Was Paul the greatest salesman who ever lived, or the greatest con man who ever lived?
Perhaps Paul lied about his conversion experience and never had a vision of Christ. Maybe Paul would have died for the cause of creating a better world, and thought it would start a moral revolution if the masses believed in the risen Christ.
There seems to be nothing sincere about Paul. Paul says he was persecuting Christians, then had his conversion experience, and then became a Christian. This is a blatant lie. If this had happened, the people who Paul used to work for would have gone after Paul and hunted him down for deserting, and for being a Chistian (which never happened – Paul’s former employers just let him get away free and clear). Paul speaks of being all things to all men; to the Jew he became a Jew, etc. That’s classic PR today. Paul also spoke of “putting on” the new man.
Its a great point about Paul not being persued and persecuted himself by the people he worked for before as one would have expected. And then imo he got tired of waiting for Jesus to reappear and writing to the others to keep hanging on and so asked to go back to Rome where he knew he would probably be killed. I wonder how nothing was reported by his friends in Rome as what happened to him as there is no evidence he was killed and certainly no evidence he was crucified. As a Roman Citizen, that was not the punishment. There were others writing about that time and so why not? Unless those letters were lost to us?
He certainly deceived everyone with his doctrine about atonement as essential but obviously didn’t actually know what Jesus taught his disciples or the Salvation of Zacheus. I don’t read much what Paul said or did as its irrelevant given his beliefs. Unfortunately the Christian Church has been deceived in the process for 2000 years. And believing in Adam’s original Sin makes him more so but then Jesus also believed in Adam and Eve which also says a lot about Jesus’s being God hey? I’m waiting for the day when the Vatican moves to repeal this doctrine, along with reinstating women’s right to ordination. Oh guess what? Jesus chose 12 guys and no women and he was and is God over the whole of creation? Tick tick….
How could we be made in God’s image if God is not flesh and blood?
MikeyS said
Its a great point about Paul not being persued and persecuted himself by the people he worked for before as one would have expected. And then imo he got tired of waiting for Jesus to reappear and writing to the others to keep hanging on and so asked to go back to Rome where he knew he would probably be killed. I wonder how nothing was reported by his friends in Rome as what happened to him as there is no evidence he was killed and certainly no evidence he was crucified. As a Roman Citizen, that was not the punishment. There were others writing about that time and so why not? Unless those letters were lost to us?He certainly deceived everyone with his doctrine about atonement as essential but obviously didn’t actually know what Jesus taught his disciples or the Salvation of Zacheus. I don’t read much what Paul said or did as its irrelevant given his beliefs. Unfortunately the Christian Church has been deceived in the process for 2000 years. And believing in Adam’s original Sin makes him more so but then Jesus also believed in Adam and Eve which also says a lot about Jesus’s being God hey? I’m waiting for the day when the Vatican moves to repeal this doctrine, along with reinstating women’s right to ordination. Oh guess what? Jesus chose 12 guys and no women and he was and is God over the whole of creation? Tick tick….
How could we be made in God’s image if God is not flesh and blood?
It is actually getting popular on the internet right now to deny Paul ever persecuted the Christians and that passages that suggest he did in his letters were interpolations. Here is a typical short article: See ** you do not have permission to see this link **
I think Paul persecuted the early church. What do others think?
I think it’s interesting and should be explored more. That article you link doesn’t reference it, but there was a book that came out recently that discusses the lack of persecution of Christians outside of the few times the Romans outlawed the religion. I don’t know Greek, but as someone with a lot of interest in linguistics I’d like to know more about this word διωγμός and how it really translates. The bible is loaded with instances of the wrong word being used in a translation. Is that the case here? I don’t know, but I’d like to. On the other hand, in Galatians 1 Paul says he “violently” persecuted the church and tried to destroy it (NRSV translation). The Marcionites have long fascinated me and I vaguely recall that they denied that Paul persecuted anything, but I’d think they had a vested interest in denying he persecuted anyone.
There might be arguments both ways, but a simple blog post isn’t going to answer much.
FWIW, Dr. Ehrman’s thoughts related to this are at his 4/23/14 and 4/24/14 posts entitled “Did Paul Invent the Resurrection?” and “Paul’s importance in early Christianity”. As for the greek, my koine dictionary only renders that as the noun form for persecution, and you already know that. I’d have to go to a greek NT with search engine online to find out how many other times, if any, it appears in the NT. Ehrman certainly places a lot of stock in his 4/23 and 4/24 posts in his acceptance that Paul was a persecutor of early christians prior to his conversion by them (not by the apostles whom he meets 3 years later).
As for his potential sincerity versus con nature…Ehrman’s post on whether Paul was seriously considering suicide sure seems to weigh in favor of sincerity (as do other impassioned passages against his many opponents). But maybe Ehrman is right…Paul’s are the only letters that survived, despite the fact that he seems to disagree with everyone…which makes one smell the burning (suppression by immolation and annihilation) exercises of the proto-orthodox as much as anything else.
But i can see his stuff surviving alone because it suited the early fathers persuasion in their time. And i can see Paul with a chip on his shoulder in that at least Peter and James and John actually had first-hand experience of a vision of the risen Jesus, and he alone, despite his superior learning/literary abilities, had to have his own vision “last” (clever there to close the door and let no more come in) to claim any legitimacy at all. Still, they kept him on a short leash (if you call 14 years short) and could call him back to headquarters
Strange that God who wanted everyone in the world to be saved had to rely on a dead language ie aramaic that had to be translated into greek and then translated again and still the interpretations are being argued about 2000 years later.
But then Jesus said he came only to save the lost sheep of Israel that rules out all the non Jews. But then the gentile church had to invent the great commission statement that flies in the face of Jesus’s own words.
Has anyone thought that IF the risen Jesus appeared to Paul some years later in some form, that he has despite all the competition between religious faiths and within the Christian Church that Jesus has stayed silent while millions died in the process? Surely a similar word in the ear of Muhammad would have avoided many problems over the centuries and the persecution of Jews and Christians and in some cases vice versa. How come Paul seemed to be the very last person he appeared to? If he is alive, where is he and why doesn’t he come and tell us all to avoid all the billions of words in trying to work out exactly what he did mean 2000 years ago?
But then wouldn’t a wise Creator God have left redemption just a millisecond more to the present day so that the whole world could indeed hear and see the message in a major world language like English?
The alternative explanation seems more reasonable. ie it never happened and Paul imagined it all.
SWerdal said
FWIW, Dr. Ehrman’s thoughts related to this are at his 4/23/14 and 4/24/14 posts entitled “Did Paul Invent the Resurrection?” and “Paul’s importance in early Christianity”. As for the greek, my koine dictionary only renders that as the noun form for persecution, and you already know that. I’d have to go to a greek NT with search engine online to find out how many other times, if any, it appears in the NT. Ehrman certainly places a lot of stock in his 4/23 and 4/24 posts in his acceptance that Paul was a persecutor of early christians prior to his conversion by them (not by the apostles whom he meets 3 years later).
As for his potential sincerity versus con nature…Ehrman’s post on whether Paul was seriously considering suicide sure seems to weigh in favor of sincerity (as do other impassioned passages against his many opponents). But maybe Ehrman is right…Paul’s are the only letters that survived, despite the fact that he seems to disagree with everyone…which makes one smell the burning (suppression by immolation and annihilation) exercises of the proto-orthodox as much as anything else.
But i can see his stuff surviving alone because it suited the early fathers persuasion in their time. And i can see Paul with a chip on his shoulder in that at least Peter and James and John actually had first-hand experience of a vision of the risen Jesus, and he alone, despite his superior learning/literary abilities, had to have his own vision “last” (clever there to close the door and let no more come in) to claim any legitimacy at all. Still, they kept him on a short leash (if you call 14 years short) and could call him back to headquarters
SWerdal said
FWIW, Dr. Ehrman’s thoughts related to this are at his 4/23/14 and 4/24/14 posts entitled “Did Paul Invent the Resurrection?” and “Paul’s importance in early Christianity”. As for the greek, my koine dictionary only renders that as the noun form for persecution, and you already know that. I’d have to go to a greek NT with search engine online to find out how many other times, if any, it appears in the NT. Ehrman certainly places a lot of stock in his 4/23 and 4/24 posts in his acceptance that Paul was a persecutor of early christians prior to his conversion by them (not by the apostles whom he meets 3 years later).
As for his potential sincerity versus con nature…Ehrman’s post on whether Paul was seriously considering suicide sure seems to weigh in favor of sincerity (as do other impassioned passages against his many opponents). But maybe Ehrman is right…Paul’s are the only letters that survived, despite the fact that he seems to disagree with everyone…which makes one smell the burning (suppression by immolation and annihilation) exercises of the proto-orthodox as much as anything else.
But i can see his stuff surviving alone because it suited the early fathers persuasion in their time. And i can see Paul with a chip on his shoulder in that at least Peter and James and John actually had first-hand experience of a vision of the risen Jesus, and he alone, despite his superior learning/literary abilities, had to have his own vision “last” (clever there to close the door and let no more come in) to claim any legitimacy at all. Still, they kept him on a short leash (if you call 14 years short) and could call him back to headquarters
There’s no reason to think Paul was contemplating suicide. Even if you interpret the versus the way Ehrman does, Paul’s talk about leaving this world to be with Christ might just have been PR to get people to further believe how completely devoted to Christ Paul was, even though it was all just a show to get people to accept Paul’s teachings. After all, Paul never did commit suicide. lol
Paul said that to “live is Christ and to die was gain”, sic.\
I think that is a terrible condemnation of humanity and of God’s creation and encouraged martyerdom like some religions still do today. It also sounds like a man with mental problems and why he probably suffered from Epilepsy, which may have been the thorn in his flesh. It could also have meant he was a homosexual as nobody has yet answered why Jesus and most of his disciples were unmarried which was against the culture and teaching of Judaism and God who said to go out and multiply etc. No problems with that of course and in many ways it would have been great for that to have been true which would have avoided 2000 years of homophobia in society and the church which even today calls them disordered and intriniscally evil. I note that even Pope Francis hasn’t repealed that sort of insulting language. Maybe he is all talk and no action?
Jesus asked Peter, if he loved him more than the others. That was strange question for a man to ask another man even if people assume that was the Son of God speaking of eternal love? But would Peter have understood that?
Paul thought a great deal of Timothy and on one occasion went somewhere to speak to the locals and when he found out that Timothy had left the area, he decided not to stay and went on to try and find him. That’s the problem with the NT in that we don’t know what happened to the Mother and Father of Jesus? Nor Mary Magdelene or even Paul himself and so its all guesswork? One thing IS clear though. Paul’s preaching about Jesus coming back the whole time to a sometimes skeptical audience was false and so what message does that send out to believers? In that sense, it probably was the greatest con trick of all time as people were told to sell everything and not to get married as the time was so short to God’s final judgement.
Most modern evangelists of other faiths who do this are considered nutters aren’t they? Having said that, some of the stuff that Paul wrote was pretty fantastic such as that about charity and love and looking through a glass darkly etc..
Gerd Ludemann has an interesting recent article, Paul The Promoter of Christianity, where he writes
“Until the end Paul claimed that he never consciously abandoned the faith of his fathers and never forsook Judaism. That now seems difficult to sustain; but rather than charge him with duplicity, might we see it as an almost involuntary but necessary strategy on Paul’s part? At a time when things were not going terribly well in the mission field, did he deem it advantageous to curry a bit of favor with the Jewish converts who constituted a significant minority presence in the Roman community?”
Here is the whole article: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Question: How far would Paul go to promote Christianity?
john76 said
Gerd Ludemann has an interesting recent article, Paul The Promoter of Christianity, where he writes“Until the end Paul claimed that he never consciously abandoned the faith of his fathers and never forsook Judaism. That now seems difficult to sustain; but rather than charge him with duplicity, might we see it as an almost involuntary but necessary strategy on Paul’s part? At a time when things were not going terribly well in the mission field, did he deem it advantageous to curry a bit of favor with the Jewish converts who constituted a significant minority presence in the Roman community?”
Here is the whole article: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Question: How far would Paul go to promote Christianity?
Very interesting take. I forget where the other thread is where we’ve been chatting about Paul the whiner, always protesting too much, and always begging for his next meal (where I mention there that he can only remember or bothers to mention TWO of all of Jesus’s Q sayings: stay married; and pay your preachers). But that’s my answer- he’d go as far as he had to for his next free meal, and maybe a bed for that night. Since Jesus also taught to pay no heed for the ‘morrow, and because they all believed his imminent kingdom was coming any day now, that’s all he (economically) needed, i.e., if he really believed what he was dishing out (was merely a paid salesman), rather just taking advantage and riding the gravy train on a good yarn (was a con man). I’m still leaning toward he really believed all of it. There were apolcalytic Jews, like that. It’s not far-fetched that he became one.
john76 said
Was Paul the greatest salesman who ever lived, or the greatest con man who ever lived?Perhaps Paul lied about his conversion experience and never had a vision of Christ. Maybe Paul would have died for the cause of creating a better world, and thought it would start a moral revolution if the masses believed in the risen Christ.
There seems to be nothing sincere about Paul. Paul says he was persecuting Christians, then had his conversion experience, and then became a Christian. This is a blatant lie. If this had happened, the people who Paul used to work for would have gone after Paul and hunted him down for deserting, and for being a Chistian (which never happened – Paul’s former employers just let him get away free and clear). Paul speaks of being all things to all men; to the Jew he became a Jew, etc. That’s classic PR today. Paul also spoke of “putting on” the new man.
If he intended it, yeah, in that case the dude pulled off literally the biggest con job by a single human that the world has ever seen ever. A con job so massive he couldn’t have fathomed how successful he would be.
I think he was a genuine Jewish pagan. Not that he had any sympathy for pagan beliefs, but as Bart argues, these early Christians had started to worship Christ. I think it’s possible he really did believe in what he was saying, that he really was worshipping God and Jesus and calling all towards his gospel, his belief of salvation. That kind of dedication is probably hard to pull off if you don’t have some level of belief(I could be wrong.)
But we can’t possibly know. To answer your question, we’d have to find a letter where he admits he is a con artist or somehow look into his mind.
john76 said
This is a blatant lie. If this had happened, the people who Paul used to work for would have gone after Paul and hunted him down for deserting, and for being a Chistian (which never happened – Paul’s former employers just let him get away free and clear).
Who did he work for? How do you know they didn’t go after him? Paul, himself, says he went to Arabia for 3 years after his conversion. How do you know this wasn’t the reason? The rest is pure insinuation. “They would have” Why because that fits the argument you’re making?
Why wouldn’t the disciples know this? After all, if Paul was persecuting Christians, it’s likely they knew who he was. Why wouldn’t they be highly skeptical of anything Paul said.
Paul gave up his former life and position for this new movement, I can’t see how he would benefit from inventing a conversion.
IF he was working for anyone, it is likely it would have been for those of his fellow countrymen who were in charge of the temple.
Would they have cared about someone who ran away? Maybe, but it’s equally likely that they were more concerned with public disturbances and how that would affect their position. And this assumes that the same ppl were in a position of authority before and after his conversion and disappearance into Arabia or that they thought he was important enough to “hunt down”
You have to come up with more than insinuation
Greg Matthews said
I think it’s interesting and should be explored more. That article you link doesn’t reference it, but there was a book that came I’d like to know more about this word διωγμός and how it really translates. The bible is loaded with instances of the wrong word being used in a translation. Is that the case here? I don’t know, but I’d like to. On the other hand, in Galatians 1 Paul says he “violently” persecuted the church and tried to destroy it (NRSV translation).
Not that it means much, but isn’t the NSRV the version that Bruce Metzger chaired?
I think Paul, et al, did for Jesus what Mallory, et al, did for Arthur, namely, created a person bigger than life trying to promote a belief in a bodily resurrection and an afterlife, beliefs not held by the Sadducees, Paul’s enemies. I think the schism between the Pharisees and the Sadducees is under-discussed. How is it that a major Jewish sect, maybe even the dominant sect in the first century, did not believe in an afterlife? Easy. It’s not part of the first 5 books of the Bible. I think it could be argued that belief in the risen Jesus was simply an extension of, or an attempt to extend, Pharisaic teachings, which were grounded, of course before Jesus, in the belief in a deliverer. That Paul thought that Jesus might fit this bill seems to me an extension of his pre-existing beliefs, which he had to tinker with to make work. If Paul were alive today and knew that we’re still waiting, I think he would re-evaluate his position.
Of course Paul was the greatest con who ever lived:
19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more.
20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law;
21 to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.
22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.
23 I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. (1 Cor. 9:19-23 NAU)
I’ve been asking fundies for years how Paul could pretend to believe he was under the law (when in the company of Jews), while not believing himself to be actually under the Law in reality, and do this without giving a false impression of himself to said Jews.
So far, no answer.
And from Acts 21:18-27, it would seem that Paul did not wish for the Jews to know that he was merely going along with how they believed, but that he was a seriously law-observant Jew, which would make his dishonesty concrete.
If Paul would have been a “Jew to the Jews”, would he have been a “Mormon to the Mormons”? Apparently so, since morally there’s no difference between pretending to live under the law when you really don’t, and pretending to believe in the divine inspiration of the book of Mormon when you really dont.
The dictionary doesn’t confine lying to forthrightly stated falsehoods, it also says the giving of a false impression constitutes lying. So if Paul gave a false impression via this psychological persuasion tactic, it is correct to call him a “liar”.
And it’s even more correct to infer from his employment of such psychological tricks that he was not able to do miracles when in the company of Jews or the company of Gentiles, since, had he been able to do so, he would hardly feel compelled to employ standard persuasion tactics to win converts.
Google “youtube rabbi tovia singer on Paul” and you will get some interesting views on Paul’s use of the Hebrew scriptures from a modern Rabbi who appears to be very familiar with the New Testament. After listening to him it makes me wonder how Paul managed to convince any Jews to accept Jesus. They must not have had any Rabbis like him around.
screwtape said
Google “youtube rabbi tovia singer on Paul” and you will get some interesting views on Paul’s use of the Hebrew scriptures from a modern Rabbi who appears to be very familiar with the New Testament. After listening to him it makes me wonder how Paul managed to convince any Jews to accept Jesus. They must not have had any Rabbis like him around.
Actually there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that Paul converted many Jews at all. His focus was on Gentiles and his claim was that converting to Judaism wasn’t necessary. And after the first generation of Jesus’ followers there doesn’t seem to be evidence that Jewish Christianity had much success. There were groups like the Ebionites but they soon faded to obscurity.
I don’t think Paul was a con man. I think he was a sincere religious fanatic. Just like Jesus.
Oh man, Paul was a terrible hypocrite. If it offended a brother to eat meat, he didn’t eat meat in front of him. Can you think of anything as dastardly deceptive as that?
Some don’t believe musical instruments should be used in worship services. When I hang with them during worship services, I leave my trumpet and drums at home. Woe is me. I am a dude of infinite hypocrisy.
I knew a chick who was into soccer. I watched a soccer game with her once, trying to befriend her, to show her God’s love at some point. I don’t like soccer! I am undone! I’m nothing but a rotten, good for nothing devil.
Twist and shout
john76 said
Was Paul the greatest salesman who ever lived, or the greatest con man who ever lived?Perhaps Paul lied about his conversion experience and never had a vision of Christ. Maybe Paul would have died for the cause of creating a better world, and thought it would start a moral revolution if the masses believed in the risen Christ.
There seems to be nothing sincere about Paul. Paul says he was persecuting Christians, then had his conversion experience, and then became a Christian. This is a blatant lie. If this had happened, the people who Paul used to work for would have gone after Paul and hunted him down for deserting, and for being a Chistian (which never happened – Paul’s former employers just let him get away free and clear). Paul speaks of being all things to all men; to the Jew he became a Jew, etc. That’s classic PR today. Paul also spoke of “putting on” the new man.
Do we have any information on who said employers might have been? Who would consider the Christian sect such a menace (after so little time) that they would hire a professional persecutor to come all the way from Tarsus (?) to … do what exactly?
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