How Christian thinking was corrupted by Paul's clever explanations

by Terry 44 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Terry

  To sum up what we have discussed so far:

  If you buy a Hershey bar anywhere in the world it would taste the same as one purchased in Pennsylvania. That is quality control.

  One brand and one flavor.

  Christianity, however, is (and always has been) an illusory brand name. No matter where you sample the flavor throughout the world there is a completely different flavor to be experienced!

  Paul, I'm asserting, was the successful purveyor of the first official flavor to overtake (and replace) Jesus' own flavor.

  Here is the family tree:

  1.Jesus' actual words and teachings (now lost to the world as a certainty) replaced by oral versions and written semblances (none with authenticity).

  2. Jesus' follower's version of events.

  3.Paul's restructured deconstruction of "meaning".

  4.Catholic institutional orthodoxy

  5.Protestant debunking and re-seeding of orthodoxy

  6.Sectarian and cult variations on a theme

  7.Free lance idea mongering by mystical assertion only
• 

  james_woods

  I am still rather ashamed and amazed that I was a big fan of Paul while I was a witness (thought the other apostles were wimpy) - but now that I look at what he wrote in retrospect -

  I simply cannot stand the guy. A massive egotist, misogynest, and creator of doctrine out of pure whole cloth (of his own prejudices).
• 

  Terry

  I am still rather ashamed and amazed that I was a big fan of Paul while I was a witness (thought the other apostles were wimpy) - but now that I look at what he wrote in retrospect -

  I simply cannot stand the guy. A massive egotist, misogynest, and creator of doctrine out of pure whole cloth (of his own prejudices).

  Personally, I think it might be a "guy" thing. Paul gives men the necessary authority to make women do whatever the man thinks is best.

  I didn't get enlightened about women until around 1980. This was 17 years after I was baptised.

  Women in christianity are in Paul's crosshairs. Sad, unnecesary but true.

  Since men run the Watchtower Society (and Fundamentalist, evangelical denominations) Paul is far too convenient to their desires to ever dump him as the mover and shaker of christian orthodoxy.
• 

  james_woods

  All true, Terry - and made even more mysterious by occasional hints that Paul may have been at least bi-sexual if not fully gay.

  Although that sort of fits his disdain for women if you think about it...
• 

  Terry

  All true, Terry - and made even more mysterious by occasional hints that Paul may have been at least bi-sexual if not fully gay.

  Although that sort of fits his disdain for women if you think about it...

  Are you saying Paul would not have eaten at Chick-fil-A?
• 

  james_woods

  No, Terry - such filthy Chicken would be "things sacrificed to Idols" to the Apostle Paul.

  Possibly some of the female employees do not even wear head coverings.

  BTW - kind of off topic, but still about Paul: We had a circuit overseer who said (without any equivocations whatsoever) that the "thorn in the flesh" Paul had was that he was a bald man.

  Several elders laughed their heads off at it after he was gone from the weekly visit when he said it.
• 

  Quendi

  Just wanted to chime in with the observation that being gay certainly does not mean a man is a misogynist. Please don't make that supposition or generalization. But I am curious as to why some believe that Paul might not have been straight.

  Quendi
• 

  Terry

  BTW - kind of off topic, but still about Paul: We had a circuit overseer who said (without any equivocations whatsoever) that the "thorn in the flesh" Paul had was that he was a bald man.

  Several elders laughed their heads off at it after he was gone from the weekly visit when he said it.

  The Society's illustrations of Paul always show him as balding. But, with all his hair-raising exploits I'd think there would be something to raise.

  Paul's actual thorn in the flesh was poorly fitted contact lenses. In Ancient Rome these were called "scales" and Paul's kept falling out!
• 

  james_woods

  The Society's illustrations of Paul always show him as balding. But, with all his hair-raising exploits I'd think there would be something to raise.

  You know, Terry - that is true - now that I think about it. Probably this was why that CO was so sure of his theory. Typical JW org man.

  Seriously, we have had more than one thread that suggested Paul may have been gay - specifically because of the strange relationship with Timothy.

  The "thorn in the flesh" was suggested to have been suppressed gay tendencies, which occasionally got the better of him.
• 

  james_woods

  Just wanted to chime in with the observation that being gay certainly does not mean a man is a misogynist.

  I did not mean it as a stereotype - it is certainly not universal, or even the majority. However, I have known a few such cases - usually on the part of repressed gay men who were hiding their true status.

  Anyway - back to Terry's excellent topic: There really is quite a case to be made that Paul's writing is almost totally alien to the rest of the gospel...almost to the point of being a different religious work.

  Certainly no other NT writer speaks with such personal egotism, or references himself constantly the way Paul does.