By: Brian G. Chilton | February 22, 2022
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Question: “How should we respond to the claim that Paul was the founder of Christianity?”—JustforNow2017.
Answer: First of all, thank you for your question. This is a question that some critics of Christianity have posed, especially since the majority of the New Testament (NT) consists of the writings of Paul. However, just because Paul was a voluminous writer, a driven missionary to the Gentiles, and his documents flood the canonical NT, that does not necessarily mean that he was the founder of Christianity. It is evident that Paul drew his message from earlier materials that originated in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. This can be shown in four ways.
Paul’s Testimony
First, Paul’s own testimony shows that he did not consider himself the founder of Christianity. Rather, he presented himself as a persecutor of the church who was radically transformed by a personal encounter with Jesus. Paul testified that he was on his way to Damascus to bring in the members of the church as his prisoners (Acts 9:2). As he was on his way, “a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him” (Acts 9:3).[1] After a bit of questioning, the risen Jesus told Paul, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting … But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do” (Acts 9:5–6). From there, Paul was changed from a persecutor of the church into a proclaimer of the name of Jesus. Thus, he does not present himself as one who created a movement for himself, but he rather gives credit to the One who transformed him—that is, the risen Jesus of Nazareth.
Paul’s Corroboration with the Early Church
It is true that Paul had his issues with Peter from time to time (Gal. 2:5–14) and the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). However, even then, Paul appealed to the earlier teachings of Jesus to correct what he believed to be actions that went against what Jesus had taught.[2] After Paul had met the Lord and converted to Christianity, Paul traveled to Jerusalem for a fifteen-day stay three years after he became a Christian (Gal. 1:18–20). It is believed that Paul received a great deal of information about the creeds of the church and the teachings of Jesus at this time. If Paul was concerned about upstarting a new movement for himself, then he would not have been concerned about ensuring that his message was the same as the disciples had learned. From the beginning of his commitment to Christ, Paul desired to accurately convey the message of Jesus.
Paul’s Usage of Credal Material
Early credal material is scattered throughout the Pauline epistles. The credal material generally dates to within months to 8 years after the crucifixion of Jesus.[3] Even though Jesus’s teachings were most likely originally in Aramaic to most of his hearers, his messages were preserved in Greek since it was the lingua franca of the Greco-Roman world. This transition occurred fairly early in the life of the church.[4] Nonetheless, the teachings and deeds of Jesus were condensed and memorized into small, easily digestible nuggets. The creeds helped keep the church within the confines of orthodoxy. Paul used the creeds extensively in his works. Numerous creeds have been identified, including 1 Corinthians 11:23–24; 15:3–9; Philippians 2:5–11; Colossians 1:15–20; Romans 1:3–4; 10:9; 2 Timothy 2:8; 1 Timothy 3:16; and various other passages.[5] It is evident that Paul bases his theology on the earliest teachings of the church, which themselves derive from the teachings of Jesus.
Paul’s References to the Teachings of Jesus
Paul often refers to the teachings of Jesus either explicitly or implicitly in his epistles. On one occasion, Paul referenced a teaching of Jesus that is not preserved in the canonical Gospels. In the book of Acts, Paul reminds people of the message of Jesus, “because he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts 20:33). Paul most likely references the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4 in Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6. There are other areas where Paul references the teachings of Jesus, but that would take us into a much longer work.
Conclusion
From the four areas we mentioned, it is evident that Paul did not remotely consider himself the founder of Christianity. Rather, Paul was wholeheartedly devoted to the teachings of Jesus and to the quintessential truth that Jesus had risen from the dead—a truth that he learned firsthand. Therefore, if anyone should tell you that Paul is the founder of Christianity, just show them the ways that Paul pointed back to the teachings and deeds of Jesus.
See also https://bellatorchristi.com/2017/05/30/was-paul-founder-of-christianity/
About the Author
Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, and the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics. Brian is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years and currently serves as a clinical chaplain.
https://www.amazon.com/Laymans-Manual-Christian-Apologetics-Essentials/dp/1532697104
Notes
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman, 2020).
[2] For instance, Peter’s failure to dine with Gentiles in front of his Jewish comrades and the early church’s hesitation to minister to Gentiles were in direct opposition to Jesus’s Great Commission (Matt. 28:16–20).
[3] Gary R. Habermas, The Risen Jesus & Future Hope (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 17.
[4] Paul Barnett, The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2005), 119.
[5] For a full list of credal material, see Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1996), 143–171
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“If a belief is false, then why would it matter if the belief is reasonable or not? The outcome is the same.”
Well first, whether a belief is reasonable is something that “matters” regardless of outcome because modern Christian apologetics is constantly casting the Christian/skeptic debate in terms of what is “reasonable” to believe. The assumption in such debates is that once reasonableness of a skeptical belief is proven, then until such a time as the skeptic discovers the belief to be false, the skeptic cannot be held accountable to have known better.
In other words, most apologists and skeptics agree that once reasonableness of belief is achieved, culpability will not follow until the person discovers or should have discovered that the belief was false. That’s because when we become satisfied that a belief is reasonable, most of us do not continue to make comprehensive evaluations of the belief every second of the day. For most people, a belief’s reasonableness is where their accountability ends.
Is it reasonable to unlock your front door and walk in the house when you come back from the store? Of course.
The belief you are harboring at that moment is “it is safe to enter the house”.
But suppose there is a dangerous intruder in the house, who intends to shoot you when you walk through the door.
So we agree that your belief that house is safe to enter, is false.
But wasn’t that belief reasonable before you discovered evidence of the intruder?
I’m not straying from the theological purpose of your board. You and I apparently disagree about whether a belief can be both false and reasonable at the same time. So I’m trying to get you to admit that yes, some beliefs can be false yet reasonable at the same time.
If so, then you’ll have to admit that the alleged falsity of skeptical beliefs about Christianity doesn’t automatically require that such skepticism is unreasonable.
That would wreak havoc on your bible, which absolutely forecloses any possibility that beliefs it considers to be ‘false” could possibly be reasonable nonetheless. And yet we know from actual reality outside the bible that mere “reasonableness” is the point at which a person stops being accountable for holding a false belief. Any pretension that reasonableness is not sufficient, would require in the real world that you never hold any belief unless you have exhaustively analyzed all possible sources and made positively certain that the belief is actually true. If that is the case, then you just condemned 99.99% of all conservative Trinitarian Reformed and Evangelical Christians.
But if you agree that a belief can possibly be false and reasonable at the same time, then you open the door to the possibility that the skeptical belief that Jesus stayed permanently dead after the crucifixion can be reasonable even if it is also false.
if this skeptical belief can be “reasonable”, then it will be mission impossible for you to rationally justify the common Christian retort that “you are still accountable to the truth!”
What…will your god send a person to hell for harboring a reasonable belief?
So…do you agree with my that some beliefs can possibly be both false and yet reasonable at the same time?
If a belief is false, then why would it matter if the belief is reasonable or not? The outcome is the same.
So you don’t’ want to answer directly my question about how you determine when a belief is “reasonable”.
Ok, in Acts 1:21 ff, Peter and apparently the entire church under his leadership at the time agreed that the reduction of the number of apostles from 12 to 11 via the fall of Judas needed to be “fixed” by casting lots and having another person (who ended up being Matthias) restore the number of “apostles” to 12.
Peter’s criterion for apostleship was declared in 1:21, an “apostle” must be somebody who was with Jesus “from the beginning”.
What would be unreasonable about the modern non-Christian concluding that Peter’s criteria for apostleship wasn’t never any broader than the criteria he is recorded to have required in Acts 1:21, and therefore, the full-blown endorsement of Paul by the original apostles, as recorded in Acts 15, is little more than Luke lying to the reader?
Does that non-Christian position constitute a violation of some rule of hermeneutics, historiography, or common sense?
To briefly add a comment to your question on reasonability, that is a subjective point and distracts from the main accusation you make. In a sense, it is a red herring, because what may be deemed “reasonable” by one may not be deemed reasonable by another due to one’s presuppositions and/or biases. Concerning the issue of Acts 1:21, one must distinguish between the office of apostleship and being part of the Twelve. The Twelve apostles were part of the inner circle of Jesus, 3 of whom held a higher prominence (i.e., Peter, James, John, and possibly Andrew). Outside of the Twelve, Jesus selected 70/72 other apostles to proclaim his teaching to the region (Luke 10:1-2). The term “apostolos,” translated “apostle,” simply means “one sent.” The criteria that Peter laid out was primarily for the one who would replace Judas Iscariot and was not intended to describe any and everyone who would be a later apostle. Be that as it may, the early church did desire a person who was deemed an apostle to have been one who had been with Jesus. As such, Paul would have met this criteria as he met the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus and possibly spent some time with the risen Jesus before beginning his preaching career. Claiming that Luke had invented the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 is a far stretch. A meeting the size of the first council of the church would not have been something that would have been invented or embellished, especially when using such prominent names as James, the brother of Jesus. The early church, who was committed to truth, would have easily discredited the veritability of Luke and Paul’s material if such an occasion was invented. Thus, apostleship, Acts 1:21ff, and the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 in no way violate any rule of hermeneutics, historiography, or even common sense.
Ok, I claim that a modern person can be reasonable to opine that Paul was a false apostle. I have numerous arguments to support that contention, so we’ll have to go about them one at a time.
You are more than likely to disagree with me about whether an interpretation of a bible verse is “reasonable”. You forfeit much territory if you admit that a modern person can be reasonable to harbor a false view about Paul.
So, do you agree with me that while truth can certainly possibly inhere within reasonableness, truth is not always essential to reasonableness?
That is, reasonableness can possibly be true about somebody’s belief, even if that belief is false?
Can a belief possibly be both reasonable and yet false at the same time?
You will have to provide evidence that Paul was a false prophet. Your accusation is quite weighty and requires substantial data to prove. Personally, I highly doubt that anything substantial could be afforded since, as the article conveys, Paul followed suit with early Jesus traditions and teachings. But I am willing to hear out any objections you may have.
So, does that mean you are willing to defend Paul from the level of attack that could be mounted by a modern day skeptic who has scholarly level knowledge of Paul? Like me? Forgive me if I got this wrong, but my impression from the kind of comments you allow, is that you intend comments to be more in the nature of questions and “sharing”, you aren’t really offering the possibility of commentary in order to allow skeptics to do their best.
Sure! But defending one’s “scholarship” is a moot point. Truth is truth no matter who proclaims it, just as something remains false no matter who espouses it. If you are speaking to what kind of comments are allowed and which are not, see the Bellator Christi Guidelines at https://bellatorchristi.com/website-rules-regarding-comments-and-replies/. These standards were set in place due to previous abuses when the website first began. Nonetheless, we will engage anything that remains on point and that is not guilty of ad hominems, which are quite popular these days.
Do you believe the evidence in favor of Paul’s credibility is so strong that it would render unreasonable the view held by skeptics that Paul perverted the original gospel Jesus taught?
Personally, I see no reason to deny Paul’s credibility or to believe that he perverted the gospel of Jesus. In fact, evidence suggests quite the contrary.