Harv:From my perspective Paul was one of the great apostles of Christianity. It is doubtful that Christianity would have survived without Paul
Me: Agreed. But he was not an Apostle.
Harv: Jesus moved from the 'Messiah' to the 'Savior' under Pauline theology.
Me: Agreed. He changed the teaching of Jesus.
Harv:Without this transition, it is likely the movement would have halted once the Messiah didn't return.
Me: Agreed. The church needed to survive
Harv:What letters or which sections of Pauline theology do you consider to be a tainting of the original Christian message?
Me: Two outstanding examples.
1.Paul said that the rulers were god appointed and that their subjects must obey them. That is hardly what Jesus promoted. He promoted the meek.
2. Paul said that a woman is to a man as a man is to god. Women were very prominent in the ministry of Jesus, being the only ones at the cross and the first to meet him afterwards. I suspect that the writings of the early Christians downgrade the role of women.
BTW the New testament letters and books were not written by Apostles. At the time of the Apostles, Paul was still Saul and fighting the church. And the later writers called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not the original Apostles. I consider them to be imposters.
There are others. A while ago I read a paper that mentioned a number of others. I'll try to find it again on the web. But the most important is making the religion a powerful means to control people as it has been used down thru the ages.
Perhaps in god's plan that was necessary in order to get Christianity and the peaceful teachings of Jesus accepted. But now it is time to return to there original form
Regards,
yanniru
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