When you describe Paul, it realllly sounds like Joseph Smith. Jesus kinda sounds like Miller of the Seventh Day Adventist, but Paul and Smith sound like they are playing out of the same book.
Paul talks about getting arrested and getting his ass beat all the time but he never says what the charges were. It's very reminiscent of Joseph Smith who was also constantly in trouble with the law for committing a laundry list of crimes (including terrorism and rape), but if you read LDS literature he was "persecuted" and say the charges were false but they won't say what the charges WERE. I have long concluded that Paul was a Joseph Smith style grifter and con-artist. I don't believe he really even had any visions of Jesus any more than Oral Roberts saw a 900 foot Jesus. Even before Christianity it was a pretty common grift to claim to have seen or received instructions from gods just like i is now. Paul looks and talks exactly like a televangelist.
@@durrangodsgrief6503have you ever read the list of bible figures Joey Smith claims to have met in his often redacted "First Vision"? We do not gave anything close to first drafts of either Paul's epistles nor the acts...
It is just like Joseph smith. Now you just need to realize that the creeds changed Christianity. The primitive church was established by Adam. Adam and Eve were baptized. Just like Christ. You can't go to heaven without it. The apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, the kolbrin, the book of Mormon all teach the original teachings. Jesus quotes the apocrypha multiple times and the new testament talks about doctrine that is only in those other books not I'm the Bible. So was Jesus making things up that we don't have in the new or old testament? Don't fall into the trap of thinking there was one unified Jewish tradition that turned into Christianity. So many things in the Bible seem to be out of place until you actually look at the other texts and sources. The catholic church has been apostate since peter died. The old testament doesn't even mention Christ. But the apocrypha does.
Was raised Church of Christ and my grandparents sent me to a church of Christ private school from 4th grade to graduation,so I know the shit out of the Bible. Even in middle school I was always trying to get the adults to explain why so much of it made no sense and contradicted itself. Of course I never got an answer. The part about Paul writing most of the New Testament wasn't talked about very much. Sure we all knew much of it were correspondence between Paul and various groups but the emphasis was on it being "inspired by God". All that being said I do still read the Bible, but I just ignore everything except the moral instruction attributed to Jesus, so "them red letters". I don't know if he was a real person, was indeed the son of God or if there is one to begin with but those very specific parts of the Bible in my estimation contain morality that's flawless. It's not exactly complex and some of it is obvious but that's kind of the beauty of it. As a side note I want to tell you how many times Jesus said being homosexual was a sin. Exactly zero. Not once. The "God hates f@gs" part is in the Old Testament, which says it's an abomination but the Old Testament is an abomination for my money and Yahweh is an a$$hole. It's odd that some Christians fixate on that one "sin" since again, Jesus never talked about it. He did talk about adultery though but I've never seen any Christian standing outside the office of a divorce lawyer holding a sign that says "Adulterers should burn in h_ll!"
I don't think anybody who has thoroughly read the New Testament, can say that the religion that Jesus was promoting, and Paul's promotion of his religion, were one in the same.
Jesus created the concept of Faith in God, falowing the law of Love and Truth, reviving humans constiensness. Paul created a religion Paul has one merit : He introduced Jesus to the gentiles, further than the apostles did. But he crossed the line...He also spoke Greek and Latin,he also knew to write. That was a huge help
I met someone many years ago who completely disavowed Paul's letters as being biblical canon. It lead to an interesting dichotomy in his theology, which was almost completely focused on what Jesus specifically, supposedly said, while basically ignoring Paul's influence on early Christianity. Not just because he disavowed his letters, but in general. He basically disliked the character of Paul. More or less.
I knew a Christian many years ago (when I was still a beleiver) who was taught their faith almost entirely bereft of the Pauline letters. They were part of a splinter group that believed they were part of a remnant from the "lost tribes of Israel". So their teachings largely ignored Paul's epistles in favor of the gospels (and perhaps the book of James).
@@euraquilo That sounds a lot like this guy. Including the addition of the book of James. I seem to recall him being quite smitten with the idea of "Show me your faith without works and I'll show you mine by what I do."
I'm the same way. I never liked Paul very much for the Anti-gay stuff. I believe he went beyond what was written and that Jesus and became lost in fanaticism and arrogance like my uncle. I believe Jesus made Gay and Trans people equal to everyone else, and how we treat them as our human brothers is how we treat Jesus. Homosexuality is natural and so is being Trans. The only abberant sexualities are nonconsentual like pedophilia, violation and animal abuse. The Gospel of Thomas implies that He can make you gay or Trans if you want to be in Heaven.
@@MossyMozart Well, yes, there is that. Personally, I'm not allowed to be using any electronic media whilst working, but then again, I don't work in an office.
“We know Paul didn’t invent Christianity because Paul said it existed before him” has to be the laziest argument I’ve seen on this channel. Theres no way this guy can be lying because he says he’s not a liar 😅
To be fair, saying “Paul invented Christianity” is both a rather bold but also reckless statement to make. I think it’s better to frame it in a way that captures Jesus and the rest of the apostle’s integral role in founding certain teachings while recognizing Paul plays the pivotal role in determining the character (institutional nature) of Christianity and certain theological developments as well as its reach to the gentiles. Saying “Paul invented Christianity” is far too misleading and lends itself easily to refutations advanced by Christians and scholars alike.
@@AbstractMan1 what were the other apostle’s “integral role” in founding Christianity? You have a handful of letters claiming to be from John and Peter and literally nothing else from any of the other claimed disciples of Jesus. They have no role in Christianity. We know nothing about what they believed or didn’t believe. Hell we don’t even have evidence they existed. So it’s hard to claim the apostles had an integral role in founding Christianity when you have basically nothing from any of them.
@@AbstractMan1 The Gospels were written AFTER Paul's letters. We don't know ANYTHING about the Jesus, and there are several Christos around attested at the time by other people. As far as we can tell, the stories were written AFTER Paul and to fit in with what PAUL said happened. In what way is saying "Paul is the central figure to modern Christianity" "reckless"??? There were Gnostics. Not Christians recognised today. There were sects that were STILL called Christians, but were stamped out by Paul's teachings calling them heretical. About all you could say against it is that Paul almost certainly wasn't a trinitarian.
@@AbstractMan1In that he extended it to the gentiles and declared himself the living conduit he invented Christianity as distinct from the Jewish sect that believed in some version of Jesus as prophet
@@brianbrennan5600 I think more than that, the Peter elements called several OTHER sects heretical or even entirely wrong to teach, and those were stamped out. That this took till 300+CE means that it took several people to firm Chrisitanity as strictly Pauline ideology (12thC to 17thC were many other heresies, but all based the paul-based bible that we know today), and even to modern evangelicals but since secular law didn't allow offing heretics that got curbed. The fixing of the bible to the canonical bible, most of which was Pauline derived, see the selection of what books would get included AND EXCLUDED from it, that took really until the 500sCE just shows that it still took many generations to call "a single bible" (while we still have several other Christian Bibles that have a different set of books included in it, but were so distant that it wasn't tenable to war with them).
So if Paul possibly made up the story of Jesus, couldn't he have also just made up his persecution of Christians? It would just be the backstory in a fictional story.
Or just overstating in the manner known to be common to Christians, cf Augustine and every well-behaved PK who tells of the time before they accepted Jesus and cries because they were such a depraved four-year-old or something
Wow I think I got hacked. Paul did not make up the story of Jesus. Jesus is mentioned by Josephus the Jewish historian. People lost their lives because they wouldn't recant seeing Jesus resurrected. And the amount of people who became Christians in spite of the fact that they were being persecuted proves that Jesus existed.
Paul's 'persecution' of the ecclesia had been nothing more than verbal opposition to Nosrim in the Damascus synagogue. There had been no authority for him to have done anything more.
The early churches collected money for poor people. Then Paul collected that money... Where did the money go, ???😮 Maybe Traveling was expensive?... Paul, before Damascus rode vision (Jerusalem had no jurisdiction over Damascus)... How could he bring those Christens to Jerusalem, on foot, 250 mi, for 3 weecks, food and shelter... Where did he go, after his vision about Jesus? Where in Arabia, also, got food and shelter... He did not tell anything about how did he learn about Jesus's teaching, if any...( it's preaching does not coincide entirely to that of Jesus's... ) He brought many elements fom Greek philosophy... We know he created discord among disciples... Question and more questions... 😮 @tribequest9
@@tribequest9 Its a turn of phrase for when you are accruing debt in one area to deal with it in another. In example you take a loan out with your bank to pay off a credit card. It is also used when you steal time or effort from one area to make up with shortcomings somewhere else. For instance, you pull an all-nighter getting a report done Sunday night for a monday morning meeting, then you spend the rest of the week going home early, but reporting a full day on your time card to make up for it.
@@tribequest9It means to steal money from one person (Peter) in order to pay a debt to another (Paul). You’ve just traded one debt for another. The phrase likely originated in the Middle Ages when Peter and Paul were well known figures in Christianity.
@@TEPMOBETEP So are you saying that Jesus was ignorant that oral tradition creates inaccuracies or that any peoples he did not directly interact with should question his existence and his way?
@@Mosz to be honest i am baffled, how from my short comment you pulled out "i am saying Jesus was ignorant on "insert whatever wild conclusion you can come up with" ...". Nothing like that even remotely there, you are seeking for straws to pull, and inflate those straws into a tree trunk. That is dishonest beheavior, to say the least. And you got the written tradition, but, apparently, for original commenter that is not enough. He thinks New Testament should have been written by Jesus, and it can't have any value if it is written any other way. But it is there - the "written tradition". But you don't want to accept it, say it is Paulian or whatever. There are different authors in NT, not only Paul. And teachings of Paul actually line up with even the OT, but in "perfected" way, as Jesus was revealing perfected law of marriage, perfected view of the sin of adultery and murber and so on
@@TEPMOBETEP That's not the point of this statement. How do we actually know what someone else wrote about what Jesus thought or believed is actually what Jesus himself thought or believed? It doesn't have to be about lying or anything it can have just been an honest mistake of misunderstanding what someone said or meant by what they said.
@@terrencelockett4072 ok, fair, but what was the incentive for Paul and Peter and other people to lie? Just to suffer for the sake of spreading lies? We can honestly question "was this realy what Jesus taught?". But are you questioning that much what is written on your medicine? Are you questioning that much every field of science? Or you choose to say "probably, Einstein was right, let's follow his logic and work to prove it right or wrong". I've read the bible a couple of times, and at least, i can say teachings of Jesus and His desciples line up with what is written in numerous books of prophets in the bible in OT, long before time of NT. About repentance, about God wanting to see a purity of heart in people and so on. To be honest what Jesus said in the gospels (you mught say "allegedly") is nothing new. But He raised the bar quite high, and, if you try to apply to the OT what was revealed/explained by Jesus, you would see, God had His intent for humans the same from the beginning. Jesus is just the key to all of it. And with Jesus we have revelation for purpose of human life. And it is divine. And it is the hardest thing for every man. So yeah, that claim "christianity is invented by "insert name"" is just from ignorance of people. I can quote dozens of verses preaching about repentance from OT. The main claim of Jesus is that He is Messiah - and His life lines up with prophesies about Messiah. And there are too much prophecies to ignore
Ironically, it was studying Joseph Smith that I was better able to understand the birth of Christianity. 1) Apocalyptic prophet says the final judgement is at hand. He dies. 2) Followers say prophet is risen and will return to save this generation at the final judgement. They die. 3) Second generation of Christians say that Jesus will return and defeat the evil Roman Empire even though Christians are suffering. Roman Empire becomes Christian. 4) Christianity becomes a religion of preparing for end of world and always have a failed track record of success.
Re: last supper ritual. Paul's report of the split after the Jerusalem conference is different from the story told in Acts. If the other side of the argument had their chance to explain what happened, would their side of Galatians 2:11-21 include a realization that Paul was spreading a false account of what happened to Jesus the night before he died?
They constantly make the mistake of saying Paul is pulling from the Gospels when the chronology is that the Gospels must be pulling from him. (Or at absolute most, both from the same sources. But that doesn’t really fit with him having revelations. Revelations implies that he was the source [even if you believe that he really was divinely inspired.]) If I write a book about Harry Potter today, that agrees heavily with the books written by Rowling, nobody is going to buy that I’m writing down the true events that I witnessed or were told to me by witnesses (40 years prior). They’ll correctly state that I stole the idea.
Wow great insight on the origin of the last super. Never thought it might not be from oral tradition but from pauls personal experiences, just makes sense.
May I suggest you read the passage in the epistles. From memory it doesn't say anything about a last supper. It's the ghost of Jesus asking to be remembered when we eat or drink. There's no table with a dozen disciples. There's no last supper till the gospel authors start getting creative a couple of generations later.
@@maxonmendel5757right. Still no last supper. He was betrayed. Okay. What supper? We already know "Mark" is using Paul's letters to write his gospels. Mark is the one who turns it into a last supper.
@@maxonmendel5757 What do you mean by words of institution? And just another thing, in Mark's yarn the last supper is before JC is betrayed not after. Mark had JC doing his bread and wine thing during super, not before and after supper as Paul states.
Eating gods is pretty common; we have it is the Dionysos religion and in the Osiris religion. Having meals for the gods was practically everywhere in the greek-roman world. The story about Iesous is so filled with greek story elements and troupes.
Most fiction takes place in a world the reader understands. That’s why the train in Harry Potter leaves from king’s cross station. I would not describe Harry Potter as a mix of truth and fiction.
@@whysoserious8666I refuse to believe there's a vigilante that dresses like the devil and beats up crime lords. But a dorky kid from Queens becoming a red and blue entertainer who switches to helping people, fighting costumed crooks, and is married to a redheaded supermodel? Totally believable lol
Paul founded the religion. He wrote stuff down and Jesus wrote nothing and was dead and gone. Later some anonymous Greek writers made up stories to help Paul with the Gentiles. Amen
To round out the religion by writing 3rd view accounts of Jesus’ life saying the opposite of Paul so anyone could be attracted and ensnared in the money-collecting/money-hiding religion.
Historians in general depend on the people who took notes, and just like getting information off the internet, it is a challenge to know which source is trustworthy.
But also others do that ; Matthew claims that (and out of Egypt I called my son) applies to Jesus although the complete verse says the opposite (When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.)
Using the "nobody said 'oh no you didn't ' logic to stand Paul's writings is like saying USA is an empire because after emperor Joshua Norton the first self proclamation in san Francisco ,no one told him oh no you're not
it also ignores the fact that lots of writings have been destroyed by the church over the centuries. That in of of itself is a strong indicator that such arguments are terrible.
"even if you think Acts may have been biased" - you have to laugh - it's not that i think it's basically a historical account with some bias. I think that it's a legendary tale. It's a founding mythology for the early church, written in the context of Pauline Christianity, specifically to establish it's legitimacy and continuity with the earliest followers of Jesus.
Dan from QC is making the assumption that the gospels report Jesus' teachings accurately. In reality, we cannot know the details of how Jesus taught, so it remains speculative how closely Paul's teachings relate to him
As most "Christians" do refer to PAUL'S information and rules and not to JESUS' the question who started the show is less important than "who made it popular and left lasting impact on it" ;)
He’s pretty much the main character in the book of acts even though it’s supposed to be the acts of the apostles plural no one but him and Peter get any play in that book - every other apostles acts somehow is lost to history.
I wrote a list of where Paul contradicts Jesus at least 34 times when I was leaving (Pauline) Christianity about a decade ago. Trying to share it with fellow Christians was frustrating and fruitless, but made me realise how little of their actual faith was based on Jesus. (I'm not a Christian anymore, but still admire some of the philosophy of Jesus, and wish it could be reclaimed from the Paul-ites).
I feel like in many ways Paul innovated the high Christology and importance of Jesus's death as ushering in a new era, and the gospel writers mostly worked backwards from there. Even so, Jesus had quite different political goals than Paul in the gospels, and Jesus was likely concerned with restoring the Davidic monarchy and driving out the legion of Roman pigs occupying his homeland. Paul, by contrast, seems fully unconcerned with Roman political domination, and if the later parts of the epiatle to the Romans are genuine, was much in favor of assimilation and not opposing Roman imperial demands. There's also all the exorcisms and healings in the synoptics, fully ignored by Paul. That's a slightly odd element probably borrowing from other legends entirely. The primary connection between the ideas of Jesus and Paul seems to be apocalypticism, but it doesn't even clearly mean the same thing to both of them. Does Paul ever even mention the Danielic "Kebar Enash" or One Like the Son of Man? I don't think he does, but it's a central part of Jesus's teaching -- even if sometimes SoM seems to mean Jesus himself, and sometimes not. This apologist asserting Paul and Jesus had the same philosophies or goals at all seems contrary to the text, even given the overlap between 1 Cor, Romans, and Mark. Anyways, good stuff as usual, Paulogia. Always like hearing from Dr. Walsh. Cya around.
Great Video. I think it is hard to argue that without Paul there wouldn't be a global Christian faith today. Without Paul, Jesus would be as popular today as Aulus of Motya. You haven't heard of Aulus of Motya? Exactly.
It’s hard to argue? That seems a post hoc reasoning to me. How do you prove that Christianity would not have grown anyway? As dr. Walsh explains in the video, Paul wasn’t very successful in his lifetime. He founded a bunch of churches (a couple of hundred people?)and that’s it. By his own account there were many other apostles going around spreading the teachings of Jesus and the large and influential church in Rome was already well established BEFORE he went there. The reason paul became a very influential figure in Christianity is because he was the first one to put down something in writing. Imo that alone is not reason enough for Christianity becoming global. That happened because the religion ended up getting adopted by two of the most influential empires in the history of the world: the Roman Empire and the British empire. Oh, and I was forgetting the Spanish empire.
@@pansepot1490 You should read up on what a Post Hoc fallacy is before claiming I am guilty of it. The fallacy is when two events are in succession and no causal connection is demonstrated. A common example is: The rooster crowed, and the sun rose; therefore, the rooster caused the sunrise. Paul is attributed to 14 of the 27 books in the New Testament. He was not a rooster crowing in the morning but he was actively working to achieve an end. He was working toward a cause. Your argument would be like claiming that The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando) probably would have happened regardless of whether or not JK Rowling ever wrote the Harry Potter books. Did you know that Rowling modeled her Harry Potter after her childhood friend and neighbor Ian Potter? So even if Jesus were a historical figure it shows that fictional stories told about an actual person can transform and become known and followed on a global scale in a short period of time.
He was an itinerant preacher in the first century who some say performed miracles and was the messiah. But the stories about him never really caught on and they died out soon after his death. Some say he was the actual Messiah and that Jesus is a false prophet who lucifer worked to popularize so that humans wouldn't learn about Aulus of Motya. And some would say I just made the guy up to show how easy it is to do.
@@pansepot1490And the early Christians were able to spread “the so-called gospel” because of the fact that the Romans had organized their government so well throughout the Empire.
Whether or not an individual that was Jesus actually existed, Paul (who never knew Jesus while he lived) created and formed the largest portion that became Christian doctrine.
Here's the Paul questions I want to see answered: Do his ideas make up a significant portion of the NT because they were the very best possible ideas? Or was it because Paul was highly educated and was very talented at crafting letters, while other less literate orators were lost to time? Also, what about all the letters that must have been lost in the 300 years (longer than the US has been a country!) between Paul's writings and the assembly of the first canonical Bible? What was in those letters that we should have known about?
Over a hundred years ago, the German Historian/Theologian published a series of lectures as a book, "What is Christianity?" where he argues that we don't have Christianity, we have Paulinity
Yes indeed. That whole, _believe in my death & resurrection as redemption for your sins, if you want "salvation"_ idea, came entirely from Paul, and not Jesus.
@@moodyrick8503 It didn't come from Jesus, but most scholars don't see it as coming from Paul either. Paul elaborated on it and added the idea that at least for Gentiles, this new covenant replaced the Torah Law, but there's no reason to think from Paul's writing that the other apostles and James, Peter and John in particular hadn't already developed the idea of faith in Jesus's death and resurrection as redemption for sin. It's easy to see that emerging very quickly in response to their Messiah's death and it's hard to see the movement spreading at all without some such explanation for the Messiah's ignominious death. We might credit Jesus with the inspiration, one of those 3, likely Peter, with the real creation of Christianity and then Paul with starting it growing from a Jewish sect to a new different religion.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I can't find any large surveys of Biblical scholars regarding a consensus about who they believe _created Christianity._ (citation required) And since we can't ask Paul any questions, and approx half of his alleged writings are considered forgeries, I don't believe confirmation is possible. But given that Paul *never met the living Jesus,* and only claimed to have interacted with the ghost/spirit of Jesus, I see no reason why he should be taken seriously. After all, how many people in the last 2000 yrs have claimed to have gotten _messages from Jesus ?_ *(nothing special & entirely mundane)*
@@moodyrick8503 I'd say you can't find such surveys because "who they believe created Christianity" isn't a meaningful question. Look into where they think various ideas come from and how the theology developed.
Can we get some guidance on how to properly practice Paulianity? Is there a minimum number of Star Wars references we need to inject into casual conversation each day?
*Hardly Unique ;* (entirely mundane) How many people in the last 2,000 yrs, have claimed to have gotten _messages from Jesus ?_ (Paul : I'll tell you the words & wishes of Jesus) _First come, first serve ?_ lol
I mean, simplifying a bit, if one in good faith accepts the evidence we have, Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew who thought the world was about to end. As in, in a few years from when he was alive. And he preached to prepare for that, to seek forgiveness from God and to forget the earthly stuff and get ready to move on. I'd argue that if one goes where the evidence leads, it's pretty clear that Jesus was not planning for a new religion that would span thousand of years.
No, we have many preachers. Not "Jesus was an apocalyptic priest", we have "there were many apocalyptic priests". So, for example, not one saw a Biblical Jesus. None of them saw a resurrection bodily, there was no Thomas poking holes, etc. But some followed one priest, and they garnered many stories that were told. Others followed a different priest. Etc. And so dozens of stories, all of different priests, were then smooshed into several stories, some became apocrypha, some got canonised and some did not get written down.
Paul's complete lack of interest in anything Jesus said or did (he doesn't quote from him, never references any of the events of his life) is striking. It's almost like the stories in the gospels didn't exist yet - or they did, and Paul just didn't care. No other possible options.
22:00 You should speak to David Litwa (if you haven't already) about his book "Late Revelations" which is about the dating of the Gospels. He dates them to the 2nd Century in their canonical forms and says that dating them to the first century is just polite convention not grounded in actual evidence. If there is a range of possible dates, mainstream scholars tend to assume the earliest possible dates ad hoc without really demonstrating why the earliest possible dates should be preferred over latest possible dates.
Am I the only person who can't remember evangelicals calling the multi-books of the bible things like "One Corinthians" before Trump did it? I mean, I grew up in a pretty fundamental church, and it was "First Corinthians" then. It feels like a super subtle (ish) adaptation to the evangelical poster fascist.
Trump has shown himself to be clueless about the Bible. Not only has he not read it he is likely unable to read such dense text. His security briefings had to be condensed to one page and even then he couldn't pay attention.
It's actually very common in British English to say "One" instead of "First" for biblical books - but Trump got made fun of a lot as it was not common in the US.
2:15 this was actually the tipping point of my devonstruction where I realised I was no longer a Christian. I reasoned that if the original teachings of Jesus (and the elusive church leader James, from Acts 15) weren't what the church had inherited for teaching, then God clearly wasn't in charge of things.
@@pineapplepenumbra Scientology was a bar bet. The person starting wasn't delusional. He bet he could make more money starting a religion than from writing Science Fiction.
It’s amazing the variety of groups I’ve stumbled across in the Torah movement (Torah Christians, Messianic Jews, Hebrew Israelites, and many fringe groups that don’t fit into any of these three categories) that will either denounce or uphold Paul’s teachings as canon. It’s mostly the fringe groups that denounce the epistles, but you can see clearly how differently the Bible is read by different groups if you compare them to one another.
To be fair, I'd argue that Paul's version of Christianity is the one that became prevalent. There were other Christian groups that were labeled "heretics". Regardless I think it's rather a bold statement to say Paul invented Christianity🙂
@@NA-vz9ko there was never one "Christianity", there were ranges from Jewish Christians to Pagan to platonic and so on, though there is a large overlap between Joseph Smith and Paul, there are still differences in circumstances and cultural context. That's what I acknowledging, I know it's way easier to just equate Paul to Joseph but they were not the same people. That's all I'm saying
@@stephenolan5539 Philo of Alexandria comes to mind, he mentions a form of trinity: Father, Logos and Sophia. The idea was around as far as I can tell. I'm unsure with Paul, I don't know enough to have a definite answer, but the version of trinity in 3 person 1 God was a result of philosophical discussions over time.
When he asked if Paul invented Christianity and immediately you went “I did not” it freaking sent me to the floor laughing. I was not expecting that from you
I sincerely love how there is a cottage industry growing up around Bart Ehrman and likeminded scholars, and that they’re delivering something of value to the public.
When Dr. Walsh says that she thinks that neither Paul nor Jesus envisaged a religious movement outside of Judaism, this is why I remain convinced that Paul saw his mission as one to the Jewish Diaspora, having been one himself, and not to the non-Jewish population of the circum-Mediterranean world. These Jews had ignored much of Torah law as a product of living amongst the 'pagans', so the argument was whether these Jews had to return to Torah law before becoming part of the Jesus Movement. Paul said no, the Jerusalem Group said yes. The term 'Gentile' is either a mistranslation or misunderstanding of what Paul was doing. Obviously, the Jesus Movement eventually did spread beyond Judaism into non-Jewish or 'Gentile' society, which seems to have been credited back to Paul's ministry. I also agree with Dr. Walsh that we should be careful of judging Paul as a success, when his own writings portray some considerable difficulties amongst the Jesus Groups he founded in some of the synagogues of the Diaspora. By the time he writes Romans, it sounds like he had given up on the Eastern groups where he had been considerably undermined and rejected, and was hoping to get a fresh start in Rome and points westward. As usual, however, he couldn't keep his mouth shut even in the heart of the Empire with hs talk of a Messiah who was greater than all earthly rulers, which got him thrown into prison then beheaded.
Paul wanted to bring everyone else in, but he envisioned the Jews (like himself) being essentially the priestly class, and in control of things. Then it all kinda got out of hand, as things often do..
Some key takeaways I got: 1st, it's possible and even likely that the gospel authors used Paul's letters as sources. That's mind blowing to me. Second, Paul the Pharisee had to gate keep the Orthodoxy against many heresies. Third, the term Christianity could have simply referred to any messianic sect of Judaism that had a Messiah claiment, and doesn't inevitably refer to one with Jesus as a Messiah claiment. I haven't had my mind blown like this in a while. After years of looking into this it was seeming like there weren't a lot of new angles or major insights left.
Yep, and also Paul even mentions that there were already fake letters in his name during his lifetime. How do we really know that the genuine ones were chosen or that the fake ones were all left out of the NT?
@@VeridicusMaximus we already know that several fake letters of Paul (pseudepigraphic epistles) were included in the cannon. But yeah, with Paul admitting that people have been writing letters in his name to change doctrine, and saying that God will send unbelievers a strong delusion so they will believe lies and stay out of heaven, and saying that we are predestined to paradise or destruction, and all the times it says Satan is ruler of earth, etc, how can any Christian think they know or can be sure if anything at all?
All early Christian groups considered each other heretics, there was constant infighting from the minute Jesus's ascension. There are several places in the NT that show examples of different sects teaching different and contradictory theologies.
At least we know that the letters of Paul were actually written by someone, whether or not this person actually did all the things in the letters is really anybody's guess. Jesus on the other hand 🙄....
The gospels were actually written by someones as well. All these documents record the beliefs of those christians at the time of their writings and give us insight into the evolution and disagreements in that belief.
Interestingly Bible scholars believe that we can only be confident that Paul wrote 7 of the 13 ‘Pauline’ epistles. Three other letters _might_ be Paul’s work, but differ enough from the 7 that there’s doubt. It’s possible that those differences could have been caused because Paul didn’t write them himself, but dictated them to a scribe. And the scribe substituted some of his own phrases and vocabulary for what Paul had dictated. Three other letters are pretty clear forgeries. Or, as Bible scholars delicately call it, pseudepigrapha. This was first proposed by German scholars in the 19th century, and later analysis has confirmed their work. Even though this has been well known and widely accepted among Bible scholars, for some reason it isn’t common knowledge. For more details, search Wikipedia for “Pauline epistles”.
Title actually had me wondering if this was about a gospel of Paulogia. At least, it would have, if I didn't know that Paul had been working with Bart, and Bart was involved in a conference on the importance of Paul.
No. Insanity is the ability to firmly hold onto a belief without sufficient evidence, whereas Christianity is the ability to firmly hold onto a belief without sufficient evidence. Wait. Sounds very similar.
Jebus was as much of a real person as Peter Parker is. Sure, theres variations on the comics but they all claim Spider-Man got his powers from a radioactive spider, he saves people, and his uncle ben was sacrificed to teach him that with great power comes great responsibility.
Paul wasn’t a _disciple_ of Jesus. But “Apostle” just means “one who is sent off”, i.e. an emissary. And Paul decided to send himself off to teach non-Jews about Jesus. So in that sense, he is an apostle.
The real reason why Paul doesn't seem to care for The Historical Jesus™ is that he is crafting his own Jesus out of whole cloth! That's why Paul invented Christianity.
Ever since I was first taught the Pauline doctrine, I wondered: By what authority does a Hallucinating Jew have the right to contradict Christ's teachings. Short answer: Paul has no authority. Ignore him. Long answer: Watch this video and smile.
Well see, those answers are the _sensible_ answers. The cultish answer is entirely different: the right he has is that he made up his own version and convinced people his New!(tm) and Improved!(tm)(c)(r) formula was better and a bunch of easily-manipulated sheep mindlessly went the way he barked. This happens _all the time_ in cults. I forget her name, but there was this one prophetess who gained a rather large following and a handful of apprentice con-artist understudies. She eventually got supplanted by one of her own, another "prophetess" who started making extra ridiculous claims and who shaved off her own portion of suckers. Starting spin-off cults is a *business model.* Always has been. So that's where they get their authority from: the way the cults are set up, _anybody_ can start their own, because it's all baseless bullshit and if cults didn't allow for randos to put their own spin on things the cults would die out with their founders and utterly vanish.
Without Paul, Christianity would be only for Jrws. So there's that. You also have to deal with the fact that the catholics tended to destroy any heretical teachings so very little is left that doesn't agree.
@@Jcs57 Agreed (Assuming your question is rhetorical). Prima facie, none of the bible is anything more than plagiarism, fabrication and a heck of a lot of imagination. Of course, this will not deter theists. Believers will bend over backwards to cherry-pick whatever they want, as long as it does not inconvenience their lifestyle.
"I did not" in the first 30 seconds got a genuine laugh out loud and a comment. Thanks, Paulogia... and now back to our previously scheduled programming.
The US founding fathers were British citizens.... -Yet they started a new country. But I agree that the Palestinian carpenter's son who got in trouble with the law, probably never imagined that his story would become a religion.
@@graydanerasmussen4071Except that doesn't correlate. A better allegory would be the founding fathers being British citizens but the next generation of American British like William Burr or John Quincy Adams starting the country and writing books about the founders that put their own ideas into their mouths.
Always awesome content! I get more than an occasional kick when a rabid apologist has to perform a hyper flexible mental contortion to make historical points fit into a particular rationalized narrative they just need to have made.
On the contrary, he was the first to do that withing the context of Judaism Also, assuming malice is never the right thing to do imo, it is very likely that he sincerely believed what he said he believed, even if he made it all up in his mind, even if those visions were just dreams, because ancient people genuinely believed in stuff like that
having been through church splits, I can't imagine that everything went smoothly for early christianity. there probably was doctrinal disputes and structural conflicts.
I like this theory and i think it is cohesive with a lot of the christian counter claims to falsification. It also is reflected in many other divinity stories. Ocram's razor here is just flashing bright. The real question though is how compatible is it with the leading theory of the the "minimal witnesses?"
If you replace the word faith with compassion, as Paul defined in Galatians, a lot of things make sense. Paul said that faith is only shown through compassion. So "by compassion and compassion alone" is a better interpretation of Paul's early thinking. See Luke 10: 25-37 to see an extreme example of what this looks like.
Robin speaks to the important, and mostly ignored question… how does a movement expecting an immanent apocalypse transition to a structured organization
An interesting question is whether Paul understood what was going on with Peter's "hypocrisy" Were the men who were sent by James revoking an agreement between the two groups? Peter may have broken off fellowship for this reason.
So Christian’s worship Paul’s teachings. Not Christ. Jesus only commanded two things: Love your neighbor Love your god. That’s it. No hell, no church, no tithe.
While alluded to, there was apparently a power struggle between the early apostles evident in the Catholic/ Protestant rift. Paul breaks from the Apostolic succession of Peter as he never saw the bodily Christ. Revelation became just as important as direct contact. As such, reliance on the papal lineage becomes moot, and the spiritual authority, and perhaps even necessity, of a church is lessened. To paraphrase the Gospel of Thomas, look unnder a stone and I will be there.
I am a little confused. If we're saying the gospels were an attempt to make something else/better out of Paul's writings, and that Paul got all of his "information" about Jesus from his "visions", then: we're advocating for mysticism?
Great episode. Talk of 'founders' is misguided since neither Jesus or Paul saw themselves as founders of a new religion. Granted Christianity evolved from there so its worth focusing on that but - and she raises 2 good questions - 1 Paul gets more credit since we have his writings but these and gospel writing hint at the differences in the early followers who "founded" what became the orthodoxy. But there are a whole of other responses too - so why should we accept the just what became canon as the one true response. I mean I don't have skin in this game but would seem worth giving us the scope of responses to Jesus and not just accepting the canonised version. Not sure if you have done anything on this or knows someone who has?
"Did Paul invent Christianity?"
"I did not."
😂😂😂
I laughed out loud.
Got to appreciate a short video sometimes.
That's a good one!!😂😂😂
@@freddan6fly I did too, almost a spit take!
*mic drop*
When you describe Paul, it realllly sounds like Joseph Smith.
Jesus kinda sounds like Miller of the Seventh Day Adventist, but Paul and Smith sound like they are playing out of the same book.
@Falling_Doc Yup. It clicked for me listening to this.
Paul talks about getting arrested and getting his ass beat all the time but he never says what the charges were. It's very reminiscent of Joseph Smith who was also constantly in trouble with the law for committing a laundry list of crimes (including terrorism and rape), but if you read LDS literature he was "persecuted" and say the charges were false but they won't say what the charges WERE. I have long concluded that Paul was a Joseph Smith style grifter and con-artist. I don't believe he really even had any visions of Jesus any more than Oral Roberts saw a 900 foot Jesus. Even before Christianity it was a pretty common grift to claim to have seen or received instructions from gods just like i is now. Paul looks and talks exactly like a televangelist.
@Falling_Doc yet he met the apostles
@@durrangodsgrief6503have you ever read the list of bible figures Joey Smith claims to have met in his often redacted "First Vision"? We do not gave anything close to first drafts of either Paul's epistles nor the acts...
It is just like Joseph smith. Now you just need to realize that the creeds changed Christianity. The primitive church was established by Adam. Adam and Eve were baptized. Just like Christ. You can't go to heaven without it. The apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, the kolbrin, the book of Mormon all teach the original teachings. Jesus quotes the apocrypha multiple times and the new testament talks about doctrine that is only in those other books not I'm the Bible. So was Jesus making things up that we don't have in the new or old testament?
Don't fall into the trap of thinking there was one unified Jewish tradition that turned into Christianity. So many things in the Bible seem to be out of place until you actually look at the other texts and sources.
The catholic church has been apostate since peter died. The old testament doesn't even mention Christ. But the apocrypha does.
I've said for a long time, it may be Christianity, but its Paulytheism.
Underrated comment...
Anti Polytheism remember paulonotheism and rebellion and apostasy and infidelism paul taught.
Good one!
paulianity is the truth and the light
thats why people become a paulogist
Perfection. Absolutely correct.
Lol you nailed it, the founder of logical fallacies.
🥁 🥁 🔔
Was raised Church of Christ and my grandparents sent me to a church of Christ private school from 4th grade to graduation,so I know the shit out of the Bible. Even in middle school I was always trying to get the adults to explain why so much of it made no sense and contradicted itself. Of course I never got an answer. The part about Paul writing most of the New Testament wasn't talked about very much. Sure we all knew much of it were correspondence between Paul and various groups but the emphasis was on it being "inspired by God". All that being said I do still read the Bible, but I just ignore everything except the moral instruction attributed to Jesus, so "them red letters". I don't know if he was a real person, was indeed the son of God or if there is one to begin with but those very specific parts of the Bible in my estimation contain morality that's flawless. It's not exactly complex and some of it is obvious but that's kind of the beauty of it.
As a side note I want to tell you how many times Jesus said being homosexual was a sin. Exactly zero. Not once. The "God hates f@gs" part is in the Old Testament, which says it's an abomination but the Old Testament is an abomination for my money and Yahweh is an a$$hole. It's odd that some Christians fixate on that one "sin" since again, Jesus never talked about it. He did talk about adultery though but I've never seen any Christian standing outside the office of a divorce lawyer holding a sign that says "Adulterers should burn in h_ll!"
@@Jcs57 The gospel authors really perfected the art of logical fallacies. This Jesus guy spoke a lot of non-sequiturs for a god.
I don't think anybody who has thoroughly read the New Testament, can say that the religion that Jesus was promoting, and Paul's promotion of his religion, were one in the same.
That's why some people are convinced that Paul was a roman spy.
Jesus created the concept of Faith in God, falowing the law of Love and Truth, reviving humans constiensness.
Paul created a religion
Paul has one merit : He introduced Jesus to the gentiles, further than the apostles did. But he crossed the line...He also spoke Greek and Latin,he also knew to write. That was a huge help
But i thought the gospels and acts were just made up stories
Have you ever read anything outside of the church approved Bible?
I met someone many years ago who completely disavowed Paul's letters as being biblical canon. It lead to an interesting dichotomy in his theology, which was almost completely focused on what Jesus specifically, supposedly said, while basically ignoring Paul's influence on early Christianity. Not just because he disavowed his letters, but in general. He basically disliked the character of Paul. More or less.
What was his theology like, as a result? I can only wonder whether it would be similar with Christianity at the time of Jesus' Ministry.
How did He think Paul's character differed from Jesus' character?
I knew a Christian many years ago (when I was still a beleiver) who was taught their faith almost entirely bereft of the Pauline letters. They were part of a splinter group that believed they were part of a remnant from the "lost tribes of Israel". So their teachings largely ignored Paul's epistles in favor of the gospels (and perhaps the book of James).
@@euraquilo That sounds a lot like this guy. Including the addition of the book of James. I seem to recall him being quite smitten with the idea of "Show me your faith without works and I'll show you mine by what I do."
I'm the same way. I never liked Paul very much for the Anti-gay stuff. I believe he went beyond what was written and that Jesus and became lost in fanaticism and arrogance like my uncle. I believe Jesus made Gay and Trans people equal to everyone else, and how we treat them as our human brothers is how we treat Jesus. Homosexuality is natural and so is being Trans. The only abberant sexualities are nonconsentual like pedophilia, violation and animal abuse. The Gospel of Thomas implies that He can make you gay or Trans if you want to be in Heaven.
0:21 wow, that response made me laugh so early in the video
Yeah, I laughed out while at work. Glad no one asked why.
@@EarnestApostate Why would anyone at work have a problem with you laughing at that?
@@pineapplepenumbra - Because s/he should be working?
@@MossyMozart Well, yes, there is that.
Personally, I'm not allowed to be using any electronic media whilst working, but then again, I don't work in an office.
“We know Paul didn’t invent Christianity because Paul said it existed before him” has to be the laziest argument I’ve seen on this channel.
Theres no way this guy can be lying because he says he’s not a liar 😅
To be fair, saying “Paul invented Christianity” is both a rather bold but also reckless statement to make. I think it’s better to frame it in a way that captures Jesus and the rest of the apostle’s integral role in founding certain teachings while recognizing Paul plays the pivotal role in determining the character (institutional nature) of Christianity and certain theological developments as well as its reach to the gentiles. Saying “Paul invented Christianity” is far too misleading and lends itself easily to refutations advanced by Christians and scholars alike.
@@AbstractMan1 what were the other apostle’s “integral role” in founding Christianity?
You have a handful of letters claiming to be from John and Peter and literally nothing else from any of the other claimed disciples of Jesus.
They have no role in Christianity. We know nothing about what they believed or didn’t believe. Hell we don’t even have evidence they existed.
So it’s hard to claim the apostles had an integral role in founding Christianity when you have basically nothing from any of them.
@@AbstractMan1 The Gospels were written AFTER Paul's letters. We don't know ANYTHING about the Jesus, and there are several Christos around attested at the time by other people. As far as we can tell, the stories were written AFTER Paul and to fit in with what PAUL said happened. In what way is saying "Paul is the central figure to modern Christianity" "reckless"??? There were Gnostics. Not Christians recognised today. There were sects that were STILL called Christians, but were stamped out by Paul's teachings calling them heretical. About all you could say against it is that Paul almost certainly wasn't a trinitarian.
@@AbstractMan1In that he extended it to the gentiles and declared himself the living conduit he invented Christianity as distinct from the Jewish sect that believed in some version of Jesus as prophet
@@brianbrennan5600 I think more than that, the Peter elements called several OTHER sects heretical or even entirely wrong to teach, and those were stamped out. That this took till 300+CE means that it took several people to firm Chrisitanity as strictly Pauline ideology (12thC to 17thC were many other heresies, but all based the paul-based bible that we know today), and even to modern evangelicals but since secular law didn't allow offing heretics that got curbed. The fixing of the bible to the canonical bible, most of which was Pauline derived, see the selection of what books would get included AND EXCLUDED from it, that took really until the 500sCE just shows that it still took many generations to call "a single bible" (while we still have several other Christian Bibles that have a different set of books included in it, but were so distant that it wasn't tenable to war with them).
So if Paul possibly made up the story of Jesus, couldn't he have also just made up his persecution of Christians? It would just be the backstory in a fictional story.
Or just overstating in the manner known to be common to Christians, cf Augustine and every well-behaved PK who tells of the time before they accepted Jesus and cries because they were such a depraved four-year-old or something
Wow I think I got hacked. Paul did not make up the story of Jesus. Jesus is mentioned by Josephus the Jewish historian. People lost their lives because they wouldn't recant seeing Jesus resurrected. And the amount of people who became Christians in spite of the fact that they were being persecuted proves that Jesus existed.
Considering how many apologists today lie and make up stories about how they used to be atheists, yeah.
Paul's 'persecution' of the ecclesia had been nothing more than verbal opposition to Nosrim in the Damascus synagogue. There had been no authority for him to have done anything more.
@@TheJavsolo Paul never met a physical Jesus so it’s quite possible this Jesus guy never existed.
Woah, here in the first minute. Looking forward to the video, Paul!
"Robbing Peter to pay Paul" just took on extra dimensions.
what does that mean, I have never heard that before
The early churches collected money for poor people. Then Paul collected that money... Where did the money go, ???😮 Maybe Traveling was expensive?... Paul, before Damascus rode vision (Jerusalem had no jurisdiction over Damascus)... How could he bring those Christens to Jerusalem, on foot, 250 mi, for 3 weecks, food and shelter... Where did he go, after his vision about Jesus? Where in Arabia, also, got food and shelter... He did not tell anything about how did he learn about Jesus's teaching, if any...( it's preaching does not coincide entirely to that of Jesus's... ) He brought many elements fom Greek philosophy... We know he created discord among disciples... Question and more questions... 😮
@tribequest9
@@tribequest9 Its a turn of phrase for when you are accruing debt in one area to deal with it in another. In example you take a loan out with your bank to pay off a credit card. It is also used when you steal time or effort from one area to make up with shortcomings somewhere else. For instance, you pull an all-nighter getting a report done Sunday night for a monday morning meeting, then you spend the rest of the week going home early, but reporting a full day on your time card to make up for it.
@@tribequest9It means to steal money from one person (Peter) in order to pay a debt to another (Paul). You’ve just traded one debt for another. The phrase likely originated in the Middle Ages when Peter and Paul were well known figures in Christianity.
Ponzi scheme
To borrow a phrase, even christians admit jesus didn't write a single word of the bible
So what? Jesus teached Himself as the Way, not the book.
@@TEPMOBETEP
So are you saying that Jesus was ignorant that oral tradition creates inaccuracies or that any peoples he did not directly interact with should question his existence and his way?
@@Mosz to be honest i am baffled, how from my short comment you pulled out "i am saying Jesus was ignorant on "insert whatever wild conclusion you can come up with" ...". Nothing like that even remotely there, you are seeking for straws to pull, and inflate those straws into a tree trunk. That is dishonest beheavior, to say the least.
And you got the written tradition, but, apparently, for original commenter that is not enough. He thinks New Testament should have been written by Jesus, and it can't have any value if it is written any other way. But it is there - the "written tradition". But you don't want to accept it, say it is Paulian or whatever. There are different authors in NT, not only Paul. And teachings of Paul actually line up with even the OT, but in "perfected" way, as Jesus was revealing perfected law of marriage, perfected view of the sin of adultery and murber and so on
@@TEPMOBETEP
That's not the point of this statement. How do we actually know what someone else wrote about what Jesus thought or believed is actually what Jesus himself thought or believed? It doesn't have to be about lying or anything it can have just been an honest mistake of misunderstanding what someone said or meant by what they said.
@@terrencelockett4072 ok, fair, but what was the incentive for Paul and Peter and other people to lie? Just to suffer for the sake of spreading lies? We can honestly question "was this realy what Jesus taught?". But are you questioning that much what is written on your medicine? Are you questioning that much every field of science?
Or you choose to say "probably, Einstein was right, let's follow his logic and work to prove it right or wrong". I've read the bible a couple of times, and at least, i can say teachings of Jesus and His desciples line up with what is written in numerous books of prophets in the bible in OT, long before time of NT. About repentance, about God wanting to see a purity of heart in people and so on.
To be honest what Jesus said in the gospels (you mught say "allegedly") is nothing new. But He raised the bar quite high, and, if you try to apply to the OT what was revealed/explained by Jesus, you would see, God had His intent for humans the same from the beginning. Jesus is just the key to all of it.
And with Jesus we have revelation for purpose of human life. And it is divine. And it is the hardest thing for every man.
So yeah, that claim "christianity is invented by "insert name"" is just from ignorance of people. I can quote dozens of verses preaching about repentance from OT. The main claim of Jesus is that He is Messiah - and His life lines up with prophesies about Messiah. And there are too much prophecies to ignore
Paul was little more than a 1st Century Joseph Smith!
Certainly a lot of overlap especially if you compare the information from their respective church organization.
Hahah.I have said the exact same thing.
And if a work of fiction can be misrepresented as Holy Writ two centuries ago, why not two thousand? I hold all of this suspect...
Was this Yeshu guy anything different???
Ironically, it was studying Joseph Smith that I was better able to understand the birth of Christianity.
1) Apocalyptic prophet says the final judgement is at hand. He dies.
2) Followers say prophet is risen and will return to save this generation at the final judgement. They die.
3) Second generation of Christians say that Jesus will return and defeat the evil Roman Empire even though Christians are suffering. Roman Empire becomes Christian.
4) Christianity becomes a religion of preparing for end of world and always have a failed track record of success.
Re: last supper ritual. Paul's report of the split after the Jerusalem conference is different from the story told in Acts. If the other side of the argument had their chance to explain what happened, would their side of Galatians 2:11-21 include a realization that Paul was spreading a false account of what happened to Jesus the night before he died?
Probably, because in 1st and 2nd Corinthians Paul talks about how there is opposition to his teachings and how they were led astray.
"Where is the Great United People's National Front of all Judeah?"
"He's over there." :)
I'm for the Peoples Front of Judea
Oh yeah, just starting the video but RFW is one of my favorites. Can’t wait!
They constantly make the mistake of saying Paul is pulling from the Gospels when the chronology is that the Gospels must be pulling from him. (Or at absolute most, both from the same sources. But that doesn’t really fit with him having revelations. Revelations implies that he was the source [even if you believe that he really was divinely inspired.])
If I write a book about Harry Potter today, that agrees heavily with the books written by Rowling, nobody is going to buy that I’m writing down the true events that I witnessed or were told to me by witnesses (40 years prior). They’ll correctly state that I stole the idea.
Wow great insight on the origin of the last super. Never thought it might not be from oral tradition but from pauls personal experiences, just makes sense.
May I suggest you read the passage in the epistles. From memory it doesn't say anything about a last supper. It's the ghost of Jesus asking to be remembered when we eat or drink. There's no table with a dozen disciples. There's no last supper till the gospel authors start getting creative a couple of generations later.
@@dalelatter1103 wrong. Paul introduces the words of institution with the phrase, "on the night he was betrayed."
@@maxonmendel5757right. Still no last supper. He was betrayed. Okay. What supper?
We already know "Mark" is using Paul's letters to write his gospels. Mark is the one who turns it into a last supper.
@@maxonmendel5757 What do you mean by words of institution?
And just another thing, in Mark's yarn the last supper is before JC is betrayed not after.
Mark had JC doing his bread and wine thing during super, not before and after supper as Paul states.
Eating gods is pretty common; we have it is the Dionysos religion and in the Osiris religion. Having meals for the gods was practically everywhere in the greek-roman world. The story about Iesous is so filled with greek story elements and troupes.
Which is the more convincing argument?
1. It is written in the sacred Scriptures.
2. I made this all up out of whole cloth.
It's always a combination of both and the amount of each varies by the audience.
Most fiction takes place in a world the reader understands. That’s why the train in Harry Potter leaves from king’s cross station. I would not describe Harry Potter as a mix of truth and fiction.
@@whysoserious8666 Daredevil is set in New York. As is Spider-Man.
@@markhackett2302 hey, Harry Potter is fiction, but Spider-Man and Daredevil are real!! 🤪😎😇
@@whysoserious8666I refuse to believe there's a vigilante that dresses like the devil and beats up crime lords.
But a dorky kid from Queens becoming a red and blue entertainer who switches to helping people, fighting costumed crooks, and is married to a redheaded supermodel? Totally believable lol
Always a pleasure to hear Doctor Walsh’s take on the writings of the NT.
Paul founded the religion. He wrote stuff down and Jesus wrote nothing and was dead and gone. Later some anonymous Greek writers made up stories to help Paul with the Gentiles. Amen
To round out the religion by writing 3rd view accounts of Jesus’ life saying the opposite of Paul so anyone could be attracted and ensnared in the money-collecting/money-hiding religion.
Historians in general depend on the people who took notes, and just like getting information off the internet, it is a challenge to know which source is trustworthy.
Interesting too that we can find older copies of Paul's writings than the 4 gospels....
@j3i2i2yl7 The one where no one walks over water, turns not water into wine and dies not copy either the old testament or the greek gods.
Paul was the true founder of Christianity. He's the reason Christianity survived and became a European religion.
Paul was a Liar and Charleton
@@rationalsceptic7634Not incompatible with founding religion.
that’s true : Romans 3:7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my Iie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
But also others do that ; Matthew claims that (and out of Egypt I called my son) applies to Jesus although the complete verse says the opposite (When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.)
He lucked out that the Jerusalem church got wiped out when the Romans sacked the city.
The issue surrounding - Faith in Jesus vs Faith of Jesus - is very interesting!
Using the "nobody said 'oh no you didn't ' logic to stand Paul's writings is like saying USA is an empire because after emperor Joshua Norton the first self proclamation in san Francisco ,no one told him oh no you're not
it also ignores the fact that lots of writings have been destroyed by the church over the centuries. That in of of itself is a strong indicator that such arguments are terrible.
It assumes a modern level of dissemination for these writings...like anyone could just log into the ancient Hebrew internet to fact check everything.
"even if you think Acts may have been biased" - you have to laugh - it's not that i think it's basically a historical account with some bias. I think that it's a legendary tale. It's a founding mythology for the early church, written in the context of Pauline Christianity, specifically to establish it's legitimacy and continuity with the earliest followers of Jesus.
Dr. Ehrman's floating head rattling off all those headlines with the sound effects gets me every time. I'm so excited for that conference.
They just made it all up.
[Cartoon Captain Kirk Gasp Meme]
Bro's with scholar consensus on his side
Dan from QC is making the assumption that the gospels report Jesus' teachings accurately. In reality, we cannot know the details of how Jesus taught, so it remains speculative how closely Paul's teachings relate to him
I've been saying it for years - the main character of the bible is Paul. Jesus is just a focal point.
As most "Christians" do refer to PAUL'S information and rules and not to JESUS' the question who started the show is less important than "who made it popular and left lasting impact on it" ;)
Only because Paul’s letters take up most of the New Testament.
He’s pretty much the main character in the book of acts even though it’s supposed to be the acts of the apostles plural no one but him and Peter get any play in that book - every other apostles acts somehow is lost to history.
I like to think Paul is the man who runs away naked.
Xtian Bible
I wrote a list of where Paul contradicts Jesus at least 34 times when I was leaving (Pauline) Christianity about a decade ago. Trying to share it with fellow Christians was frustrating and fruitless, but made me realise how little of their actual faith was based on Jesus. (I'm not a Christian anymore, but still admire some of the philosophy of Jesus, and wish it could be reclaimed from the Paul-ites).
Would you care to share the list with us?
15:04 seems like apologists are more than happy to depoy an argument from silence when it suits them
I feel like in many ways Paul innovated the high Christology and importance of Jesus's death as ushering in a new era, and the gospel writers mostly worked backwards from there. Even so, Jesus had quite different political goals than Paul in the gospels, and Jesus was likely concerned with restoring the Davidic monarchy and driving out the legion of Roman pigs occupying his homeland. Paul, by contrast, seems fully unconcerned with Roman political domination, and if the later parts of the epiatle to the Romans are genuine, was much in favor of assimilation and not opposing Roman imperial demands.
There's also all the exorcisms and healings in the synoptics, fully ignored by Paul. That's a slightly odd element probably borrowing from other legends entirely. The primary connection between the ideas of Jesus and Paul seems to be apocalypticism, but it doesn't even clearly mean the same thing to both of them. Does Paul ever even mention the Danielic "Kebar Enash" or One Like the Son of Man? I don't think he does, but it's a central part of Jesus's teaching -- even if sometimes SoM seems to mean Jesus himself, and sometimes not. This apologist asserting Paul and Jesus had the same philosophies or goals at all seems contrary to the text, even given the overlap between 1 Cor, Romans, and Mark.
Anyways, good stuff as usual, Paulogia. Always like hearing from Dr. Walsh. Cya around.
Great Video. I think it is hard to argue that without Paul there wouldn't be a global Christian faith today. Without Paul, Jesus would be as popular today as Aulus of Motya. You haven't heard of Aulus of Motya? Exactly.
It’s hard to argue? That seems a post hoc reasoning to me. How do you prove that Christianity would not have grown anyway? As dr. Walsh explains in the video, Paul wasn’t very successful in his lifetime. He founded a bunch of churches (a couple of hundred people?)and that’s it. By his own account there were many other apostles going around spreading the teachings of Jesus and the large and influential church in Rome was already well established BEFORE he went there.
The reason paul became a very influential figure in Christianity is because he was the first one to put down something in writing. Imo that alone is not reason enough for Christianity becoming global. That happened because the religion ended up getting adopted by two of the most influential empires in the history of the world: the Roman Empire and the British empire. Oh, and I was forgetting the Spanish empire.
Who's Aulus of Motya?
@@pansepot1490 You should read up on what a Post Hoc fallacy is before claiming I am guilty of it. The fallacy is when two events are in succession and no causal connection is demonstrated. A common example is: The rooster crowed, and the sun rose; therefore, the rooster caused the sunrise.
Paul is attributed to 14 of the 27 books in the New Testament. He was not a rooster crowing in the morning but he was actively working to achieve an end. He was working toward a cause.
Your argument would be like claiming that The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando) probably would have happened regardless of whether or not JK Rowling ever wrote the Harry Potter books. Did you know that Rowling modeled her Harry Potter after her childhood friend and neighbor Ian Potter? So even if Jesus were a historical figure it shows that fictional stories told about an actual person can transform and become known and followed on a global scale in a short period of time.
He was an itinerant preacher in the first century who some say performed miracles and was the messiah. But the stories about him never really caught on and they died out soon after his death. Some say he was the actual Messiah and that Jesus is a false prophet who lucifer worked to popularize so that humans wouldn't learn about Aulus of Motya.
And some would say I just made the guy up to show how easy it is to do.
@@pansepot1490And the early Christians were able to spread “the so-called gospel” because of the fact that the Romans had organized their government so well throughout the Empire.
Whether or not an individual that was Jesus actually existed, Paul (who never knew Jesus while he lived) created and formed the largest portion that became Christian doctrine.
Aren't Paul's writings older than the gospels?
Yes
Here's the Paul questions I want to see answered:
Do his ideas make up a significant portion of the NT because they were the very best possible ideas? Or was it because Paul was highly educated and was very talented at crafting letters, while other less literate orators were lost to time?
Also, what about all the letters that must have been lost in the 300 years (longer than the US has been a country!) between Paul's writings and the assembly of the first canonical Bible? What was in those letters that we should have known about?
How much of what Paul believed was delusion brought on by a seizure?
That is a fundamental question.
Over a hundred years ago, the German Historian/Theologian published a series of lectures as a book, "What is Christianity?" where he argues that we don't have Christianity, we have Paulinity
Herman Bavinck?
Yes indeed.
That whole, _believe in my death & resurrection as redemption for your sins, if you want "salvation"_ idea, came entirely from Paul, and not Jesus.
@@moodyrick8503 It didn't come from Jesus, but most scholars don't see it as coming from Paul either. Paul elaborated on it and added the idea that at least for Gentiles, this new covenant replaced the Torah Law, but there's no reason to think from Paul's writing that the other apostles and James, Peter and John in particular hadn't already developed the idea of faith in Jesus's death and resurrection as redemption for sin.
It's easy to see that emerging very quickly in response to their Messiah's death and it's hard to see the movement spreading at all without some such explanation for the Messiah's ignominious death.
We might credit Jesus with the inspiration, one of those 3, likely Peter, with the real creation of Christianity and then Paul with starting it growing from a Jewish sect to a new different religion.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I can't find any large surveys of Biblical scholars regarding a consensus about who they believe _created Christianity._
(citation required)
And since we can't ask Paul any questions, and approx half of his alleged writings are considered forgeries, I don't believe confirmation is possible.
But given that Paul *never met the living Jesus,* and only claimed to have interacted with the ghost/spirit of Jesus, I see no reason why he should be taken seriously.
After all, how many people in the last 2000 yrs have claimed to have gotten _messages from Jesus ?_
*(nothing special & entirely mundane)*
@@moodyrick8503 I'd say you can't find such surveys because "who they believe created Christianity" isn't a meaningful question. Look into where they think various ideas come from and how the theology developed.
I love the image of the "arena" of Ancient Middle Eastern Christians sitting ... on folding chairs!
Essentially Paul's writings are Jesus Christ fan fiction
Psst. It's all fanfic.
@@utubepunk Not quite all. There really lived a man, whom we call Jesus. Jesus was voted to have been resurrected after 300 AD.
@@slave2apup279 Some guy named Jesus or Yeshua or whatever. All the stories about him are mosy likely fanfic.
@@slave2apup279 voted by whom?
@@Mosz Twice the Nicene Council got together and voted on beliefs, deciding what beliefs their church mandated of their members.
Can we get some guidance on how to properly practice Paulianity? Is there a minimum number of Star Wars references we need to inject into casual conversation each day?
The mental gymnastics you have to do to hold on a "historical" Jesus...
*Hardly Unique ;* (entirely mundane)
How many people in the last 2,000 yrs, have claimed to have gotten _messages from Jesus ?_
(Paul : I'll tell you the words & wishes of Jesus)
_First come, first serve ?_ lol
I mean, simplifying a bit, if one in good faith accepts the evidence we have, Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew who thought the world was about to end. As in, in a few years from when he was alive. And he preached to prepare for that, to seek forgiveness from God and to forget the earthly stuff and get ready to move on. I'd argue that if one goes where the evidence leads, it's pretty clear that Jesus was not planning for a new religion that would span thousand of years.
Yes, just a local cult leader that was killed in a common yet horrific way.
Then the stories about him proliferated.
No, we have many preachers. Not "Jesus was an apocalyptic priest", we have "there were many apocalyptic priests".
So, for example, not one saw a Biblical Jesus. None of them saw a resurrection bodily, there was no Thomas poking holes, etc. But some followed one priest, and they garnered many stories that were told. Others followed a different priest. Etc. And so dozens of stories, all of different priests, were then smooshed into several stories, some became apocrypha, some got canonised and some did not get written down.
@@markhackett2302 using the word priest over and over again shows that you are ill informed on this.
@@bob-e5z Christos or Christ literally means "the priest", "Annointed One" is just a specialist priest to that religion's god.
@@markhackett2302 now what do Jewish people call their "priests" ?
Dr. Walsh's cartoon image is so good. Excited to listen to this!
In the early stages of my deconstruction, I called Christianity (as my former church practiced it) Paulianity too.
As someone who reads a lot about modern cults, when Paterson refers to the risen Jesus "downloading" doctrine to Paul, I did a spit take.
I can't get over Paul writing how the original supposed disciples 'added nothing to him', the ones who supposedly met the alleged 'real' Jesus.
Paul's complete lack of interest in anything Jesus said or did (he doesn't quote from him, never references any of the events of his life) is striking. It's almost like the stories in the gospels didn't exist yet - or they did, and Paul just didn't care. No other possible options.
22:00 You should speak to David Litwa (if you haven't already) about his book "Late Revelations" which is about the dating of the Gospels. He dates them to the 2nd Century in their canonical forms and says that dating them to the first century is just polite convention not grounded in actual evidence. If there is a range of possible dates, mainstream scholars tend to assume the earliest possible dates ad hoc without really demonstrating why the earliest possible dates should be preferred over latest possible dates.
Am I the only person who can't remember evangelicals calling the multi-books of the bible things like "One Corinthians" before Trump did it? I mean, I grew up in a pretty fundamental church, and it was "First Corinthians" then. It feels like a super subtle (ish) adaptation to the evangelical poster fascist.
Trump has shown himself to be clueless about the Bible. Not only has he not read it he is likely unable to read such dense text. His security briefings had to be condensed to one page and even then he couldn't pay attention.
And yeah, it is First and Second Corinthians.
Trump is an Athiest.
It's actually very common in British English to say "One" instead of "First" for biblical books - but Trump got made fun of a lot as it was not common in the US.
2:15 this was actually the tipping point of my devonstruction where I realised I was no longer a Christian. I reasoned that if the original teachings of Jesus (and the elusive church leader James, from Acts 15) weren't what the church had inherited for teaching, then God clearly wasn't in charge of things.
I always called it Paulianism, but it's also Liarianism.
Or delusionism?
@@stephenolan5539 Isn't that an appropriate name for all religions, though?
@@pineapplepenumbra
Scientology was a bar bet. The person starting wasn't delusional. He bet he could make more money starting a religion than from writing Science Fiction.
It’s amazing the variety of groups I’ve stumbled across in the Torah movement (Torah Christians, Messianic Jews, Hebrew Israelites, and many fringe groups that don’t fit into any of these three categories) that will either denounce or uphold Paul’s teachings as canon. It’s mostly the fringe groups that denounce the epistles, but you can see clearly how differently the Bible is read by different groups if you compare them to one another.
To be fair, I'd argue that Paul's version of Christianity is the one that became prevalent. There were other Christian groups that were labeled "heretics".
Regardless I think it's rather a bold statement to say Paul invented Christianity🙂
That’s like saying it’s a bold statement that Joseph Smith invented The Church of LDS and not Mormon.
@@NA-vz9ko there was never one "Christianity", there were ranges from Jewish Christians to Pagan to platonic and so on, though there is a large overlap between Joseph Smith and Paul, there are still differences in circumstances and cultural context. That's what I acknowledging, I know it's way easier to just equate Paul to Joseph but they were not the same people. That's all I'm saying
@@NA-vz9koi think that the name of the angel that Smith saw was called "Moroni"
He may have invented the Trinity.
Is there anything about Jesus being part of the Trinity before Paul?
@@stephenolan5539 Philo of Alexandria comes to mind, he mentions a form of trinity: Father, Logos and Sophia. The idea was around as far as I can tell. I'm unsure with Paul, I don't know enough to have a definite answer, but the version of trinity in 3 person 1 God was a result of philosophical discussions over time.
When he asked if Paul invented Christianity and immediately you went “I did not” it freaking sent me to the floor laughing. I was not expecting that from you
Jesus's brother in Japan was probably even faster than Paul.
I sincerely love how there is a cottage industry growing up around Bart Ehrman and likeminded scholars, and that they’re delivering something of value to the public.
you created it paulogia, my child
That Intro was too good. 😂
"Did Paul invent Christianity?"
"I did not"
When Dr. Walsh says that she thinks that neither Paul nor Jesus envisaged a religious movement outside of Judaism, this is why I remain convinced that Paul saw his mission as one to the Jewish Diaspora, having been one himself, and not to the non-Jewish population of the circum-Mediterranean world. These Jews had ignored much of Torah law as a product of living amongst the 'pagans', so the argument was whether these Jews had to return to Torah law before becoming part of the Jesus Movement. Paul said no, the Jerusalem Group said yes. The term 'Gentile' is either a mistranslation or misunderstanding of what Paul was doing. Obviously, the Jesus Movement eventually did spread beyond Judaism into non-Jewish or 'Gentile' society, which seems to have been credited back to Paul's ministry. I also agree with Dr. Walsh that we should be careful of judging Paul as a success, when his own writings portray some considerable difficulties amongst the Jesus Groups he founded in some of the synagogues of the Diaspora. By the time he writes Romans, it sounds like he had given up on the Eastern groups where he had been considerably undermined and rejected, and was hoping to get a fresh start in Rome and points westward. As usual, however, he couldn't keep his mouth shut even in the heart of the Empire with hs talk of a Messiah who was greater than all earthly rulers, which got him thrown into prison then beheaded.
Paul wanted to bring everyone else in, but he envisioned the Jews (like himself) being essentially the priestly class, and in control of things. Then it all kinda got out of hand, as things often do..
Some key takeaways I got: 1st, it's possible and even likely that the gospel authors used Paul's letters as sources. That's mind blowing to me. Second, Paul the Pharisee had to gate keep the Orthodoxy against many heresies. Third, the term Christianity could have simply referred to any messianic sect of Judaism that had a Messiah claiment, and doesn't inevitably refer to one with Jesus as a Messiah claiment.
I haven't had my mind blown like this in a while. After years of looking into this it was seeming like there weren't a lot of new angles or major insights left.
Yep, and also Paul even mentions that there were already fake letters in his name during his lifetime. How do we really know that the genuine ones were chosen or that the fake ones were all left out of the NT?
@@VeridicusMaximus we already know that several fake letters of Paul (pseudepigraphic epistles) were included in the cannon. But yeah, with Paul admitting that people have been writing letters in his name to change doctrine, and saying that God will send unbelievers a strong delusion so they will believe lies and stay out of heaven, and saying that we are predestined to paradise or destruction, and all the times it says Satan is ruler of earth, etc, how can any Christian think they know or can be sure if anything at all?
Was the Trinity an invention of Paul after a seizure?
@@stephenolan5539 I doubt it. I don't think the Trinity concept came about till much later.
Paul represented a small branch of early Christianities considered heretic by many other groups..
All early Christian groups considered each other heretics, there was constant infighting from the minute Jesus's ascension. There are several places in the NT that show examples of different sects teaching different and contradictory theologies.
Such a wonderful topic and a question I think Christians need to ask themselves. Thank you Paul for your efforts and I look forward to watching this.
At least we know that the letters of Paul were actually written by someone, whether or not this person actually did all the things in the letters is really anybody's guess. Jesus on the other hand 🙄....
The gospels were actually written by someones as well. All these documents record the beliefs of those christians at the time of their writings and give us insight into the evolution and disagreements in that belief.
Interestingly Bible scholars believe that we can only be confident that Paul wrote 7 of the 13 ‘Pauline’ epistles. Three other letters _might_ be Paul’s work, but differ enough from the 7 that there’s doubt.
It’s possible that those differences could have been caused because Paul didn’t write them himself, but dictated them to a scribe. And the scribe substituted some of his own phrases and vocabulary for what Paul had dictated. Three other letters are pretty clear forgeries. Or, as Bible scholars delicately call it, pseudepigrapha.
This was first proposed by German scholars in the 19th century, and later analysis has confirmed their work. Even though this has been well known and widely accepted among Bible scholars, for some reason it isn’t common knowledge. For more details, search Wikipedia for “Pauline epistles”.
Title actually had me wondering if this was about a gospel of Paulogia. At least, it would have, if I didn't know that Paul had been working with Bart, and Bart was involved in a conference on the importance of Paul.
I worship Joe Pesci because that guy knows how to get shyt done
Ah, a Pescetarian.
@@rainbowkrampus 🤣🤣🤣 gonna have to remember that 👍
He lives in the apartment above me. Realtor didn’t tell me that.
Fascinating perspectives from Dr. Walsh. BartCon really sounds like a deal! Thank you both for the fantastic video!
Armageddon really did happen, but only for the individual Jesus, not anyone else!
What.
My mind is blown. These infos are invaluable, thank you so much!
"Is it PAULianity or Christianity?!? "
Neither.
It's *Insanity*
No. Insanity is the ability to firmly hold onto a belief without sufficient evidence, whereas Christianity is the ability to firmly hold onto a belief without sufficient evidence.
Wait.
Sounds very similar.
@@freddan6flyLol that is not the definition of insanity😂
I saw and attended the conference. Her presentation was one of my favorites.
Agree!
I just realized you're the reincarnation of the biblical Paul, who's come back to right his past wrongs! It's about time, bro! 😊
Jebus was as much of a real person as Peter Parker is. Sure, theres variations on the comics but they all claim Spider-Man got his powers from a radioactive spider, he saves people, and his uncle ben was sacrificed to teach him that with great power comes great responsibility.
Paul the Apostle wasn't an apostle. Christians will say anything that sounds good without regard for its truth.
Paul wasn’t a _disciple_ of Jesus. But “Apostle” just means “one who is sent off”, i.e. an emissary. And Paul decided to send himself off to teach non-Jews about Jesus. So in that sense, he is an apostle.
Wow. I've never even thought about Jesus not being the only game in town. That's a whole thought.
The real reason why Paul doesn't seem to care for The Historical Jesus™ is that he is crafting his own Jesus out of whole cloth! That's why Paul invented Christianity.
I like how you put a "™" after "The Historical Jesus"
Do glad you are back Paul. I feel like it's been awhile due to the long movie react vids, which I loved BTW.
Ever since I was first taught the Pauline doctrine, I wondered: By what authority does a Hallucinating Jew have the right to contradict Christ's teachings.
Short answer: Paul has no authority. Ignore him.
Long answer: Watch this video and smile.
Well see, those answers are the _sensible_ answers. The cultish answer is entirely different: the right he has is that he made up his own version and convinced people his New!(tm) and Improved!(tm)(c)(r) formula was better and a bunch of easily-manipulated sheep mindlessly went the way he barked.
This happens _all the time_ in cults. I forget her name, but there was this one prophetess who gained a rather large following and a handful of apprentice con-artist understudies. She eventually got supplanted by one of her own, another "prophetess" who started making extra ridiculous claims and who shaved off her own portion of suckers. Starting spin-off cults is a *business model.* Always has been. So that's where they get their authority from: the way the cults are set up, _anybody_ can start their own, because it's all baseless bullshit and if cults didn't allow for randos to put their own spin on things the cults would die out with their founders and utterly vanish.
Without Paul, Christianity would be only for Jrws. So there's that. You also have to deal with the fact that the catholics tended to destroy any heretical teachings so very little is left that doesn't agree.
@@EdwardHowton Excellent.
Since everything associated to Jesus is either a claim or hearsay what exactly would be a Christ teaching and how would we know it was legitimate?
@@Jcs57 Agreed (Assuming your question is rhetorical). Prima facie, none of the bible is anything more than plagiarism, fabrication and a heck of a lot of imagination. Of course, this will not deter theists. Believers will bend over backwards to cherry-pick whatever they want, as long as it does not inconvenience their lifestyle.
"I did not" in the first 30 seconds got a genuine laugh out loud and a comment. Thanks, Paulogia... and now back to our previously scheduled programming.
Jesus didn't even invent Christianity. He was a Jewish Rabbi.
Wait….I thought he was a carpenter that preferred the company of men.
@@Jcs57 And wore a dress....
@@Jcs57"Carpenter? Jesus? No... We said he loves wood, and getting nailed."
The US founding fathers were British citizens.... -Yet they started a new country.
But I agree that the Palestinian carpenter's son who got in trouble with the law, probably never imagined that his story would become a religion.
@@graydanerasmussen4071Except that doesn't correlate.
A better allegory would be the founding fathers being British citizens but the next generation of American British like William Burr or John Quincy Adams starting the country and writing books about the founders that put their own ideas into their mouths.
Always awesome content! I get more than an occasional kick when a rabid apologist has to perform a hyper flexible mental contortion to make historical points fit into a particular rationalized narrative they just need to have made.
It was Paul's grift, he expanded his audience to 'the gentiles' so he had more 'griftees'. Nothing changes.
On the contrary, he was the first to do that withing the context of Judaism
Also, assuming malice is never the right thing to do imo, it is very likely that he sincerely believed what he said he believed, even if he made it all up in his mind, even if those visions were just dreams, because ancient people genuinely believed in stuff like that
You should also consider doing both a set of best of JP live songs and best of Rob’s solo works (Two, Fight, Halford)
having been through church splits, I can't imagine that everything went smoothly for early christianity. there probably was doctrinal disputes and structural conflicts.
Paulogia, your excellent work just keeps getting better and better!👍🏼🌊💙💙💙🌊🥰✌🏼
When Robyn says “Gospel writers”, it sort of sounds like “Gospel raiders”, which is super entertaining.
I like this theory and i think it is cohesive with a lot of the christian counter claims to falsification. It also is reflected in many other divinity stories. Ocram's razor here is just flashing bright.
The real question though is how compatible is it with the leading theory of the the "minimal witnesses?"
At around 29:20, that horse looks like he's thinking, "You idiots. The cart goes behind me, not in front of me."
If you replace the word faith with compassion, as Paul defined in Galatians, a lot of things make sense. Paul said that faith is only shown through compassion. So "by compassion and compassion alone" is a better interpretation of Paul's early thinking. See Luke 10: 25-37 to see an extreme example of what this looks like.
Fascinating video! Dr. Walsh is quite learned!
That clip from the Life of Brian is gold and very much on point.
Robin speaks to the important, and mostly ignored question… how does a movement expecting an immanent apocalypse transition to a structured organization
This was fantastic. Thanks so much
Thank you.
Really helpful insights
An interesting question is whether Paul understood what was going on with Peter's "hypocrisy" Were the men who were sent by James revoking an agreement between the two groups? Peter may have broken off fellowship for this reason.
So Christian’s worship Paul’s teachings. Not Christ.
Jesus only commanded two things:
Love your neighbor
Love your god.
That’s it. No hell, no church, no tithe.
While alluded to, there was apparently a power struggle between the early apostles evident in the Catholic/ Protestant rift.
Paul breaks from the Apostolic succession of Peter as he never saw the bodily Christ. Revelation became just as important as direct contact. As such, reliance on the papal lineage becomes moot, and the spiritual authority, and perhaps even necessity, of a church is lessened.
To paraphrase the Gospel of Thomas, look unnder a stone and I will be there.
Aaron Abke has some great videos on this exact topic
I am a little confused.
If we're saying the gospels were an attempt to make something else/better out of Paul's writings,
and that Paul got all of his "information" about Jesus from his "visions",
then:
we're advocating for mysticism?
Not exactly
I don't think I've seen anyone argue that Paul didn't have a buddy named Jesus that grew really good bushes for burning.
"we're advocating for mysticism?"
Great episode. Talk of 'founders' is misguided since neither Jesus or Paul saw themselves as founders of a new religion. Granted Christianity evolved from there so its worth focusing on that but - and she raises 2 good questions - 1 Paul gets more credit since we have his writings but these and gospel writing hint at the differences in the early followers who "founded" what became the orthodoxy. But there are a whole of other responses too - so why should we accept the just what became canon as the one true response. I mean I don't have skin in this game but would seem worth giving us the scope of responses to Jesus and not just accepting the canonised version. Not sure if you have done anything on this or knows someone who has?