Paul and the Epistles

The letters of Paul are believed to be the earliest known Christian documents, dating from between 50-60 CE. If that’s the case they should arguably appear at the start of the New Testament as they’re the oldest. They appear after the gospels because the latter were erroneously believed by the early Church to be eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life.

Given that Paul’s letters are believed to predate the gospels, it’s really important to look at what exactly Paul believed and what he had to say about Jesus. They are the oldest known Christian writings, therefore the closest thing we have to the original source of Christianity. We also need to detach the real Paul of his letters from the Paul portrayed in the book of Acts – a fictional account written decades after his life and far removed from historical reality.

Of the fourteen epistles originally ascribed to Paul in the New Testament, modern scholars believe seven are genuine – Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. The other seven are believed to be later forgeries written by his followers pretending to be Paul.

Unfortunately, even the seven genuine letters of Paul have been tampered with by later Christian scribes. 1 Thessalonians contains a classic example of this. Elsewhere in his letters, Paul suggests that Satan and cosmic rulers were responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. Yet in one passage of 1 Thessalonians we read,

‘You have fared like the congregations in Judea in Jesus Christ. You have suffered from your countrymen as they have from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. The Jews displease God and are hostile to everyone, preventing us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.’ (1 Thessalonians 2.14-16)

1 Thessalonians is believed to be the oldest extant Christian document, written in 50 – 51 CE. Yet here we find what appears to be a clear reference here to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE, as well as an anti-Semitic narrative that the Jews killed Jesus and the prophets and are preventing Paul and the apostles from spreading their message. This fits far better with the later gospels and Book of Acts than to Paul’s letters (eg Luke 13.34, Matthew 5.12, 23.31-37, Acts 7.52).

We also know also Paul wrote other letters that haven’t survived. Much as the gospels’ story of Jesus is far better known these days than the letters, it’s worth remembering that the epistles actually constitute more of the New Testament. There are 21 of them, compared with only the four Gospels, which shows their importance to the people who compiled the New Testament.

Paul was a Jew who became a follower of Christ after claiming to receive a revelatory vision of Jesus,

‘The gospel that you heard me preach isn’t of human origin. I didn’t receive it from any man, no man taught me it. I received it through a revelation from Jesus Christ.’ (Galatians 1.11-12)

Paul makes it clear that his authority derives from dreams and visions, he never met a historical Jesus in person or anyone who knew Jesus. The claim of having received visions and advice of deities during dreams was commonplace in the ancient world. Paul immodestly goes on to claim,

‘But when God, who had set me apart from birth and called me through his grace, chose to reveal his son through me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles.’ (Galatians 1.15-16)

One thing that permeates all of Paul’s writings is his huge ego and the belief that he has been especially chosen by Yahweh to reveal his son Jesus. Elsewhere in his writings he claims he is ‘apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God’ (1 Corinthians 1.1).

His letters suggest he had a strong authoritarian streak, he was unwilling to accept any teachings at variance to his own. He informed his Corinthian followers that, ‘If anyone claims to be inspired or a prophet, let him recognise that what I write are the Lord’s commandments. If he doesn’t recognise this, he himself shouldn’t be recognised’ (1 Corinthians 14.37-38). He told his Galatian congregation that, ‘If anyone preaches a gospel at variance with the gospel which you received, let him be accursed’ (Galatians 1.9).

Paul continually writes of his ‘gospel’, which shouldn’t be confused with the four books of the New Testament we today call the gospels. Paul was writing before those gospels were created, and his ‘gospel’ was his teaching, a simple creed that Yahweh’s son Jesus had been crucified and risen from the dead, and that this was foretold by the Jewish scriptures.

Paul sums his basic creed up nicely in 1 Corinthians when he states that, ‘Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures. He was buried and he was raised to life on the third day, according to the scriptures’ (1 Corinthians 15.3-7). This statement of belief has been called the kerygma, and is the earliest statement of Christian belief that we know of.

The scriptures Paul is referring to are the Jewish Bible / Old Testament. He shows no knowledge of any Christian scriptures and always quotes the Jewish Bible to back up his beliefs. It’s important to realise that Paul’s Jesus and his version of Christianity (the earliest we know of) derived from two sources – studying the Old Testament and mystical visions. Paul didn’t derive his teachings from a historical Jesus.

Paul’s letters lack detail on many of the events and teachings of Jesus portrayed in the gospels. He never mentions Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, John the Baptist, the twelve disciples, the Sermon on the Mount, any of Jesus’ miracles, the trial or Pontius Pilate. This is despite Paul mentioning ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’ at least 280 times in his genuine letters.

When Paul wants to use scripture to back up his arguments he only uses the Greek version of the Jewish Bible / Old Testament, never quoting Jesus. He appears unaware of any quotable teachings attributable to Jesus. Given that Paul’s letters are often about doctrinal disputes and questions, one would think that Jesus’ teachings would have been the obvious and most important authority for him to use.

Even when his teachings seem completely aligned to those of Jesus in the gospels, Paul fails to attribute the teachings to Jesus or to quote him. This it utterly bizarre when you consider the centrality of Jesus to Paul’s ministry. A good example of this is when he states, ‘The whole law can be summed up in a single commandment: “Love your neighbour as yourself”‘ (Galatians 5.14). Paul links this teaching to the Old Testament and Jewish law, not Jesus, quoting a passage from Leviticus (Leviticus 19.18). We find exactly the same thing in the epistle of James (James 2.8).

Again when Paul wrote, ‘Never pay back evil with evil, try to do what everyone regards as good. If possible, as far as you can, live at peace with everyone’ (Romans 12.17-18), he quotes an obscure line from Proverbs to back this point up (Romans 12.20), not mentioning Jesus or his teachings at all. We find the same thing in the letter of 1 Peter, where we read, ‘Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing’ (1 Peter 3.9). Nowhere is this teaching attributed to Jesus, instead the author goes on to link it to Psalm 34.

The same thing occurs when Paul tells his congregation to pay their taxes. We read, ‘This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants devoted to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them – taxes to whom taxes are due’ (Romans 13.6-7). There’s no mention of Jesus’ teaching in the gospels on exactly the same subject, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s’ (Mark 12.14-17). It appears that Paul knew of no teachings to ascribe to his Jesus. The logical explanation for this is that the gospels containing those teachings had yet to be created.

1 Peter and James are two more letters in the New Testament that are traditionally attributed to other apostles mentioned by Paul. Most scholars believe they were probably written by later followers. Neither of them mention any of the details of the Gospels, and they don’t even refer to the crucifixion.

Both only quote Jewish scripture to back up their arguments. When the author of 1 Peter writes of the suffering of Jesus he simply quotes Isaiah 53 (1 Peter 2.22-25), a bizarre thing to do if he’d believed in an actual historical crucifixion of Jesus. The same passage of Isaiah later became a template for the gospel story of the crucifixion.

1 Clement is another non-canonical first century Christian letter. It’s along letter of over 10,000 words and it continually uses Jewish scripture to back up its arguments, even when the gospel narrative would provide the perfect corroboration of the author’s point. Just like Paul, Clement also fails to mention any of the specifics of the gospel story – Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, John the Baptist, Jesus’ miracles, his exorcism of demons, the Sermon on the Mount, the trial or Pontius Pilate.

Paul also rarely mentions Jerusalem, his letters are addressed to congregations in Rome, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey. Bethlehem and Nazareth are never mentioned by Paul, they were added to the story by the later gospel writers. It is also clear from Paul’s letters that he never met the Jesus that he claims to represent in any way other than by mystical revelation.

There are numerous things mentioned by Paul that later appear in the passion story of the gospels – the breaking of bread and wine (1 Corinthians 11.23-26), his crucifixion (1 Corinthians 2.2) and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15.20). Paul however never places these events in Jerusalem. He also never places them at the Passover, although he did compare Jesus to the Paschal lamb that’s sacrificed at the Passover festival (1 Corinthians 5.7). That may have influenced the author of Mark when he wrote his story several decades later. It seems likely he’d either read Paul’s letters or knew of his congregation’s beliefs.

Paul’s mention of Jesus’ post resurrection appearance to ‘the twelve’ was probably also the reason Mark gave Jesus twelve disciples. The names of the most famous disciples probably also derive from Paul’s letters. Paul mentioned a Peter, James and John, describing them as ‘those esteemed as pillars’ (Galatians 2.9). Paul’s letters suggest that Jesus appeared to the other apostles in exactly the same manner that he appeared to him, implying they also only ‘knew’ Jesus through dreams and visions (1 Corinthians 15.5-8).

It’s also worth noting that Paul only describes Jesus as appearing to them after his crucifixion and resurrection, which fits with this interpretation. It’s important to remember that Paul never gave his Jesus any disciples, ‘the twelve’ and ‘the pillars’ mentioned by him are never described as such. The author of Mark created the idea of twelve disciples.

Paul also never refers to Jesus by the most common title given to him in the gospels – ‘the Son of Man’. This is also the title Jesus refers to himself by most often in the gospels. This title derives from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, largely written in the second century BCE, but set during the Babylonian exile four centuries earlier. In the book Daniel has visions of future empires that will rise and fall. Finally a figure called ‘the Son of Man’ will arrive and he and Yahweh will gain dominion over the earth.

It would seem that Paul and his congregations didn’t equate their Jesus to the Son of Man, and the Book of Daniel held less importance to them than it did to the later writers of the gospels and Revelation. The reason for this is probably the sectarian nature of the Son of Man predicted in Daniel. He is to lead the Jews to victory against their enemies, whereas Paul’s Jesus was a conduit for converting the pagans to the worship of the Jewish god.

It may also be because Paul’s letters predate the Roman-Jewish war and the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, whereas the gospels postdate it. The Book of Daniel may have gained a greater significance in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic circles after this event, as it mentions an abomination being set up in the temple. This originally referred to an altar of Zeus being set up by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV, but the author of the gospel of Mark reinterpreted it to refer to the Romans (Mark 13.14).

So what sort of Jesus does Paul write of? It’s not the Jesus we meet in the gospels with the narrative of a ministry of teaching and miracles followed by the passion story. Paul’s Jesus is more simple and has one clear purpose, to redeem the original sin of Adam. Paul often links Jesus to Adam, such as in 1 Corinthians,

‘Just as it was a man who brought death into the world, so a man also brought resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all men die, so in Christ all will be raised to life.’ (1 Corinthians 15.21-22)

In Romans he stated,

‘It follows, then, that as one misdeed resulted in condemnation for all men, so also one just act resulted in acquittal and life for all men. For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.’ (Romans 5.18-19)

For Paul, Jesus’ death was a sacrifice to redeem the original sin of Adam that supposedly stained humanity. Jesus was like the sacrificial sin offerings that the Hebrews are continually making to Yahweh in the Old Testament. In Romans 8.3 he calls Jesus a ‘sin offering’. Paul taught that Jesus’ sacrifice superseded the sin offering and negated the need for temple sacrifice.

This comparison appears elsewhere in the New Testament, the author of the letter to the Hebrews also compared Jesus’ sacrifice to the Jewish priests’ sacrifices to absolve sins (Hebrews 10.11). Like many other early Christians who followed him, Paul seriously believed that the reason humans die was because of the original sin of Adam, and that Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection paid off that original sin. He wrote, ‘Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death came to all people’ (Romans 5.12).

Like many others in the ancient world, the early Christians believed that the heavenly realms above the earth were populated by various celestial powers. The letters of Paul’s followers give us a real insight into this strange world. Ephesians 6.12 states, ‘Our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark aeon, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.’ Colossians 2.20 states, ‘You died with Christ and passed beyond reach of the ruling spirits of the universe.’  The same letter states of Jesus, ‘In him everything in heaven and earth was created. Not only things visible but also the invisible orders of spiritual powers, thrones, rulers and authorities’ (Colossians 1.16).

It’s these evil celestial powers that Paul and his followers believed were involved in Jesus’ crucifixion, and who were defeated by his resurrection. The author of Colossians wrote of the crucifixion, ‘On the cross Christ freed himself from the power of the rulers and authorities’ (Colossians 2.15). Paul was speaking of these celestial powers when he wrote, ‘None of the rulers of this aeon understood it [God’s secret wisdom], for if they had they would not have crucified the lord of glory’ (1 Corinthians 2.8).

The later letters of Paul’s disciples made clear the celestial nature of the rulers that he wrote about, ‘His [God’s] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm’ (Ephesians 3.10).

Some of the letters appear to display an almost gnostic belief that Satan controlled the heavenly realms and the earth. Ephesians 2.1-2 states, ‘You followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.’

This cosmology was nothing new, we find it in other Jewish and Christian works such as The Ascension of Isaiah and The Book of Jubilees. The author of The Ascension of Isaiah wrote of, ‘the prince of this world, and of his angels, and his authorities and his powers’ (The Ascension of Isaiah 1.3). We also find it in pagan works from the period. Plutarch (46 – 120 CE) wrote that daemons descended from the orbit of the moon to answer oracles (On the Face that Appears on the Moon 30).

Paul’s message was that the Jewish law ended with Jesus. Paul was trying to spread the worship of Yahweh to the pagan masses. This objective became a lot easier once the cumbersome purity laws of Judaism and circumcision had been removed from the equation. In Romans he wrote, ‘For I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes – the Jew first, but the Greek also’ (Romans 1.16). In the same letter he stated, ‘Christ ends the law and brings righteousness for everyone who believes’ (Romans 10.4). In Galatians 3.14 he wrote, ‘He redeemed us so the blessing of Abraham would come to the gentiles through Jesus Christ.’

Paul makes it clear that he believed his teachings were universal, and applied to both the Jew and the Gentile. He wrote that, ‘There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3.28). One of Paul’s disciples probably wrote Ephesians. That author wrote of Jesus,

‘He has made the two [Gentiles and Jews] one and has destroyed the enmity which stood like a barrier between them in his body of flesh. He abolished the law with its rules and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself a single new humanity out of the two, thereby making peace. To reconcile both of them in a single body to God through the cross, on which he killed their hostility.’ (Ephesians 2.14-16)

Paul’s letters also suggest that his early form of Christianity may have been influenced by the mystery religions. Paul states of himself and his followers, ‘Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and as stewards of the mysteries of God.’ (1 Corinthians 4.1). Paul also talks of ‘perfected’ and ‘mature’ Christians, these are the Greek words used to describe initiates of the mysteries.

Paul was an unenlightened fanatic with many dislikeable views. He was fanatically opposed to idolatry and the other faiths of the Roman world. This trait was inherited from Judaism and was prevalent in the vast majority of early Christian thought and writings. He claimed that, ‘The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I don’t want you to become partners with demons’ (1 Corinthians 10.20).

In 2 Corinthians 6.14 he wrote, ‘Do not unite yourselves with unbelievers. What has righteousness and wickedness have in common? Can light consort with darkness?’ Ephesians is a later letter written by one of Paul’s followers, it continues this vitriolic intolerance,

‘You must give up living like pagans with their good-for-nothing notions. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God, because ignorance prevails among them due to the hardening of their hearts. They have lost all feeling, and have given themselves over to vice, indulging foul desires and always greedy for more.’ (Ephesians 4.17-20)

Paul was also a misogynist. He wrote to inform his followers in Corinth, ‘Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but should be in submission as the law directs. If there is something they want to know, they can ask their husbands at home. It’s disgraceful for a woman to address the congregation.’ (1 Corinthians 14.34-5). He also stated that, ‘Man wasn’t made from woman, but woman was made from man. Man wasn’t created for woman’s sake, but woman for the sake of man.’ (1 Corinthians 11.8-9). Like many Jews of the time and early Christians to follow, Paul also possessed a puritanical belief that sex and the body are somehow unclean and dirty.

Like other Jews and early Christians, Paul was also homophobic. He wrote that ‘No fornicators or idolaters, no adulterers or men who have sex with men, no thieves or the greedy or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers, will possess the kingdom of God’ (1 Corinthians 6.9-10). Paul went as far as linking homosexuality to paganism and idolatry, claiming that one is a result of the other,

‘Therefore God has given them up to the vileness of their own desires, and the shameful degradation of their bodies with one another. They have exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and have offered reverence and worship to created things instead of to the creator. Because of this, God has given them up to shameful passions. Their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural. Their men in turn have given up natural relations with women, and burn with lust for one another. Men commit shameful acts with other men, and receive in person the punishment they deserve for such perversions.’ (Romans 1.24-27)

Paul was obsessed by sin and death and like the gnostics, he had a negative view of the body. Paul was probably influenced by Platonic thought as well as Judaism. In Romans 7.24 he wrote, ‘Miserable man that I am, who will rescue me from this body doomed to death?’ In 2 Corinthians 5.6 he stated, ‘We know that so long as we are at home in the body we are exiles from the Lord.’

He clearly felt uncomfortable about sex and anything he saw as carnal and of the body, and his letters imply that he was celibate. He wrote, ‘It is a good thing for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman’ (1 Corinthians 7.1), and ‘To the unmarried and to widows I say it is a good thing if they remain unmarried as I am myself’ (1 Corinthians 7.8). Given Paul’s command to ‘run from sexual immorality’ (1 Corinthians 6.18), we have to assume he was celibate.

Like the gospel writers, other early Christians, and Jews of the time, Paul and his congregations believed that the world was imminently about to end in the Day of the Wrath of Yahweh. In 1 Corinthians he stated, ‘The time we live in will not last long…for this world in its present form is passing away’ (1 Corinthians 7.29-31). Paul wrote to his church in Thessalonica, stating they were, ‘to wait for the appearance from heaven of his son Jesus, who he raised from the dead. Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath of God’ (1 Thessalonians 1.10).

This clearly suggests he believed Jesus’ descent from heaven and the day of judgement would be during his and his audience’s lifetime. Much as Christians today talk of Jesus’ ‘second coming,’ the word Paul and the other letters writers use is far more ambiguous. They use the Greek word parousia, which literally means ‘presence, arrival, or official visit.’ It was the same word used for kings and emperors when they came to visit a city or province.

The word doesn’t imply a second coming, merely an appearance, a coming to earth from heaven for the final day of judgement. The assumption that this would be a second coming derives from reading the later gospels as representing something historical.

Paul also used the idea of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection allegorically. In Galatians he wrote, ‘Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires’ (Galatians 5.24), and, ‘I have been crucified with Christ’ (Galatians 2.20). Similarly, he wrote in Romans,

‘For if we have become united with him in a death like his, we shall also be one with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him…But if we thus died with Christ, we believe that we shall also come to life with him. (Romans 6.5-8)