Is Paul the Antichrist?

Paul created the myth of Jesus and invented Xianity. Much like Hitler won over the hearts and minds of the Germans in pre-WWII, Paul created the myth that the messiah had come. What Hitler did to the Jews, Paul did to the true messsage of Jesus. Paul is the Antichrist.

 

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MW,
Although it is very tempting, I try to refrain as much as possible from placing the blame on ONE historic figure. I know that one person can never be a key player and cause the damage to entire humanity....not even Hitler. Hitler was backed up by a society and a system that contributed to the problems of the time an equal share to Hitler. So are we really doing justice blaming that person back for all humanity problems...where's others responsbility?

Plus, how do we know that Paul's words were not corrupt by others? Why blame Paul if we have our own necks to make our own decisions for us? Why come up with fantacy idea of an Anti-Christ? Do you know that when you merely think about an anti christ that you are feeding the concept of a Messiah...Why would we think that anti christ exist, if we didn't believe that a Messiah is coming indeed.

 

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Flores is right!

Originally posted by Flores
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MW,
Although it is very tempting, I try to refrain as much as possible from placing the blame on ONE historic figure. I know that one person can never be a key player and cause the damage to entire humanity.... not even Hitler. Hitler was backed up by a society and a system that contributed to the problems of the time an equal share to Hitler. So are we really doing justice blaming that person back for all humanity problems...where's others responsbility?

Plus, how do we know that Paul's words were not corrupt by others? Why blame Paul if we have our own necks to make our own decisions for us? Why come up with fantacy idea of an Anti-Christ? Do you know that when you merely think about an anti christ that you are feeding the concept of a Messiah...Why would we think that anti christ exist, if we didn't believe that a Messiah is coming indeed.
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(Flores, you are SO right! My question for you is, what IF Paul in fact DID create the whole MYTHOS of Jesus and Xianity? That doesn't in any way refute what the Qur'an says, does it? Wouldn't that confirm what the Qur'an states?)

 

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Site factual proof that Paul created a myth about Christianity and Jesus.
Side note:
Is it so hard to spell Christianity that you have to abreviate it Xianity? Although on a treasure map X does mark the spot of treasure. Are you inferring that there is a hidden treasure in Christianity.

 

The Quran never spoke of an Anti-Christ and never laid a scenario for the end times. The Quran was very brief when talking of possible Messiah return, and it's all up in the air based on the interpretation. Below is the exact account of the Quran on this issue.

[4.157] And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, the apostle of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure.
[4.158] Nay! Allah took him up to Himself; and Allah is Mighty, Wise.
[4.159] And there is not one of the followers of the Book but most certainly believes in this before his death, and on the day of resurrection he (Isa) shall be a witness against them.

All the above is saying is that Jesus was not killed in the fashion that is depicted by the Christians on the cross at the hands of the Romans. God speaks of taking Jesus back to himself, or Jesus soul returning back to god. God also speak of a final death for Jesus, but we don't know if that is in the form of coming back and dying.....It's simply not clear, when and how will Jesus die.

The only thing I can deduce from above is that Jesus is an apostle of god who will act as a wittness in the day of ressurection on some who are following Jesus instead of God. It is pure and simple, if your soul doesn't see god correctly in the right light, then your soul wouldn't know what god is if it nipped it them in the butt. Christians have limited their spirituality and distanted themselves from the correct path to god and chose another path called Jesus. To all other humans that don't believe in the fabricated crucifiction and jesus being their savior, Jesus shall not be a hurt or help to them. God has appointed Jesus to act as a wittness againest the christians because the Christians are unable to see or recognize god or in that matter any other logic but Jesus. Only jesus can settle things down for them. If god himself told them you are hereby sentenced to eternal hell, they would still await a Jesus to save them from hell. So only Jesus telling them the truth would make the most impact, because they believed in Jesus instead, and only Jesus can literally come back to them, because he has a room in their hearts to judge them. They simply trusted in Jesus instead of god and thus god will ignore them the same way they ignored him and leave them at the mercy of Jesus, who we are told only obey god's commands.

I like to use this example when I teach my daughter about god. She always ask me what god looks like and I always try to escape giving her an exact answer while stretching her imagination to infinite bounds. She knows that god is one and is powerfull over everything. I tell my 4 year old that if I told her that god has a white beard, then she will only look for men with white beards and if god ended up being something else, then she might have missed the whole point and will be very upset that I lied to her. Now if she is open to all ideas that god the creator could be anything, then her heart will not fail her and she'll be eternally content with whatever is revealed to her. I want her to believe in a creator with no shape or form, and so whatever shape or form that this creator will assume will be okay to her.

 

Proof of the myth

Originally posted by Quigly
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Site factual proof that Paul created a myth about Christianity and Jesus.
Side note:
Is it so hard to spell Christianity that you have to abreviate it Xianity? Although on a treasure map X does mark the spot of treasure. Are you inferring that there is a hidden treasure in Christianity.
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(There is an abundance of proof that Paul created the myth. Besides being in multitudes of websites all over the Internet, there are two books I can refer you to: "The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity," by Hyam Maccoby and "Sacred Origins of Proufound Things," by Charles Panati. There are many, many more citations. Read anything by Laurence Gardner.

Again, for the zillionth time, Paul never met Jesus, so he did not have first-hand knowledge of anything regarding Jesus or his life. The crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus was all created by Paul, a prolific writer of the NT books. When you read your Bible, keep this in mind--Paul never knew Jesus, so how did he know to write what he did? He made it up.

It's not hard to spell "Christianity," but I choose to spell it my own way--writer's privilege. Technically, it's NOT an abbreviation. Have you never heard of "Xmas?" "X" is the cross of St. Andrew, a very common, if not the most common, version of the cross. Technically, this crucifix is the one most used, not the "Tau" cross as most Xians think. Peter was crucified upside down on the "X" which means "cross," and is commonly used by The Vatican.

The "hidden treasure" of Xianity can be found where "X" marks the spot in a chamber under the floor of the Chartres Cathedral. If you research this, you may find the truth.)

 

This is what I know about Paul

Paul used to prosecute christians left and right. He was known as a bad ass. All of sudden, supposidly, Jesus appeared to him in a dream and told him why do you torture my followers. I think the story goes like, Jesus told Paul that he will be unable to speak for several days as a punishment for what he did. Paul woke up and couldn't speak for real, after several days, his speach came back and he decided to undo his bad doings by glorifying Jesus and making lies about him.

For all I'm concerned, I think that Paul's conscious suffered tremendously as he tortured the christians. He started getting nightmares and psychosis and one day his screwed brain played back on him the biggest trick to insult him back for ignoring his conscious. His brain convinced him that Jesus is after him and that he will be punished by not being able to speak. His acute psychosis lasted for three days, after which he recovered and was able to speak, and out of fear of his nighmares, he made up another fabricated lies about jesus thinking that he is doing Jesus a favor. Poor Paul, to him it was so real, but his own corrupt brain played the whole trick on him.

 

Paul's psychosis

Originally posted by Flores
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His acute psychosis lasted for three days, after which he recovered and was able to speak, and out of fear of his nighmares, he made up another fabricated lies about jesus thinking that he is doing Jesus a favor. Poor Paul, to him it was so real, but his own corrupt brain played the whole trick on him.
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(Apparently Paul's psychosis played the whole trick on millions of his followers. And would you believe it? They don't even know it!)

 

Poor Paul,
What do we know about him? We know that somebody wrote so called Epistles and signed them Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ. We can assume that this Paul was indeed regarded as an authority by early Christians, because there are other Epistles, also signed Paul, which are proven forgeries of later date. Nobody would forge a work of somebody insignificant, right? In his Epistles, Paul tells us very little about himself – he admits that he pursued Christians, that he had a vision, that he never met Jesus personally, that he traveled a lot, that he has some health problem – either physical or psychological, that he lived in celibacy, regarded women as inferior to men but has some sympathy for them. That’s all, I think. Can we trust the Acts? I doubt so. In my opinion Acts are as credible about lives of apostles as Gospels about live of Jesus – in other words, their credibility is hardly above zero.
From 13 “Pauline” Epistles in NT, only 4 are undisputedly regarded as his work: Romans, I and II Corinthians and Galatians. Philippians, I Thessalonians and Philemon are accepted as genuine by most scholars, but there is some dispute. All the rest are generally regarded as forgeries. So, in order to stay on “firm ground” I will use only those first 4 for this discussion. What else those epistles tell us about their author?

1.In his “Greetings” in Romans Paul states quite exactly, how he thinks about Jesus Christ as being the son of God:

See? He did not believe in “virgin birth”. According to Paul, Jesus was ordinary mortal, who was “adopted” by God only after his dead.

2. And what is – according to Paul – the meaning of Jesus’ death?

As I understand that, Paul did not teach that JC died for our sins to be forgiven, but as an example – that to live in sin means death. Nowadays, the above quotation and similar ones are taken literally, but is really what Paul wanted to say? According to my opinion he spoke about spiritual resurrection.

3. What did Paul think about man? Nowadays many Christian schools teach that man is inherently bad. Paul did not think that way:

It is like a story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde! And tell me – was Paul wrong? Of course not! Certainly all of us have “good” intentions but “evil” instincts, and just too often those “evil” instincts take a control over our deeds.

4. Quite often is Paul blamed for anti-Semitism. Well, but he was a Jew, wasn’t he?

Jews are still “roots” to Paul, while gentiles are just “grafted branches”.

5. But yes, there are controversial things in his teachings:

We can only speculate why did he write this – is it genuine? It might be as well an “amendment” of later date. Or did he write on “political order”? Or as an alibi for Roman officials?

6.Although he preferred celibacy, he was rather tolerant:

And what is even more important:

7. And here is my favorite:

If only every Christian would keep this in mind constantly, the world would be a paradise!

So what is the reason of calling Paul antichrist? To me he appears to be a sincere and humble servant of his faith. I do not think we can blame him for the crimes of those who came after him. If somebody deserves the title “antichrist”, then it is Constantine – he most probably never actually converted, but only took Christianity as a handy political tool. And Eusebius was his culprit, his Goebbels, who started with altering truth, inventing “history” etc.

 

Thank you Raha,
That was very informative and a fresh prespective on some of these doctrines.

 

Paul is mentioned in 2 Peter 3 like this:

15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him.
16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

Peter confirms Paul's message in the epistles, and expounds on it. His views don't oppose or contradict Paul's, if they did he would not appeal to Paul's wisdom. Instead, Peter testifies:

16 We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty.
17 For he received honour and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.
18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

That's strange, Iasion makes exactly the opposite claim using the same epistles. Maybe you and him should have a chat and sort things out.

Every author in the New Testament believed Jesus was an ordinary mortal. Even a man by a virgin birth is still a man. Paul believed much more than just a virgin birth would signify, so his not mentioning it is hardly significant. He does call Jesus the "man from heaven", which is strange if he thought Jesus was of natural birth.

Paul's message would not have had any power if it was not based on the crucifiction and death of a real person, but his intent was to point out the spiritual significance and practical application of that knowledge. See for yourself:

1 Cor. 1
13Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?
17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel--not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Paul did not want to start a debate about the details of Jesus as a man, but the significance of what He did - and what "being adopted by God" meant.

22Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles

A spiritual crucifiction or resurrection would have posed no problem to either the Jews or the Greeks. As a metaphysical concept, the Greeks would have made sense of it (it would fit in with Plato's description of types and archetypes), and the Jews would not have worried about him.

Apart from that, in order to believe that Paul taught a "spiritual resurrection", you will have to supply evidence that such a belief was viable. Jesus physical death and physical resurrection informs a spiritual significance, but it can't be the other way around:

1 Corinthians 15
46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

Sin is death, yes, but what did Paul see as sin?

Galatians 5
19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;
20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Oh really? What Paul is saying here is exactly what Christians believe: that we have sinful natures, but can overcome them. THe law points them out, and by submitting to the law we can correct our actions accordingly. But he is clear that it is a mental (and therefore essetially "spiritual") battle:

The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. [the opposite of life, i.e. sin still means death]
9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Gal. 6)

Lastly, does this sound like someone who regards woman as inferior? :

28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. (Eph. 5)

 

Maybe you should offer a cogent response to Iason.

And Jenyar, i.e., the Jenyar-of-the-70-Books and the Jenyar who asserts that Philo referenced Jesus, knows this with his/her typical certainty. Tell me, Jenyar, if this was so clear cut, how did docetism manage such a following?

 

There are certainly many ways how we can understand Pauline Epistles. I presented here my personal opinion and I have no intention to discuss details except one:

from David ACCORDING TO THE FLESH ...and designed Son of God... BY HIS RESURRECTION... - i think this is pretty selfexplanatory....

EDIT:

OK. Also this

That does not need any comments, I think.

 

[3regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.]

You left out: "in power according to the Spirit of holiness". The resurrection made Jesus spiritual position and significance evident. The Spirit of holiness is the one that He entrusted to us - which made those who believed in Him part of Him, and promised them the same life that Jesus was given. Paul speaks about the "Son of God" in other places as well:

Galatians 4:4
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law 5to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Jesus was already God's Son when He was born. The resurrection was confirmation of this - and it served as a sign of our adoption into God's saved "family".

Paul did teach forgiveness of sins - but He also makes clear eactly how our sins are forgiven:

Romans 5:10
For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Romans 8
2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Notice the words: "even as the law says". What was considered proper then differed from our culture now. It wasn't suppression - it was respect and propriety. You and I have become used to Western "emancipated" culture. You know it wasn't always this way, so it's unfair to project it onto these people who had just emerged from a distinctly Eastern one. Ask Flores whether she sees this passage as making women "inferior".

 

As for the "Son of God" question I'll keep my opinion.

This is funny. Read my dispute with Tiassa in "Paul and Josephus" thread and you will see what is funny.

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Are you here, Flores? I would like to here your opinion about that.

 

As you wish. Just realize that it's of no consequence either way since you deny any knowledge Paul might have called upon to make that statement.

I also thought it was funny. I read it just after I posted this. At least we agree on that aspect.

 

I disagree Jenyar. Not only that I can speak out, I can go all out and complain about my own husband and their is a whole Sura in the Quran named she who pleaded in my support. Hell, I can divorce him for any reason including not bearing to be his wife. My god would rather have me divorced than lying to myself and acting wrongly in a marriage that I'm not whole heartedly in.

She Who Pleaded
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

[58.1] Allah indeed knows the plea of her who pleads with you about her husband and complains to Allah, and Allah knows the contentions of both of you; surely Allah is Hearing, Seeing.

 

Thanks, Flores. That is what Paul also says in the passage, and what I wanted Raha to realize. Simply because something sound oppressive to Western ears, that does not mean it is oppressive. It could even be emancipating if you look at the larger context.

While we're on the subject. Can you tell me whether the Quran has provided a more liveable, structured life for people (and women) than used to be the case before Muhammed? Did women have the same rights before the Quran?

 

The Quran merely highlighted the correct path for interacting and stressed equality. Now, whether people excercised this before the Quran came or after the Quran came have no bearing on the Quran. I'm sure there were great people before the Quran came who did the right thing, and that there are equally bad people after the Quran came who don't hesitate to use the words of the Quran to satisfy their evil agendas. Neither the Quran nor the bible, or even a prophet can open people's hearts to the light. Only god with the help of the servant can.

 

In that sense the Bible or Quran are like catalysts in which people's natures will crystallize. I was just curious whether the Quran represented a revolutionary attitude to the one that was generally thought acceptable.