reasons they were conquered by the Assyrians and moved to the area between Turkey and Iran.

The "law" Jesus summarized as You shall LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and ALL your mind." and You SHALL LOVE your neighbor as yourself. To Him, it's a set of guidelines to live your life making God happy and interacting with your fellow man. The "sin nature" had to have a blood sacrifice and He was the "lamb" that was the sacrifice for that spiritual payment. Believing that Jesus died for your sins creates in you a "new" man that helps you keep the law successfully.

A person has a body (flesh), soul (personality), spirit (their existence in the spirit world)

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19 In a fight with the Pharisees and Sadducees and men of the Sanhedrin, Jesus told them that they would kill Him but He would come to life in 3 days.

Now I don't cut the Jewish Pharisees or Sadducees slack, cause they were corrupt, but when Jesus said that and before that said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." HE used the word YHWH making Himself God, and the men wanted to stone Him for blaspheming. But He was fulfilling the signs of the Messiah, healing, restoring sight, and raising the dead.

I'm not religious. I can't really comment on this beyond saying that everybody has a right to their faith. Now why anyone wants to worship a deity who's a total cunt is beyond me.

Cause He's not a cunt.

Imagine having dozens / hundreds of loyal brothers & sisters who actually knew Christ and then trusting a smug newfag like Saul to spread the gospel

They (the apostles) didn't accept him out of fear at first until they realized he had truly changed. And they began searching for old documents even then and began researching more (Peter traveled to Babylon to find Daniel's prophecies). They also looked for Christ to reappear. Paul traveled with Barnabas cause he (Barnabas) was the only one who believed that he'd converted for real.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Paul specifically berates the other apostles over forcing gentiles to conform to circumcision. He says that Gentiles are not Jews and should not be put out as subhuman Christ believers. The Jews of that day were violently racist and mistreated people abominably including other Jews.

The doctrine of the resurrection was a point of hot contention between pharisees and sadducees of the the Jewish political system in Jesus' time. That was due to the fact the Sads had incorporated the pagan belief that when people die, that's it, it's over. (I think ancient Sumerian)

Pharisees believed otherwise. But even that belief is very old dating back to Noah times and Creation when God promised Adam and Eve a descendant that would be born God and take all sin on himself and be sacrificed for it (as a lamb) (This also has to do with Enoch and Elijah having disappeared bodily without dying and never returning)

As far as pagan practices, both hellenism and Ba'alism has been mixed into Judaism for thousands of years. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had mixed Ba'alism and Judaism for years to keep their people from traveling to Jerusalem to the Temple. That was one of the reasons they were conquered by the Assyrians and moved to the area between Turkey and Iran.

The "law" Jesus summarized as You shall LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and ALL your mind." and You SHALL LOVE your neighbor as yourself. To Him, it's a set of guidelines to live your life making God happy and interacting with your fellow man. The "sin nature" had to have a blood sacrifice and He was the "lamb" that was the sacrifice for that spiritual payment. Believing that Jesus died for your sins creates in you a "new" man that helps you keep the law successfully.

A person has a body (flesh), soul (personality), spirit (their existence in the spirit world)

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John 2:19 In a fight with the Pharisees and Sadducees and men of the Sanhedrin, Jesus told them that they would kill Him but He would come to life in 3 days.

Now I don't cut the Jewish Pharisees or Sadducees slack, cause they were corrupt, but when Jesus said that and before that said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." HE used the word YHWH making Himself God, and the men wanted to stone Him for blaspheming. But He was fulfilling the signs of the Messiah, healing, restoring sight, and raising the dead.

I don't think Paul was saying that Gentiles aren't Jews, but rather, that this is a false division once Jesus came. There were indeed a lot of Jews in that time and place who considered the Gentiles beneath them, which again, is a big part of the criticism Jesus made against the Jews. But I don't think that's what Peter and James were doing. They were just stuck in an old way, still thinking about divisions of clean and unclean, not just in terms of people, but of ritual laws like not eating pork. Paul understood that this was a point of division that should no longer apply.

Resurrection was a point of contention between Sadducees and Pharisees, but as far as I know it had nothing to do with them adopting pagan beliefs about an afterlife. Rather, the Sadducees only considered the first five books of the Old Testament to be authoritative. Thought about resurrection doesn't develop until the intertestamental period, especially with the Maccabees. Most Old Testament Jews believed in Sheol, a shadowy underworld where the righteous and unrighteous alike went after death (Psalms). Others were simply agnostic whether there was any afterlife at life (Ecclesiastes). There were a few allusions to the possibility of some kind of good afterlife. But outside of a few cryptic references (Ezekiel's dry bones), they didn't believe in resurrection yet.

Resurrection was the logical theological development of Jewish beliefs about God and the world. If you believe in God of justice, you have to believe in some kind of afterlife, because most people don't get justice in this life. If you believe in a good Creator who made a good creation, you can't say that the afterlife is some disembodied, purely spiritual realm, because that would mean the physical creation was a bad thing after all. Resurrection is the only possibly conclusion.

I don't know terribly much about the details of how Old Testament Judaism was influenced by pagan religion. Obviously it happened, there are any number of accounts in the Old Testament of Jews turning to worship idols and God occasionally cleaning house, but I can't speak as to how much it stuck with "orthodox" Judaism.

I've never been convinced about the blood sacrifice argument. That's the common understanding, but here's the thing. On the day of atonement, the scapegoat, the animal that has all the sin prayed onto it, is NOT sacrificed. It's sent out into the wilderness. What's with that? I don't know. I'd have to go pretty deep into theories of atonement and I don't think this is the time or place.

Did Jesus fulfill the signs of being the Messiah? Not really. Not as most people understood them, anyway. Expectations varied. Some thought the Messiah would be an avenging angel, or a new lawgiver like Moses. But the way the disciples act starts to make a lot more sense when you realize most of them were expecting to reenact the Maccabean revolt. They wanted to throw off the Romans and restore Israel as a sovereign nation. They thought Jesus was going to be a rebel fighter. And as many times as Jesus tried to explain that they were completely missing the point, and that the whole world belongs to God, they didn't get it. That's the sort of Messiah most people thought was coming. Not a man executed as a terrorist by the Romans.

Finally, regarding the temple. A lot of the contention between Jesus and the religious authorities wasn't him claiming to be God incarnate. How are sins forgiven? Through the temple. Jesus claimed to be the new temple, forgiving sins. They were pissed because Jesus was taking their jobs.

 

[Poiseon]

Cause He's not a cunt.

If you go by the Book of Job, yes, yes he is a cunt. There's a ton of horrendous shit like that from the Old testament.

 

[DocHoliday1977]

I don't think Paul was saying that Gentiles aren't Jews, but rather, that this is a false division once Jesus came. There were indeed a lot of Jews in that time and place who considered the Gentiles beneath them, which again, is a big part of the criticism Jesus made against the Jews. But I don't think that's what Peter and James were doing. They were just stuck in an old way, still thinking about divisions of clean and unclean, not just in terms of people, but of ritual laws like not eating pork. Paul understood that this was a point of division that should no longer apply.

Resurrection was a point of contention between Sadducees and Pharisees, but as far as I know it had nothing to do with them adopting pagan beliefs about an afterlife. Rather, the Sadducees only considered the first five books of the Old Testament to be authoritative. Thought about resurrection doesn't develop until the intertestamental period, especially with the Maccabees. Most Old Testament Jews believed in Sheol, a shadowy underworld where the righteous and unrighteous alike went after death (Psalms). Others were simply agnostic whether there was any afterlife at life (Ecclesiastes). There were a few allusions to the possibility of some kind of good afterlife. But outside of a few cryptic references (Ezekiel's dry bones), they didn't believe in resurrection yet.

Resurrection was the logical theological development of Jewish beliefs about God and the world. If you believe in God of justice, you have to believe in some kind of afterlife, because most people don't get justice in this life. If you believe in a good Creator who made a good creation, you can't say that the afterlife is some disembodied, purely spiritual realm, because that would mean the physical creation was a bad thing after all. Resurrection is the only possibly conclusion.

I don't know terribly much about the details of how Old Testament Judaism was influenced by pagan religion. Obviously it happened, there are any number of accounts in the Old Testament of Jews turning to worship idols and God occasionally cleaning house, but I can't speak as to how much it stuck with "orthodox" Judaism.

I've never been convinced about the blood sacrifice argument. That's the common understanding, but here's the thing. On the day of atonement, the scapegoat, the animal that has all the sin prayed onto it, is NOT sacrificed. It's sent out into the wilderness. What's with that? I don't know. I'd have to go pretty deep into theories of atonement and I don't think this is the time or place.

Did Jesus fulfill the signs of being the Messiah? Not really. Not as most people understood them, anyway. Expectations varied. Some thought the Messiah would be an avenging angel, or a new lawgiver like Moses. But the way the disciples act starts to make a lot more sense when you realize most of them were expecting to reenact the Maccabean revolt. They wanted to throw off the Romans and restore Israel as a sovereign nation. They thought Jesus was going to be a rebel fighter. And as many times as Jesus tried to explain that they were completely missing the point, and that the whole world belongs to God, they didn't get it. That's the sort of Messiah most people thought was coming. Not a man executed as a terrorist by the Romans.

Finally, regarding the temple. A lot of the contention between Jesus and the religious authorities wasn't him claiming to be God incarnate. How are sins forgiven? Through the temple. Jesus claimed to be the new temple, forgiving sins. They were pissed because Jesus was taking their jobs.

The blood sacrifice (original lamb sacrifice of Passover) was a picture of what the Messiah would do when He came, restore the relationship between God and people by being the human sacrifice. Jesus was sinless and without blemish just like the lambs that were sacrificed. The scapegoat tradition was 2 goats, one sacrificed and the other set free.

That's when much of the Jewish beliefs were rehashed, during Salome Alexandra's reign. Hillel and Shammai were opposing schools of spiritual thought on the matter and most of the Sanhedrin held to Shammai while the rabbis stuck with Hillel.

"They wanted to throw off the Romans and restore Israel as a sovereign nation. They thought Jesus was going to be a rebel fighter. And as many times as Jesus tried to explain that they were completely missing the point, and that the whole world belongs to God, they didn't get it. That's the sort of Messiah most people thought was coming. Not a man executed as a terrorist by the Romans. " - true

Here are a few links that add to the discussion. I feel that Jesus specifically performed certain miracles to show He was God.

Healing of the blind man - mud (Man was formed from dirt)

Raising of Lazarus - He could bring Himself back from the dead.

Here are some links that discuss it"
https://biblehub.com/sermons/auth/macdonald/the_signs_of_the_messiah.htm

55 Old Testament Prophecies about Jesus | Jesus Film Project

www.jesusfilm.org

If you go by the Book of Job, yes, yes he is a cunt. There's a ton of horrendous shit like that from the Old testament.

Then go by the book of Job. And it wasn't God doing that, it was Lucifer. God just let Lucifer attack him to see if he would reject God. And he didn't. So JOB doesn't think God is a cunt and was loyal to the very end.

And only a cunt like Lucifer would enjoy beating up on a human. If you know how to pray, God can protect you from evil.

 

[Poiseon]

Then go by the book of Job. And it wasn't God doing that, it was Lucifer. God just let Lucifer attack him to see if he would reject God. And he didn't. So JOB doesn't think God is a cunt and was loyal to the very end.

"Ah am loyal to muh god whether or not they actually give a fuck about meh, my family, or the very laand. i shall continue to pray to an entity that could not give less of a shit,"
God was the one doing that, after Lucifer came to him. God was proving people would be loyal regardless if he openly ruins their lives or helps them. Whether he's a cunt, or not.

 

[DocHoliday1977]

As far as what Paul saw on the road to Damascus, I think that's one of those things you believe on the basis of other things. In his own account of his conversion in Galatians, he doesn't mention this event at all, although that obviously doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Acts was written (more than likely) by the same author as Luke, who was one of Paul's traveling companions but not present at his conversion. I doubt Luke forgot his own version of the account in such a short space.

This right here - I have something to add. Remember the account about Sodom and Gomorrah and the two angels came to get Lot and his family out but there was a group of men coming to accost the angels trying to break in to Lot's house? Remember one of the angels struck them all blind?

I think this was the "Angel of the Lord" which, if Jesus did meet up with Paul and Paul was looking to kill his friends, family, and followers, I can believe He struck Paul blind. If that's the case, then Paul would consider that event shameful and not repeat it. Ananias had to go see him THREE days later and pray and heal him to get his eyesight back.

"Ah am loyal to muh god whether or not they actually give a fuck about meh, my family, or the very laand. i shall continue to pray to an entity that could not give less of a shit,"
God was the one doing that, after Lucifer came to him. God was proving people would be loyal regardless if he openly ruins their lives or helps them. Whether he's a cunt, or not.

Feel free to believe whatever you want, but here:

Satan Attacks Job’s Character
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and [e]Satan also came among them. 7 And the Lord said to [f]Satan, “From where do you come?” (Why are you here)

So Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”

8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you [g]considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and [h]shuns evil?” (God brags about Job, plus Satan is effing jealous of the God and Job's relationship)

9 So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Have You not [i]made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse[j] You to Your face!” (Satan says Job's fake)

12 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your [k]power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” (GOD SAYS DO NOT KILL JOB; GOD knew JOB's heart/soul/mind and Satan did not)

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.