I. Doubts About the Authenticity of Paul’s Teachings
A common objection raised by critics of Christianity and Muslim apologists is that the apostle Paul distorted the teachings of Jesus and the apostles of the early Jewish-Christian community by importing ideas from the Greco-Roman mystery religions. These included ideas like a dying and rising god, sacramental meals of communion with patron gods, and salvation through union with a divine figure. The purpose of this paper is to refute the critics with historical and biblical evidence, and demonstrate how Paul’s gospel which was received by revelation in his encounter with the risen Christ on his way to Damascus displays consistencies with the teaching of Jesus and the apostles of the early Church.
A. The Claim of Hellenistic Influence
There are several problems with the critics’ theory that Paul was influenced by Hellenistic religions.
1. Chronological problem. Most of the alleged parallels to mystery religions like the Mithraic cult actually post-dated Paul and were written in late the 2nd and 3rd centuries. As such, from a historical perspective, it is more likely that the pagan cults were influenced by the rapidly expanding Christian faith that Paul represented.
2. Superficial similarities. The parallels, if any, are superficial. The dying and rising gods like Attis and Osiris are mythological figures while Jesus’ death and resurrection are historical facts attested to by a multitude of eyewitnesses. In mystery religions, the rituals of the cult typically represent seasonal death and rebirth of nature deities. In contrast, Paul was teaching about a one-time historical death and resurrection of Christ. We cannot compare myths with verified historical truths.
3. Paul’s thought-world was Jewish, not pagan. His teachings are clearly suffused with allusions and citations from Old Testament scriptures centred on covenant law and messianic prophecies.
4. Paul’s teachings were validated by the original apostles. In Galatians 2:9, James, Peter and John who were regarded as pillars of the Jerusalem church, extended to Paul “the right hand of fellowship.” That is to say, they recognized his apostolic commission and authority. This validation was confirmed publicly at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:1-35). Likewise, Paul held himself accountable to the central leaders of the early church. The Jerusalem apostles would have rebuked Paul and dissociated themselves from him had he been guilty of distorting Jesus’ message. Instead, they acknowledged the authenticity of Paul’s apostolic authority and his call to preach to the Gentiles.
B. Paul’s gospel is rooted in the teachings of Jesus and his apostles
Critics assert that Paul who has never met the historical Jesus during His earthly ministry felt free to reinvent Christianity. Paul readily transformed the earthy moral teachings of Jesus, the rustic Galilean moral teacher, into a totally new religion centred on Jesus’ death and resurrection and his glorification into a transcendent divine savior. However, Paul’s teachings consistently reflect the teachings of Jesus as is made clear in the examples given in the table below.
The striking similarities in the table show that Paul’s teachings follow closely the teachings of Jesus transmitted in the apostolic tradition. Paul included pre-Pauline Christological “hymns” in epistles (Philippians 2:6-11 and 1 Timothy 3:16). He acknowledged that his teaching about the Last Supper (2 Corinthians 11:23-25) which refers to Christ’s death, burial, resurrection was received from sources dating back to the Jerusalem apostles. Clearly, there is unity between Paul and the apostles in the core doctrines of Jesus’ death and resurrection which undergirded the worship and pastoral practice of the early Church.
II. Paul’s Gospel Originated from Divine Revelation of Christ
Beyond his agreement with the Jerusalem apostles, Paul claimed that his gospel originated directly from his Damascus Road experience which resulted in a radical transformation of his life. It should be noted that Paul’s encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road was fundamentally a Christophany, that is, a revelation of the glorified Christ in a vision. In the vision, Paul describes himself as “seeing” the Lord (1 Corinthians 9:1) and that God was “revealing his Son” to him (Galatians 1:16).
Paul alludes to his new perception of Jesus Christ as the image of God the moment he was struck by the blinding vision of the glorified Christ in the Damascus encounter: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4-6). “Glory”, which was regularly manifested in theophanies in the Old Testament was also manifested in the Christophany on the Damascus Road. Seyoon Kim in his important work, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (Eerdmans, 1982), suggests that Paul’s understanding of the exalted Christ as the “image of God” isn’t merely an abstract theological construct but is grounded directly in his visionary experience of Christ’s glory. This “image of God” Christology becomes foundational for Paul’s theology.
Paul became convinced that the exalted Christ is the eikon (image) and morphē, (form) of God, based on his understanding of the linguistic tradition of the Old Testament. Kim notes that an eikōn was not regarded as a mere representation of an object but was believed to participate in the being of the object it symbolized. If the exalted Christ is the image (eikōn and morphe) of God, then Christ shares the same divine nature of God. This insight led Paul to conclude that the risen Christ was divine and existed as the image of God before his incarnation (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Philippians 2:6). The revelation of Christ as the “image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4-6) and the glorification of Jesus Christ next to God confirms his divinity and implies his pre-existence. Paul’s experience of personal transformation in his encounter with the glorified Christ manifested on the Damascus Road becomes the source of his teaching that believers are transformed into Christ’s image, “and we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Kim’s extensive research into Paul’s usage of the Old Testament confirms the continuity between Paul’s Christology and the Old Testament, that is, Paul’s Christology represents not an abandonment of Jewish monotheism but a radical reframing of it. Paul was drawing on Jewish Wisdom traditions, divine glory theology and apocalyptic literature to make sense of his Damascus encounter with the risen Christ. Rather than importing alien Hellenistic concepts, Paul reconfigured existing Jewish theological categories to make sense of his vision of the exalted Christ.
Paul’s encounter with the glorified Christ also transformed his then mistaken misunderstanding of Jesus as a false messianic claimant. In truth, Jesus was the divine Son of God.1Kim writes, “the vision of Jesus enthroned at God’s right hand confirmed to him that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Messiah, the Son of David in his physical descent, exalted and enthroned to be the Son of God through (or from the time of) the resurrection according to the Holy Spirit in fulfilment of God’s promise in 2 Sam. 7.12—14 (cf. also Psa. 2.7), as the Christians confessed (Rom. 1.3f.).” Kim, p. 109. Prior to this experience, Paul had viewed Jesus as a false messianic claimant whose crucifixion was a confirmation of divine curse, as taught in Deuteronomy 21:23: “…anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse”. However, the vision of the glorified and enthroned Jesus convinced Paul that Jesus had brought the Torah and its legalistic requirements to an end.2Kim writes, “For the revelation of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth as enthroned at God’s right hand proved to Paul that through the cross he has superseded the Torah as the medium of the divine revelation and salvation and therefore that he is the one who had formerly been described as Wisdom. So, the Son of God who was revealed to Paul on the Damascus road is the content of his gospel (Gal. 1:15f; Rom. 1:2ff; 2 Cor. l:l9f; 1 Thess. 1:10; Acts 9.20)!” Kim, p. 136. Jesus, who embodies the divine will and God’s means of salvation has overcome the curse of the cross by his supreme redemptive death, a death which believers may participate in by believing in Jesus as the messiah. Hence, the cross and the triumph of the crucified Christ becomes central in Paul’s gospel.
Paul’s gospel of Christ’s salvation being open to both Jews and Greeks is so radical and unprecedented that it only confirms Paul’s claim to have received his gospel in his encounter with the resurrected Christ. It gives credibility to Paul’s claim that he did not receive his gospel through human transmission, but through divine revelation (apokalypsis) given by Christ. “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11).3While acknowledging Paul’s dependence and continuity between Paul and his predecessors, Kim identifies the specific contribution to early Christian Christology, “It is our thesis that the ideas of the pre-existence, mediatorship in creation, and sending and giving up of the Son of God are a Pauline contribution and they are grounded ultimately in Paul’s Damascus experience.” Kim, p. 114.
Indeed, Paul’s calling and apostolic authority is grounded and constrained by the gospel he received by revelation from Jesus Christ. Andrew Clarke stresses the supremacy of the gospel for Paul’s calling, “This gospel is so central to the scope of Paul’s calling that even when some are found to preach the authentic gospel, but in so doing are motivated deliberately to cause him some personal disadvantage, he is nonetheless content. The supreme importance of the gospel trumps any negative consequences for his own ministry…He has no autonomy regarding the scope or content of the message. He cannot and will not change it؛ nor will he countenance others doing so. His task and authority are constrained by it; and he is bound to it, even though it may cause him considerable discomfort and disadvantage”.4Andrew Clarke, “Source & Scope Paul Apostolic Authority,” Criswell Theological Review (2015), p. 14. John Schutz emphasizes, “One term, one central concept stands out as inextricably tied to the purpose and the activity of the apostle. Nothing is more closely associated with the ‘apostle’ than the ‘gospel’. Paul cannot separate his calling as apostle from its purpose – to serve the gospel.” John Schutz, Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), p. 35.
While insisting that his gospel remains faithful to the substance of the early church’s preaching of salvation in Christ, Paul also emphasized the distinctive insights he gained from his Damascus experience. These include the idea of Christ’s preexistence and the sending of the Son of God who by his atoning death brings together both Jews and Gentiles who are both justified by faith.
III. Conclusion
In contrast to pagan mythologies, Paul’s gospel is deeply rooted in the life and ministry of Jesus, the Hebrew Scriptures, and the apostolic tradition. His gospel echoes the words of Jesus and displays consistency with the teachings of the Jerusalem apostles. A careful examination of the historical evidence confirms the continuity between Paul’s teachings and the message of Jesus and his apostles and refutes the claim that Paul corrupted Christianity with Hellenistic teachings.
In conclusion, the claim that Paul distorted the original message of Jesus not only rests on speculations divorced from historical realities but also ignores Paul’s testimony of his encounter with the living Christ. In the words of Gresham Machen, “The religion of Paul was not founded upon a complex of ideas derived from Judaism or from paganism. It was founded upon the historical Jesus. But the historical Jesus upon whom it was founded was not the Jesus of modem reconstruction, but the Jesus of the whole New Testament and of Christian faith; not a teacher who survived only in the memory of His disciples, but the Saviour who after His redeeming work was done still lived and could still be loved.”5Gresham Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (MacMillan, 1921), p. 317. Paul’s testimony that, “He [Jesus] loved me and gave himself for me” is at the heart and core of his gospel. Indeed, Paul’s gospel is fully Christologically grounded through and through.
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