How dishonest was the Apostle Paul?

opusdei1972

May be some of you will be shocked by this question. However, when I was studying the Bible with critical eyes I detected that Paul ( or Saul of Tarsus) misquoted the Hebrew Bible in order to get false support for his arguments. Of course, this tricky kind of use of the "scriptures" was not only used by him, but others, like the author of the Gospel of Matthew got unsupported doctrines misquoting verses. For instance, how could post 70 christians sustain that Mary was virgin after conceiving Jesus?, by quoting Isaiah 7:14 which uses the word virgin in the LXX (not in the Hebrew Bible). Joseph Rutherford seemed to learn this kind of interpretative tricks when he wanted to invent a type anti-type teaching, and so on. Freddy learnt this from him.

JWdaughter

I think Paul changed everything, but Paul got me to questioning EVERYTHING. I think he essentially changed things, but I can't prove much as it started 2000 years ago. I think simple Jesus teaching was embroidered btw Paul into what we think of as Christianity. Men want men to tell them more, especially when the basics are simple. Folks like rules and if God won't give them, they'll find some.

Burdens.

If it's too easy, we aren't doing it right. It's human nature, I think.

purrpurr

I have to say I always wondered this about Paul as well, he always seemed tricky and sly

opusdei1972

Indeed Paul was a clever person who used common sense to treat some things like the issue of "food sacrificed to idols". Paul knew that Christianity would never grow if Christians had to follow all of what the Law demanded. However, he had to misquote the Hebrew Bible so as to sustain his theology.

John Aquila

All the books in the NT written by Paul are based one ONE vision he had where Jesus talked to him.

How many people today would follow ONE person who claimed he had ONE vision where Jesus talked to him?

I wonder if there was even a Paul, or were all the stories about him just Fairy tales like the tales of Hercules?

EdenOne

Even the Bible is clear that the most prominent among the apostles that walked with Jesus weren't exactly fond of Paul ... and he wasn't too fond of them either.

Eden

Finkelstein

Ancient mythology and the beliefs that they inspired were mostly made up of embellished story telling, that included the originators of Christianity.

These stories had various circumventing intentions.

CalebInFloroda

There is an interesting new line of theology that has developed from the Jewish-Catholic dialogues about this, and you can find some of this in the volume "The Jewish Annotated New Testament." It suggests that some of the charges of misuse of Scripture by Paul might actually be misunderstandings due to now-abandoned Catholic teachings regarding Jews and a greatly unknown argument between the Reformers and Catholics that colored the words of Paul for the last 500 years.

While there is no excusing some of Paul's language against Judaism, Paul does not seem to be ever teaching that Jews are to stop being obedient to the Mosaic Law. The most striking textual NT evidence to support this is found in Acts 21.17-26. These verses demonstrate that early Church authority did not interpret Paul's teachings as applicable to Jews, and that Paul was essentially still Torah-observant himself.

Using this one text to re-read epistles like Romans, for example, creates a particularly different text, one that never promotes anything particularly anti-Semitic. But when you add the fact that the Catholic Church views its past teachings about Jews as incorrect, and that these were colored by the arguments of the Reformation, you actually get a letter which explains how early Christianity may have looked appealing to some Jews in the first century...and how Judaism was not viewed as badly by Paul as some might have thought.

The teaching that the Catholic Church has now abandoned and that was warped during the Reformation was that Jews obeyed the Mosaic Law as a means to merit salvation. A superficial reading of Romans mixed with superstitions lead to the misunderstanding that in Romans, Paul was teaching that there were two roads to choose from: one of grace that leads to eternal life and one of works based on the Mosaic Law that has now been abrogated in Christ. The teaching became polemic fuel when later Reformists began accusing Catholics of being like Pharisees and promoting a religion that was works based.

After the Holocaust and particularly with Vatican II the Catholic Church opened formal dialogue with Judaism. One of the things the Catholic Church learned was that Jews have never had a doctrine which promotes a need for individual salvation. Judaism in fact has no "Original Sin" teaching. In light of this, it has been deduced that Paul could not be teaching that the Jews saw obedience to the Mosaic Law as a means of salvation.

Currently scholars are coming to agreement that Paul was likely teaching against Gentiles promoting the Mosaic Law as a requisite to salvation in Christ. The reason? Jews view the Mosaic Law as the opposite of slavery to the Egyptians, as an expression of freedom. Only if and when Gentiles apply it to themselves does it becomes a burden, not to mention violates the Law itself. Mosaic Law teaches that people are put right with G-d by means of faith. (Romans 4.3) Therefore, according to this revised understanding, Paul is actually teaching that anyone who makes Torah obedience a requisite for salvation for anyone violates the Law.

This latest revision to Christian theology tends to make Romans chapter 11 & 14 make more sense. The other previous exegetical approach has often made these chapters appear out of place by comparison. This recent change seems to make for more of a logical reading.

Again this does not change other expressions of Paul in other texts, and this new line of thought has yet to be adapted as official dogma in the Catholic Church, but it does offer a logical new approach that makes sense with Acts 21.

It should also be noted that this exegetical approach would create a paradox for the Watchtower which teaches that the 144,000 replaces the nation of Israel. This new exegetical approach causes Romans to read as if the covenants are still in effect and the Israel will never be replaced, instead only added to.--Romans 9.4-5; 11.29.

Barrold Bonds

paul was a fuckin nut job.

Vidiot

Barrold Bonds - "paul was a fuckin nut job.."

That being said, I think even Paul would tell the GB "woah, hey, guys, dial it down a little, yeah?"

How dishonest was the Apostle Paul?

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