Forward – the WHY of it all … (10/27/18)
“No sooner had Jesus knocked over the menacing dragons of religious dogma and spiritual superstition than the ‘apostle’ Paul boldly set them back upright again. In truth, there is not one word of Pauline Christianity to be found in the gospel utterances of Jesus, and there has thus never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the one where the Christian religion imposed Paul’s soul upon the soul of Christ – and this, in Jesus’ name no less! … Almost as egregious, this fresh doctrine of Paul’s was one that sought not to topple or even significantly alter the unjust political systems of its day, but was rather designed to coddle them and the corrupt delegates who ran them. As such, it can come as no surprise that The Way of Jesus Christ was suppressed by the time’s political authorities (and thereafter all but eliminated by the Christian Church), even as the theology of Paulinism overran the entire western civilized world and was adopted as its official faith.” ~ via George Bernard Shaw
While engaging my own in-depth study of the Bible over the last several decades, I have been constantly amazed at the vastly different interpretations people have formulated as to its most important spiritual tenets. Indeed, it seemed that no matter who I asked, I was always met with a differing set of responses; responses (even from Christian preachers & self-professed biblical scholars) that often seemed to flagrantly contradict the very Way of Jesus Christ that the Bible’s canonical gospels so clearly portrayed. For those of you less familiar with the Bible’s specific contents, consider the following examples:
*While the Christian church tells us to willingly tithe a portion of our earnings every Sunday, Jesus was not a fan of the same; preferring instead that we follow his Way and “Give for alms those things that are within … When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms might be given in secret.” (Luke 11:41 & Matthew 6:3)
*While the church frequently teaches that that God is a God of vengeance and that all “non-believers” are damned to Hell for eternity, Jesus noted instead that “The Father judges no one” (John 5:22), that “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and yet still does not keep them” (John 12:47), and that we are to “Be merciful, just as your [heavenly] Father is merciful … Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.” (Luke 6:36-37)
*While the church teaches that Salvation comes from verbally professing a faith in Jesus Christ as being “the only Son of God” and one’s “personal Savior”, Jesus himself noted that “No one is Good but God alone” (Mark 10:18), that “whomever believes in me believes not in me but in Him who sent me” (John 12:44), that “I do not accept the glory of human beings” (John 5:41), that “If you wish to enter into Life, uphold the Commandments” (Matthew 19:17), and that “If you understand these things, blessed are you while you perform them.” (John 13:17)
*While most church leaders preach that Jesus was sinless and that no one else can hope to attain his level of moral brilliance, Jesus himself begged to differ – stating quite plainly that “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact will do even greater works than these” (John 14:12) and that “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and that you are in me, and that I am in you.” (John 14:20)
*While the church teaches that Divine Justice is a punishment-based “eye for an eye”, Jesus informed us that God’s Love is unconditionally “perfect” (Matthew 5:48 – i.e. without any punishment whatsoever; see 1 John 4:18) and that “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Matthew 12:7)
*While the church tends to preach that Heaven exists “up above” and can only be entered after one dies, Jesus directly noted that “The Kingdom of Heaven is not coming [at some point in the future] with things that can be observed .. For in truth the Kingdom of Heaven is already within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
*While most in the church believe that “the Good News” is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, Jesus himself quite clearly defined his “Good News” twofold – first, that “the Kingdom of Heaven is already at hand” (Matthew 10:7) and second, that entrance thereto was attained only by those who persisted in selflessly Caring for others. (Matthew 24:12-14 – also John 13:15-17)
*While many in the church still quote some of the more violent passages of the Hebrew Bible (a.k.a. the Old Testament) to justify their non-loving, war-justifying, and even bigoted behaviors, Jesus plainly stated that “Blessed are the Peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9), and that we are to “Love [our] enemies” (Matthew 5:44). Indeed, the New Testament itself went even further in stating that “In speaking of a New Covenant, [Jesus] has made the first one obsolete.” (Hebrews 8:13)
*While the church claims that all the words in the Bible are objectively true and must be read “literally”, Jesus gives us a far better standard for judging the Truth of the Scriptures (as well as the words of the “prophets” and pastors who claim to understand them) when he tells us to put them all into practice and thereby test every profession thereof to see whether or not they bear the “Fruits of the Spirit” – (a la “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit … The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil” ~ Luke 6:43-45).
While there are many Christian apologists who go to great lengths to explain &/or justify these quite blatant contradictions, the fact remains that the Bible obviously contains a number of theological doctrines that are at best at odds with one another. And it is at one of the most important (if not the most important) of these schisms that this treatise takes aim – namely, the stark contrast between (and indeed contradictory espousals of) the life & teachings of Jesus Christ (as read in the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and the very different life & teachings of the essential founder of the modern-day Christian Church – who was and remains Paul of Tarsus, a self-proclaimed “apostle” of Jesus Christ.
Christianity is currently the world’s largest religion, representing the primary spiritual affiliation for almost 2.5 billion people, or roughly one third of the current human population. And yet to be fair it is difficult to identify one true Christian religion – with the World Almanac stating that there are over 400 different known Christian denominations, and with the World Christian Encyclopedia breaking those major designations down even further to count over 20,000 significant differences in dogma among the world’s Christian believers. These variations range from ultra-conservative “literalists” to hyper-liberal “progressives,” and differ in their beliefs about such important concepts as the honoring of the Sabbath, the washing of others’ feet, the ownership of possessions, entering into Heaven, the nature of Heaven itself, receiving baptism, communion’s exclusivity, communion itself, speaking in tongues, the handling of serpents, prophesying, prayer, works vs faith, how to read Scripture, the nature of the Rapture, the character of God, the requirements for redemption, the necessity of confession, the holiness of Mary, the acceptable translation(s) of the Bible, the existence of predestination, and the severity (or even the existence at all) of Hell.
And yet as far as this particular tome is concerned, when I write the word “Christian” I am referring to someone who believes in the fundamental tenets that all (or almost all) of the aforementioned denominations share – namely the five fundamental “Solas” of the modern-day Christian Church, which are the following:
*Sola Scriptura – stating that the books of the Bible have sole spiritual authority over all humankind. The words of the Bible (whether read literally or metaphorically) are to be treated as the actual words of God, and the actual representations of God’s will for humanity.
*Soli Deo Gloria – stating that humans are to give all glory to the one true God.
*Sola Fide – stating that Salvation (recognized as some form of eternal existence in some form of a halcyon Hereafter) comes solely from having a mental belief in, professing a verbal faith for, and indeed enlivening an active worship of Jesus Christ as one’s “personal savior.”
*Solus Christus – stating that Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead and who is the only true Son of God, is the sole spiritual mediator between God and humanity.
*Sola Gratia – stating that Salvation cannot be earned solely via one’s deeds; that all humans are innately fallible “sinners” (if not fully unworthy of redemption) and that only the merciful “Grace of God” can save those deemed worthy thereof.
Most importantly, at least as far as this work is concerned, the last three of these fundamental pillars of Christianity (and to a degree the 2nd pillar as well – via any sincerely devout application of the 3rd) all stem directly and solely from the writings of Saul of Tarsus – the self-proclaimed “apostle” today known as Paul. In truth, these current cornerstones of the Christian religion not only were never once espoused by Jesus Christ in the Gospels, but Jesus himself actually went out of his way to reject each and every one of them therein (more on this later). And yet Paul most certainly did champion them, and he did so not without a high degree of both vehemence and eloquence. Indeed, the following words from his letter to the Romans (one of the last canonical letters, if not the final such letter, he penned before his death1) shows this quite clearly to be the case. Consider his words therein: “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed … the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith … God proves his love for us in that while we are still sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the coming wrath of God.” (Romans 3:21-25 + 5:8-9 – see also Acts 9:20-22 & 1 Corinthians 15:1-10)
…………………………………………………………….
1It is important for the reader to NOTE that this treatise will only use &/or reference Paul’s “actual” epistles found in the Bible – that is to say, the writings which the consensus of biblical scholarship agrees were truly penned by his hand. These works are (in the probable chronological order in which they were written) 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon, Galatians, 1 Corinthians (not counting the verses thereof that were added thereto after Paul’s death for personal &/or political reasons – e.g. 1 Corinthians 14:34-35), 2 Corinthians (actually a compilation of 4+ different letters from Paul), Romans & Colossians. As far as the unauthenticated Pauline epistles that remain, consider the following: 2 Thessalonians uses a different tone than the aforementioned letters, pre-assumes the prevalence of forgeries, and mentions Paul’s personal “mark” in 2 Thessalonians 3:17 (something Paul himself would not have included had he been the one doing the actual writing thereof). 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy & Titus all use a distinct Geek style and vocabulary not found in any of Paul’s “legitimate” letters, and also all focus on a church hierarchy that almost certainly did not exist before Paul’s death. Hebrews presents theological concepts found nowhere else in Paul’s other epistles, and Ephesians was quite clearly a pseudepigraphical copy/edit of Colossians, one almost certainly written at some point after Paul’s execution.
And so it is that we come to the crux of the matter – a quite thorough and most needed exposé of one of human history’s greatest (and ultimately most influential) impostors, an exhaustive biblical proof of what you the reader will soon see as the simple fact that Paul was in no way a true apostle of Christ, but rather was and remains one of Christ’s most ardent opponents – meaning that the modern day Christian church1, a church founded primarily upon the teachings of Paul, in no way honors the “savior” it pretends to worship – and indeed in actuality gravely dishonors him thereby.
1 Here, an important DISCLAIMER: This tome is in no way an attack on Christian beliefs, Christians themselves, or Christianity as a whole. Rather, it is merely intended to show all non-Christians that the Christian religion is not at all founded on the brilliant moral teachings of Jesus as found in the Gospels, and designed to prove to all Christians beyond even the faintest shadow of any doubt that they all have a theological choice to make – either abide in the quite un-Christian religious dogma of Paul or follow (i.e. emulate) The Way of selfless LOVE taught by Jesus Christ.
;