Pauline Christianity, What is it?
Pauline Christianity is a term applied to what some perceive as the religious teaching unique to Paul’s writings and distinct from the gospel of Jesus. That is, Jesus taught one thing, and Paul taught something completely different. Those who believe in a separate Pauline Christianity believe that the Christianity of today has little to do with Jesus’ teachings; rather, it is the product of Paul’s s conjecture of those teachings, all of them many years after Jesus walked the ground.
Some believe that the New Testament is a unified whole: that the Gospels
present a compilation of the life and work of Jesus the Messiah; that Paul’s
Epistles explain what he thought to be the meaning and scope of Jesus’ work and
how to apply it to daily living. For example, (Mathew 28) narrates the story of
Jesus’ resurrection, and in Paul’s (1 Corinthians 15) he attempts to explain
the significance of the resurrection. (Mark 15:38) claims the temple veil being
torn in two when Jesus died; in (Hebrews 10:11-23) Paul attempts to explain the
import of that event. Paul’s opinions have become a Gospel message even though
he never met Jesus, except by an unsubstantiated claim.
Those
who believe in a “Pauline Christianity” believe the following story:
Jesus, a great teacher, considered himself to be the long-awaited Messiah
for the Israelites. He believed that God would overthrow Rome and bring His
kingdom to earth. In preparation for this, Jesus taught a message of
unconditional love, tolerance, and non-judgmental acceptance of everyone. Alas,
Jesus’ mission of inaugurating a new earthly age failed when the Romans
crucified him.
Jesus’ followers, believing that God had raised their rabbi from the dead,
continued to meet in Jerusalem under the leadership of James, Jesus’ brother.
Their intention was to await the still-coming kingdom and continue observing
Jesus’ brand of enlightened Israelism. But along came Saul of Tarsus, who faked
a conversion in order to infiltrate the church. Peter and James and others who
had actually known Jesus were suspicious of Saul, who had never met Jesus.
Then Saul, who started calling himself “Paul,” had a stroke of genius. He
artfully combined traditional Hebrew ideas with those of pagan Greek
philosophy, creating a new religion that could appeal to both Israelites and
Gentiles. He began preaching that Jesus was actually God, that Jesus’ death was
linked to the Israelite system of sacrifice that one could be saved by simply
believing and that the Mosaic law became obsolete. Paul’s zealous missionary
activity and persuasive writings took his new “gospel” around the Roman Empire.
The Jerusalem Church, including Peter and James, disowned Paul as a heretic and
cult leader.
After the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, the Israelite Church lost
authority, but the Gentile Church founded by Paul increased its influence. One
of Paul’s fervent followers wrote the book of Acts, which gave Paul legendary
status with its glowing portrayal of him as the hero of the church. Later, four
unknown writers gathered scraps of information about Jesus and wrote books they
called “Matthew,” “Mark,” Luke,” and “John”—but Paul’s theology, already
dominant in the church, tainted the writers’ perspective. Thus, Paul’s religion
won out over Jesus’ religion.
In short, Paul was a charlatan, an evangelical huckster who succeeded in
twisting Jesus’ message of love into something Jesus himself would never
recognize. It was Paul, not Jesus, who originated most of the “Christian belief”
of today from his writings that are mostly conjecture.
Commonly, those who do not hold to Pauline Christianity believe the following:
1) Jesus was not divine. He never claimed to be God (YHWH), but claimed to be “the
son of man” over 69 times, he never said he was God the son. Yahshua never
intended to start a new religion, but to announce the Kingdom of Yahweh, (Matt.
5:17; 23) to First Century Israel in Palestine.
2) The Greek NT Bible is not an inspired book (no one claimed that it was) and it
is riddled with contradictions. None of NT Bible, except possibly the book of
James, was written by anyone who knew Jesus. There are fragments of Jesus’
teachings in the Gospels, but it is difficult to discern what he really said.
All of it is hearsay, since all were written many years after the execution of
Jesus, and no one knows who wrote the Gospels
3) Paul’s “conversion” was either a personal hallucinogenic experience or an
outright fraud. The three places in the NT that talk about the conversion of
Paul do not agree. His claims to be an apostle were attempts to further his own
authority in the church, and appear to be self appointed, not chosen by the 11
Apostles,
4) Pauline theological “inventions” include a) the deity of Jesus; b) salvation
by grace through faith; c) salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus to please
God; d) the sinless nature of Jesus; e) the concept of original sin; and f) the
Holy Spirit. None of these “new doctrines” were accepted by Jesus’ true
followers, because none can be found taught in the Hebrew Bible.
5) The Gnostic Gospels may be closer to the truth about Jesus than are the
traditional four accepted (by Constantine Roman) approved Gospels of the compiled
Catholic Bible.
Those that deny the concept of “Pauline Christianity” also represent the belief
that not all written in the Bible is the inspired word of YHWH the Almighty of
the Hebrew Bible, even though some of it could be when there is such a claim. They
believe Jesus was a prophet to First Century Israel that he taught the
coming/presence of the “Kingdom of Heaven” but deny his divinity, his Jesus’
atonement, and consider the trinity as being contrary to what is taught in the
Bible.
Note: Some of this information comes from the following website:
Some of it has been revised, and information added by AOYCascade.com
http://Gotquestions.org/Pauline-Christianity.html
The article is close to the Beliefs about Paul/Saul by AOYcascade. For a complete Statement of our belief, see https://AOYcascade.com/Documents/Statement-of-belief.html
Presented for information and study purposes