The Christian God

Now we come to the God of Christianity. Chapter 4 

of Karen Armstrong’s book ‘A History of God’ is titled ‘Trinity: The Christian God’. There is a reason for this. Though Christians claim they believe in monotheism, their God is not exactly one; He is three in One or One in Three – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 3=1. 1=3. For ordinary mortals, this is a mystery and that is how the Catholic Church wants it regarded. Do not try to understand it, just believe it! Jesus was a Jew and his initial followers were all Jews who believed in the one God Yahweh. How and why did the later followers of Christ change to a ‘kind’ of polytheist mode of thinking? 

St. Paul, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, who 

became a follower of Christ, claimed to hear disembodied ‘voices’ that he identified as the words of Jesus. He was instrumental in spreading the gospel to the gentiles who were used to a variety of gods. It was he who realized that the good news of the gospel would have greater acceptance if Christ, the Messiah, was projected as divine rather than human.  Hence, he claimed that Jesus was a preexistent ‘heavenly’ being; that he was created as the ‘firstborn’ of all creation; that he existed in the form of God and that he was equal to God.

Not everyone agreed. Around 320 C.E. Arius, a 

presbyter from Alexandria asked: how could Jesus Christ have been God in the same way as God the Father? According to Armstrong: “He (Arius) knew his scriptures well, and he produced an armory of texts to support his claim that Christ the Word (logos) could only be a creature like ourselves.” 

This caused such a controversy that Emperor 

Constantine convened the first ecumenical council of Nicaea in 320 C.E. Here it was declared that the Creator and Redeemer were one and the Nicaean creed came into existence. (More of it in an earlier blog)

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker 

of all things, visible and invisible, and in one Lord, 

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only–begotten of 

the Father, that is, of the substance (ousia) of the 

Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance 

(homoousion) with the Father, through whom all 

things were made, those things that are in heaven and those things that are on earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made man, suffered, rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens and will come to judge the living and the dead……….. 

So now we have Jesus as having the same substance as God the Father: hence He is God.  However, the inclusion of the Holy Spirit as the third in the Trinity sounds a bit sneaky. Who is He? What is His role?

Hans Kung, a brilliant Catholic theologian, whose 

honesty and forthrightness regarding some of the Church’s doctrines have antagonized the hierarchy, comes to hour aid here. His book “The Catholic Church: A Short History” is closer to the truth than most other books on the subject. According to him, the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, convened by Theodosius the Great in 381 C.E. defined the identity of the Substance of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son.  He further enlightens us on the interpretation of St. Augustine (354-430), one of the best Catholic theologians of the era. Augustine did not agree with the interpretation of the Greek Church Fathers. For them, God the Father was ‘the God’ (ho Theos). They defined the relationship of God the Father to the Son and Spirit in terms of this one God and Father. Think of a star giving light to a second star and finally to a third star.  To the human eye, though, all three stars appear as one. But for Augustine:

The Father knows and begets in the Son his own 

word and image. But the Spirit “proceeds” from the Father (as the lover) and the Son (as the beloved) “according to the will.”  The Spirit is the love between Father and Son become a person: it has proceeded from both the Father and the Son.

The Holy Spirit, the third in the Triad played an active role is the conception of Jesus. Jesus had a virgin birth – in other words, a miraculous non-sexual conception.

Here I would like to point out something common to 

many religions: the claim of God’s direct revelations to His chosen ones. E.g. Moses at the time of receiving the ten commandments; Zarathustra’s direct revelation from the one true god Ahura Mazda; St. Paul hearing ‘voices’ which he identified as those of Jesus; Mohammed hearing voices in the cave; there are many others found in the religious holy books. I suppose it is a very clever and unquestionable way of convincing the naïve of selective belief systems!

GOD

Did God create us, or did we create God? Is He the 

product of man’s creative imagination?

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent 

Him.” – Voltaire.

“If triangles had a God, He’d have three sides.” - Old 

Yiddish Proverb.

Karen Armstrong, in the introduction to her well-

written book “The History of God,” asks: Is God the 

projection of human needs and drives? According to her, God was and is still a product of man’s creative imagination, like poetry and music. Karen Armstrong was born a Catholic, joined a religious order and became a dedicated nun but was unable to glimpse ‘the God described by the prophets and mystics’. So, she left the convent and became a commentator of religious affairs. 

In her book, Armstrong traces the historical 

development of the concept of God. She talks about the Christian God, the God of Islam, the God of Philosophers, the God of reformers, the Jewish concept of Yahweh and discusses the death of God and the rise of Atheism. The human idea of God has a history since its meaning is different to different groups of people. For her, the statement, ‘I believe in God’ has no objective meaning; it only means something in context. Each generation must create a concept of God that works for it. She concludes with a provocative question: ‘Does God have a future?’ 

So how old is the concept of God?

Much of the following information is found in the 

book “Ideas: A History from 

Fire to Freud” by Peter Watson. This is an extremely interesting, readable and informative book, especially for those looking for the origin of ideas and concepts.

Some anthropologists are of the opinion that ‘God-

the concept’ originated in man’s dilemma of mortality. Aided by the tool of rationality, unlike animals which live by instinct, humans came to the realization that one day they are going to die. What made death more terrifying was that it could befall us any time. To overcome the chronic anxiety of death at any instant, humans developed animism as a coping mechanism. In this belief system, a soul/spirit exists in every object including inanimate things. The spirit was therefore thought to be universal and it came to signify God. So, there was not One God, but everything was God. This was a kind of formless God. With the development of agriculture, fertility (both in humans and crops) was of paramount importance. So there developed the concept of Mother Goddess in the shape of a naked and pregnant woman, since a woman was the source of life. She is flanked by her male partner the Bull. The Bull symbolizes the male principle as well as the fact that the forces of nature are not easy to control. God’s transformation from female to male came later.

In nomadic pastoral civilizations, God was found not 

on Earth, but up above in the Sky. This was a Male God whose voice was thunder and whose anger was expressed through lightning. He was the Sky God who made rain for grass to grow for the cattle. The main sky gods were the sun and the moon. It is interesting to note that although very many different types of religions existed in ancient times, they can all be reduced to possess some distinctive core elements: a belief in the Great Goddess, the Bull, the Sky Gods, the need for sacrifices, in an afterlife, and in a soul that survives death and goes either to a place of suffering or to a place of joy depending on how one lived life here on earth.

The situation changed during the period 750 – 350 

BC. According to Karl Jaspers, the German philosopher, most of the world’s great faiths came into being during this period. Many leading philosophers and prophets appeared at this time: Confucius, Lao-tse, Buddha, Zarathustra, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Homer, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Archimedes etc. Philosophical views like skepticism, materialism, nihilism, sophism were developed. Religious treaties such as the Upanishads also appeared.

Let us briefly examine the God/gods of the different 

religions at this time. 

Judaism ‘evolved’ the idea of a monotheistic God, Yahweh. This happened after long periods of worshipping three types of gods: worship of the family gods (teraphim), worship of the sacred stones and worship of the great gods, some native, others foreign (Baal, Molech etc). Richard Dawkins in his book ‘The God Delusion’ describes Yahweh's character as follows: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways can become desensitized to their horror.”

The above description, I am certain, is the result of a 

careful reading of the Old Testament. This bears witness to Karen Armstrong’s assertion that God is a creation of man’s fertile imagination, an imagination fed by the cultural, social and intellectual milieu of the time.

Zoroastrianism introduced gods as abstract concepts.  Zarathustra taught a challenging view of the world as a struggle between good and evil. He is said to have received a direct revelation from the one true god Ahura Mazda. Soul, life after death, resurrection, judgment, paradise, hell, and the devil were all Zoroastrian ideas first, later borrowed by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Buddhism may be thought more as a way of life than as a religion in its narrow sense. It developed as a reaction to the greed and materialism of the newly emerging merchant class at the time of Siddhartha Gautama who left the comforts of a life of luxury as well as his family and wandered the world as a mendicant in search of enlightenment.  One night he put himself in a trance and when he awoke, he became the Buddha, the enlightened one. He believed in the gods of the time but for him, the ultimate reality was beyond the gods. All life, for him, was suffering; only dharma, the truth about right living brought one to nirvana (the ultimate reality, freedom from pain). The state of nirvana has nothing to do with the gods; in fact, it is beyond them. By living a life of compassion for all living beings, speaking and behaving gently, kindly and correctly and by refraining from drugs and intoxicants that cloud the mind, one can attain nirvana. The same universal secular message is given by Jesus as a response to the question by the Pharisees about the greatest commandment: love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. (Mathew 22:34-40). Perhaps the rumor that Jesus traveled to India could be true, as he seemed to have imbibed some Buddhist principles.

Hinduism has many parallels to Greek religious practices. Both are steeped in myths with numerous gods and goddesses who have many human characteristics. However, traditional Hinduism is a way of living than a way of thinking.

 Islam has borrowed heavily from both Judaism and Christianity. Mohammed, considered God’s prophet by the faithful, was resting in a cave outside Mecca, called Hira, in 620 C.E. when he heard voices which he wrote down and collected into the book Qur’an. The message was clear: God is one and there is no other. There is a Judgment day with eternal paradise for the good and everlasting hell for those who go against His will.

We will soon talk about the God of Christianity.

CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE LEGACY OF FEUDALISM

[First published in the August 2009 issue of Snehasandesham] 

Governance is a sociological construct. As populations grew from tribal communities to larger societies of nations, there evolved political systems of governance based on the needs of order and survival.  The monarchical rule has been dominant in ancient times; its vestiges remain as nostalgic tokens of a glorious past in many parts of Europe. The political system of governance in most countries of the world today is democratic, the rule of the people by the people for the people. During the passage of time there have been other forms of political systems as well: dictatorship, socialism, communism, fascism, Nazism etc. and the one we want to deal with in detail, namely feudalism (jan‍mittha sampradāayam). This was the political system prevalent in Europe during the Middle Ages. (From around the 9^th to the 13^th century.)

Feudalism was an economic, political, and social system based on land, loyalty and security. The main feature of this system was its hierarchical structure - serfs, vassals, overlords and king.  At the lowest level were the serfs, the uneducated peasants. They lived and worked on the land owned by the nobility. They could keep a little of the goods they produced while the rest went to their masters. In return, they were protected from marauders and other invaders by the vassals. Their fate was hard: no land, no education, no power, no voice! Vassals were next up the feudal social order. They were given the use of land (fiefdom) by their overlords as well as authority over their serfs. For this, they had to provide military service to their overlord. Above the vassals, the overlords (also known as lords of the manor) ruled the territory granted to them by the king in return for their loyalty to him. The system was grounded on loyalty and homage to one’s feudal master. Vassals never reported to their serfs. Lords of the manor were not accountable to the vassals and the king had absolute power over everyone. The concept of dialogue did not exist during this period. The feudal system worked so long as it was land based and the serfs remained uneducated and needed the protection of the vassals. However, with the growth of towns, which allowed the serfs to flee to these towns to become merchants or skilled laborers, this system was doomed to fail.

Throughout its existence, the Catholic Church has borrowed and adapted its organizational and governing structure from secular institutions starting with that of the Roman Empire, from the monarchies in later eras and from the social order and practices of feudalism. Although the feudal system died out long ago and the world has changed and become democratic, the Catholic Church has stubbornly refused to adapt to these changes and retains “a monarchical feudal system of governance”. Parallels of this system are easily found within the current Church structure. Pope (king in the feudal structure) grants benefices (dioceses) to his bishops. The latter in turn promise obedience, loyalty and homage to their sovereign master, the bishop of Rome. The bishops in turn grant benefices (parishes) to their priests who in turn promise obedience, loyalty and homage to the chief shepherd of the diocese. The priests look to the laity (serfs) as the uneducated little lambs. The laity “are to be led like a docile flock by their pastors” said Pope Pius X (1903-1914).

In theory, bishops and priests are not ambitious men. However, in practice, underneath the show of obedience and gratitude for the ecclesiastical appointments, the bishops aspire for powerful dioceses (fiefdoms) and the priests for plum parish assignments. For the ambitious priests and bishops, careful compliance of the party line is a must. Progressive sermons and actions, even when supported by the spirit of the bible and Council statements, should be avoided if they do not conform to the thoughts and policies of one’s current bishop and the pope. Feudal system’s insistence on obedience and loyalty remains deeply entrenched in the Catholic collective subconscious, more especially in that of older Catholics.

Another legacy of the feudal system is reflected in the way financial issues are dealt with. There is widespread abuse with the blurring of the distinction between the personal property of the bishop or priest with what belongs to the diocese or parish. There is a lot of arrogance in the way money belonging to the diocese is spent with little or no accountability. After the pedophilia scandals of the recent past, the next wave of scandals to hit the Catholic Church, according to some observers, will be fiscal in nature.

In return for the work done for the vassals, and for loyalty and obedience to them, the serfs were given protection from attackers. The Church, however, cannot offer any physical protection in that sense nor is there the need, but it does offer salvation through the sacraments. The clergy are the keepers of the sacraments. In return for loyalty and obedience and servitude and financial support, the vassal-pastor and the lord-bishop can dispense spiritual powers needed for achieving eternal life and save the ‘docile flock’ from the eternal fires of hell.  Although feudalism disappeared from Europe long ago, its protocols still linger - the bishops as princes of Church; kissing the ring on one’s knees; titles such as “Your Excellency”, “Your Grace”, “Your Eminence”; royal purple dress etc. – all presently seen as aspects of pseudo-nobility. African bishop Nestor Ngoy Katahwa of the Congo told his brother bishops at a 2001 Vatican conference on the episcopacy:

“With our title of ‘princes of the church’, we are led to cultivating the search for human honors and privileges, while the king, in reference to whom we are princes, finds his glorification on the cross . . . We are more at ease with the powerful and the rich than with the poor and the oppressed. And the fact that we maintain sole legislative, executive and judicial powers is a temptation for us to act like dictators, more so inasmuch as our mandate has no limitations.”

There are signs that times are changing. Youngsters today have begun to question the age-old belief system – heaven, hell and the life after death – that was used to blackmail the docile lambs from straying. With the spread of education, critical thinking is coming of age; with globalization, old value systems are changing, and secularism is coming to the fore; and I can feel the beginnings of the end of papal and clerical thought control; and the inevitable demise of feudalistic attitudes and actions. In its place let us hope for a democratic, transparent, all-inclusive and caring Catholic Church whose laity and hierarchy are brothers and sisters and not serfs and lords!

Knanaya Membership Formula

The following is an article that I wrote for the May 2012 edition of Snehasadesham. It might be of some relevance in the current debate around knanaya endogamy.

Knanaya Membership Formula

Knanaya membership, following Darwin’s Theory, 

keeps evolving. But unlike his theory in which lower 

life forms evolve into higher ones, the evolution of 

Knanaya membership moves in the opposite direction. Look at the following formulae and you can see a distinct devolution of Knaism towards the amoeba stage quickly followed by metamorphosis into the nihilistic mode. 

In the following formulae:  K= Knanaya community 

member, k = kna, f= father, m=mother, s=spouse,

and A= African-American, B=Brazilian, C= Chinese, 

…..., Z=Zulu 

The traditional formula is:

K= (kf)(km) + ks,

[a true kna(K) has a kna father (kf), a kna mother (km) and a kna spouse (ks)].

It has now devolved into the Moolakkattu formula:

K= (kf)(km) [spouse need not be kna]

This will soon devolve into the Angadiath formula:

K= (Af)(km) or (kf)(Bm) or (kf)(Cm) or................or (Zf)(km) [here every family contains at least one k or a fraction thereof].

One welcome fallout of the current upheavals created by what is termed the Moolakkattu Formula is that Knanaya Makkal have begun to give serious thought to their history, the practice of endogamy, and their future as a community. More welcome is the audacity of little lambs to stand up to and bleat at their shepherds.

My personal views on Knanaya issues:

1.         The ratio of fact to fiction in the history of the migration of Knai Thoma with 400 people made up of 72 families in A.D. 345 is unclear. Was history created around a myth or were myths woven around a fact?

2.          The belief that it was a ‘missionary’ migration to spread Christianity among Kerala heathens with commerce as a co-curricular activity is tenuous. This has been done to add a spiritual dimension to give the migration a nobility of purpose (probably to support the creation of the Kottayam diocese).

3.          If the migration did take place, it is difficult to believe that women and children were included in that voyage through dangerous seas to an unknown world.

4.          Based on this assumption of an all-male migration, one can infer that these men took local wife/wives (depending on the customs of the time and place) and lived and multiplied in exclusive colonies subjecting themselves to social apartheid.

5.         There is a great probability for such a community to develop the practice of endogamy in course of time as a survival technique.

6.         From A.D.345 to A.D. 1911 this group survived and prospered like the Nair Service Society (NSS).

7.         The 1911 creation of Kottayam diocese exclusively for Knanaya people added a spiritual dimension to a purely social group. It was tantamount to mixing crude oil and seawater with the oil always on top suffocating all life forms below.

8.          Since 1911 the wealth of the community is solely in the hands of the Bishop of Kottayam, who, like a feudal king, treats the members of the community like serfs.

9.          There is no accountability by the Bishop of this wealth; often, this wealth and the influence the community commands are exploited for the benefit of relatives and associates of the clerical establishment and a coterie of hangers-on from the elite. Strong rumors persist that substantial funds are diverted to defend the accused in the Abhaya case. Given the lack of transparency, rumor-mongering is inevitable.

10.                Any progress made by the community in the past is not because of but despite the spiritual leadership of the community – one must salute the Knanaya members of the medical, information technology and business professions for the current healthy financial standing of the community.

11.                 One does accept the claim that the diocese has started many schools, colleges, hospitals etc. The question remains: who benefited and is benefiting?

12.                One can define a kna as one whose parents are knas; the requirement that a kna must marry another kna to remain as a member of the Knanaya community became a ‘tradition’ (not a rule) for the survival of the community.

13.                Endogamy has many positives. But one negative dimension that is purposefully swept under the carpet is the prevalence of an above average case of genetic disorders found among endogamous groups. (According to some, mental illnesses, topped by bipolar disorders, stand out.)

14.                The current confusion, commotion, never-heard-of-questioning one’s Archbishop – these are symptoms of fear and anxiety about losing one’s ‘tribal’ identity. According to Joseph Campbell, myths are stories and legends that people perceive as being an integral part of their culture. In the society in which they are told, a myth is usually regarded as a true account of the remote past. Campbell defines the function of mythology as the provision of a cultural framework for a society. In this sense, the ‘myth’ of Knai Thoma’s missionary migration has served the very useful purpose of uniting a group of people giving them a sense of identity. This sense of identity is the main cause of jealousy among non-knanaya groups.

If NSS can function and prosper – the society owns 

and runs colleges, hospitals, and other social services – without poojaris owning and controlling them, Knanaya laymen can do the same. It was a grave mistake on the part of the Knanaya community to allow the clerical establishment to hijack the Knanaya community – its wealth and its administration. The present membership issue is a direct result of that. 

As per the Knanaya legend, bishops and deacons 

came along to cater to the spiritual needs of the 

members, not to own and control what the 

community held in common.

The current crisis will not go away until Knanaya 

laymen wrest control of the community back from the clerics. The assets of the community belong to its members, not to the Pope in Rome through the local Bishop. If the Nairs can successfully run a Society without putting poojaris at the helm of its affairs, so too can the Knanaya community. Let Knanaya clergy confine themselves to looking after the spiritual needs of the members.

The application of the bishops’ formulae is sure to 

lead to the extinction of Knanaya community as an endogamous entity. Get into a Time Machine and travel 60 years into the future to Chicago. As you enter the Sacred Heart “Knanaya” Catholic Church, you see three statues – one of Blessed Cardinal Moolakkattu, another of Blessed Cardinal Angadiath and a third of the Servant of God Archbishop Mulavanal. Scan the church pews and this is what you observe. In the front row there is Mary from Kallara with her Nigerian husband Rasheed Mohammed Onwu and their 8 curly haired children; beside them sits Mathai from Kaduthuruthi with his Chinese wife Hu Ha Ho and their 3 slit-eyed children. Behind them you find Leelamma from Uzhavoor along with two African co-wives of her Zulu husband John Buthalezi and their combined harvest of 15children. Thanks to Blessed Angadiath, it is a veritable United Nations that is gathered in the “Knanaya church” as members of the “Knanaya community.”

As I embarked on the Time Machine to return to the 

present, I heard the congregation shout in unison: Praise the Formula! Alleluia

Jesus Christ: Historical figure or Mythical character?

Let us consider three characters, calling them Character B, Character D, and Character Z. Under each is given available information about them.

Character B

·         B is taken prisoner.

·         He is tried in a hall of justice.

·         He is tormented and mocked by a rabble.

·         He is led away to the mount.

·         B is taken with two other prisoners, one of whom is released.

·         After he is sacrificed on the mount, the rabble goes on the rampage.

·         His clothes are taken.

·         B disappears into a tomb.

·         He is sought after by weeping women.

·         He is resurrected, appearing to his followers after the stone is rolled away from the tomb.

Character D

·         He was born of a virgin on December 25^th and, as a Holy Child was placed in a manger.

·         He was a traveling teacher who performed miracles.

·         He rode in a triumphal procession on an ass.

·         He was a sacred king killed and eaten in an eucharistic ritual for fecundity and purification.

·         He rose from the dead on March 25^th.

·         He was the god of wine and turned water into wine.

·         He was called ‘King of Kings’ and ‘God of Gods’.

·         He was considered the ‘Only Begotten Son’, ‘Savior’, ‘Redeemer’, ‘Sin Bearer’, ‘Anointed One’, and the ‘Alpha and Omega’.

·         He was identified with the Ram or Lamb.

·         His sacrificial title of ‘Dendrites’ or ‘Young Man of the Tree’ intimates he was hung on a tree or crucified. 

Character Z

·         Z was born of a virgin and ‘immaculate conception by a ray of divine reason’.

·         He was baptized in a river.

·         In his youth, he astounded wise men with his wisdom.

·         He was tempted in the wilderness by the devil.

·         He began his ministry at age 30.

·         Z baptized with water, fire and ‘holy wind’.

·         He cast out demons and restored sight to a blind woman.

·         He taught about heaven and hell and revealed mysteries, including resurrection, judgment, salvation and the apocalypse.

·         He had a sacred cup or grail.

·         He was slain.

·         His religion had a eucharist.

·         He was the ‘Word made flesh’.

·         Z’s followers expect a ‘second coming’ in the virgin-born Saoshyant or Savior, who is to come in 2341CE

If we replace each of the characters B, D, and Z by the name Jesus, nearly every one of the statements under them is to be found in the new testament chronicles of the life of Jesus.

But, in reality, the first two are mythical characters (like Rama and Sita of Ramayana) while the last is a historical figure that existed long before Jesus!

Character B

He is mythical god Baal or Bel of Babylon, frequently mentioned in the old testament.

Character D

Character D stands for Dionysus who is thought of as being a Greek god, but he is a remake of the Egyptian god Osiris. The Romans renamed him as Bacchus, the god of wine.

Character Z

This is Zarathustra, better known as Zoroaster (the Greek version of his name). He was a prophet from Persia. Zoroaster probably lived around the sixth century BCE.  The religion of Zoroastrianism is named after him.

All the statements under the three characters are taken ‘verbatim’ (with names removed) from the book ‘The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold’ by DM Murdoch (aka Acharya S).

One is left wondering: what is the ratio of myth to fact in the gospel account of the life of Jesus? Did Jesus really exist? Is Jesus’ story a re-adaptation of earlier myths?

.

St Paul and His Role in the Evolution of Christianity

Paul was born in A.D. 4 (or 5) at Tarsus, Cilicia, South Turkey, 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. In addition to learning religious scriptures, he also studied Greek philosophers and was well acquainted with the Stoic philosophers, who advocated that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment should be based on behavior, rather than words.

During his early life, Paul was a Pharisee, a member of the Jewish sect that administered the law. The Pharisees believed that God was in control of everything, there is an afterlife, and that there will be the eternal judgment of the departed souls. He admitted to participating in the persecution of Christians. One reason Paul was so critical of the new sect which followed Jesus Christ was the fact he was appalled that Jesus died a ‘criminal’s death’ on the cross. He couldn’t assimilate that with how a Messiah would be treated.

Conversion to Christianity

Around 31-36 AD, Paul relates how he became converted from a persecutor of Christians to a devout follower. On the road to Damascus, he reported to being blinded by a vision of Jesus Christ. For three days after the vision, he remained blind. Later, he was healed of his blindness by a Christian – Ananias of Damascus. After his vision and healing, he proclaimed the divinity of Jesus Christ and dedicated his life to spreading the Christian message.

He claimed that during the vision, he had received both a revelation and a commission. The revelation was that Jesus was the heavenly exalted “Christ”.  The commission was that he, Paul, was to preach the good news of salvation, through faith in Jesus, to the Gentile world.”

He was a contemporary of Jesus but never met him. 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.

Paul was beheaded in Rome around A.D. 68 during the reign of Nero.

Paul’s message

To understand Paul’s message and its problematic nature, one needs to learn about Jesus and his mission on earth. 

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  by the turn of 1^st 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. 69.

During the period AD 66-70, the Jews revolted against Roman rule. This was brutally put down by the Romans and in the process,  they burned down and completely destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. James and the followers of the Jesus movement were either killed or fled the massacre and the movement died a natural death. Had the Temple not been destroyed, perhaps Christianity would have been a continuation of Jesus movement and Paul would have been a footnote in history.

The following is, in brief, the view of James Tabor on this issue:

“Jesus, as we know, was the son of Mary, a young woman who became pregnant before her marriage to a man named Joseph.  The gospels tell us that Jesus had four brothers and two sisters, all of whom probably had a different father from him.  He joined a messianic movement begun by his relative John the Baptizer, whom he regarded as his teacher and as a great prophet.  John and Jesus together filled the roles of the Two Messiahs who were expected at the time, John as a priestly descendant of Aaron and Jesus as a royal descendant of David. Together they preached the coming of the Kingdom of God.  Theirs was an apocalyptic movement that expected God to establish his kingdom on earth, as described by the prophets.  The two messiahs lived in a time of turmoil as the historical land of Israel was dominated by the powerful Roman Empire.  Fierce Jewish rebellions against Rome occurred during Jesus's lifetime.

John and Jesus preached adherence to the Torah or the Jewish Law.  But their mission was changed dramatically when John was arrested and then killed.  After a period of uncertainty, Jesus began preaching anew in Galilee and challenged the Roman authorities and their Jewish collaborators in Jerusalem.  He appointed a Council of Twelve to rule over the twelve tribes of Israel, among whom he included his four brothers.  After he was crucified by the Romans, his brother James – the “Beloved Disciple” – took over leadership of the Jesus Dynasty. 

James, like John and Jesus before him, saw himself as a faithful Jew.  None of them believed that their movement was a new religion.  It was Paul who transformed Jesus and his message through his ministry to the Gentiles, breaking with James and the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, preaching a message based on his own revelations that would become Christianity.  Jesus became a figure whose humanity was obscured; John became merely a forerunner of Jesus, and James and the others were all but forgotten.”

The fact remains that Paul’s version of Christianity remained and continued to flourish. What was a Jewish messianic sect, became a Universal Salvation religion.