Question & Answer
Steve Gregerson from St. Paul, Minnesota, writes:
Question:
I very much appreciate your lectures, books and weekly newsletter. You have greatly helped me to understand and appreciate the scriptures. This being said, I am troubled by the influence of Paul on our understanding of Christianity. Paul, as we know, never met Jesus. His understanding came to him by way of visions after the death of Christ. Many of his teachings seem to stand in direct contrast to what we attribute to the historical Jesus and his original disciples. Much of what Paul allegedly preached then became canonical Christianity. Many examples come to mind. His condemnation of Judaism heightened anti-Semitic prejudices. His teachings regarding women perpetuated their marginalization. His literal understanding of the blood and body, being that of Christ, during the Eucharist is still believed today. Finally, his focus on heaven, atonement and salvation totally diverted us from working to bring God's kingdom to earth as instructed by Jesus. I would appreciate your comments.
Answer:
Dear Steve,
Let me first try to clarify something behind your question. You seem to be saying that Paul did not know what he was talking about because he never met Jesus and was, therefore, not an eyewitness. The implication is that the authors of the four gospels were. The fact is that the gospel writers were not eyewitnesses either. The gospels were written between the years 72 and 100 and they are written in Greek. It is quite probable that none of the disciples were alive when the gospels were written. It is quite obvious that none of the disciples of Jesus could speak or write Greek. Your misunderstanding is a common one since the New Testament puts the gospels first and the epistles later.
I think it unfair to call Paul anti-Semitic. He died a Jew. The followers of Jesus did not leave the synagogue until about the year 88 CE when they were expelled. If you read Romans, chapter 9-11, you will discover Paul arguing over and trying to explain the rejection of Jesus by his people. There is nothing in Paul as terrible as Matthew having the Jewish crowd respond to Pilate’s attempt to escape blame for the death of Jesus by saying, “His blood be upon us and our children.” or to John’s gospel when Jesus is made to say that the Jews are “the children of the Devil.”
This is not to say that Paul did not do some other things that defined Christianity in very destructive ways. His attitude toward slavery, his denial of the equality of women and his negativity toward gay and lesbian people were attitudes that Christianity continued and defended for centuries, much to our shame. Some of these attitudes, however, were grounded in what we now think of as pseudo-Paul works, e.g., Colossians, Ephesians, I and II Timothy and Titus. Scholars are fairly convinced today that Paul wrote none of these books, so we ought not to blame him for attitudes that were written well after his death, none of which he wrote. They reflected the cultural patterns and biased attitudes of that patriarchal world which, thank God, we have now transcended.
It was biblical fundamentalism, not Paul, that turned Paul’s very human epistles into being “the word of God” so I hold fundamentalism accountable for the horrors that mark Christian history more than I place the blame on Paul. Paul did say that “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, bond or free.” It was Paul who also said, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”
I also expect it was the Fourth Gospel, not Paul, who turned the Eucharist into a meal in which the literal body of Christ was eaten and the literal blood of Christ was drunk. Read chapter 6 of John. The literalizing of the words of the New Testament came well after Paul. That is where the Christian story was distorted. I do not minimize the distortions that have marked Christian history. I just do not agree that we can place them all at the feet of Paul.
Thank you for your question.
John Shelby Spong
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