Paul was born in A.D. 4 (or 5) at Tarsus to Jewish parents. He was named Saul after the first king of Israel. Paul is his Roman surname, meaning ‘small’. The family was into tent making. His father being rich and influential, managed to get Roman citizenship which Paul inherited by birth. His father had the means to send his son to Jerusalem to study with Gamaliel, the leading rabbi of the day.
He was a
contemporary of Jesus, but never met him.
He had a ‘conversion
experience’ in A.D. 36. On the way to Damascus he had a “vision” of Jesus. “He
said he had received both a revelation
and a commission - that Jesus was the heavenly exalted “Christ” and
that he, Paul, was to preach the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus to
the Gentile world.” (Tabor: page 261; emphasis mine)
He called himself
the thirteenth apostle and claimed to be given authority over the Gentile world
to prepare them for the ‘second coming’ of Jesus as Messiah.
There are
two distinct ‘Christianities’ embedded in the New Testament. One is the now
familiar Christianity as followed by billions all over the world today for the
past two thousand years. Its main proponent was Apostle Paul. The other is
mostly forgotten and got marginalized and suppressed by the former by the turn
of 1st century A.D. This ‘version of the Christian faith best
represents the original beliefs and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and John the
Baptizer – founders of the Messianic Movement.’ James, the brother of Jesus,
took over the leadership of this movement after the death of Jesus from A.D. 30
until his violent death in A.D. 62.
Paul was
beheaded in Rome around A.D. 68 during the reign of Nero.
Apostle Paul can be regarded as the founder
of Christianity as we know it today. [not Jesus]
What was Paul's message and why is it problematic?
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