Edip Yuksel

THE NINETEEN QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIAN CLERGY

by Edip Yuksel

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QUESTION 4 Who was St. Paul? Was he a disciple of Jesus or a hypocrite? Did he curse Jesus or was he cursed by Jesus? "On the face of it, Paul's doctrine of Jesus is a daring departure from Judaism. Paul was advocating a doctrine that seemed to have far more in common with pagan myths than with Judaism: that Jesus was a divine-human person who had descended to Earth from the heavens and experienced death for the express purpose of saving mankind." (The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, Hyam Maccoby, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1986, p. 12). In reality, Paul, or Saul never met Jesus. Before converting to "Christianity", he was a vicious enemy of Christians. He raided churches and tortured people who converted to Christianity (The Acts 8:3; 22:3-10). By claiming that he met Jesus on his way to Jerusalem and Damascus, he tried to explain his so called conversion. Instead of Jerusalem he went to Arabia (Galatians 1:17). He claimed that he was chosen by Jesus as a minister and as a representative (The Acts 26:16-19). He travelled many places and sent letters in Greek, to preach his version of Christianity. In this way, he distorted and mutilated the original message of Jesus. He provided ground for the Doctrine of Trinity; he created the story of Jesus' sacrifice for our redemption; he raised Jesus to his "Father's right side" for judgment; he nailed the written code to the cross (Colossians 2:14), opposing Jesus (Matthew 19:16-19). He perverted the main message of Jesus, which was to worship God alone. Thus, Paul had intense arguments with Peter (Cephas) and Barnabas (Acts 15:36-41; Galatians 2:11-14; 4:10-14). The disciples did not trust him and escaped from him (Acts 9:26). They knew that he was a wolf in the midst of sheep. You may ask "why would Paul choose a life of persecution rather than being the persecutor?" Though we may not be able to identify the exact motive of Paul, we can find many answers to this question in psychology or history books. The history of religions are full of dubious or sincere people with strange missions or delusions. When Saul became Paul... To provide some more information on Paul, I want to quote two paragraphs from Hyam Maccoby's book The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1986, pp. 4, 16: "We should remember that the New Testament, as we have it, is much more dominated by Paul than appears at first sight. As we read it, we come across the Four Gospels, of which Jesus is the hero, and do not encounter Paul as a character until we embark on the post-Jesus narrative of Acts. Then we finally come into contact with Paul himself, in his letters. But this impression is misleading, for the earliest writings in the New Testament are actually Paul's letters, which were written about AD 50-60, while the Gospels were not written until the period AD 70-110. This means that the theories of Paul were already before the writers of the Gospels and colored their interpretations of Jesus' activities. Paul is, in a sense, present from the very first word of the New Testament. This is of course, not the whole story, for the Gospels are based on traditions and even written sources which go back to a time before the impact of Paul, and these early traditions and sources are not entirely obliterated in the final version and give valuable indications of what the story was like before Paulinist editors pulled it into final shape. However, the dominant outlook and shaping perspective of the Gospels is that of Paul, for the simple reason that it was the Paulinist view of what Jesus' sojourn on Earth had been about that was triumphant in the Church as it developed in history. Rival interpretations, which at one time had been orthodox, opposed to Paul's very individual views, now became heretical and were crowded out of the final version of the writings adopted by the Pauline Church as the inspired canon of the New Testament. "Paul derived this religion from Hellenistic sources, chiefly by a fusion of concepts taken from Gnosticism and concepts taken from the mystery religions, particularly from that of Attis. The combination of these elements with features derived from Judaism, particularly the incorporation of the Jewish scriptures, reinterpreted to provide a background of sacred history for the new myth, was unique; and Paul alone was the creator of this amalgam. Jesus himself had no idea of it, and would have been amazed and shocked at the role assigned him by Paul as a suffering deity." The real followers of Jesus Indeed, "The Mythmaker" provides important information on early followers of Jesus, the Ebionites. This group had earlier been called the Nazarenes and was strongly against Paul and his paganist doctrine. Nazarenes were led by disciples of Jesus, such as James and Peter, who knew Jesus and his message much better than Paul who met Jesus only in dreams and visions. Unfortunately, when the Romans occupied Jerusalem in 70 AD, they destroyed the Nazarene Church. So, Jerusalem Nazarenes immigrated to Caesarea and even to Alexandria in Egypt. Since that defeat, the Pauline Christian movement did not encounter serious opposition from the true followers of Jesus Christ. Finally, they were declared heretics in about 135 AD, by Pharisee rabbis, since they refused to accept the doctrines of Paul. The descendants of Jerusalem Nazarenes survived about four centuries under the title "Ebionites" (poor men). Self-appointed disciple changes the name Disciples and early followers of Jesus were never called Christians; they were called Nazarenes. We find this original name in the New Testament (Acts 24:5). It is interesting that the names "Christians" and "Christianity" were invented decades after Jesus in Antioch (Acts 11:26). Not only did Paul change his own name and identity, he changed the name and identity of Jesus' message. Cursed by whom? According to Paul, the founder of Christianity: "Christ had redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hanged on a tree." (Galatians 3:13). "By whom was Jesus cursed?" Most Christians without hesitation reply "obviously, cursed by people." But, the one who made that allegation has a different answer. Paul's hidden answer Obviously, Paul is not honest while quoting his reference, ie., Deuteronomy 21:23 "... that is hanged is accursed of God; ... " He, stealthily, tries to hide "GOD", just to make it easy for people to accept the connection between the Old Testament's curse and Jesus. When you accept the connection, you automatically accept Jesus to be cursed by God Almighty, without knowing. Because if you make a sober connection between Deuteronomy 21:23 and Matthew 27:38, Mark 15:27, Luke 23:33, John 19:18 you will end up with a "God cursed by God"! What could be the reason for Paul insulting Jesus indirectly? What could be the reason for Paul distorting Jesus' teaching by creating the doctrine of the Trinity? Jesus himself had prophesied the reason with a warning. The prophecy and warning of Jesus The Gospels are full of condemnation of and prophetic warning about Pharisees. Here are some examples: "How is it that you do not understand that I spoke it not to you concerning bread, that you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." (Matthew 16:11-12). "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! ... Woe unto you, you blind guides, ... You fools and blind: ... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You serpents, you generation of vipers ... " (Matthew 23: 13-33) "... Beware you of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known." (Luke 12:1-2). Here is the Pharisee! Paul confirms this prophecy by acknowledging that he was a Pharisee: But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I AM a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee ... (Acts 23:6) Please notice, that he does not say "I WAS a Pharisee." Here is the hypocrite! Paul may be the only person in the history of religion that was proud of his hypocrisy. Dictionaries should substitute the word Machiavellian with Pauline, since he preceded Machiavelli. Let us read what this dubious character tells about himself: "While working with Jews, I live like a Jew in order to win them; and even though I myself am not subject to the Law of Moses, I live as though I were, when working with those who are, in order to win them. In the same way, when with Gentiles I live like a Gentile, outside the Jewish Law, in order to win Gentiles. This does not mean that I don't obey God's law; I am really under Christ's law. Among the weak in faith I become weak like one of them, in order to win them. So I become all things to all men, that I may save some of them by any means possible." (1. Corinthians 9:20-22). If a person "becomes all things to all men, in order to win them", how can you trust that person? It is obvious that he became a Christian with Christians in order to win them. But the real followers of Jesus recognized his evil work and rejected him. So, 1. Why follow "a hypocrite, a fool and a blind" Pharisee? 2. What was the real reason that the disciples of Jesus escaped from Paul? Were they the most cowardly people among Christians? Why, could the reason not be the warning of Jesus about Pharisees? "... Beware you of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy..." (Luke 12:1-2) Why don't you beware of the leaven (doctrine) of a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee? 3. Did Jesus become "all things to all men in order to win them", like Paul? Did his real disciples become "all things to all men in order to win them", like Paul? What is the definition of hypocrisy in your dictionary? After all, why do you hesitate to call Paul a hypocrite? 4. Why do you call yourself Christian, since it is a name fabricated by Paul years after Jesus (Acts 11:26)? What were the disciples of Jesus calling themselves in the time of Jesus?

Moslem Questions on Christianity Edip Yuksel P.O. Box 43476, Tucson, AZ 85733-3476 U.S.A. Tel/Fax: (520) 323-7636

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	THE NINETEEN QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIAN CLERGY by Edip Yuksel ISNET Homepage \| MEDIA Homepage \| Program Kerja \| Koleksi \| Anggota \| Indeks Antar Agama \| Indeks Artikel \|
	QUESTION 4 Who was St. Paul? Was he a disciple of Jesus or a hypocrite? Did he curse Jesus or was he cursed by Jesus? "On the face of it, Paul's doctrine of Jesus is a daring departure from Judaism. Paul was advocating a doctrine that seemed to have far more in common with pagan myths than with Judaism: that Jesus was a divine-human person who had descended to Earth from the heavens and experienced death for the express purpose of saving mankind." (The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, Hyam Maccoby, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1986, p. 12). In reality, Paul, or Saul never met Jesus. Before converting to "Christianity", he was a vicious enemy of Christians. He raided churches and tortured people who converted to Christianity (The Acts 8:3; 22:3-10). By claiming that he met Jesus on his way to Jerusalem and Damascus, he tried to explain his so called conversion. Instead of Jerusalem he went to Arabia (Galatians 1:17). He claimed that he was chosen by Jesus as a minister and as a representative (The Acts 26:16-19). He travelled many places and sent letters in Greek, to preach his version of Christianity. In this way, he distorted and mutilated the original message of Jesus. He provided ground for the Doctrine of Trinity; he created the story of Jesus' sacrifice for our redemption; he raised Jesus to his "Father's right side" for judgment; he nailed the written code to the cross (Colossians 2:14), opposing Jesus (Matthew 19:16-19). He perverted the main message of Jesus, which was to worship God alone. Thus, Paul had intense arguments with Peter (Cephas) and Barnabas (Acts 15:36-41; Galatians 2:11-14; 4:10-14). The disciples did not trust him and escaped from him (Acts 9:26). They knew that he was a wolf in the midst of sheep. You may ask "why would Paul choose a life of persecution rather than being the persecutor?" Though we may not be able to identify the exact motive of Paul, we can find many answers to this question in psychology or history books. The history of religions are full of dubious or sincere people with strange missions or delusions. When Saul became Paul... To provide some more information on Paul, I want to quote two paragraphs from Hyam Maccoby's book The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1986, pp. 4, 16: "We should remember that the New Testament, as we have it, is much more dominated by Paul than appears at first sight. As we read it, we come across the Four Gospels, of which Jesus is the hero, and do not encounter Paul as a character until we embark on the post-Jesus narrative of Acts. Then we finally come into contact with Paul himself, in his letters. But this impression is misleading, for the earliest writings in the New Testament are actually Paul's letters, which were written about AD 50-60, while the Gospels were not written until the period AD 70-110. This means that the theories of Paul were already before the writers of the Gospels and colored their interpretations of Jesus' activities. Paul is, in a sense, present from the very first word of the New Testament. This is of course, not the whole story, for the Gospels are based on traditions and even written sources which go back to a time before the impact of Paul, and these early traditions and sources are not entirely obliterated in the final version and give valuable indications of what the story was like before Paulinist editors pulled it into final shape. However, the dominant outlook and shaping perspective of the Gospels is that of Paul, for the simple reason that it was the Paulinist view of what Jesus' sojourn on Earth had been about that was triumphant in the Church as it developed in history. Rival interpretations, which at one time had been orthodox, opposed to Paul's very individual views, now became heretical and were crowded out of the final version of the writings adopted by the Pauline Church as the inspired canon of the New Testament. "Paul derived this religion from Hellenistic sources, chiefly by a fusion of concepts taken from Gnosticism and concepts taken from the mystery religions, particularly from that of Attis. The combination of these elements with features derived from Judaism, particularly the incorporation of the Jewish scriptures, reinterpreted to provide a background of sacred history for the new myth, was unique; and Paul alone was the creator of this amalgam. Jesus himself had no idea of it, and would have been amazed and shocked at the role assigned him by Paul as a suffering deity." The real followers of Jesus Indeed, "The Mythmaker" provides important information on early followers of Jesus, the Ebionites. This group had earlier been called the Nazarenes and was strongly against Paul and his paganist doctrine. Nazarenes were led by disciples of Jesus, such as James and Peter, who knew Jesus and his message much better than Paul who met Jesus only in dreams and visions. Unfortunately, when the Romans occupied Jerusalem in 70 AD, they destroyed the Nazarene Church. So, Jerusalem Nazarenes immigrated to Caesarea and even to Alexandria in Egypt. Since that defeat, the Pauline Christian movement did not encounter serious opposition from the true followers of Jesus Christ. Finally, they were declared heretics in about 135 AD, by Pharisee rabbis, since they refused to accept the doctrines of Paul. The descendants of Jerusalem Nazarenes survived about four centuries under the title "Ebionites" (poor men). Self-appointed disciple changes the name Disciples and early followers of Jesus were never called Christians; they were called Nazarenes. We find this original name in the New Testament (Acts 24:5). It is interesting that the names "Christians" and "Christianity" were invented decades after Jesus in Antioch (Acts 11:26). Not only did Paul change his own name and identity, he changed the name and identity of Jesus' message. Cursed by whom? According to Paul, the founder of Christianity: "Christ had redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hanged on a tree." (Galatians 3:13). "By whom was Jesus cursed?" Most Christians without hesitation reply "obviously, cursed by people." But, the one who made that allegation has a different answer. Paul's hidden answer Obviously, Paul is not honest while quoting his reference, ie., Deuteronomy 21:23 "... that is hanged is accursed of God; ... " He, stealthily, tries to hide "GOD", just to make it easy for people to accept the connection between the Old Testament's curse and Jesus. When you accept the connection, you automatically accept Jesus to be cursed by God Almighty, without knowing. Because if you make a sober connection between Deuteronomy 21:23 and Matthew 27:38, Mark 15:27, Luke 23:33, John 19:18 you will end up with a "God cursed by God"! What could be the reason for Paul insulting Jesus indirectly? What could be the reason for Paul distorting Jesus' teaching by creating the doctrine of the Trinity? Jesus himself had prophesied the reason with a warning. The prophecy and warning of Jesus The Gospels are full of condemnation of and prophetic warning about Pharisees. Here are some examples: "How is it that you do not understand that I spoke it not to you concerning bread, that you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." (Matthew 16:11-12). "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! ... Woe unto you, you blind guides, ... You fools and blind: ... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You serpents, you generation of vipers ... " (Matthew 23: 13-33) "... Beware you of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known." (Luke 12:1-2). Here is the Pharisee! Paul confirms this prophecy by acknowledging that he was a Pharisee: But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I AM a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee ... (Acts 23:6) Please notice, that he does not say "I WAS a Pharisee." Here is the hypocrite! Paul may be the only person in the history of religion that was proud of his hypocrisy. Dictionaries should substitute the word Machiavellian with Pauline, since he preceded Machiavelli. Let us read what this dubious character tells about himself: "While working with Jews, I live like a Jew in order to win them; and even though I myself am not subject to the Law of Moses, I live as though I were, when working with those who are, in order to win them. In the same way, when with Gentiles I live like a Gentile, outside the Jewish Law, in order to win Gentiles. This does not mean that I don't obey God's law; I am really under Christ's law. Among the weak in faith I become weak like one of them, in order to win them. So I become all things to all men, that I may save some of them by any means possible." (1. Corinthians 9:20-22). If a person "becomes all things to all men, in order to win them", how can you trust that person? It is obvious that he became a Christian with Christians in order to win them. But the real followers of Jesus recognized his evil work and rejected him. So, 1. Why follow "a hypocrite, a fool and a blind" Pharisee? 2. What was the real reason that the disciples of Jesus escaped from Paul? Were they the most cowardly people among Christians? Why, could the reason not be the warning of Jesus about Pharisees? "... Beware you of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy..." (Luke 12:1-2) Why don't you beware of the leaven (doctrine) of a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee? 3. Did Jesus become "all things to all men in order to win them", like Paul? Did his real disciples become "all things to all men in order to win them", like Paul? What is the definition of hypocrisy in your dictionary? After all, why do you hesitate to call Paul a hypocrite? 4. Why do you call yourself Christian, since it is a name fabricated by Paul years after Jesus (Acts 11:26)? What were the disciples of Jesus calling themselves in the time of Jesus?
	Moslem Questions on Christianity Edip Yuksel P.O. Box 43476, Tucson, AZ 85733-3476 U.S.A. Tel/Fax: (520) 323-7636
	\| Indeks Antar Agama \| Indeks Artikel \| \| ISNET Homepage \| MEDIA Homepage \| Program Kerja \| Koleksi \| Anggota \| Please direct any suggestion to Media Team