Saul of Tarsus

What today is called Christianity is in any case not so much the word of Christ but something else:
Paulinism
For the doctrine as we know it rests in all its main points not on the message of Jesus
But on the totally different teachings of Paul
Holger Kersten

The Psychiatrist Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum, in his book ‘Genius, Madness and Fame’, wrote a detailed assessment of Saul of Tarsus (he changed his name to Paul when he bought his Roman citizenship). Lange-Eichbaum describes Paul as being frail, short, austere, ascetic, impetuous and impulsive, with boundless energy, and suffering from blackouts and severe mood swings. Or, to put it simply, Paul was a weedy, reckless, religious fanatic, who suffered from bipolar affective disorder (formerly known as manic depression).¹

This may be an accurate assessment of Paul’s physique and mental state, but it doesn’t say much about his character. We can get a good idea of this by examining the letters Paul wrote and the Acts of the Apostles (which chronicles the acts of Paul and his Apostles, not those of Jesus’ Apostles). Luke, the author of Acts, was a friend and travelling companion of Paul and wrote with a pro-Paul bias, so any negative comments he made are likely to be genuine.

Saul, though, began to deal outrageously with the congregations
Invading one house after another and, dragging out both men and women, he would turn them over to prison
Acts 8:3

And many of the holy ones I locked up in prison, and when they were to be executed I cast my vote against them
Acts 26:10

And I [Saul] said, ‘Lord, I used to imprison and flog in one synagogue after another those believing in you
And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being spilled, I myself was also standing by approving and guarding the outer garments of those doing away with him’
Acts 22:19-20

But Saul, still breathing threat and murder against the Apostles of the Lord, went to the High Priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, in order that he might bring bound to Jerusalem any whom he found belonged to The Way, both men and women
Acts 9:1-2

From these quotes we can see that Paul’s attitude to the followers of Jesus was literally one of murderous hatred. In his self-appointed role as the chief persecutor of the followers of Jesus Paul was responsible for the death of countless men and women whose only crime was that they believed Jesus was the Messiah, and he appears to have enjoyed watching people being stoned to death. Anyone behaving like this today would be locked up and labelled a psychopath.

Paul committed these atrocious acts before his conversion, and the teachings of Jesus should have made him a nicer person. This does not seem to have been the case, however, and the quotes below show that Paul remained a complete bastard who could justify lying, cheating, and even the murder of his own followers to promote his cause.

Whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is being publicised, and in this I rejoice
Philippians 1:18

Do you not know that the runners in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?
Run in such a way that you may attain it
1 Corinthians 9:24

All those who were possessors of fields or houses would sell them and bring in the value of the things sold, and they would deposit them at the feet of the Apostles
However, a certain man, Ananias by name, together with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession and secretly held back some of the price, his wife knowing about it, and he brought just a part and deposited it at the feet of the Apostles
But Peter said ‘Ananias, why has Satan emboldened you to play false to the Holy Spirit and to hold back secretly some of the price of the field?’
On hearing these words Ananias fell down dead and expired
And a great fear came over all those hearing of it
Now after an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened
Peter said to her: ‘Tell me, did you sell the field for so much?’
She said: ‘Yes, for so much.’
So Peter said to her: ‘Why was it agreed upon between you two to make a test of the spirit of Jehovah?
Look! The feet of those that buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out’ instantly she fell down at his feet and expired
Consequently a great fear came over the whole congregation, and all those hearing about these things
Acts 4:34-5:11

Paul was clearly ruthless, and capable of doing just about anything to advance his cause. He was also very intolerant, and in a letter to the Romans he says homosexuality is ‘a disgraceful sexual appetite’ and that homosexuals cannot enter Heaven, despite the fact he was probably homosexual himself.²

Paul then lists what he deems to be mortal sins, saying ‘those practising such things are deserving of death, they not only doing them but also those that consent with those practising them.’ This includes being full of envy, insolent, haughty, gossiping, and without understanding. Paul even includes children who disobey their parents and those who disagree with him on his list of capital offences, which would include virtually every person on Earth.³

It should not be surprising then that Paul upset people everywhere he went. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul and Barnabas were thrown out of Antioch, and the people of Lystra tried to stone him to death. And in a letter to the Corinthians, Paul claims he was flogged five times and beaten three times.⁴

Despite Paul having been ‘credited with sentiments and attributes favoured by the writers of the New Testament’ (i.e. good press from his followers), the above quotes show him to be a truly horrible man, and that he remained so after his conversion. Had he not bought Roman citizenship—at the cost of a ‘large sum of money’ which he extorted from his followers under threat of death—he probably wouldn’t have survived for long, since he used it to escape punishment by the Jews on several occasions.⁵

Peter, the only Apostle Paul spent any time with, played a key role in the development of Paul’s Church. Attaching himself to one of the Apostles helped Paul to validate the changes he made to the teachings and practices of Jesus. Peter was good with a sword, but not very bright, and in the Acts of the Apostles Peter is described as ‘unlettered and ordinary’.⁶

It is intriguing that Peter, a skilled swordsman, was the man who confronted Ananias and Sapphira before they were allegedly struck dead by God. And that Ananias was also the name of the man who healed and converted Paul after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. Personally, I think the claim that God killed these people for not giving the church all the money they made from selling their worldly goods is a grievous insult to God, and it is hard to understand how anyone could believe God would do such a thing.⁷

I think Peter, under instruction from Paul, killed Ananias and Sapphira, and their murders were a fundraising exercise. And, if it was the same Ananias who converted Paul in Damascus, then he may have orchestrated their deaths as revenge for something Ananias said or did at the time, and to eliminate two people who knew something that could compromise his authority within his Church. If this were the case then they may well have been falsely charged with keeping some of the money they received from selling their goods.

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Considering the circumstances of Paul’s conversion, it should be no great surprise that it had little effect. Paul was either struck blind or locked in a dark room, and given nothing to eat or drink for three days, so he would have agreed to just about anything to be set free. Paul would have been badly traumatized by his ordeal, so it is somewhat surprising that he abandoned his murderous campaign against the Nazarenes.

Paul was ambitious, and he saw his conversion experience as an opportunity to set up his own branch of Jesus’ Church. Paul then proceeded to change the practices of the Jerusalem Church so that they were in line with his personal agenda. He justified the changes by claiming he had received instructions by direct revelation from Jesus, initially during his conversion then later through visions, making anything Jesus previously taught obsolete.⁸

The reality is that Paul’s only meeting with Jesus was his encounter on the road to Damascus. Then, according to Acts 9:19, Paul spent ‘some days with the disciples in Damascus’, before having to flee the city to escape the Jews who wanted to kill him. In his letter to the Galatians, however, Paul says he ‘did not go at once into conference with flesh and blood,’ but travelled to Arabia then returned to Damascus.⁹

Three years later Paul went to Jerusalem and stayed with Peter for a couple of weeks. During his stay Paul met with James, but had no contact with any of the other Apostles. After Paul left Jerusalem he says he was still ‘unknown by face to the congregations of Judea that were in union with Christ.’ Since the only contact Paul had with Jesus and the Apostles were these two brief encounters three years apart (other than Peter, whom he indoctrinated), it is hard to accept that Paul was an authority on the teachings of Jesus.⁹

To believe Paul truly converted to a belief system he found utterly offensive via the extreme methods Jesus used is extremely naive. He may have had an epiphany during his conversion, but this does not mean he embraced the teachings of Jesus. Paul does not narrate a single event from Jesus’ life in any of his letters, nor does he quote Jesus’ words other than those allegedly said at the last supper, which he used to justify the adoption of the Eucharist. At no point does Paul mention Galilee, Herod, Pilate, or the parents of either Jesus or John the Baptist. James is only mentioned twice, and the only other Apostles he refers to are Peter and John. In contrast, Paul talks about more than a dozen of his own acolytes.¹⁰

The result of Paul’s conversion was that it allowed him access to the inner workings of the Jerusalem Church, and he ultimately achieved his goal of eradicating the Nazarenes by supplanting them rather than having them killed.

References

1. Lange-Eichbaum, W. ‘Genius, Madness and Fame’ Munich, 6^th ed., 1967, p. 496. – Paul bipolar.
2. Romans 1:26-27; The Reverend John Shelby Spong, in ‘Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism’ (HarperSanFransisco, New York, 1991, pp. 91-107) says ‘The war that went on between what he desired with his mind and what he desired with his body, his drivenness to a legalistic religion of control, his fear when that system was threatened, his attitude toward women, his refusal to seek marriage as an outlet for his passion—nothing else accounts for this data as well as the possibility that Paul was gay.’ Also, if Paul was homosexual it would explain 2 Cor. 12:7, where he claims that ‘there was given me a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan, to keep slapping at me, that I might not feel overly exalted.’ – Paul condemns homosexuality.
3. Romans 1:28-32; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. – Paul’s list of crimes deserving of death; homosexuals (and many others) won’t go to heaven.
4. Acts 13:50; Acts 14:19; 2 Corinthians 11:21-25. – Paul thrown out of Antioch; Paul stoned in Lystra by Jews from Antioch and Iconium; Paul claims to be best Apostle because he was imprisoned, flogged (five times) and beaten with rods (three times) more often. He was also shipwrecked three times.
5. Schonfield, H. ‘The Essene Odyssey’ Element Books, Shaftesbury, 1984, pp. 63, 88; Acts 4:32-5:11; Acts 22:22-29, 25:1-12. – Paul made to look good by the NT writers; Paul extorts money from his followers under threat of death; Paul uses his Roman citizenship to escape punishment.
6. Acts 4:13; Matt. 15:12-20. – Peter and John unlettered and ordinary; Jesus explains parable to Peter.
7. Acts 9:10-18. – Ananias heals Paul after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
8. Gal. 1:10-12; Ephes. 3:1-7. – Paul received good news by revelation; Paul received revelation the original apostles did not get allowing him to preach the good news to gentiles.
9. Acts 9:19-25; Gal. 1:13-24. – Paul did not meet with apostles after conversion, went to Jerusalem three years later, stayed with Peter for a couple of weeks, met with James, then back to Syria, never met with Jesus followers in Judea.
10. Vermes, G. ‘The Authentic Gospel of Jesus’ Allen Lane, London, 2003, p. 196. – Paul does not narrate a single event from Jesus’ life, or quote Jesus’ words other than those allegedly said at the last supper.