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(The following are word for wordexcerpts
from the above source.)
--educated by his mother until the age of five.
--From age five to ten he studied with
his father in the Hebrew scriptures and traditional writings.
--At the same time, being a Roman
citizen and living in a Greek and Roman environment, he received a
thorough education in the Greek language, history, and culture.
--sent to Jerusalem at about the age of ten to attend the rabbinical
school of Gamaliel, who was the son of Simeon the son of Hillel.
Gamaliel was a most eminent rabbi who was mentioned both in the Talmud
and in the New Testament (Acts 5:24-40; 22:3). Gamaliel was called
Rabban - one of only seven teachers so called. He was a Pharisee, but he
rose above party prejudice. He composed a prayer against the Christian
"heretics". He lived and died a Jew.
-- Herod was dead, and the Romans had complete control of Judea, hence,
there was Roman money, language, and culture. The Jews, therefore, were
inclined to cling more closely to their religion as the center of unity.
[Refer to the topic: Judean History]
-- as a Roman, Tarsian, Hebrew, and culturally Greek, he knew of the
many distortions of the life of his society. As a nation becomes
unhealthy, development is halted. Societies errors as to the nature of
God and the true relation of God to man prevented nations from getting
rid of their besetting evil.
--After a considerable stay at Antioch after his second missionary
journey, Paul departed and went over all the country of Galatia and
Phrygia in order to strengthen the disciples (Acts 18:23). During this
time, he also gave directions for the collection for the poor in
Jerusalem.
-- came to Ephesus, probably in about 53
A.D. He found there twelve disciples of Apollos who had only received
John's baptism and were not aware of the Holy Spirit and Church Age
mysteries.
--He taught three months in the synagogue in Ephesus. In the face of
opposition, he took his classes to the school of one, Tyrannus, where he
taught daily for two years. Exorcists were converted and books of magic
were burned by the new converts. He paid a visit to Corinth, then
returned to Ephesus where he wrote 1 Corinthians.
--Paul left for Troas and Macedonia because of the danger in Ephesus
from the silversmiths and craftsmen who made articles for the worship of
Diana. (See Topic: Ephesus) He sailed to Macedonia to meet Titus, landed
at Neapolis and went to Philippi where he was "comforted by
Titus." He sent Titus to Corinth with the second Corinthian letter
and instructions for completing the collection there for needy
Christians.
--Paul traveled through Macedonia and finally arrived at Corinth
himself, staying there about three months and writing Romans. He took
ship for Miletus where he met for a few days with Ephesian elders. He
then sailed (island hopping to Coos, Rhodes, and Patara) to Tyre. From
Tyre he wailed to Ptolemais and reached Caesarea.
--Paul was warned not to visit Jerusalem. He went anyway and was warmly
received by the brethren. He had an interview with James and the elders.
A charge was brought against him by the Sanhedrin that "he taught
all the Jews among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought
not to circumcise their sons, neither to walk after their customs."
--Jews from Asia stirred up the people against him, charging him with
bringing Greeks into the Temple.
--Roman soldiers took Paul to the governor's castle for interrogation by
scourging, at which time Paul claimed his Roman citizenship.
--There arose a conspiracy among forty
Jews to assassinate Paul, but Paul's nephew brought him a warning of the
plot. The Romans decided to send him to Caesarea to Felix, the
procurator (governor) of Judea (Acts 22:21ff).
--Felix kept Paul a prisoner in Caesarea (under loose house arrest) for
two years until the arrival of Festus, the new governor. Festus wanted
Paul taken back to Jerusalem, but Paul was aware of the danger there and
uttered the Latin word Caesarem apello! -- "I appeal to
Caesar!" Festus was thus obliged to make arrangements for Paul to
travel to Rome under escort.
--King Agrippa II, with his sister, Berenice, came to visit Festus, the
new governor. Festus pleaded ignorance of Jewish law, so Paul made his
testimony before Agrippa, with the greatest of pomp and ceremony. This
episode was one of the greatest defenses of the gospel ever recorded.
Agrippa said, "Almost you persuade me ..."
--Festus decided then that Paul was innocent or wrongdoing, and he would
have let him go free if he had not appealed to Caesar.
--Paul's escort on the trip to Rome was a platoon of Roman soldiers
under Julius, a centurion of the Augustan Cohort. They sailed in a
coasting vessel to Adramyttium and Sidon. Paul was given liberty. The
next port was Myra, from which they took ship to Italy.
--They sailed to Crete, stayed at the port of Fair Havens for one month,
sailed for Phoenix, and were driven on the rocks at Malta where they
stayed for three months. From Malta they sailed in the vessel
"Castor and Pollux" to Syracuse (Sicily) and Rhegium, the port
city of the Italian province of Puteoli. From there they went to Rome on
the Appian Way.
--In Rome Paul dwelled in his own hired house under the supervision of a
Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. He was permitted t o hold meetings, and
he met with Jewish elders, winning some of them to Christ. This period
lasted two years, during which he wrote Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians,
and Philippians.
--He was acquitted by Nero, so he was free to travel and did so. His
visits were to Crete and to Asia Minor; and it is widely thought that he
traveled in Spain on a missionary journey. He is thought to have been
arrested again in Ephesus and taken again to Rome from there, but this
time treated as a malefactor, with his friends deserting him (except for
Luke and Onesiphorus). There was persecution in Rome at this time, and a
campaign of terror by Nero against the Christians. Paul was condemned
and executed in Rome.
Archeology
and Paul
A
Synoptic Life of Paul Philip Pendleton
Jeffrey Sheler Reassessing
Apostle Paul
A scholarly quest. Today, in a
batch of recent books and articles, critics and admirers alike have
sought to penetrate what some contend are flawed interpretations and
deliberate distortions of Paul's teachings. Just as some have tried
for centuries to uncover a "Jesus of history" unadorned by
church tradition, many scholars now have taken up a Quest for the
Historical Paul. Among the more provocative theories that have emerged
from these studies:
 | As a Christian missionary and
theologian, Paul knew little and cared less about the life and
teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. More important in Paul's mind was
the death and Resurrection of the exalted Christ who appeared to
him in a mystical vision.
| Paul was intensely apocalyptic and
believed that Christ's Second Coming was imminent. Consequently,
he did not intend his sometimes stern judgments on doctrinal
matters and on issues of gender and sexuality to become church
dogma applied, as it has been, for nearly 2,000 years.
| Although an apostle to the
gentiles, Paul remained thoroughly Jewish in his outlook and saw
the Christian movement as a means of expanding and reforming
traditional Judaism. He had no thought of starting a new religion.
| For all of his energy and
influence, Paul wrote only a fraction of the New Testament letters
that tradition ascribes to him, and even some of those were
subsequently altered by others to reflect later developments in
church theology. |
| | |
As might be expected, these claims are
passionately debated. In some quarters, the quest for a new and
improved Paul is denounced as an ideological attack on the Bible and
Christian tradition. "Paul in the 20th century has been used and
abused as much as in the first," says N. T. Wright, a New
Testament scholar and dean of the Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire,
England. Yet there is wide recognition among scholars of every stripe
that to discover fresh insights into the life of the Apostle is to
draw closer to the roots of Christianity.
A
Chart of Paul's Life
Paul's
Contribution James Tabor
Beyond this there is little one can
say. I think the texts I examined in the previous chapter can
shed light on Paul's experience. Broadly speaking he presents
a Hellenistic way of salvation--a particular scheme of apotheosis,
or "immortalization,'' with certain apocalyptic peculiarities.
The broad contours of his religious experiences--epiphany, the
reception of oracles, visions, the journey to heaven, secret
revelations--these are all well known to us, especially from the
Greek magical papyri, the Hermetic texts and various forms of
esoteric Judaism of the period. Add to that his specific
expectations regarding his mission to the Gentiles, the conversion
of Israel, and the imminent parousia of Jesus as cosmic Lord, and
you have it--his own particular vision and version of that most
general Hellenistic (and human) hope--escape from mortality.
And yet it is those very apocalyptic "particulars'' that make
Paul really Paul. His was not a scheme of salvation for any
place or for all time. Although he has endured and been
appropriated in many different ways over the centuries, from the
standpoint of the history of Judaism, he belongs in those crucial
years of hope and promise, before the terrible days of August, 70
C.E., when many such dreams came to an end. For Paul the
"appointed time'' of the End had drawn very near (1 Cor. 7:26,
29, 31). How near, it is difficult to say, but he wrote that
in the early 50's C.E.. If he, like others in the movement
before 70 C.E., expected the fulfillment of Daniel 11 and 12, with
the "desolating sacrilege'' set up in the Temple at Jerusalem,
then events such as Gaius' attempt to have his statue placed there
(41 C.E.) would have fueled his apocalyptic speculations.
Apparently his plans to go to Spain never worked out, due to his
arrest under Nero (Rom. 15:28), so his grand hope of bringing the
bulk of Israel to accept Jesus as Messiah through his Gentile
mission became more and more hopeless. By 70 C.E. it was
becoming increasingly difficult to maintain any immediate hope for
the "redemption of Israel.'' Others could pick up
the pieces in various ways, as Jacob Neusner and his students have
demonstrated so clearly, but Paul was gone and what emerged in his
name, even in the short decades after 70 C.E., was the beginning of
a new and very different story.
B.W. Johnson Introduction
to the Epistles of Paul
Good introduction to life ending
with chronology of life and of epistles.
| Conversion
| A. D. |
37. |
| First Visit to Jerusalem
after Conversion |
" |
40. |
| Second Visit to Jerusalem |
" |
44. |
| Beginning of First Missionary
Journey |
" |
45. |
| Council at Jerusalem (Third
Visit) |
" |
50. |
| Second Missionary Journey
Begun |
" |
51. |
| Fourth Visit to Jerusalem |
" |
54. |
| Third Missionary Journey
Begun |
" |
54. |
| Fifth and Last Visit to
Jerusalem |
" |
58. |
| Imprisonment at Cæsarea |
" |
58-60. |
| Voyage to Rome |
" |
60, 61. |
| First Imprisonment in Rome |
" |
61-63. |
| Release from Imprisonment |
" |
63. |
| Second Imprisonment. Date
Uncertain, from |
" |
65 to 67. |
| Martyrdom.
"
" " |
" |
65 to 68. |
Robert Eisenman Paul
as Herodian
Though these matters are hardly
capable of proof, and we have, in fact, proved nothing, still no other
explanations better explain the combination of points we raise. One
thing cannot be denied, Paul's Herodian connections make the manner of
his sudden appearances and disappearances, his various miraculous
escapes, his early power in Jerusalem, his Roman citizenship, his easy
relations with kings and governors, and the venue and terms of his
primary missionary activities comprehensible in a manner no other
reconstruction even approaches. When it comes to linking the thrust of
these testimonies and allusions to the political Sitz im Leben
of later Qumran sectarian texts and that Lying Spouter so prominent in
them, much good sense can be achieved, but such a discussion is
perforce beyond the scope of this study.
The
Apostle Paul by Alfred Firmin Loisy
But the main interest of his career is
to be sought elsewhere. Thanks to the meagre information preserved for
us in the Book of Acts and completed by authentic elements in the
Epistles, we are able to form some idea of the way Christianity spread
itself between the years 30 and 60, from the East to the West; we see it
rejected at its birth by Judaism, and yet making headway everywhere by
the help of Judaism, in spite of Judaism and at the expense of Judaism.
We may think of it as a train of powder winding into every part of the
Roman empire where Judaism had found a footing. Most assuredly the
career of Paul is a remarkable sample of this astonishing propaganda.
But no more than a sample, and very far from epitomizing or representing
the whole movement. Official Judaism, which supported the Sadducees side
by side with the Pharisees, and tolerated the Essenes, repudiated
Christianity, with violence and from the very first, as treason, as
apostasy. It did so because the Christians in claiming Jesus as the Lord
Christ and making him an object of worship, with salvation depending on
faith in Jesus alone, insulted the Law and destroyed it. Of this new
religion Paul was one of the initiators but by no means the only one,
nor the first. The Christian propaganda had other agents, some known to
us and many more unknown, who laboured in the pagan world under the same
conditions as Paul, undeterred by the minor differences among them, all
of them more than suspect in the eyes of Judaism, all destined to speedy
condemnation by the imperial authority of Rome.
Paul at Ephesus
2. FROM CORINTH TO JERUSALEM
His work m Corinth nearly done, Paul, in company with Aquila and
Priscilla, embarked for Ephesus, probably in the fall of the year 52,
but immediately left his two companions in that city, being anxious to
revisit the communities he had founded in Galatia. [23] Perhaps he had
been warned that a great effort was
158
in preparation to detach them from his Gospel. While he was absent on
this business there arrived at Ephesus a disciple named Apollos,
native of Alexandria, a learned and eloquent man well versed in the
Scriptures, who got a hearing in the synagogue. [24] The editor of
Acts seems much concerned to prevent Apollos from being regarded as
the original founder of Ephesian Christianity which, in point of fact,
he seems to have been. For the anecdote about the twelve disciples,
found by Paul at Ephesus on his return, [25] who were unacquainted
with the baptism of the Spirit must refer — if it has any historical
reality — to converts made by Apollos, here fictitiously presented,
along with Apollos himself, as Christians insufficiently taught and in
need of further instruction — Apollos by Aquila and Priscilla and
the twelve disciples by Paul himself. This distinction has probably no
greater weight than the similar story by the same editor about the
converts made by Philip in Samaria who, though baptized, had not
received the Holy Spirit, of which we are invited to think the
Jerusalem apostles were the depositaries. [26] To transform Apollos
and the twelve disciples into disciples of John converted at Ephesus
into disciples of the Christ, as most critics and some mythologues are
eager to do, is a somewhat risky procedure. The facts are simply that
Apollos, having set the evangelization of Ephesus well on foot,
decided to go on to Corinth, and that "the brethren," among
whom doubtless were chiefly Aquila and Priscilla, furnished him with a
letter of recommendation to the community (xviii, zy). [27] At Corinth
his success was as brilliant as at Ephesus and his reputation soon
began to outshine that of Paul.
There may be significance in the fact that Apollos, who has had such
good success at Ephesus in the absence of Paul, disappears before
Paul's arrival there; and the same will happen at Corinth, whence
Apollos will again depart before Paul comes back. We may suspect, but
without committing ourselves to risky conclusions, that the two
teachers thought it wiser not to meet on the field of their missionary
activity, and that their friends encouraged them, or at least
encouraged Apollos, in that precaution. On returning to Ephesus as
soon as Paul was ready to quit that city for Corinth, Apollos appears
to have been extremely reserved (i Cor. xvi, 12). He cannot be
represented
159
as holding entirely with the Judaizers, but neither was he exactly on
the line of Paul from the hellenic-Christian point of view. We should
regard him as a teacher less jealous for his own doctrines and
apostolic privilege than Paul was, and ready, like Paul and the
others, to go wherever he could find an open door. His position may
have been similar to that of Barnabas, inclining to hellenism, but in
good relations with the old believers in Palestine; in Corinth we
shall find his partisans associating with Peter's on lines somewhat
opposed to Paul. He was probably urged to go to Corinth by friends he
had made in Ephesus, perhaps even by Aquila and Priscilla, who knew
the many advantages of the Corinthian field. Moreover, notwithstanding
their relations with Paul, Aquila and Priscilla were of the same way
of thinking as Apollos in regard to the common Christianity.
In this connexion it should be noted that Silas (Sylvanus), who was
still with Paul at Corinth, having borne him company all the way from
Antioch, is now no longer at his side. As a companion of Paul he makes
no further appearance and tradition puts him later at the side of
Peter (i Peter v, 12). It was at Corinth that the two apostolic
labourers took their separate ways, perhaps in consequence of some
personal coolness. The source of Acts can hardly have failed to leave
a record of their separation, which the editor would be very careful
to omit. To remain for long the companion of Paul a docile temper was
necessary, like that of the good Timothy. Luke was not always at his
side; however deeply he may have been attached to his person he does
not seem to have been as closely associated with his ministry.
Meanwhile Paul returned to Ephesus and preached in the synagogue for
three months on end. But a lively opposition declaring itself and the
Jews scoffing openly at the faith he was offering them, he carried his
teaching elsewhere, and continued it for two years [28] in a room he
had hired from a certain Tyrranus, where he taught daily, thus
exchanging, so to say, the pulpit of the preacher for the platform of
the public lecturer. From all of which we may infer that a wide
currency attended this teaching, to us so extraordinary in its
contents and yet indisputably successful to a degree which baffles our
reason. The angry opposition
160
it awakened, of which the detailed manifestations escape us, [29] was
commensurate with the success. But, as happened in the case of
Corinth, the Ephesus mission was fraught with consequence not only for
the development of the Ephesian community, which owed its beginnings
to Apollos, but for the evangelization of other towns in that region.
Having taught at Ephesus for two years under these conditions, Paul
formed a project which, with his past achievements in view, should not
strike us as too ambitious, that of carrying the Gospel to Rome, but
not until he had gone to Jerusalem with the collection he would first
take up from the groups of believers in Macedonia and Achaia, as well
as from those he was now forming in Asia. [30] These collections were
to some extent imitated from those regularly made among the Jews for
the support of the temple worship; and that no doubt is the reason why
the editor of Acts is perseveringly silent on the subject. [31]
Manifred Davidmann The Origin of
Christianity
http://www.solbaram.org/articles/origin.html
Copyright ... © ... Manfred Davidmann ... 1994
ISBN 0 85192 051 9 ..... Second Edition 1994
All rights reserved
Summary
In ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY and JUDAISM, Manfred Davidmann proves what Jesus really taught: The social laws of the Torah have to be followed. These social laws guarantee equality, social justice and security, and a good life for all members of the community. These laws protect people from exploitation, oppression and enslavement through need. Early Christians, being mostly Jews, followed these laws.
Manfred Davidmann then proves how these essential social laws of the Torah were bypassed and ceased to be observed, in Judaism and in Christianity at the same time.
He describes and proves how Paul changed what Jesus had taught, how Paul's ideology serves the establishment instead of the people, and how this became Christianity's official doctrine. On the other hand Manfred Davidmann shows that the Talmud (especially the Mishnah) tells how Hillel changed Judaism in the same way, to what it is today.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, within the context of the findings reported here, become much more meaningful. In turn, the knowledge gained from them is part of the pattern of events recorded here for the first time.
What you find here is scientific analysis of facts established by the methods of biblical archaeology.
Outstanding are the sections on Paul and the Gospels: Manfred Davidmann shows that Paul's ideology was first opposed and that successive gospel writers then changed the record in Paul's favour, and how they did it.
This is What Actually Happened
1. The Jewish people are taught to observe, and observe, the laws of
the Torah (Pentateuch, the five books of Moses).
The Torah's social laws and its social system provide the only known
basis for a fair and equitable society: for the existence of
communities in which people trust one another, co-operate with each
other for the common good, have freedom from oppression, have
spiritual and material independence, have a good life.
2. Subjection of the people by foreign (Hellenistic, Seleucid)
dictatorship which believes in and supports slavery, oppression
through need, exploitation of the working population by their
masters (rulers).
It aims to wipe out belief in and application of the social laws of
the Torah. Brutal persecution of the people.
The Maccabean uprising frees the people and re-establishes
observance of the social laws of the Torah.
One of the Maccabean brothers leads the uprising. On his death the
next brother assumes command. Simeon, the third brother to command,
is appointed Ethnarch (Ruler), High Priest, Commander. All power
thus centred in one person.
3. During the five generations after that of Simeon, that is during
the Maccabean dynasty, the secular rulers gained control of the
religious hierarchy and of what was being taught. There was
discontent and opposition, but what was taught became increasingly
establishment-orientated, serving an oppressing and exploiting
establishment. The social laws ceased to be applied as a
comprehensive system, as a way of life.
4. A remnant of Jews kept alive the knowledge of the law of Moses.
They gained motivation, numbers and strength by rallying round and
following the teachings of Jesus (Teacher of Righteousness) - Qumran
community, Early Church - in spite of opposition from the religious
establishment.
5. Paul (The Liar) infiltrates the movement and changes its
teachings into a new religion, into a new establishment-orientated
religion "which came to have less and less to do with its
supposed founder (Jesus)." {27}
6. The Talmud records the confrontation between Paul's and Jesus'
teachings as a confrontation between the teachings of Hillel (Paul)
and Shammai (Jesus).
7. The establishment later misrepresented what is there, subtly
changing its meaning much as was done by subsequent gospel writers.
For example the Talmud shows that the law never did follow Hillel,
that the law was not as taught by the establishment. Yet the
establishment today still presents Hillel as one of the wisest of
the sages and maintains that the law follows his teachings.
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