Paul, the ‘corrupter of Christianity’ It is also important to note that the concept of ‘Resurrection’ is not regarded as a unique event in the Bible and thus could not be taken to support the divinity of Jesus: “And the graves were open; and many bodies of the Saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” (Mathew 27:52-53) The whole concept of the ‘Resurrection’ was introduced by Paul who never saw Jesus alive: “Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel.” (2 Timothy 2:8) Paul was also the first to declare Jesus as the son of God: “Immediately he (Paul) preached the Christ in the synagogues, that he is the son of God.” (The Acts 9:20) Christianity of today is largely the teaching of Paul and not Jesus! The liberty with which Paul proceeded to change the teachings of Jesus is indeed alarming. The resurrection and divinity of Jesus are among the major issues that were introduced by Paul. Other basic issues regarded as sacred by Jews were sadly discarded by Paul. Consider the following: “God said to Abraham, ‘You must agree to keep the covenant with me, both you and your descendants in future generations. You and your descendants must agree to circumcise every male among you………… every male who is not circumcised will no longer be considered one of my people, because he has not kept the covenant with me.” (Genesis 17:9-14) First, we find Paul speaking indifferently about circumcision, which is a sacred Jewish ritual: “Whether or not a man is circumcised means nothing” (1 Corinthians 7:19) Later, he went to the extent of openly condemning such practise: “I, Paul, tell you that if you allow yourself to be circumcised, it means that Christ is of no use to you at all” (Galatians 5:2) Historical accounts indicate that Jesus himself was circumcised! It may be that Paul claimed to be an apostle and a man of God, yet some of his own words in fact portray him as a man of little integrity. “I robbed other Churches, taking wages from them to minister to you.” (2 Corinthians 11:8) “What I am saying now is not what the Lord would want me to say; in this manner of boasting I am really talking like a fool.” (2 Corinthians 11:17) “For you gladly tolerate anyone who comes to you and preaches a different Jesus.” (2 Corinthians 11:4) Sadly these are some of the words of a man after whom Christianity of today is largely based! Paul argued that it is not necessary for a person to obey the law given to Moses to be a good Christian, and that in fact, the only requirement for salvation is faith. If that was the case, we may indeed wonder, why then did Jesus spend the best years of his life preaching what to do and what not to do in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? The naive idea that a mere belief in Jesus automatically guarantees one’s place in Heaven is in contradiction to the teachings of Jesus: “Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do what God in Heaven wants them to do.” (Mathew 7:21) It also contradicts the teachings of the Old and New Testaments: Old Testament: “Also to you O Lord, belong mercy; for you render to each one according to his work.” (Psalms 62:12) “And will he not render to each man according to his deeds?” (Proverbs 24:12) “The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” (Ezekiel 18:20) New Testament: “Each of us shall give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:12) “Each one will receive his own reward according to his own labour.” (1 Corinthians 3:8) All these verses testify that faith alone is not sufficient, but that the reward is also very much dependent on one’s “work”, “deeds”, “righteousness” and “labour”. What is truly amazing is the fact that the last two verses, which are from Romans and Corinthians, are in fact the words of Paul himself. This illustrates how he not only contradicted the teachings of Jesus, but also contradicted himself! Paul claimed that his teaching was directly revealed to him from Jesus through a vision. This immediately raises the following important questions: 1- Was the message and revelation delivered by Jesus incomplete? Did he have to complete it after his death through another? 2- Jesus lived all his life as a Jew and followed the law given to Moses, moreover he always maintained that he has not come to change the law: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (The Bible, Mathew 5:17-18) On the other hand we find that Paul preached numerous concepts that were never taught by Jesus and that contradict the law of Moses. These two conflicting situations compels us to uphold only one of them. They cannot both be correct. Needless to say, the teachings of Jesus are surely to be upheld. Those who truly believe in Jesus will undoubtedly follow his teachings. Due to this marked discrepancy between the divine message delivered by Jesus and the corrupt innovation brought about by Paul, there is justification in Paul being called by Heinz Zehrnt the “corrupter of the gospel of Jesus” (The Jesus Report, Johannes Lehman, p. 126), while Werde calls him “the second founder of Christianity” (Ibid. p.127). In the Bible we read the following accusation against him: “This man is trying to persuade people to worship God in a way that is against the law.” (The Acts 18:13) This serious accusation cannot be ignored, bearing in mind what Jesus said: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” Jesus lived all his life as a Jew, he often preached in synagogues, and early Christians were all using the synagogues. There is no evidence whatsoever in the Bible to indicate that Jesus thought of himself as the founder of a new religion. The disciples preaching after Jesus’ death still maintained the Jewish law. We read for example that Simon Peter while preaching after Jesus’ death still called himself a Jew who followed the Jewish religion: “I need not tell you that a Jew is forbidden by his religion to associate with one of another race.” (The Acts 10:28) Later, after Jesus’ death, and when the new religion of Christianity was established and deviated from the original teachings of Jesus Christ, Paul, Barnabas and the gentiles were expelled from the synagogues as they were accused of blasphemy and pollution: “But the Jews ………… raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.” (The Acts 13:50) It is important to note that at that time Barnabas still travelled and preached with Paul. Later, when Paul deviated from the original gospel, the two men parted company. The concept of ‘Resurrection’, being a new concept introduced by Paul, was immediately attacked in the synagogues: “And they took him (Paul) to the Areopagus saying: May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?” (The Acts 17:19) The word “new” in the verse is self-indicative. The ‘Trinity’ As for the ‘Trinity’, we have seen that the word does not exist in the Bible and was never taught by Jesus. With that in mind, it is quite incredible that such concept should become the foundation upon which Christianity is formed! If being a Christian means upholding the teachings of Jesus Christ, then upholding the concept of the ‘Trinity’, which Jesus never taught, cannot be is very Christian! There is mention in the Bible of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit as in the King James Bible which was authorised in 1611: “For there are three that bear witness in Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit and those three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth; the Spirit the water and the blood, and these three agree as one.” (First Epistle of John 5:7-8) However, the phrase: “For there are three that bear witness in Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit and those three are one.” has been expunged in the Revised Standard Version of 1952 and 1971 and in many other Bibles as it was an addition that had encroached on the original Greek text. The same verse in other Bibles read: “And it is the spirit who bears witness, because the spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness, the spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement.” (The American Standard Bible, First Epistle of John 5:7-8) In other Bibles the same verse reads: “For there are three witness bearers, the spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement.” (New World Translation of the Holy Scripture, First Epistle of John 5:7-8) Furthermore, the ‘Trinity’ offers a most irrational situation when it speaks of the Father as Creator, the Son as Redeemer and the Spirit as Sanctifier! This irrational arrangement, which will have us believe that God is a committee of three with distinct divided functions, is clearly in contradiction to the concept of the One Indivisible God. The concept of the ‘Trinity’, was formulated by Athanasius (an Egyptian deacon from Alexandria) (The History of Christianity, a Lion Handbook, p.172-177). This was accepted by the council of Nicaea in 325 A. D. which was held three centuries after the death of Jesus! No doubt Roman Paganism had an influence on this doctrine (the Triune God). Sabbath was shifted to Sunday. The birth of the Sun-God Mithra, being December the 25th, was introduced as Jesus’ birthday! Many Pagan customs were Christianised, for example the use of candles, incense and garlands. These customs were opposed by the early Church because they symbolised paganism, however these have become common place today. Some other pagan customs that were also Christianised are in clear violation of the Bible. One such custom is the cutting down and decorating of trees for Christmas. On that subject the Bible says: “For the customs of the people are in vain; for one cutteth a tree from the forest ………they decorate it with silver and Gold.” (Jeremiah 10:2-5) These are some of the concepts and customs introduced after the death of Jesus, mostly from Roman paganism, that have no origin whatsoever in the Bible. Was Divinity a political solution? In an attempt to analyse the reasons why the Church adopted the divinity of Jesus in those early days after the death of Jesus, when all the Scripture affirm his status as a prophet of God as we have seen, and more important when Jesus himself never claimed divinity, one may think of the following: At that time, and unlike today, the Church had a double role. First, the Church was a constitution that provided spiritual guidance and a place of worship to people. Additionally, the Church was effectively involved in the ruling the land. Religion and politics were inseparable. Anyone who dared oppose the Church was very severely punished. The Church being all too aware of the history of the people of Israel, knew that many prophets have come and gone and then forgotten. The Church was also aware that since the heart of the faith was the figure of Jesus Christ, then to maintain that kind of authority the Church had to keep the faith in Jesus intact. Effectively, the best insurance to guard against a forgotten Jesus figure, would be the creation of a divine Jesus figure, for if a prophet may be forgotten, a god will never be. Thus if Jesus was made into a god figure the Church would never forfeit its commanding authority. The divinity of Jesus was adopted along with the ‘Trinity’ which was a reconciliation with Roman paganism. However, when asked to explain how can God be one and three simultaneously, or how can God be the Father and his own son at the same time, the Church clergy will often reply: “Just have faith!” and “That is the mystery of it!” It does not matter if it does not make any sense as long as you believe what they are telling you! But surely any concept that is filled with irrational mysteries must harbour a defect in its core. The truth is never irrational. Historically, the ‘Trinity’ is an encroachment on the Scripture, it is philosophically feeble and mathematically absurd. ……………… No sooner do we abandon the attempts to find a rational definition of the ‘Trinity’ or the Father and the Son, do we come across yet another confusing title, that is the title of the ‘Lord’. Most Christians today think of Jesus as the Lord, but in the Bible the matter is not so clear cut. Consider the following verses: 1- “And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious” (Exodus 34:6) It is clear from this verse that the Lord is God. 2- “Yet for us there is only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we live for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live.” (1 Corinthians 8:6) Here the Lord is Jesus. The verse also asserts that only the Father is God. A clear distinction is evident in this verse between God and Jesus. 3- We also read: “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:17) From these verses we realise that the Lord is anyone of the three. In that sense there is not much difference in the word Lord or the word God. Thus all who say “Our Lord Jesus Christ” are in fact saying “Our God Jesus Christ”. What it boils down to is that, since Christian ideology perceives the Father and the Son as one, there seems little need for the terms Father and Son inside a Trinity configuration. Some advocates will speak of the ‘Trinity’ in the manner of one God in three forms. They add that there is no mystery at all since God at all times is one but the plurality is one of form. For as a frog exists as a tadpole and also as a frog but at the end is still the same creature. This is fine except for one slight problem. The tadpole and the frog are not able to exist simultaneously, it is either tadpole or frog. If they existed simultaneously they would ipso facto be two creatures. In the case of Jesus, we have seen how the Bible contains ample evidence of a clear distinction between Jesus and God. Jesus always acknowledged the existence of God external of himself. The following verses all make that clear distinction: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28) “Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do what God in Heaven wants them to do.” (Mathew 7:21) “Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is God.” (Mark 10:18) “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) “So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into Heaven, and sat on the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19) If Jesus and God are one, these verses and many others which clearly speaks of two beings, would make very little sense! ‘Atonement’ & ‘Original sin’ The concepts of ‘Atonement’ and ‘Original Sin’ are equally precarious and not without inconsistencies. To claim that Jesus suffered and was crucified to atone for our sins is philosophically immoral. Not only does this conviction render little sense to the merits of punishment and reward, and thus to Heaven and Hell, but more dangerously, such belief could be regarded as a license to disregard righteousness as long as one believes in Jesus! The Atonement doctrine contradicts the Old and New Testaments: Old Testament: “Also to you O Lord, belong mercy; for you render to each one according to his work.” (Psalms 62:12) “And will he not render to each man according to his deeds?” (Proverbs 24:12) “The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” (Ezekiel 18:20) New Testament: “Each of us shall give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:12) “Each one will receive his own reward according to his own labour.” (1 Corinthians 3:8) All these verses testify that faith alone is not sufficient, but that the reward is also very much dependent on one’s “work”, “deeds”, “righteousness” and “labour”. The concept of Jesus dying to take away our sins is a corruption that has been added to the Scripture. The following is a vivid piece of evidence: From the New Testament we read: “From Zion shall come the deliverer; he shall remove wickedness from Jacob. And this is the covenant I will grant them, when I take away their sins.” (Romans 11:26-27) This verse is the Fulfilment of the prophecy in Isaiah: “…………the ransomer of Zion and of all in Jacob who repent of their rebellion. This is the very word of the Lord. This, says the Lord, is my covenant which I make with them. My spirit which rests on you and my words which I put into your mouth shall never fail ……..” (Isaiah 59:19-21) By comparing the two verses we realise that the words “when I take away their sins”do not exist in Isaiah, it is clear that they have been added to the verse in Romans to advocate a corrupt doctrine. Another doctrine that was never taught by Jesus, is the concept of the ‘original sin’. According to this irrational concept we all have to atone for the sin of Adam! Thus we are all born with an original sin that we have to atone for! This concept, which claims that new born babies are also born with a sin, contradicts all the previous verses that assert that every man will be accountable to his own deeds and labour, and that no man shall bear the sin of another. Furthermore, this concept contradicts the words of Jesus as in the following verse: “Let the children come to me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Mathew 19:14) Since there is no sin in Heaven, and of such (children) is the Kingdom of Heaven, one is led to believe that children are free of sin. Such concepts that were never taught by Jesus, but were added sometime after his death, inevitably causes the Christian a dilemma when attempting to reconcile his acceptance of the Old Testament with his rejection of Judaism. This becomes particularly evident with regards to the following question: How can the one indivisible God of the Old Testament become a three-in-one in the framework of the ‘Trinity’? Has God always been three-in-one? If yes, then why was this knowledge not given to the people of Israel? Why was this knowledge kept a secret even during the life of Jesus then only made manifest 325 years later at the council of Nicaea? The Old Testament gives account of numerous prophets who delivered Scripture from God, why did they all testify to a one indivisible God? Due to all these questions that do not receive satisfactory answers, one is not surprised to find Churches almost empty today and being accused of ‘double think’ which is defined by George Orwell as: “Double think means the power to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” #95 ( “1984”, George Orwell, page 220) The gross case of double think is upholding the Oneness of God and the ‘Trinity’ simultaneously. Another case is evident in Article VII of the thirty nine articles of the Church of England which states: “The Old Testament is not contrary to the New”. However, and as was demonstrated, many concepts that appear in the letters of Paul contradict the Old Testament. What must be stressed here is the fact that the teachings of Jesus never contradicted the Old Testament. After all, he confessed to the following: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (The Bible, Mathew 5:17-18) It is no surprise that many reputable scholars have openly opposed such concepts as the ‘Trinity’. This group of Christians, who were to be known as the ‘Unitarians’ insisted on the Oneness (indivisibility) of God. They emphasised the historical Jesus, and avoided the use of the term ‘son’. The earliest ‘Unitarians’ include Iranaeus, Diodorus, Lucian and Arius. Iranaeus (130-200 A. D.), who was put to death in 200 A. D., bitterly opposed Paul for injecting Pagan and Platonic philosophy into Christianity. Lucian who was also put to death for his beliefs in 312 A. D. opposed the tendency to look for symbolic and allegorical meanings in the Scripture. He believed that Jesus is subordinate to God. Arius (250-336), who was one of the pupils of Lucian, was one of the greatest critics of the Pauline Church. The ‘Unitarian’ school of Christianity continued to flourish to include a great host of scholars. In his ‘Historical Account’, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) is quoted saying the following about the Trinity: “Let them make good sense of it who are able. For my part I can make none.” (Anti- Trinitarian Biographies III, A. Wallace, page 428) Joseph Priestly (1733-1804), who discovered oxygen, also affirmed the humanity of Jesus and opposed the ‘Trinity’. Others include the poet Milton (1608-1674), William Channing (1780-1842) and John Locke (1632-1704). The Church was not instituted by Jesus. He never advocated a hierarchy of priests to act as mediators between God and man. Yet, the Church today teaches Christians that their salvation would be assured if they acted as the Church told them! From where did the Church derive this authority? The validity of such authority is today being rejected on a scale that has never been known before. One of the turning points occurred as far back as 1755 in the great Lisbon earthquake, in which hundreds of Christians died in Church while celebrating the Mass. Coinciding as it did with the ‘Age of Reason’, it caused the whole concept of salvation to come under a very severe hammering! (The Case against God, Gerald Priestly, page 16) George Harrison of the Beatles summed it up very nicely with the following words: “When you’re young you get taken to Church by your parents and you get pushed into religion at school. They’re trying to put something into your mind. Obviously because nobody goes to Church and nobody believes in God. Why? Because they haven’t interpreted the Bible as it was intended. You’re taught just to have faith, you don’t have to worry about it, just believe what we are telling you.” (Christianity on Trial, Colin Chapman, page 37). With these words George Harrison was indeed bringing to attention a very serious phenomenon. Many people who turn their backs on the Church today and are disenchanted with religion do so because of the misinterpretations that George Harrison referred to rather than their denial of God. The divinity of Jesus, a concept adopted by the Church and never taught by Jesus, also contributes greatly in turning Jews away from believing in Jesus the Messiah of whom their prophecies speak. In the Old Testament the Messiah and King of Jews is a prophet sent to the people of Israel. He is another prophet in a sequence of many prophets. The teachings of Jesus were on the same line as those before him. But sadly the corrupted version taught by the Church today, which is more the teachings of Paul than Jesus, has made Christianity become isolated from Jewish theology. The ‘Trinity’, the ‘God Incarnate’, the ‘Resurrection’, the ‘Atonement’, and other corrupt doctrines have alienated Christianity from the main stream of Jewish revelations. The dedicated atheist and philosopher Sir Alfred Ayer had this to say: “Christianity is based on the notion of vicarious atonement which shocks me not only intellectually but morally. If I have a child I don’t punish his brother for what he did, and that is exactly what Christianity is based upon.” Sir Ayer proceeds to show distaste for God’s massacre of the Jews throughout the Old Testament then he adds: “Here you have your deity who did all this, and then he said suddenly, ‘People are behaving badly, I am going to transform myself into a human being and suffer vicariously. Sins have to be atoned for by a ‘sacrificial lamb’. So Christ is supposed to atone for the sins that other people committed. The whole thing is not only intellectually contemptible but thoroughly outrageous.”(The Case against God, Gerald Priestland, page 18). It is not surprising, and due to the poor argumentative content of such doctrines, to find Christianity constantly changing to conform to current values! T. S. Elliot put it very well when he said: “Christianity is always adapting itself into something which can be believed.” (The Myth of God Incarnate, edited by John Hick, page IX). To conclude, it is quite apparent that the real Jesus of the Bible, also referred to as the historical Jesus, is quite different from the divine figure falsely portrayed by the Church. Nowhere in the Bible is Jesus portrayed as the earthly incarnation of God. There is no evidence in the Bible to support the ‘Atonement’ doctrine, neither is there any evidence that Jesus taught or believed in his own divinity. Finally, it is apt to end with the words of Jesus which he directed at all those who idolised and worshipped him instead of worshipping God: “Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do what God in Heaven wants them to do. When Judgement Day comes many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord! In your name we spoke God’s message’ Then I will say to them, ‘I never knew you, get away from me you wicked people. ” (Mathew 7:21-23) ------------------------------- TRUE ISLAM
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 04:16:59 +0000
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