PAUL, THE POLITICIAN, a liar

PAUL, THE POLITICIAN, a liar

Hugh Fogelman

What do we know about Paul? Paul wrote he would gladly become a servant of any and all in order to win them to Christ, “And unto the Jew I became as a Jew, that I may gain the Jews; to them that are under the law (the Torah), as under the law that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law (the Gentiles), I might gain them that are without law; to the weak, I became weak that I may gain them” (l Corinthians 9:20-22). In Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s own letters, Paul shows that he was willing to distort the truth. “If through my lies God’s truth abounds to His glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?” (Romans 3:7) “In every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Jesus is proclaimed and in that I rejoice”. (Philippians 1:18) Sounds like a modern politician. He says whatever the people want to hear!

Jesus had no thoughts about founding a church. As a matter of fact, the NT says he did not want to start a new religion at all. It was Paul (who never met nor talked to Jesus) who really started Christianity. I find it strange that Paul could teach Jesus’ ideas when he never was Jesus’ disciple. Paul wrote 14 books out of the 27 in the New Testament. It was Constantine who accepted Paul’s writings over other writers of his day and made them part of the cannon in the New Testament.

There are unfounded stories that Jesus appeared to Paul in the desert after his crucifixion and spent years (10) teaching Paul. Only Paul verifies this story. How convenient! What does anyone know about Jesus, except what Paul tells us in his autobiography? Where do you think Luke, Paul’s traveling companion received his stories of Paul?

The New Testament says that Paul was born in Tarsus, a Greek city now in Turkey, and was born from Gentile parents. They and Paul were Roman citizens. Paul only converted to Judaism because he fell in love with a daughter of a Priest. Paul came from Tarsus where the mysteries of Mithras are powerful. Read about Mithras and you can see how Paul’s thoughts were influenced by this pagan religion. Paul claims to have the roman citizenship "from birth" and he is driven to the Rome Tribunal because of that to be judged by the Emperor himself. In his writings we can find traces he knows people around Nero. Christians claim that he had duel citizenship. How can it be? How was that verified?

Paul, in his autobiography, claims he was from the tribe of Benjamin, but this tribe was annihilated long before Paul. There are tribal people today living in the Tat Mountains of Caucassia who claim to be a lost tribe of Israel. Some Afghanistan’s claim to be from the tribe of Gad – but is there any way of checking out their claims without proper records? And what proof did Paul show? Nothing, he knew he was on safe ground. Strange, no one ever questioned him – not even Gamaliel, or the Pharisees, or even the Sadducees. Paul says he is a Hebrew and a Pharisee and sent to Jerusalem to study with the leading Pharisee, Gamaliel. But scholars today, from what they have learned from the earlier writings of the Jerusalem Church, doubt all three of Paul’s claims. If Paul learned from Gamaliel, the leading rabbi of the Pharisees, then why did he not obey his teacher and leave the Christians alone? Why did Saul/Paul forget that Gamaliel did not condone killing? Paul was a poor student if he forgot the Pharisees did not go out killing anyone.

Why did Saul/Paul, according to the New Testament, go out of his way to harass Christians, even killing some, when it is a known fact that Rabbi Gamaliel and the rest of the Pharisees did not in any way condemn the apostles as heretics or rebels against the Jewish religion? The answer is simple. Paul made that up, because the simple facts are that Paul was on the payroll of the Roman collaborating High Priest, a Sadducee. Paul admitted he was on his way to Damascus (Acts 22:6) working for the high priest.

He could not be both a Pharisee and a Sadducee because they hated each other. Is this logical? Not at all because Pharisee teaching does not teach killing and because of the hatred between the Sadducees and the Pharisee, if Paul, who admitted to be a Pharisee was a learned Pharisee from Gamael, he would never have gone over to the Sadducee camp and still called himself a Pharisee.

Paul’s job, as working for the Sadducees was to find people, Jew and Christian and even Romans alike, who were causing rebellious talk against Rome. Notice how the New Testament paints the picture that Paul ONLY persecuted the Christians. When in truth, Paul also persecuted Jews too if they threatened the authority of Rome and the High Court of the Sadducees. Many Jews were arrested for sedition and ended up crucified.

Paul then tells the story that on the way to Damascus with a detachment of men, there suddenly shined about him a light from heaven and Jesus spoke to him (Acts 9:3) and although his men heard a voice, they did not see anyone, and it was only Paul that heard Jesus speak words to him. Sounds like the story that the Mormon Joseph Smith told when he said the Angel Moroni spoke to him and no one else. Later Paul changed his story, denying that his men heard anything at all, but instead, they only saw a great light shining around him (Acts 22:9). Perhaps he was afraid his men might have been questioned. Compare Acts 9:7 with Acts 22:9. Did Paul's friends hear the voice, or did they not? Is this another lie or a politician spin? Acts 9:7 (KJV) "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." Acts 22:9 (KJV) "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me."

Yes --- Paul would have made a great politician in today’s world. Paul allows lying as a method of spreading Christianity, citing Romans 3:7-8, 1 Corinthians 9:20-23, 2 Corinthians 12:16 as proof texts. In the passage in Romans, the context is the contrast of man's righteousness with God's, and nowhere does Paul say it is okay to lie. In fact, at the end of the passage, he condemns those who say it is okay to do evil so that good may come out of it. Read Romans 3:1-8 to get the full context. Next is the Philippians passage, in which the context is not the use of dishonesty to spread the Christian message, but the motives behind one's preaching. Paul says that while some preach out of love and sincerity, others preach out of envy and rivalry with Paul, or selfish ambition. It is about this motivation that Paul says is unimportant, as long as the preaching gets done and the word is spread (Philippians 1:12-18).

Finally, read the passages in 1st and 2nd Corinthians. These two are keepers, although Paul's remark in 2nd Corinthians, about being crafty and catching them with guile, is so out of the blue it doesn't really fit the context in which it's found, making it hard to pin down what he's talking about. But even in its context the passage in 1st Corinthians clearly condones the deceptive practice of hypocrisy, passing yourself off as something or someone you are not in order to get inside a group or more intimate with a person for the purpose of preaching to them and "saving souls." Deception is a type of lie; hence the charge against Paul can be clearly made with this.

What is discouraging is that Christians will see nothing wrong with deception for the sake of saving souls, and you'll be hard pressed to show them how it is wrong, much less that the deception is so much broader in scope that it encompasses the whole Christian Text, hence their whole religion. We can't really trust everything Paul says, since he believes it's OK to misrepresent himself if he sees the reason as good enough.

Would you put your soul in the teachings of Paul, the liar, the politician, a good car salesman?

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