Clivedurdle

I haven't come across this argument before - thoughts? Linked thread needs to be read from bottom up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...20090528.shtml

DCHindley

I only have minute before I have to get on the road, but this sounds a little like the position of the late Haim MacCoby (sp?). In 3rd world, folks who will play both sides are not uncommon. I once met a man in California who used to be an informant for the Mexican federal police (in Mexico). I think he was operating on the fringe of the street level drug trade, so he got what he wanted (to deal) and the police got what they wanted (small bribes - you'd be surprised how small he said they were - and to a lesser extent intelligence).

DCH (on break)

Huon

Hyam Maccoby. There is a wiki page about him.

I have always considered Paul as a sort of a crook. There is no information about his death and the death of Peter. Possibly these events were not very brilliant, and could not be described to the people who had been converted (I would never say "fooled", oh, no !) by them.

mountainman

We should remember that Paul was also cast as an agent of Aesop by the unknown author of "The Acts of Paul [and Thecla]". What is as yet entirely unlcear to the world is the relationship of the author of "The Acts of Paul and Thecla" to the unknown author of the fourteen letters of "Paul". Eusebius and his continuators purport that this person "Paul" was the author of the fourteen letters however modern scholarship rejects this possibility.

DCHindley

Right. The more I think about it, the book was The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity and it asserts that "Christianity was the invention of St. Paul, who used elements of Judaism, Gnosticism and pagan mystery cults as his materials, fusing them around the story of Jesus' crucifixion." Paul was in fact actually a convert to Judaism per Maccoby.

Understanding Paul as a "double agent" goes in a different direction than this. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, in The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, chapter 16 "Paul: Roman Agent or Informer" it says:

"... his [Paul 's] teachings -- which become the foundation of later Christianity -- are a flagrant deviation from the 'original' or 'pure' form extolled by the leadership.... James, the Lord's brother... knew Jesus personally. So did most of the other members of the community or 'early church' in Jerusalem -- including, of course, Peter. When they spoke, they did so with first-hand authority. Paul had never had such personal acquaintance with the 'Savior'. For Paul to arrogate authority to himself... is, to say the least, presumptuous. It also leads him to distort Jesus' teachings beyond all recognition -- to formulate, in fact, his own highly individual and idiosyncratic theology, and then to legitimize it by spuriously ascribing it to Jesus.... Paul knows full well what he is doing. He understands... the techniques of religious propaganda....

"Startling though the suggestion may be, it does seem... that Paul was some species of Roman 'agent'. Eisenman was led to this conclusion by the scrolls themselves, then found the references in the New Testament to support it.... Does Paul, then, belong in the company of history's 'secret agents'? Of history's informers?.... But in any case... the movement entrusted to the 'early Church' and the Qumran community was effectively hijacked and converted into something that could no longer accommodate its progenitors."

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sc...eception16.htm

I found this exteme version of the opinion expressed online by Jon Presco:

I suspect Paul was a double agent hired by Rome to put down the
Abolitionist Movement of the first church that is associated with the
Ebonites and Nazarites (verses Nazarenes) who taught the blessings of
being poor and separated in order to serve the Lord. These were poor
monks who upheld the Laws of God like Jesus did as "The Son of
David" "The Son of God".

Paul is telling the Galatians that the son of the one deity of the
Jews died on the cross in order to free Gentiles from the curse of
God's Laws. In place of these laws, Paul is giving these Gentiles
a `Simple Faith'. Why is he doing this? Well, in order to become a
Jew one must know the Torah and the Laws of the Lord. For non-Jews
who were not taught the Torah since they were children, this is a
hard and heady task that many Gentiles were not up to. So Paul is
giving them INSTANT CONVERSION that only requires one to have Faith
Paul is the Easy Truth Giver.

When the Hard Truth Givers arrive on the scene, they are told Jesus
had to die so they can own the Easy Lessons that exempt them from
following THE LAW. And, instead of young Gentiles undergoing
circumscission, they are given a cross to wear in order to make them
ONE WITH THE LAWBREAKER who was crucifed on a Roman cross for
breaking THE LAW.

So, if Paul was a POLICE OFFICER, then he would want to infiltrate
the church and MARK them in some manner so that the soldiers of the
Sadducees and their friends the Romans could recognize them.

"Those who have the desire to seem important in the flesh, put force
on you to undergo circumcision; only that they may not be attacked
because of the cross of Christ."

James the brother of Jesus had ruled the Galatians did not have to
undergo circimscission to become members of the first church. Paul
knew this. But in order to peel off the Galatians from the flock in
Jerusalem, like a revenous wolf, Paul bids them to wear a cross
around their neck.

As a double agent and police officer, Paul does not want these non-
Simitic people going to Rome and Gaul spreading the True Teaching,
which was that the New Kingdom of David would admit Gentiles for the
reasons David had many Gentile wives, and thus his offspring was all
over the Roman world.

Apparrenlty James has heard of Paul's DOUBLE CROSS and has sent
Judaic teachers to Galatia to undo Paul's evil dirty work that is
going to get the Galatians in a lot of trouble. If the first church
was a small church, then why endanger it by bidding them to wear a
sign that would identify them? Didn't Paul himself ALREADY hunt down
members of church, and thus he knew this was a fragile church?

NO! Paul is yet to go on his Helter Skelter rampage, thus, his
account of his conversion is a lie, he telling it to counter the
accounts the survivors are telling as they fled this persectution to
all parts of the Roman empire, and into the first churches, there.

"Paul is a traitor, a Roman agent in league with the Sadducee! Paul
had Stephen Murdered!"

Paul's defence was, this is all true, but in order to spread the
Unlawful Simple Faith, Jesus came out of a bright light to FORGIVE
Paul (the Roman Ciitzen) and all Gentiles in preparation of forgiving
all the Romans, the Killers of Christ.

"To believe me, is to own Christ's Simple Faith! Get it! So, keep
your crosses on and go to the gladly to the Roman cross that awaits
each and every one of you! You must die on the cross as lawbreakers ?
just like your Savior."

Paul (Satan Saul) must have got a big kick out of his devious
cunning. But, something went wrong. Pagan Romans began to wonder at
the Stoic Display of these crossbearers who willingly died on the
cross, and being Stoics, wondered if this was an admission into a
secret kingdom and heaven. Paul went with the flow after shrugging
his sholders in disbelief.

http://rougeknights.blogspot.com/200...ages-paul.html

However, "consider the source!"

DCH

storytime

I can see Paul as a double agent, the Conspiracy of Paul to put a fence around his Torah Judaism and Jerusalem Jews by giving the Gentiles a new religion based on faith alone. The purpose of Paul in keeping the Gentiles at a distance with no inheritance rights with the Jews to the literal promised land[kingdom of God]. Would the Gentiles buy it? Would Paul's gospel satisfy their desire to be equal to the Jews his way? Paul thought to make sure the division of faith prevailed upon the obligation of the Gentiles to protect and defend the Jewish people. Paul said the Gentiles received from the Jews spiritual things and so they ought to return the favor with material things. After all, God loved the Jew first and then thought to include the Gentile based on Paul's remembering the days before Abraham was circumcised and Jesus supposedly abolishing the partition of law that divided them according to Paul's gospel. The Gentiles bought it, and Paul succeeded in his vow to destroy the church in this manner of self-defeatism. It's illegitimacy established, and Torah Judaism's wall of Gentiles erected.

What got me thinking of Paul's Conspiracy was his being able to live in his own hired house after being rescued by Roman centurians[soldiers] and awaiting a court date with Caesar, meaning Paul had servants given to him by Rome. How likely would that be if a conspiracy wasn't at play?

DCHindley

Well, the problem with that is that the letters of Paul DO indicate that gentiles (justified by faith in the fulfillment of the promises) would share in the promises equally with natural born Jews (circumcised & law abiding).

To be honest, I have entertained similar suspicions myself. Still, even if there really was a tradition that Paul was able to live under "house arrest" for a certain time, this may have been at his "own" expense. Either he, or his family or patrons may have had imperial connections, especially if he had relations with a Herodian household as he claims in his letters. What I found suspicious was the way he simply disappears, once he has done all he can do.

Of course, like a bad cold-war era movie, his handler may have called him in, saying with an accent that is a cross between German and Russian: "While you have given everything for the cause, you have outlived your usefulness to us." Paul then dutifully snaps to attention and throws out his chest in order that his handler can plunge a dagger into it, eager to end any liability his continued existence may pose to the powers-that-be. Then again, he may have simply been "exiled" (i.e., "pensioned off") to Roman Spain, where he could return to the simple life of tent-maker for the Roman army, maybe with a villa.

Yet there is a certain danger in reading too much into the account of Acts, too. I find it very odd that the author of Acts describes Paul's "acts" in such detail until a certain point, then leaves us hanging as to what finally happened to him. This cliffhanger had led to explanations where Acts is an expansion of Paul's lawyer's legal brief, or that the reader already knew what happened to Paul after going to trial and thus the author of Acts did not need to include it, etc. I attribute it to lack of any real knowledge about Paul's end (which was the general state of affairs in early Christian literature WRT Jesus, Paul, Peter or James), with the "detail" being pious gilding of the lily to take any rough edges off the man, smooth over any charges against him by the "enemy", or to counter charges that questioned the accuracy of the tradition on account of its vagueness.

However, even if Paul was intentionally tempering a movement of gentiles enamored by radical new world-empire theology into a kind of harmless semi-mystery religion, especially at Roman request, then why does the new movement still get the official "thumbs down"? Pliny the Younger came to this conclusion too - that they were harmless as encountered by him in Pontus - and the emperor's reply offers no clue that there was any CIA-like infiltration of the movement by imperial agents.

DCH

storytime

Could be that Rome wanted to play it down much like we see in the C-Street Republicans who have somewhat of a conspiracy going (according to a few reports from people like the author Jeff Shalett).

Paul says that Rome would have let him go but the Jews spoke against it and in fear of death from the Jews he appealed to Caesar. But when Paul sent for other Jews in order to speak with them about his situation, those Jews said they had heard nothing about a Jewish death sentence on him. But they were interested in what Paul had to say about the Jesus sect, "for it is spoken against everywhere."

The interesting part here is that Paul says "for the hope of Israel" he is bound. Nothing to do with Rome. He remained in his own hired house for two whole years receiving Jews whom he preached Jesus to, some believed and some did not. What was the hope except a restoration of Jews with other tribal names? Isn't that what the disciples hoped for from Jesus when they asked him "wilt thou this day restore the kingdom[of Judah] to Israel[the other tribal names]? (Lk.24:42-53)

So what is Paul doing? And how is he doing it? Is he pushing the restoration button much like evangelicals do today? (Hagee comes to mind in his CUFI) How would Paul think to accomplish his desire for Judah and the other tribal names to become one Israel once again? He needed help from the Gentiles? (Hagee needs help from the Gentiles). Pushing the restoration button seems to be the key, for the moment. Oh heck, this is frustrating; what are we missing? The missing link? Are we ready to SCREAM?

Conspiracys are like puzzles. We gotta get those camoflagued peices to fit.

Maybe we should keep an eye on Hagee for clues.

storytime

DCH

Here's a thought. What does Hagee want? Hagee wants to squeeze Gentiles[Christians] into the "Jewish" state. But why? So he can have control of "Jerusalem", move out the "Jewish" identity.

What did Paul want? Wasn't it the same thing? Wasn't that what Jesus also wanted? And if Rome constructed a Paul and a Jesus to fit their conspiracy in order to move the "Jewish" identity out, what purpose would it serve Rome? Maybe a non-violent region?

We know that the Jews would forever defend their identity - their "right ot exist" and that they still defend their right to a "Jewish" state[nation].

What else could it be in the Conspiracy of "Paul" and the Conspiracy of Hagee?

In Jesus name of course.

DCHindley

Maybe they were doing something like we do today when we inoculate people against viruses by means of a weakened strain. The body's defenses can easily defeat the weakened virus and in the process develop natural antibody defenses for future protection.

Didn't they do this in the movie Independence Day? Infect the enemy with a virus that destroys the effectiveness of their weapons. Still, if we meet one of them crawling out of the wreckage of their downed spacecraft, I assume we still pop a cap into them.

Romans knew how to deal with dime-a-dozen mystery cults. They were always banning them whenever they got too public. I think what shocked them was that the others just stopped meeting when they were told to, while Christians kept finding ways to keep doing it anyways. Damn subversives!

After a lot of thought, though, I finally came to the conclusion that Paul wasn't a double agent. In fact, I found evidence in the letters that he wasn't even a Christian, and worse yet had never even heard of Jesus. Paul was a Hellenized Jew of the diaspora who was himself a client to one of the Herodian households. In the process of doing business for his patrons, he came across numerous gentile slaves of these patrons who longed to be manumitted (freed, with benefits). The traditional path to manumission involved full conversion. Some were asking of there was a way to be included in the people of Israel without the circumcision, and some Jews thought this idea might be OK. Paul did not think this was OK at first, but in a snit one day he had this revelation to the effect that he was born to bring these gentiles into the tribe. From that point on he lobbied for this POV incessantly. All his letters originally spoke of justification of gentiles before God by means of faith, on the model of Abraham's faith in God's promises to him.

Now there actually was a Jesus movement too, way far away in Galilee and Judea, focused on a new and just world theocracy. It had attracted some gentiles too, many of whom had converted. Disillusioned by the Jewish revolt and the way the Romans crushed any hope of a new world theocracy of any kind being established, these gentiles transformed their beliefs into a kind of mystery religion (we know it as Christianity) which they honestly felt constituted a new covenant that replaced any and all the ones that Jews had cherished.

In time, remnants of the Paul communities had crossed paths with the new and improved Christian movement, and some had joined it. They still had warm fuzzy memories of Paul their advocate. In time, he came to be conceived of as a Christian himself.

Behold, in a long forgotten trunk Paul had left with a friend and never picked up, sat a cache of letters he had sent to this or that congregation or individual. Maybe there were several such caches. Some of these letters came into the hands of Christians, who read them and said "No, no, no, this cannot be the Paul we rever!" So they edited in all sorts of christological themes and statements to bring them "up to date," so to speak. These were in turn published for the edification of the faithful, perhaps in installments as more letters came into their possession. The added christological statements were kind of rough and inconsistent, and probably represent an early stage of this integration of the two movements. They also did not have a large circulation.*

A little bit later, when Christian theology about its Christ had been polished up a bit, Acts was composed to place Paul on a proper pedestal and represent Paul as a proper Christian. It did not always follow the statements of facts found in the letters, and may not have even known of them or at least didn't think much of them as circulated.

DCH (better than any crazy conspiracy theory, eh?)

* My misguided and certainly wrong reconstruction of the original Pauline letters with the Christian additions separated off for easy review can be found here.