Paul & The Bible

Paul & The Bible 

The believers of the religion of Christianity owe a lot of thanks to the so-called "Apostle" Paul as if it were not for him, modern Christianity would have no legitimate basis. What truly distinguishes Christianity as a different and standalone religion, separate from Judaism, are the very teachings of the "Apostle" Paul. Without the writings of Paul, The New Testament (in particular the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke) paint the picture of a very Hebrew-Jewish Jesus primarily concerned with the Israelite's and adherence to the Law of Moses. It was only until the arrival of Paul that Gentiles (non Jews) were brought into the fold of the early Church. It is the "Apostle" Paul who introduced the doctrines that are completely extra-terrestrial to original Judaism, such as Original Sin and justification by faith alone (meaning you are made righteous purely through belief and not good works which is an utterly fallacious concept). These doctrines were not part of the original teachings of Jesus (or God depending on which Christian you ask). Remove the "Apostle" Paul from the equation and Christianity is barely any different to the traditional teachings of Judaism, with the only significant difference being the acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. The reality is that Christianity hangs on for dear life of the teachings of Paul. The question arises, is this truly a remarkable prophecy? We have already seen how unreliable The Biblical scriptures are, (Click here to see). Does the "Apostle's" affirmation carry any objective weight for Christianity? After empirically analyzing the evidence, it's safe to say he was also nothing but a lazy scribal copyist. He takes crops verses out of context, misquotes and misinterprets verses from The Bible. 

We will see how Paul (like many other Christians today) will distort, crop and take verses out of context.  “But what saith it? The word is nigh (near) thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;”( Romans 10:8 ) In the following verse, we can see that the "Apostle" Paul has half quoted Deuteronomy 30:14: “But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.” ( Deuteronomy 30:14 ) 

Notice that Paul has left out the part that states “that thou mayest do it”. Paul believed that obedience to the Law of Moses was no longer necessary, a claim that is contrary to the way that the life of Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels. In quoting the Old Testament, Paul seems to have omitted the instruction to obey the Law. the fuller context of ( Deuteronomy 30:9-11 ) reveals why Paul couldn’t quote the full set of verses in context: “And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers: If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul. For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off (not too difficult to obey).”

Not only does the above state that obeying the Law with all your heart and soul would make people prosper, but it also further states that the Law was not too difficult to follow nor is it beyond the reach of the people. This contravenes Paul’s claims that the Law is like a prison sentence and a curse: “Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.” ( Galatians 3:23 )  “Christ redeemed us from the cu...rse of the law by becoming a cu...rse for us…” ( Galatians 3:13 )

Paul Quotes from the wrong version of The Old Testament.  "And in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.” ( Romans 11:26 ) Contrast Paul’s above quote with the Old Testament verse he is referencing, Isaiah 59:20. Open up any English version of the Bible and you will see that the reading for Isaiah 59:20 is similar to this (this is taken from the New International Version of the Bible): “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the Lord. Here is clearly a mismatch between what Paul quotes in the New Testament, stating that the Messiah will remove godlessness, or sin, from “Jacob” (meaning the Israelites), and what the Old Testament actually contains – the Messiah will come to those who have already repented from the original sin. What’s going on? Paul may have been quoting from the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Old Testament: “And the deliverer shall come for Sion’s sake, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” So we have two variant readings for Isaiah 59:20, the one in the Greek Septuagint that Paul seems to quote from, and also the one that is used in all English versions of the Bible which originate from the Hebrew Masoretic Text. It turns out that the reading that Paul seems to quote from, the Greek Septuagint, is the incorrect reading. This is because the D. Sea Scrolls, the oldest surviving manuscripts for the Old Testament, support the reading that is found in the Masoretic Text (compare the two, they are very similar): 

Masoretic Text – “The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the Lord. 

D. Sea Scrolls – “And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the LORD.”

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” ( Galatians 3:10 ) Here Paul has misquoted a curse made originally in ( Deuteronomy 27:26 ): Cur.sed be he that confirmeth not the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen."

 The key phrase in the text is “confirmeth not”. It is not pronouncing a curse on everyone who does not meticulously keep the whole of the Law, as Paul implies. Rather, it is an exhortation to Israel to affirm the Law and then to do the best they could in applying it, basically “putting their money where their mouth is”. The curse condemns those rebels who rejected the covenant and did not confirm the validity of the Torah. 

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ.” ( Galatians 3:15-16 ) Here Paul has referenced the Old Testament verse ( Genesis 17:19 ): “and I will establish my covenant with him (Isaac) for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.” This is probably Paul’s silliest argument of all, because in the Hebrew language there is no ‘seeds’, only ‘seed’, as it’s a collective noun. Like in English, if I say bring your sheep, it can mean one or many. This is beside the point, as in ( Genesis 13:16 ) it gives us the correct interpretation as it says: 

"And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.” 

So then, “seed” refers to many descendants and not just one (Jesus) as Paul misinterprets.

Another area that we can use to put Paul’s claims of "apostleship" to the test, is future prophecies. The Bible gives us a standard method by which we can measure Paul’s claims to divine inspiration: "If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed. "( Deuteronomy 18:22 )  So we can see that anyone that makes a claim about the future which then fails to come true, cannot be inspired by God. Now there are numerous statements by Paul that suggest he believed the End was expected in his lifetime: 

 "We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the believers who have passed will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever." ( 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 )

"And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light." ( Romans 13.11-12 )

So the alleged "Apostle" Paul seems to be saying that not all of the believers in his day would pass away before the return of Jesus. Obviously this is a false prophecy, as it has been more than 2,000 years since Paul wrote those words, and both the End times and return of Jesus still haven’t taken place. In fact most New Testament scholars conclude that Paul the wanna-be "apostle" and his followers expected the imminent end of the world during their lifetimes. For example, the distinguished New Testament scholar Professor C.K. Barrett wrote in his commentary on 1 Corinthians: ‘Paul expects that at the parousia he himself will not be among those who passed away (of whom he speaks in the third person), but among the living (of whom he speaks in the first person). He expected the parousia within his own lifetime.’ 

The majority of Christian scholarship that disagrees with this observation comes from evangelical circles which are motivated to protect their doctrine of scriptural inerrancy. Now some Christians try to defend Paul by claiming that he was speaking figuratively. For example they argue that when Paul used the first person plural to refer to believers (“we will not all sleep”), this does not necessarily mean he included himself among them, but rather he was referring to a group of believers at some unspecified time in the future. So what did Paul intended by his statement, should we interpret it literally or figuratively? In order to arrive at the correct understanding we need to interpret Paul in light of his other statements on the same subject; this is a consistent and unbiased approach. Now let’s examine Paul’s writings on the subject of believers getting married: “What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.” ( 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 )

As you can see, Paul clearly believed that the End was coming during the lifetime of his followers. In these verses, Christians ask Paul to comment on marriage, and he responds by saying that it is better not to get married because the “time is short”. Can anyone honestly say that Paul did not believe that the End was right around the corner? Paul’s statement regarding marriage only makes sense if he believed the End was coming very soon. It does not make sense if the End was supposed to come thousands of years later. Surely, he was not speaking to Christians 2,000 years later, who are still waiting for the End to come. Thus we can safely conclude that Paul was not inspired by God because he fails to meet the criteria set out by the Bible itself – a genuinely inspired person does not make false prophecies. 

A Christian response to all of these points might be that Paul was just a fallible human being who made genuine mistakes in interpreting the Old Testament. In reality it’s hard to make excuses for him and assume he made honest mistakes because according to the New Testament itself he had been a student of the leading authority on Jewish Law in Jerusalem, the famous Rabbi Gamaliel: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day” ( Acts 22:3 )

So, far from being ignorant, Paul was highly trained and sophisticated in his understanding of Jewish theology. Even if we accept the Christian response, for the petty sake of argument, then an even bigger issue emerges: "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." ( Galatians 1:11-12 )

In Conclusion : In a nutshell, without Paul = No basis for The New Testament = No modern-day Christianity = No Trinity. If Paul, as he himself and all Christians claim, was guided by "divine" revelation then why was he inspired to make so many mistakes in quoting The Old Testament? Perhaps even more detrimental to Paul’s claim of an Apostle is his alleged divine inspiration. Any "alleged"inspired message from God should be infallible, as by definition a God is infallible. which incidentally he would also fail, but rather based on his own bold claims within the New Testament. Also many of these individuals are Bible believing Christians, why didn’t the Holy Spirit prevent this mistake from happening? Was it unable to do so, or did it allow the mistake to happen? Either way there’s a serious problem. – The ancient D. Sea Scrolls, the oldest manuscripts in existence, support the Hebrew reading as opposed to the Kione Greek. It’s believed that the D. Sea Scrolls were written by a Jewish sect known as the Essenes. The Hebrew Masoretic Text was written by a Jewish sect known as the Masoretes. So we have two independent Jewish sects, both using the same reading. With this in mind, surely it is the Greek Septuagint, which is the odd one out, that has the incorrect reading, rather than the independent Jewish sects who all corroborate one other? It has been shown that contrary to his own claims, Paul’s message was very fallible, so it stands to reason that Paul was not genuinely inspired by God. Before we end this article, critics with their last gasp of oxygen will resort to claiming that the now scamming "Apostle" was not directly referring to the people of his days. explanation that Paul merely wanted to instill a mind-set of urgency makes no sense in light of the above verses. Eventho he intended that Christians should not marry, not be happy, not buy and sell – basically not go about normal life – for an indefinite amount of time, which as of now is nearly two thousands years and counting? It is obvious to the mind that such an understanding makes no sense. Paul’s statement regarding marriage and life in general could only logically make sense if he believed the End was coming during his generation, in which case such advice would be wise indeed, otherwise he would've told them to warn their descendants. Case closed and finished. 

So I ask Christian readers, why then should we pay attention to his teachings? I will leave you with the sacred and precious words of Jesus: 

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits…” ( Matthew, 7:15-16 )