Paul seemed to be a real hard ass whereas Jesus preached love, not judging people, patience....
Could it be that Paul was a fraud?
Christ Jesus And The Apostle Paul----Were They At Odds?
by minimus 12 Replies latest jw friends
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sabastious
Could it be that Paul was a fraud?
The writings of Paul give great insight into the mind of a Pharisee in the day of Christ. Even though he converted to Christianity he didn't lose the ancient zealot spirit. The Jews were a hardened people that were fighting for the survival of their way of life. A whole new ideology we sweeping the region by force.
When the Messiah finally came and went people like Paul were truly left behind. He refers to this lifestyle in his writings as "an arena" like the one in Ancient Rome.
1 cor 4 - 9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. 10 We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.
The Paul model is good to use if you find yourself wrongfuly incarcerated or in a concentration camp. He is a good example of faith in something not well understood, but known to be the truth because of experience. However, he does seem to be a bit mad which would make sense with what happened to him.
The Watchtower publications seem to heavily feature the Paulian Model of Christianity. It's all about pain and suffering and feeling good about it because it's all for God. It's not a stretch to call the man a masochist, but what a good trait to have if you are going to live a life such as his. The Watchtower knows that if you deny someone an education that their life will be harder making their Paulian religious structure more appealing. For someone who has made good choices in their life martyrdom just isn't attractive. I don't recall Jesus teaching that martyrdom should be encouraged, just done when absolutely necessary. In his case it was religious and governmental revolution, for Paul's it was about freedom of religion and free speech and for a modern Witness it's their right to teach kids that Birthday's are from Satan and sacrifice them in the name of Jehovah. Something went awry at some point.
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I Want to Believe
I had some thoughts about Paul here (My critical thoughts about Paul), and I think a lot of the confusion, sectarianism, and contradictions in the NT is because people try so hard to reconcile the different Bible writers instead of accepting that they each wrote from their own viewpoint. Having this "There is only one way of thinking" mindset discounts that Paul thought differently from other apostles because of his background, and feeds the conformist structure of JWs and other fundamentalists.
Sorry, I went into college thesis mode there for a second, but the bottom line is: Yes, Paul did have a different way of looking at things, and his way of interpreting Christ formed it's own Pauline sect, which, by Paul's sheer force of zeal, became the default sect of Christianity that went mainstream.
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Phizzy
It makes one wonder if the Gospels were not written to counter some of the teaching of Paul, but perhaps not. Certainly it is doubtful if some of what is attributed to him actually came from him.
Hebrews was more than likely by A.N. Other, and a number of the letters are without doubt redacted, again by an unkown hand or hands.
Also we only have the writings accepted by the Church at the end of the 4th Century, within what we do have, other letters are referred to, some of which we may or may not have in the extra-canonical texts.
Out of all that it is a real job to determine too much about Paul the man, and about his actual Theology and Christology, Luke records the affection which the Ephesians had for him, if that is true, he cannot have been the total, prickly. mysogynistic martinet that some paint him to be.
It would be great if a genuine record of the teaching of Jesus were to surface, we could then compare the N.T as we have it with what Jesus actually said, but I doubt such a written record was ever made, why would someone ?
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TOTH
My view of Pauline teachings is that they DO conflict with the teachings of the Christ.
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minimus
Interesting comments here!
Maybe the Apostle Paul just wasn't a Christian.
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I Want to Believe
" Luke records the affection which the Ephesians had for him, if that is true, he cannot have been the total, prickly. mysogynistic martinet that some paint him to be."
Really? So if I show how much some people love Don Imus, or Rush Limbaugh than they can't be as bad as others think?
Again, why can't both be true? Paul was a loveable, traditional mysogynist who taught his own version of Christ and some loved him for it while others didn't. Isn't that reasonable?
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designs
Paul was the Fred Franz of his day.
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cantleave
Not only was he homophobic, misogynistic and bad tempered - he also suffered from delusions, just read his account of what happened on the road to Damascus.
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mP
It could really be argued that the creation of the NT with the gospels and the letters of paul at its center was the first fusion of two separate religions by the romans or the Catholic church.
How does a common man manage to overrule the inspired apostles of Jesus himself ?
Why does anyone listen to this man over the apostles ?
What did Paul even preach about Jesus, did he know anything about him ?
The only thing we learn is Jesus died to save us. Thats literally all.
What do we learn about Jesus from Paul ?
Suprisingly practically nothing.
There were plenty of savior gods back in those times. Some that kind to mind include Mithra, Horus and more we are not aware of. Could Paul be talking about these ?