How do you respond to, "Paul Created Christianity"?

[Abundant]

I recently read that many people believe that it was in fact Paul, not Jesus, who started Christianity. They believe that because so much of the New Testament was written by him, it is not the true faith that Jesus taught. How do you respond to this and is there any merit at all to this claim?

Second question: Whatever happened to the church in Jerusalem that was looked over by James after Jesus’ death?

 

[Christ_is_Risen]

Jerusalem still has an Orthodox Patriarch.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Patriarch_of_Jerusalem

As for the claim that Paul “created Christianity” I would remind these individuals that their are 4 Gospels that describe the ministry and teachings of Jesus, and they are free to learn and study those to point out where Paul errs in his theological beliefs when discussing Christ.

Paul is the whipping boy for almost anything and everything people find wrong with Christianity. He is an easy target since his claim of Apostolic Authority came from meeting the resurrected Christ, and because he was a bulldog of orthodoxy, frequently rebuking the Churches of the Gentile world for falling away from the true Gospel.

What is humorous is that people were saying the same things about Paul when he lived too. His relationships with many of the other Apostles were frequently strained and punctuated by disagreement and maybe lost friendships, see Barnabus.

To me, Paul’s witness is some of the strongest proof that Christianity is what it says it is. Saul was a Pharisee on the fast track to importance, he was a Roman citizen, all one must do is read his Epistles to see the sharpness and expansiveness of his mind and soul.

He had no reason to subject himself to a live of imprisonment, torture, living hand to mouth, being rejected and run out of many towns, being called a fool by Jews and Gentile alike, and ultimately suffering martyrdom, unless he believed what he was teaching was the Truth that would set the world free. There was nothing of material gain for him in his missionary work, he did it for Christ, and for us.

 

[pablope]

I recently read that many people believe that it was in fact Paul, not Jesus, who started Christianity. They believe that because so much of the New Testament was written by him, it is not the true faith that Jesus taught. How do you respond to this and is there any merit at all to this claim?

Second question: Whatever happened to the church in Jerusalem that was looked over by James after Jesus’ death?

Show this passages from the Bible:

Galatians 1:18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.

Galatians 2:2 I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.

Now look at Acts 13:
1 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Before Paul and Barnabbas went on their first missionary journey, they had to be ordained first…they had obtained apostolic authority first…Paul going to Jerusalem and meeting the Apostles and then getting ordained at Antioch and being “sent”.

So there was already a church with authority existing in Jerusalem and Antioch before Paul went on his first mission.

 

[MaryT777]

Jerusalem still has an Orthodox Patriarch.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Patriarch_of_Jerusalem

As for the claim that Paul “created Christianity” I would remind these individuals that their are 4 Gospels that describe the ministry and teachings of Jesus, and they are free to learn and study those to point out where Paul errs in his theological beliefs when discussing Christ.

Paul is the whipping boy for almost anything and everything people find wrong with Christianity. He is an easy target since his claim of Apostolic Authority came from meeting the resurrected Christ, and because he was a bulldog of orthodoxy, frequently rebuking the Churches of the Gentile world for falling away from the true Gospel.

What is humorous is that people were saying the same things about Paul when he lived too. His relationships with many of the other Apostles were frequently strained and punctuated by disagreement and maybe lost friendships, see Barnabus.

To me, Paul’s witness is some of the strongest proof that Christianity is what it says it is. Saul was a Pharisee on the fast track to importance, he was a Roman citizen, all one must do is read his Epistles to see the sharpness and expansiveness of his mind and soul.

He had no reason to subject himself to a live of imprisonment, torture, living hand to mouth, being rejected and run out of many towns, being called a fool by Jews and Gentile alike, and ultimately suffering martyrdom, unless he believed what he was teaching was the Truth that would set the world free. There was nothing of material gain for him in his missionary work, he did it for Christ, and for us.

Well said; great post

 

[DavidFilmer]

Before Paul and Barnabbas went on their first missionary journey, they had to be ordained first…they had obtained apostolic authority first…Paul going to Jerusalem and meeting the Apostles and then getting ordained at Antioch and being “sent”.

Spot on! Well said! A post worth bookmarking!

 

[patrick457]

I recently read that many people believe that it was in fact Paul, not Jesus, who started Christianity. They believe that because so much of the New Testament was written by him, it is not the true faith that Jesus taught. How do you respond to this and is there any merit at all to this claim?

I was just reading Larry Hurtado’s blog a while back. Larry Hurtado, if you don’t know him, is one of biblical scholars who are advocating what is called early high Christology - in other words, the idea that ‘high Christology’ (which focuses more on the divinity of Jesus) is not something that only developed later as some people would claim, but is something already present even among the first generations of Christians.

In a blog post Hurtado (in the context of an observation of the controversial Morton Smith) pointed out the fact that that we have no evidence in Paul’s letters about any Christological differences with other Christians (say, the ones in Jerusalem). His silence is conspicuous because when he had differences with some other early Christian leaders Paul does not hesitate to indicate what they were. One of the pillars of the idea that Paul ‘founded’ Christianity is that the view of Jesus he held and advertised to his gentile converts - which became the basis for the Christology of later Christians - was radically different from the one that the original Jewish followers of Jesus back in Jerusalem held.

 

[patrick457]

Second question: Whatever happened to the church in Jerusalem that was looked over by James after Jesus’ death?

Short answer: the Church in Jerusalem, while it was (obviously) the ‘mother church’ and while it did have some measure of authority for the first couple of decades, had lost its ‘importance’ due to the events between AD 70 (the fall of Jerusalem) and AD 135 (the end of the Bar Kochba revolt, when the emperor Hadrian expelled all Jews from the city): without a visible entity to speak with authority, its respected position as a guide would begin to fade.

Part of the reason why the Jerusalem Church never recovered fully after AD 70 was due in part to the loss of the Temple. When the Temple still stood, Jewish Christians from the diaspora would have frequently visited the city and will have at least helped to maintain the influence of the see of Jerusalem and a sense of its role as the center of Christian movement for many Jewish and probably even many gentile Christians.

Also, Hadrian’s expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem (now renamed Aelia Capitolina as part of his campaign to erase any traces of the Jews from Palestine) meant that the Jerusalem Church effectively became gentile: the first bishops of Jerusalem were “of the circumcision” (not to mention that some of them were the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Jesus’ ‘brothers’ - the desposynoi), but after AD 135, non-Jewish Christians took on the episcopal see. That doesn’t mean every Jewish Christian left Jerusalem (especially since Jews and Christians were now distinguished from each other), although those who still identified themselves as ‘Jews’ and practiced Jewish customs would have departed for other cities.

The ‘mother church’ in Jerusalem was so weakened and decentralized that later Christians no longer paid much deference to it. When the idea of the Pentarchy was introduced around the 6th century, Jerusalem was named as one of the five major sees (alongside Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria), but this was more of a ceremonial position in light of the city’s importance in biblical and early Christian history than a practical one.