IamMoose

A xian on this board *winks at rational BAC* referred to Paul as being a 'ding-a-ling' on another thread. This made me smile as personally, Paul is someone whom I have big issues with. Well, maybe not BIG issues, but some issues, anyway.

Firstly, i find the man to be a hypocrite. I mean, as Saul, he was apparently a bit of a git, you know? He was present at the martyring of Stephen and did nothing to stop it, for one thing. And then he goes and converts and all of a sudden thinks he has the right to spend the rest of his life criticising other people.

Funny, a lot of adult converts do that.

I just don't find Paul to be at all sympathetic you know? It's all do this and don't do that .. the original legalist. I find Jesus a whole lot more likeable, but it's Paul who seems to be quoted the most. Weird.

Apropos of nothing, I'd like to know what non biblical sources there are which point to or prove the existence of Paul, either as St Paul or as Saul of Tarsus. Did this person definitely exist?

Stephen T-B

The difficulty about a Christian describing Paul as a ding-a-ling is that Paul, as far as I can gather, invented Christianity.
Without him, would there be such a thing?

IamMoose

I don't know .. presumably yes there would, as there were Christians before Paul. I suppose he was instrumental in consolidating the early church.

Anyway, Paul is not Jesus Christ, you know?

Columbus

I don't think so. Based on what Jesus is quoted as saying, He was reforming Judaism. One reason for writing the Synoptic Gospels (Mat., Mark, Luke) might have been so people knew that Jesus never even met Paul.
The Romans destroyed Judea around the end of the first century. That left mainly the "Paulist" Christians because they were based in Rome. The christians that considered Jesus a Jewish reformer were largely squashed. Before you know it the Paulists have written the Nicene Creed, which defines what a Christian is without refering to Jesus' ethical teachings at all.
Tom

Philippe*

Several words come in mind : bigmouth, fanatic, severe, stamina but I don't want to judge him, and I am not sure at all whether he would have wanted to put his letters (maybe not so much authentic) in the holy scriptures.

Philippe

GoodLittleAtheist

This makes me think of that Toad the Wet Sprocket song. "Paul is making me nervous. Paul is making me scared."

I think I could tolerate sitting in church quite it bit more if it weren't for Paul's letters to the so-and-sos. Those were always the ones that got me (before I 'came out') just about ready to throw my hands up and stomp out.

IamMoose

Yeah a lot of the more unpleasant doctrines of xianity seem to be directly traceable to Paul's letters. Where, for example, did Jesus say that homosexuals had to be tarred and feathered and driven from the town (or similar)? He didn't, of course... Paul is the one that the anti-gays quote constantly (mind even Paul didn't say THAT much about them).

Seems to me that there's too little Jesus and too much Paul in the bible.

Paul Brand

And Paul did acknowledge his wrong doing in that. He hated Christians at the time.I think that is a dishonest representation. Yes he was critical of certain people. He was critical of legalists for example, who tried to set up barriers from people knowing Christ. He was critical of those who were malicious, greedy, sexually unfaithful, out of control etc. What would the world be like if immorality wasn't confronted?

On the other hand, Paul was full of grace. He preached grace. But what is grace if we don't know about our sinful nature? He preached that God is forgiving, that he loves us. He had a great respect for women (Romans 16), which was counter-cultural at the time. He talked about God wanting everyone to be saved from their sins, he talked about joy, the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control). He said that we should love our neighbors, that we should give generously to the poor. He was an example to us, paricularly those who have experienced suffering, and he offers words of comfort and talks about the hope we have in Christ in spite of our sufferings. He talks about the joy the Spirit gives us in spite of our sufferings. He talks about the sufficiency of God's grace in our sufferings. He talked about the cross, about Christ's blood, which is sufficient to pay the penalty for our sins. Paul called himself, "the worst of all sinners". He talked about how the Holy Spirit can transform our hearts and our minds, so that we can become humble servants of Christ, and servants to others. He talked about the humility of Christ, how Christ (being God in nature) humbled himself to be a servant to mankind. How he humbled himself to take the penalty of our sins on himself through physical and (worse) spiritual death. He talked about how we can have hope in the resurrection, that we might be resurrected some day.

I understand the objections that have been made about Paul, and I have thought about them a great deal. Personally, I object to his run-on sentences, but that's not that serious. I don't understand everything he says, some things he says I have partial but not full understanding. But, I think sometimes people forget that these writings are nearly 2000 years old. Popular opinion from 50 years ago regarding morality are no longer applicable in our society. If so much changed in 50 years, how much can change in 2000 years? or the next 2000 years? Unless we understand the cultural and spiritual climate of the times, we will fail to understand much of what Paul is talking about to the various churches.

post tenebras lux

Well, personally, I'd use a bit stronger language than just calling him a 'ding-a-ling', but I am quite happy calling him 'the first christian'.

Additionally, if I wish to distinguish between the god of the OT (ignoring that the OT isn't consistent anyway) and the god of the NT, then I call the former 'god of Moses' and the latter 'god of St. Paul' - Jesus doesn't get a look in.

My question to any christians who do agree that Paul was a bit of a ding-a-ling would be: did the early christians get it wrong with the Nicene Creed and should Paul's words ever be considered as useful (in guiding you to Christ), never mind being considered as insipred by god?

Luxie

Julian

We do not know much about the movements that existed before Paul came on the scene. We have the Jesus movement, the Christ people, the Thomas people and many, many more communities. Reading Paul's letters in what seems to be the chronological order in which they were written it is painfully obvious that, although he didn't start christianity as a whole, he is responsibly for much of the form it has taken today. He pulled most of that stuff out of his ass to conform to what he wanted in response to other preacher who advocated ideas that conflicted with Paul's wishes. The gospels came much later, probably started as a tradition by Mark, and don't much agree with Paul's confused ideas but did manage to form a much better central core around which a larger movement could be formed. This was probably largely in response to the destruction of the temple after the Jewish revolt.

Jesus (if he ever existed) says nothing at all in the bible. The gospel writers ascribe a variety of sayings to him. Paul, however, was a prolific writer even if we only look at the genuine epistles.

Paul was arrogant and full of himself. Self-assured, and with a false humilty, he continued to elaborate on the christian message, especially in his defensive letters, which cares little about the issues that later saw the fulfillment through the gospels culminating in the gospel of John.

Paul didn't care for fornicators and preferred that the body be kept as pure as possible. He has much to say to the Corinthians on this subject. He just basically wasn't a fun guy. He was an idealist. I don't see him attacking gays any more than fornicators, probably less. Probably because fornicators are more common than gays unless he included gays in with the fornicators. Quite possible, in a place such as Corinth where the congregation was far more unruly than most places.

Julian