Paul's Christianity

[systemstrike_7]

It depends on how we see scripture.

Indeed Paul was one of the writer who's words were written down first, as he wrote some of the early letters, but many ascribe I Peter to be just as early and written by Peter and Silus.

But Paul's letters were not meant as an account of the life of Christ, they were sermons to people who already believed in Christ and were aware of His life. From reading these letters we see a detailed knowledge of the life of Christ (detailed accounts of the Last Supper for example), we also see what was important, what the Gospel is very directly and what was important for first believers to understand the core so to speak of our faith. The Letters of Paul an Peter and John are all just as important as Mathew through John, they are all needed. But you see Paul did meet the risen Christ.

Of course you could say it is all a bunch of lies and pagan myths' repackaged, we could say that about the entire New Testament including Mathew through John, but the fact that Paul's sermons don't repeat the four Gospel accounts would really not show that one way or the other.

It is still debated whether Peter actually wrote those accounts. Of course, we really have no way of knowing that because there isn't another of his writings available to compare. Paul was a missionary. He went to different places and told people about Christ. What he actually said about Christ is unknown. But if you take his letters and base his knowledge off of those, you'll see that he didn't know an earthly Christ like the gospel writers composed. Here and there you will get small references to Jesus being "in the flesh" or something like that, but there isn't any kind of a hard statement that tells us in a straightforward manner. Why wouldn't he mention his miracles? Why wouldn't he mention some of his parables? Why wouldn't he mention him being born of a virgin or walking on water? Did he believe in it? Did he know about it? I'm not being accusatory. I just really want to know. I get involved in these things to find the truth. And I try my best to go into it without a bias. Well if i were to just agree with it, I wouldn't get any answers, especially on a Christian forum.

Ayin Jade, I appreciate your responses. They are very cut and dry and to the point. You do not feel the need to thrash someones dignity in the process of answering a completely reasonable question. Many can learn from your example.

[systemstrike_7]

And GeneV, I'm guessing you are very well versed in this subject? From my understanding it was a pretty good question. It got answered in different ways, and in alot of cases very CIVIL ways, unlike mr. leonard who couldn't keep his panties on because somebody questions his almighty authority.

Anyway, the point I was trying to get to on this thread is simple. Its takes me back to a post I made in an earlier thread.

Jesus' life was already written before he even stepped on the earth. Basically, his entire story was already lived by the many mythical pagan saviour gods before him. Some examples:

Born under a star on December 25th

Virgin birth or other miraculous birth

Visit by magi or wise men

Attempt by jealous ruler to kill newborn child

Missing childhood and young adult years from myth story

Do various miracles and heal sicknesses and deformities

Claim to be Son of God

Claim to be God

Claim to be an important person of God

Claim to be mediator between humans and God

Accepted widely by his own people at first

Rejected harshly by same people

On the night before he died, he had a last supper with his 12(# sometimes differs or is not given) followers and gave them bread to eat as his body and wine to drink as his blood.

Died on a cross or tree(usually to save mankind)

Resurrected 3 days later( # of days sometimes differs)

Ascends to heaven after appearing to followers

Does this sound like anyone you know? If I am completely in the wrong here then please inform me of my mistakes. Could this be an invention by man and not God?

Ahh yes, CS Lewis called those good dreams. What is fascinating is that the preparation for Christ was planted among many different cultures through myth and dreams before His coming. It is indeed one of the reason's so many around the globe from such radically different cultures and places have come to Christ, they were prepared by God to do so.

So those myth's and stories actually strengthen the case for Christ. Does it really make sense that so many different cultures in so many different places would end up with these same sort of strange sounding ideas on their own?

Well this is just fanciful thinking. CS Lewis is no doubt a great man, I love his work.

You cannot just turn this argument around. You just made the argument as circular as possible, because you just stated that the Christian God is the only possibility. I can't see them as good dreams, because many people died for those gods, many people suffered for those gods, and by your standards many people went to eternal damnation for those gods.

If you put aside the possibility of "satan did it" then this does not strengthen your case. It is quite obvious that Jesus copied the other saviors. Well, I would say that the writers of the new testament had jesus copy them. Was jesus really alive? Maybe. If he was, he was probably a good guy and would be tearing his hair out if he saw what was going on.

[Smalcald]

And GeneV, I'm guessing you are very well versed in this subject? From my understanding it was a pretty good question. It got answered in different ways, and in alot of cases very CIVIL ways, unlike mr. leonard who couldn't keep his panties on because somebody questions his almighty authority.

Anyway, the point I was trying to get to on this thread is simple. Its takes me back to a post I made in an earlier thread.

Jesus' life was already written before he even stepped on the earth. Basically, his entire story was already lived by the many mythical pagan saviour gods before him. Some examples:

Born under a star on December 25th

Virgin birth or other miraculous birth

Visit by magi or wise men

Attempt by jealous ruler to kill newborn child

Missing childhood and young adult years from myth story

Do various miracles and heal sicknesses and deformities

Claim to be Son of God

Claim to be God

Claim to be an important person of God

Claim to be mediator between humans and God

Accepted widely by his own people at first

Rejected harshly by same people

On the night before he died, he had a last supper with his 12(# sometimes differs or is not given) followers and gave them bread to eat as his body and wine to drink as his blood.

Died on a cross or tree(usually to save mankind)

Resurrected 3 days later( # of days sometimes differs)

Ascends to heaven after appearing to followers

Does this sound like anyone you know? If I am completely in the wrong here then please inform me of my mistakes. Could this be an invention by man and not God?

Ahh yes, CS Lewis called those good dreams. What is fascinating is that the preparation for Christ was planted among many different cultures through myth and dreams before His coming. It is indeed one of the reason's so many around the globe from such radically different cultures and places have come to Christ, they were prepared by God to do so.

So those myth's and stories actually strengthen the case for Christ. Does it really make sense that so many different cultures in so many different places would end up with these same sort of strange sounding ideas on their own?

Well this is just fanciful thinking. CS Lewis is no doubt a great man, I love his work.

You cannot just turn this argument around. You just made the argument as circular as possible, because you just stated that the Christian God is the only possibility. I can't see them as good dreams, because many people died for those gods, many people suffered for those gods, and by your standards many people went to eternal damnation for those gods.

If you put aside the possibility of "satan did it" then this does not strengthen your case. It is quite obvious that Jesus copied the other saviors. Well, I would say that the writers of the new testament had jesus copy them. Was jesus really alive? Maybe. If he was, he was probably a good guy and would be tearing his hair out if he saw what was going on.

But I am not just turning it around at all. It is indeed quite illogical for vastly different cultures, many of which the scripture writers knew nothing about, all having similar ideas about both God and a Savior. I find it absolutely fascinating.

But as far as Christ goes, no He was very radical and radically different. He was crucified because He claimed to be equal to God, a very serious and blasphemous thing to say in a Jewish context, unless of course it was true. I find the Gospel writers to be very believable; they have the ring of truth about them that true things have (another Lewis quote). But the interesting thing is how convincing the writers of the Gospel's are. I mean we have these different accounts of the life of Christ, we have Paul and Peter writing sermons, and they all fit together quite nicely, and yet not perfectly. When the Church put these accounts together they could have sanitized them; they could have simply only included John, and dumped the others. But no, they were all included just as any account needs the critical witnesses.

As far as murder and death, yes this is what scripture predicts our evil hearts will do, fight, murder and kill, and this has happened in every society known to us, both religious and totally non-religious, just as scripture predicts.

But indeed those are good dreams; they foreshadow our only salvation a God who actually cares about us individually. Dreams or no dreams, belief in God or no believe in God, people still fight, war, and murder each other, we can

[systemstrike_7]

And GeneV, I'm guessing you are very well versed in this subject? From my understanding it was a pretty good question. It got answered in different ways, and in alot of cases very CIVIL ways, unlike mr. leonard who couldn't keep his panties on because somebody questions his almighty authority.

Anyway, the point I was trying to get to on this thread is simple. Its takes me back to a post I made in an earlier thread.

Jesus' life was already written before he even stepped on the earth. Basically, his entire story was already lived by the many mythical pagan saviour gods before him. Some examples:

Born under a star on December 25th

Virgin birth or other miraculous birth

Visit by magi or wise men

Attempt by jealous ruler to kill newborn child

Missing childhood and young adult years from myth story

Do various miracles and heal sicknesses and deformities

Claim to be Son of God

Claim to be God

Claim to be an important person of God

Claim to be mediator between humans and God

Accepted widely by his own people at first

Rejected harshly by same people

On the night before he died, he had a last supper with his 12(# sometimes differs or is not given) followers and gave them bread to eat as his body and wine to drink as his blood.

Died on a cross or tree(usually to save mankind)

Resurrected 3 days later( # of days sometimes differs)

Ascends to heaven after appearing to followers

Does this sound like anyone you know? If I am completely in the wrong here then please inform me of my mistakes. Could this be an invention by man and not God?

Ahh yes, CS Lewis called those good dreams. What is fascinating is that the preparation for Christ was planted among many different cultures through myth and dreams before His coming. It is indeed one of the reason's so many around the globe from such radically different cultures and places have come to Christ, they were prepared by God to do so.

So those myth's and stories actually strengthen the case for Christ. Does it really make sense that so many different cultures in so many different places would end up with these same sort of strange sounding ideas on their own?

Well this is just fanciful thinking. CS Lewis is no doubt a great man, I love his work.

You cannot just turn this argument around. You just made the argument as circular as possible, because you just stated that the Christian God is the only possibility. I can't see them as good dreams, because many people died for those gods, many people suffered for those gods, and by your standards many people went to eternal damnation for those gods.

If you put aside the possibility of "satan did it" then this does not strengthen your case. It is quite obvious that Jesus copied the other saviors. Well, I would say that the writers of the new testament had jesus copy them. Was jesus really alive? Maybe. If he was, he was probably a good guy and would be tearing his hair out if he saw what was going on.

But I am not just turning it around at all. It is indeed quite illogical for vastly different cultures, many of which the scripture writers knew nothing about, all having similar ideas about both God and a Savior. I find it absolutely fascinating.

But as far as Christ goes, no He was very radical and radically different. He was crucified because He claimed to be equal to God, a very serious and blasphemous thing to say in a Jewish context, unless of course it was true. I find the Gospel writers to be very believable; they have the ring of truth about them that true things have (another Lewis quote). But the interesting thing is how convincing the writers of the Gospel's are. I mean we have these different accounts of the life of Christ, we have Paul and Peter writing sermons, and they all fit together quite nicely, and yet not perfectly. When the Church put these accounts together they could have sanitized them; they could have simply only included John, and dumped the others. But no, they were all included just as any account needs the critical witnesses.

As far as murder and death, yes this is what scripture predicts our evil hearts will do, fight, murder and kill, and this has happened in every society known to us, both religious and totally non-religious, just as scripture predicts.

But indeed those are good dreams; they foreshadow our only salvation a God who actually cares about us individually. Dreams or no dreams, belief in God or no believe in God, people still fight, war, and murder each other, we can

[ayin jade]

The pharisees followed Jesus around. They constantly questioned Him. Acts makes it clear that Paul was very much aware of the first Christians since he was present when Stephen was stoned. Paul in fact persecuted the early believers so he was clearly aware of the life of Jesus.

Acts is a later account by Luke, or at least the author of Luke. The gospels were formed around Paul's letters. I still do not see how you are getting these dates. Please give me your reasons for putting Mathew before Mark when Mathew is clearly derived from Mark. It is pretty well understood that Mark is the basis for the other three gospels(but not so much for John).

I would like to know your reasoning and proof that the gospels were formed around Paul's letters. The way Im reading this, is you think that the gospels were written to conform to Paul's letters. That is not the case at all. Even if Acts was written later, Acts makes it clear that Paul was present in the first persecution of Christians and was a major force in their persecution. Just because it was written later (if it was) doesnt make it wrong.

[Smalcald]

And GeneV, I'm guessing you are very well versed in this subject? From my understanding it was a pretty good question. It got answered in different ways, and in alot of cases very CIVIL ways, unlike mr. leonard who couldn't keep his panties on because somebody questions his almighty authority.

Anyway, the point I was trying to get to on this thread is simple. Its takes me back to a post I made in an earlier thread.

Jesus' life was already written before he even stepped on the earth. Basically, his entire story was already lived by the many mythical pagan saviour gods before him. Some examples:

Born under a star on December 25th

Virgin birth or other miraculous birth

Visit by magi or wise men

Attempt by jealous ruler to kill newborn child

Missing childhood and young adult years from myth story

Do various miracles and heal sicknesses and deformities

Claim to be Son of God

Claim to be God

Claim to be an important person of God

Claim to be mediator between humans and God

Accepted widely by his own people at first

Rejected harshly by same people

On the night before he died, he had a last supper with his 12(# sometimes differs or is not given) followers and gave them bread to eat as his body and wine to drink as his blood.

Died on a cross or tree(usually to save mankind)

Resurrected 3 days later( # of days sometimes differs)

Ascends to heaven after appearing to followers

Does this sound like anyone you know? If I am completely in the wrong here then please inform me of my mistakes. Could this be an invention by man and not God?

Ahh yes, CS Lewis called those good dreams. What is fascinating is that the preparation for Christ was planted among many different cultures through myth and dreams before His coming. It is indeed one of the reason's so many around the globe from such radically different cultures and places have come to Christ, they were prepared by God to do so.

So those myth's and stories actually strengthen the case for Christ. Does it really make sense that so many different cultures in so many different places would end up with these same sort of strange sounding ideas on their own?

Well this is just fanciful thinking. CS Lewis is no doubt a great man, I love his work.

You cannot just turn this argument around. You just made the argument as circular as possible, because you just stated that the Christian God is the only possibility. I can't see them as good dreams, because many people died for those gods, many people suffered for those gods, and by your standards many people went to eternal damnation for those gods.

If you put aside the possibility of "satan did it" then this does not strengthen your case. It is quite obvious that Jesus copied the other saviors. Well, I would say that the writers of the new testament had jesus copy them. Was jesus really alive? Maybe. If he was, he was probably a good guy and would be tearing his hair out if he saw what was going on.

But I am not just turning it around at all. It is indeed quite illogical for vastly different cultures, many of which the scripture writers knew nothing about, all having similar ideas about both God and a Savior. I find it absolutely fascinating.

But as far as Christ goes, no He was very radical and radically different. He was crucified because He claimed to be equal to God, a very serious and blasphemous thing to say in a Jewish context, unless of course it was true. I find the Gospel writers to be very believable; they have the ring of truth about them that true things have (another Lewis quote). But the interesting thing is how convincing the writers of the Gospel's are. I mean we have these different accounts of the life of Christ, we have Paul and Peter writing sermons, and they all fit together quite nicely, and yet not perfectly. When the Church put these accounts together they could have sanitized them; they could have simply only included John, and dumped the others. But no, they were all included just as any account needs the critical witnesses.

As far as murder and death, yes this is what scripture predicts our evil hearts will do, fight, murder and kill, and this has happened in every society known to us, both religious and totally non-religious, just as scripture predicts.

But indeed those are good dreams; they foreshadow our only salvation a God who actually cares about us individually. Dreams or no dreams, belief in God or no believe in God, people still fight, war, and murder each other, we can

[systemstrike_7]

Like I said, I'm just putting possibilities out there. I first heard about this argument about a year ago, and it recently popped into my mind. I wanted to see if I could get some answers.

Ok, let us accept the early date of the gospels. If this new find of Matthew is true, then Matthew was written around 55-60AD. The belief is that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. Why they did this, I do not know. I could understand Luke doing it, but not Matthew. Anyway, this would probably put Mark at around 45-50AD, which puts a decade in between Jesus' death and the first gospel written. Mark was written in Rome for a pagan audience. Mark was the disciple of Peter and took notes when Peter would give sermons or talk of the life of Jesus.

Now if I am correct(and tell me if I'm not) the disciples and Paul met at some point in a city and conversed. Luke was with Paul because he was Paul's personal physician. Mark was with Peter(maybe even since Gethsamane and I could point to scripture where I believe this) and of course Matthew was one of the disciples. This would give the three early gospel writers a chance to compare stories and gain insight to eachothers recollection. This would rule out the need for Matthew and Luke to use Mark as a source document. And would also rule out the possibility of Paul inventing the base of the Christ story.

Here is where it gets interesting. If I remember correctly, John was not at this meeting. He was off somewhere else and from my understanding his gospel account was written a little later in the century. His account is unique and he was an eye-witness. This gives an incredible amount of supporting evidence to show the authenticity of the gospel accounts. John's gospel does not stray from the early gospels. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating.

Bet you guys didn't expect to hear this from me...

I recently looked alot of this up and found these answers to be well suited and very well documented. If I missed anything or was incorrect about my information, please tell me.

And I didn't cite any sources, mainly because I used my own words and I'm lazy. I didn't want to go back to the books and look up the pages and such. That would require me to get into my truck, drive to the library, find the books, and copy down the information. I'll do it for a research paper, I hope you don't mind.

[nebula]

After reading much of Paul's insertions into the New Testament, I can't seem to find any mention of Jesus' earthly ministry.

I'm not sure of the train of thought in this, but there are a few things to consider.

* The books/letters of the New Testament are not organized in the order they were written. Even Paul's letters to the churches are not organized in the order they were written. (If someone has insight into why Paul's letters were organized in the order they were, please enlighten me, because I think it's weird.)

* Paul's letters were written as instructions to the Churches in the cities the books are named after. The purposes of his letters were follow-up teachings to the people. By then, they had already learned of the life of Christ by the verbal message. In reading the book of Acts, you should note that Paul was a long-winded preacher. Most of what He said was not recorded. But He didn't write about Jesus' earthly ministry because He didn't need to. It wasn't in the context of the message he was giving the churches in each letter.

* Paul was not among the disciples following Jesus. We first see Paul on the scene as a young man in the forefront of persecuting Christians. We know he was discipled as a Pharisee, and we know that he was not born in Israel but in a city called Tarsis, and that he was born a Roman citizen. (Note that although a pharisee he was not a part of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body - like being a Republican or Democrat doesn't make you a member of Congress.) So we do not know exactly when he came to Jerusalem in context of Jesus' life and ministry. Most likely, he was not very familiar with the life of Christ while Jesus was still on Earth.

All Paul knows about is Jesus' death on a cross, resurrection from tomb, and his ascension into heaven.

Not necessarily true. Just because these key events are the only things Paul mentioned in his letters, it does not mean he did not know about anything else.

These three attribute accredited to Christ by Paul, the earliest Christian writer, were also accredited to many other pagan savior gods before Jesus. Paul never quotes anything from any gospel, mainly because Paul wrote before the gospels were written, and apparently hadn't been told about Jesus' earthly ministry. When he speaks of the death, resurrection, and ascension, he talks on a MYTHICAL realm. Just like the pagan saviors.

Why would he quote from the Gospels? Recall they were written as letters. Any copies of those letters had to be hand-written. Chances are he was not carrying any copies around even with him. He may not have even come in contact with any of them. We simply don't know what became of the initial letters.

Hebrews 8:4

"If Jesus had been on earth, he would not even have been a priest."

Jesus was of the Tribe of Judah. To be a priest one had to be of the Tribe of Levi.

Jesus lived in the years of 0 A.D. to 33 A.D.(roughly) and Mark was written sometime after 70 A.D. Paul wrote in between these dates. He is the link. And from what I can see, he was unaware of the fact that Jesus was actually on earth.

Oh, he knew Jesus was actually on earth all right! Even when he was persecuting the believers early on, he had enough contact with the Jewish authorities who fought against Jesus to know.

It is not surprising that Christians rarely speak of early Christianity. When you assemble the facts it comes out as so:

Jesus lived - EVERYONE FORGOT - they finally remembered.

I'm not following your train of thought here. Books were not a dime a dozen during the first, second, third, etc. centuries.

[ayin jade]

All Paul knows about is Jesus' death on a cross, resurrection from tomb, and his ascension into heaven.

.....Paul never quotes anything from any gospel, mainly because Paul wrote before the gospels were written, and apparently hadn't been told about Jesus' earthly ministry.

Now if I am correct(and tell me if I'm not) the disciples and Paul met at some point in a city and conversed. Luke was with Paul because he was Paul's personal physician. Mark was with Peter(maybe even since Gethsamane and I could point to scripture where I believe this) and of course Matthew was one of the disciples. This would give the three early gospel writers a chance to compare stories and gain insight to eachothers recollection. This would rule out the need for Matthew and Luke to use Mark as a source document. And would also rule out the possibility of Paul inventing the base of the Christ story.

System, you contradicted yourself.

On one hand, you say that Paul doesnt know about the life of Jesus, even claiming that Paul didnt know He really lived. Then you say Paul met with the apostles and his personal physician conferred with Matthew and Mark about the gospels. If Paul met with the apostles, and his physician conferred with them about the gospels, Paul would had to have known the life story of Jesus.

Thank you btw, for the compliment earlier. The Lord gives me words and attitude.

[Smalcald]

Like I said, I'm just putting possibilities out there. I first heard about this argument about a year ago, and it recently popped into my mind. I wanted to see if I could get some answers.

Ok, let us accept the early date of the gospels. If this new find of Matthew is true, then Matthew was written around 55-60AD. The belief is that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source. Why they did this, I do not know. I could understand Luke doing it, but not Matthew. Anyway, this would probably put Mark at around 45-50AD, which puts a decade in between Jesus' death and the first gospel written. Mark was written in Rome for a pagan audience. Mark was the disciple of Peter and took notes when Peter would give sermons or talk of the life of Jesus.

Now if I am correct(and tell me if I'm not) the disciples and Paul met at some point in a city and conversed. Luke was with Paul because he was Paul's personal physician. Mark was with Peter(maybe even since Gethsamane and I could point to scripture where I believe this) and of course Matthew was one of the disciples. This would give the three early gospel writers a chance to compare stories and gain insight to eachothers recollection. This would rule out the need for Matthew and Luke to use Mark as a source document. And would also rule out the possibility of Paul inventing the base of the Christ story.

Here is where it gets interesting. If I remember correctly, John was not at this meeting. He was off somewhere else and from my understanding his gospel account was written a little later in the century. His account is unique and he was an eye-witness. This gives an incredible amount of supporting evidence to show the authenticity of the gospel accounts. John's gospel does not stray from the early gospels. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating.

Bet you guys didn't expect to hear this from me...

I recently looked alot of this up and found these answers to be well suited and very well documented. If I missed anything or was incorrect about my information, please tell me.

And I didn't cite any sources, mainly because I used my own words and I'm lazy. I didn't want to go back to the books and look up the pages and such. That would require me to get into my truck, drive to the library, find the books, and copy down the information. I'll do it for a research paper, I hope you don't mind.

That is very interesting.

Throw in the date of Paul's first letter, probably Galatians, which was written about 40-45 also, and it gets more interesting. I wonder why Peter never wrote an account of the life of Jesus. Here was the guy that Christ Himself said would lead this first group or at least found His Church on, a very important figure, yet we have two relatively small, but I think very inspiring books from him. Although the authorship of II Peter is questioned, I Peter is not questioned.