A Christian's Perspective on Paul

After studying the issue of Paul for sometime, this is what I came up with.

precatholicfaith.blogspot.com...

What did Paul really believe?

I would suggest to you that there is some mystery left in that question. Despite all the writings he bestowed upon the ages there were certain of his quotes like, "To the Jews I became like a Jew" and "To those under the law I became like one under the law," (I Corinthians 9:19-23) and so it could be left to be concluded by a reasonable person that he was not completely forthcoming with that information that would affect his method of attempting to please all men at all times ( I Corinthians 10:33). Surely trying to make everyone happy would lead to compromise. He very nearly claims he understood all mysteries (I Corinthians 13:2) which leads logical readers to ask did he explain all of them or did he leave some of them out. Elsewhere he completely lies (Romans 3:7 where he nearly admits it, elsewhere such as before Festus, he clearly fabricates), he takes an apparition's words to him as making him an apostle where the apparition never makes such a claim (did the ghost have such power?) and yet no one, Peter, Christ, or Luke ever identify him as being an apostle.

Here, I offer to you a presentation, an organic argument that should help to dissect what Paul kept to himself, those mysteries that he set himself as being the only one to receive the answers on.

And on that note, I make no pretense that I'm here to keep from offending anyone like the fraudulent Paul did. You can be offended as much as you like but I'm not going to alter a word of mine unless it is shown to be false, and that you will not accomplish either.

____________________________

Paul's Jesus, YHWH's Yahshua

When was the name of "Jesus" adopted? Greco-Roman hegemony assured this name was used over Yahshua. This treatise will offer an explanation coinciding with historical events, a unifying theory, starting with Saul's conversion.

_____

(Saul struck with blinding light) at Acts 9...

v

"Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.

from Acts 9,26

"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick gainst the pricks."

^

Now this is an expression that some may have trouble understanding. It was something I needed explained and I'm sure it would be a help to offer that here. This statement is a reference to goading an animal, pricking them, with a spur such as that on a boot, telling them to go on.

Euripides' Bacchae

The king of Thebes was against the revelries and orgies held in honor of Dinonysus, "divine son of Zeus," god of wine and grapes. That is, the king was actively trying to stop these processions from taking place. Dionysus, enraged, comes to earth in human form, appears to the king while concealing his identity saying that the king should not fight against Dionysus, "a mere mortal against a god". "For it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks," comparing the king to an animal fighting against the pricks. Now, Paul is an educated Roman citizen. When the spirit identifies itself as "Jesus", that is "Hail Zeus" and borrows a quip from Dionysus, he very literally takes this as saying that the Christ is in fact Dionysus, god of wines.

He may be encountered with a series of progressive thoughts recalling...

Yeshua came first changing water to wine at Cana (John 4), He came "eating and drinking" (Matthew 11), He asked us to drink wine (For this is my blood). When Paul starts addressing these similarities as an educated Roman, he could likely come to the conclusion that the Messiah was Dionysus.

Dionysus comes from on high, emptying himself of god-ness and taking on the form of a man (in the Bacchae). Philippians 2:6,7 "Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness". Paul's Iesous is not the Yahsua revealed to us.

(continued at the link)

Can you surmise the conspiracy?

I'm not well versed on paul. I couldn't beging to know where the fable stops and your dissertation begins.

reply to post by Witness123

All who believe the Gospel of a resurrected Jesus and in union with His Spirit know the mysteries...
...only one thing was important to Paul...
...that all believe the Gospel so they can be in union with the Spirit.

reply to post by Witness123

And on that note, I make no pretense that I'm here to keep from offending anyone like the fraudulent Paul did. You can be offended as much as you like but I'm not going to alter a word of mine unless it is shown to be false, and that you will not accomplish either.

You seem to be indicating that you have a firm unshakable position. If that is the case then perhaps you can answer a few questions up front:

1) Are you advocating that the Old Testament god is different from Zeus?
2) If yes, then do you believe that Old Testament god is superior to Zeus?
3) If yes, then it what ways specifically has this god demonstrated himself to be superior?

more to the point of the thread:

4) If correlation between Jesus and Dionysus can be found in the gospel stories ( John 4 and Matthew 11, as cited by you or your source) and Paul is a fraud (as you apparently claim), then what exactly do you personally claim as your authority in doctrine by which you identify yourself as a Christian?

reply to post by pthena

To answer my own question 4) above, I looked at the writings of John the blogger.

I deny him[Paul] as being scriptural altogether along with the rest of the New Testament. The only parts of the New Testament which are inspired are the words of the prophets in it. The apostles never had the authority to write infallible and inspired declarations like the prophets did, and Paul certainly wasn't an apostle. Only prophets spoke (and wrote) the words of God and that was how it always was. Yeshua was a prophet and so He had the power to speak the words of God. Revelation is the Revelation of Jesus Christ so that is inspired as the final book speaking of the end of days.
Guile, Paul, and the 144,000

bracketed note and underlining by pthena

It seems to me then, that your ultimate written authority seems to be the piece of literature commonly known as the Book of Revelation, all other so-called scripture to be measured by it, the definition of a Canon. So your Canon of scripture is the Book of Revelation. Am I correct so far?

As the 144,000 we will assign no status which cedes any special designation to this man. Those among us who teach so now, I speak with vision that they will not speak to this effect in the future.

- ibid.

And as one of the 144,000 of Revelation 14, there is no guile in your mouth? You are blameless?

An important lesson from Euripides' Bacchae: The real Bacchantes were the women who followed Dionysus from Asia all the way back to his family's hometown of Thebes. They become the chorus in Thebes for the play, which takes place in Thebes, where Dionysus is.

The deluded Theban women, including the sisters of Semele, mother of Dionysus, who had accused her of adultery, and claimed that her death was divine judgment for her sins, were the ones out on the mountains. They were not true Bacchantes, they were deluded into thinking they were as a punishment.

Sad to say, some people who think they follow Dionysus are really much more like the Theban women.

Sad also, that some of those who seek infallible prophets to guide their way may indeed find them, but only in their own minds.

The Jesus that Paul promoted was definitely not the real Jesus, but a refashioned version of Dionysus/Bacchus. Take a look at my thread HERE where I talk about this exact theory.

Jesus never rose from the dead, that is a pagan theme inserted into the story after the fact. They inserted certain parts of the Bacchus myth into Jesus' life in order to induce "bakkheia" on his followers.

This LINK is also a great read that shows the parallels between the book of Acts and the Bacchae. Scroll down a bit to the second half of the chapter to find what I'm talking about.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
Here are some interesting parallels:

4:155 Then because of their breaking of their covenant, and their disbelieving in the revelations of Allah, and their slaying of the prophets wrongfully, and their saying: Our hearts are hardened - Nay, but Allah set a seal upon them for their disbelief, so that they believe not save a few -
4:156 And because of their disbelief and of their speaking against Mary a tremendous calumny;
4:157 And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.
4:158 But Allah took him up unto Himself. Allah was ever Mighty, Wise
The Skeptic's Annotated Quran

I underlined relevant points. The seal set upon them so that few would believe can easily be likened to the delusions that Dionysus brought upon Pentheus, his own cousin who didn't recognize The Stranger as being in some way Dionysus himself.

I can quite easily imagine what calumny may have been spoken against Mary. And the whole purpose of Dionysus(in the person of The Stranger was to clear his mother's name and punish those who claimed her death was justice from Zeus.

The Treatise of the Great Seth
From the translation by Roger A. Bullard and Joseph A. Gibbons:

"For my death, which they think happened, (happened) to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death...It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. I[t] was another upon Whom they placed the crown of thorns...And I was laughing at their ignorance." (Christ as purported narrator)

610
Dionysos:
Were you saddened when they took me and threw me in Pentheus’ dark jails, my dears?

Chorus:
How could we not be sad? Who would be our protector if you fell into some terrible misfortune? But how did you manage to free yourself from the grips of that irreverent man?
Dionysos:
Easily. I freed myself with ease.

Chorus:
But didn’t he have your hands tied up with thick knotted ropes?

Dionysos:
And that’s exactly where I showed him how foolish he is. His mind was full of hope instead of reality and so, in his delusion, he thought that he had tied me up but, the fool, he had neither touched me nor hurt me in the slightest.
He took me to the stall of a bull and instead of tying the ropes around my hands he tied them around the bull’s knees and hooves, all the while fuming with rage, his body covered in sweat and biting at his lips. I watched him from nearby in utter comfort.
It was then that Dionysos came and lit the flame on my mother’s tomb. As soon as he saw that he thought that the palace was burning and so he was jumping all around the place, shouting for someone to bring Aheloos in there. All the slaves got down to work but – all in vain!
I left then and he, too, gave up on trying to save the palace, found his black sword and rushed out into all the rooms.

EURIPIDES’ “BACCHAE”
First production posthumously in 403BCE At City Dionysia
1st Prize

Translated by
George Theodoridis
© 2005

What really can I conclude? There are mysteries that when beheld can not be explained. I wonder if people's ideas about Jesus as from the line of David and born in Bethlehem were merely invented to coincide with pre-existing notions of Messiahship.

John 7:40 Many of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, said, “This is truly the prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “What, does the Christ come out of Galilee? 42 Hasn’t the Scripture said that the Christ comes of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So there arose a division in the multitude because of him. 44 Some of them would have arrested him, but no one laid hands on him.

Did you know that that mention of David is the only mention of David in the whole Gospel of John?
Is Jesus as a manifestation of the Stranger any more far fetched or erroneous?

John 1:10 "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own, and those who were his own didn’t receive him."

John 9:28 They insulted him and said, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. 29 We know that God has spoken to Moses. But as for this man, we don’t know where he comes from.”

30 The man answered them, “How amazing! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God, and does his will, he listens to him. 32 Since the world began it has never been heard of that anyone opened the eyes of someone born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

reply to post by Witness123

. . . elsewhere such as before Festus, he clearly fabricates . . .

Do you realize that Paul did not write Acts?
Acts is written in about half in the first person but evidently as a fictional device, and not because the writer was really there.

When was the name of "Jesus" adopted?

Hundreds of years before the time of Christ.
It was the form of Joshua in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament.

Click here for more information.

reply to post by Witness123

I have never seen that Acts was written in first person. That sounds like what an unlearned parrot for higher criticism would say who personally never read the book.

Acts 28:11 After three months, we set sail in a ship of Alexandria which had wintered in the island, whose sign was “The Twin Brothers.” 12 Touching at Syracuse, we stayed there three days. 13 From there we circled around and arrived at Rhegium. After one day, a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli, 14 where we found brothers, and were entreated to stay with them for seven days. So we came to Rome. 15 From there the brothers, when they heard of us, came to meet us as far as The Market of Appius and The Three Taverns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God, and took courage. 16 When we entered into Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him.

reply to post by pthena

After three months, we set sail in a ship of Alexandria

If you knew that the second half of Acts was mostly all about Paul, and you just looked at a single verse like this, you might, if you didn't know better by reading a commentary or something, think that this was Paul describing what he is doing, rather than supposedly a traveling companion of Paul's later "remembering" the trip.
So if you then jump to a depiction of Paul giving a speech, you may think it is a continuation of the same type of narrative, and think that it is an authentic telling of Paul's thoughts, "since he wrote it, right?".

That's very unlikely in the case of sentient and thinking beings jm. Unless you're saying Christians are idiots which is what it sounds like. And hey, they probably are, I don't know. But I am not one of them.

reply to post by Witness123

Elsewhere he completely lies (Romans 3:7 where he nearly admits it . . .

Here is the verse that is being referred to.

But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?

Paul uses a rhetorical device where he creates a fictional conversation between two parties in order to bring out the points being contested.
One side, that probably represents Paul's view, says that being a Jew does not give anyone an advantage if he doesn't actually follow the Law that he supposedly believes in.
Now the character created for the other side of this imaginary conversation would have to be someone representing an untenable position (in order for the fist character to be able to win the argument). His side would be the one that says that gentiles are basically inferior to Jews and are therefore damned or whatever, since they don't even mouth the belief in the Law.

The first person says, 'Your only just saying that you believe in and follow the Mosaic written Law makes you a liar, and being a liar makes you a sinner.'

The second person says, 'Right, whatever, but that is really harsh to say that I am actually a sinner, a designation reserved for the heathen, where even if I am in actuality lying (because maybe I don't really always follow the Law perfectly), at least I am glorifying God by verbally defending the holiness of the Law!'

This type of rhetoric is actually a rather common style for Paul, especially in Romans. By examining this example of it, we discover that Paul never claims himself to be a liar but it is this character in an imaginary conversation (who is in opposition to the idea that gentiles could ever be considered acceptable by God), that makes that concession to the argument being made by the first speaker.