Christianity Before Paul?

  • Thread starter Thread starter TheoloJer
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

TheoloJer

Guest
I was looking at an article by James Tabor on HuffingtonPost (JT wrote ‘The Jesus Dynasty’) and in the article he seems to suggest that the Apostle Paul transformed Christianity and created the teachings that made it what it was today.

I always liked the story of the Apostle Paul-- but I’m not sure how much of Christianity he invented. Earlier this week when I skimmed through one of the NT passages of Matthew and Hebrews, I felt the message was relevant to me.

But as Christians (aside from myself), from an academic viewpoint, how would you respond to the writer’s claims in this article?

Christianity Before Paul

BTW, he released a new book called ‘Jesus and Paul’
 
Well, Saint Paul was instrumental in bringing the faith to non-Jews. And you can say in a very lose sense that he introduced a new doctrine to the Church but this was affirmed by Saint Peter’s vision that Gentiles can be accepted in the Church without making them Jewish first.

Nothing new here, these are all in Acts.
 
Mr. Tabor is not an orthodox Christian. He is one of those who claim that Paul hijacked Christianity and turned it into something completely different than it had previously been. There is, of course, no real evidence for this.
 
Between Mr. Tabor and Saint Paul, one of them does not know what he is talking about. Easy choice.

Paul consulted with the Apostles to ensure that his Gospel accorded with theirs (Galatians 2:1-9).

Next question…
 
That argument is quite prevalent in university religion classes, even ones that display some sort of religious “affiliation”.:mad: Even in a class called “Christianity”. It gets by and impresses the students because so many have not actually read any of the Bible.😦
 
I think that the cultural differences between the peoples that Paul preached to and that James preached to were very pronounced. Paul’s Epistles are somewhat implicit on many ideas that James is quite direct with. I do hope you noticed that the author of this article very summarily discounted Peter as the head of the “Way”. His take on the Eucharist and a few other ideas is very distorted and my thought is he gives Paul much more credit for rituals and ideas than is deserved.
One wonders that if every one of the Apostles would have as many ideas written down if each one would have had their own “Luke” to submit it to the written format.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top