First off, let me state quite clearly that I no way claim to know “the Truth” about Paul or Jesus. I don’t know whether or not the words in my Bible (as someone interested in scholarship, I prefer the NRSV over all other translations) are fully accurate, I don’t know if the spiritual concepts expressed therein are valid, and I don’t even know whether or not Paul or Jesus actually said what they are reported to have said – much less whether either man actually existed at all. And yet none of those issues are relevant to the task at hand – namely, showing how the Bible itself (or at least one of its more widely accepted versions) proves quite convincingly that Paul was not a supporter of Jesus and his teachings, but was rather a stark opponent thereof. And the best place to start during such an examination is a look into how the texts of the Bible portray the lives of the two men – very different lives that in and of themselves do not prove my primary postulation, and yet very different lives that do indeed explain how such radically divergent theologies could come to be. 

Filed under: Jesus & the Cult of Paul by Scaughdt