 The history of Christianity is part of our history. The history of Christianity is part of our history. Christianity may have been influenced by Roman paganism, by Greek Hellenism, by the various mystery cults and religions that were operating in the world 2,000 years ago, but at the end of the day it began as a movement within Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, his disciples were Jews, they lived in Israel, and so it's certainly something for us to explore in the same way that our Bible, our Tanakh, we study our national failures and failings in many books of the Bible, the book of Judges, the book of Kings, the prophets like Jeremiah, they all explore things that went wrong in our history. So in order to learn how to not repeat these mistakes and how to recover if we do, it's not an inappropriate thing for us to study. So by studying for example episodes in our history like the false messianic movement of Shabtai Tzvi in the 17th century or tonight's discussion of Paul of Tarsus and how he diverted Judaism, I think for us as a Jewish group a Jewish crowd it can be a meaningful exploration. Number two, aside from analyzing different movements in history, I think we can clarify and get clarity on the beliefs and doctrines of Judaism by contrasting it with that which is not Judaism. So again another reason for maybe embarking in this kind of study is to help us better understand our own faith. Number three I believe that by exposing some of the fault lines that lie within Christianity we can help Jews who have embraced Christianity reevaluate that commitment. I've had interactions with numerous Jewish people, many messianic Jews from whom this topic was an important catalyst in their return to Judaism. And finally and this might be the most controversial of my four reasons I think that while some rabbinic authorities over history, especially in the last 200 years some rabbinic authorities have taken the position that Christianity might be a valid spiritual path for non-Jews. I think that was taken, a position taken, reluctantly. I don't think that any rabbinical sages said that Christianity is a totally valid path for non-Jews and said it enthusiastically. After all from a Jewish perspective much of Christianity is simply not true. For example it may be a valid spiritual path for non-Jews but at the end of the day Jesus was not the Messiah of Israel. There's no two ways about that. And so for Christians there's no requirement that they have correct beliefs about the Messiah of Israel within Jewish thought they're not going to be judged by God if they make a mistake about who the Messiah of Israel is but still you can't be happy for people that believe in something that simply is not true. Secondly the Greek Testament, the Christian scriptures by us are not viewed as part of the Bible or as divinely inspired. Number three the Christian Bible and much of its theology is based upon tremendous misinterpretation of our Bible and that's rampant. And finally much of Christianity and the Christian Bible engages in demonizing the Jewish people and at some level as anti-Jewish. Many pronouncements in the Christian Bible are simply not acceptable. And so it may be true at the end of the day that for non-Jews Christianity and its teachings could be theoretically, potentially according to some rabbis an acceptable spiritual path but I don't think it's one that we can advocate enthusiastically. The truth is that Judaism does envision a universal spiritual path for non-Jews. This spiritual path predated Judaism. So long before there was a Judaism God had already revealed to Adam and to Noah a path of universal spirituality for the whole world and from a Jewish perspective that is the default spiritual path that the world should be embracing. It's known as the Noahide Code. And it's not identical to Christianity. My minorities wrote in the 12th century that Christianity and Islam are actually preparing the world for the ultimate truth. And this will lead to either the universal embrace of the Noahide path or potentially conversion to Judaism. The prophet Zechariah wrote 2400 years ago approximately about the unfolding of this end game and he writes in those days 10 men of all the nations of the world will grab hold of the garment of a Jew and saying let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you. Over the past decade I've been in touch with a growing number of people on this precise journey. For many of them understanding how Christianity became a separate religion from Judaism was a significant part of that process. Barry Wilson is a professor here at York University and in 2008 he published a book, How Jesus Became Christian. The book explores how Christianity became a religion that Jesus would probably not recognize or understand and that contains anti-Jewish streaks that sparked hatred against generations of Jews. Professor Wilson inscribed his book for me and he wrote in the inside cover this book provides the intellectual backbone in my own spiritual journey out of Anglicanism into Judaism. So we have a stake in this story. So I believe that it is worthy of our study. Now the conventional wisdom and the official position of virtually all the Christian denominations in the world today and there are thousands. Some people estimate over 30,000 Christian denominations. All basically all of these Christian denominations today and I would say basically of all Christians over the past at least 1900 years their conventional wisdom, their official position has been that Jesus of Nazareth founded the Christian church. His biography is related in the four gospels. The fifth book of the Christian Bible is called the Acts of the Apostles. It purports to tell the continuing story of the Jesus movement after his death through his disciples over the next 30 years. Much of the book of Acts focuses on Paul who spends most of his time spreading his faith in Jesus among Gentiles in Asia Minor from Syria to Greece into Rome Italy into what's called modern day Turkey and this view, this conventional view basically sees the spread of Christianity as a straight line going from Jesus to Paul and onward and it sees Paul as operating in tandem with the other apostles of Jesus who were based in Jerusalem. So basically what conventional wisdom in the church sees is that you had what we all refer to as Peter and Paul that Peter is the leader of the Jerusalem group, the Jews based in Jerusalem and Paul operates in tandem with Peter in the exile and the diaspora among Gentiles again if you would take the pulse of most Christians over the past 1900 years that's the story they would tell you. However this story is probably not as simple as this. So let's try to understand this slowly. Acts was written, the book of Acts, by someone named Luke who actually was supposed to have authored one of the gospels as well the four biographies of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, so the same fellow who authored ostensibly the Gospel of Luke also writes this book of Acts which again is a history of the Jesus movement from the death of Jesus about for another 30 years. Scholars date this book of Acts from somewhere between 90 to 120 of the common era. It's relatively late. Now of the 27 books in the Christian Bible, 13 of them may have been written by Paul although scholars are really only certain about seven of them. So when we're trying to understand Paul tonight I'm going to restrict myself to what are referred to in the scholarly circles as the undisputed texts, letters of Paul. Now Paul wrote his letters in the 50s in the 50s. These genuine letters of Paul are undoubtedly a much more reliable record of what really happened in the first decades after the death of Jesus than Luke's account which is written 40 to 70 years later. And especially when it comes to understanding Paul himself, again let's lay it out we have Paul's letters which are written in his lifetime about himself and then we have Luke's account Luke's story of basically Paul the main character in the book of Acts is Paul but Luke is not Paul and Luke is writing these stories many years later. I would posit that if you want to get the most accurate understanding of Paul you want to go to his own letters and we'll see later tonight why there's many reasons to be questioning the accuracy of the account in the book of Acts. Now before looking at Luke's own right, sorry before we look at Paul's own writings it's important to know a little bit about Paul. So according to all accounts and this is very critical Paul never met Jesus. Paul never actually met Jesus. He claims to have originally been violently opposed to the Jesus movement. He claims in his writings and Luke writes about him in the book of Acts that Paul violently persecuted the followers of Jesus. Now these accounts about his original opposition to the Jesus movement are in themselves problematic. They're not so simple. For example, he claims Paul about himself to have been a Pharisee who was a student of Gamaliel. Gamaliel was one of the great chief rabbis at that time, the head of the Sanhedrin and he claims to have been a student and a follower of Gamaliel. We know however at least from the accounts in the book of Acts that Gamaliel himself did not advocate that the followers of Jesus be persecuted. As a matter of fact, Gamaliel urged his students leave them alone. We'll leave them alone. And he says if what they believe in is true, so you can't fight them. If it's not true, their movement will die out. But he doesn't advocate anyone persecute them. Yet Paul who's claiming to be a disciple of Gamaliel claims at the same time to be locking them up, throwing into prison, maybe even doing worse to them. Another problem with Paul's account about his own opposition is that he says at one point that he went to pursue and imprison followers of Jesus at the behest of the high priest. Now at that time the high priesthood were not Pharisees, they were Sadducees. Pharisees and Sadducees were bitter enemies. Why could he, a follower of Gamaliel and a Pharisee why would the high priest, a Sadducee, enlist him to do anything? So when you study the accounts that Paul writes about himself and his own opposition to the Jesus movement there are quite a few holes. And one of the greatest holes which we're not going to explore now is why would anyone back then have been interested in killing or imprisoning followers of Jesus? That's not clear at all. What were they doing that was against Jewish law? Again the ruling of Gamaliel was don't touch them, don't bother them. Gamaliel says I see nothing wrong with what they're doing. It's not exactly clear when but sometime around the year 37 of the Common Era Paul claims to have had a visionary experience where Jesus appeared to him on his way to lock up Christians in Damascus. The Book of Acts has contradictory accounts of what took place in this encounter with Jesus. In the Book of Acts chapter 9 it says that when Jesus appeared to Paul and spoke to him in his vision the people who were accompanying Paul actually heard Jesus speaking to Paul. They heard the words of Jesus. Later on in the Book of Acts in chapter 22 when the same story is recounted it says the people who were with Paul didn't hear anything. Now in Christian analysis, Christian commentaries to their own Bible, they have tremendous debates about how to understand these words. Maybe it's not speaking about hearing Jesus in chapter 22. Maybe it's just understanding the words but be it as it may the text themselves seem to be a little bit at variance. At this point it's not entirely clear what happens. So if you understand so far the story is pretty simple. Paul claims to have been a violent oppressor of the Jesus sect. Around the year 37 he claims that Jesus appeared to him in a vision basically telling him, look now you're going to be on my side. But then it's not clear what happens. If Paul is now going to follow Jesus what is he supposed to do? He never met Jesus. He knows nothing about Jesus. He doesn't really know anything that Jesus taught. He has this vision where Jesus says follow me. So what would make sense? He himself, he claims, has been persecuting the followers of Jesus. He knows where they are. They're all based in Jerusalem. And yet in his own letters mainly in the letter to the Galatians Paul claims that he did not go to meet with anyone. He specifically says, he pointedly says I did not go to Jerusalem to meet with the leaders of the group there. I wonder why he's boasting about this. Does that make any sense? That here he wants to be a follower of Jesus. He knows nothing about him. He knows where the people who had been the followers of Jesus and were with Jesus and heard Jesus teaching were in Jerusalem. And he says no, I didn't go to meet with them in Jerusalem. He claims that nothing that he knows about Jesus that he received from any human being. And he claims that his knowledge about Jesus came strictly from Jesus himself. In ongoing mystical encounters with Jesus. He didn't just have this one encounter on the road to Damascus. Paul claims that he continually received mystical encounters with Jesus where Jesus told him what he was supposed to do and believe. Instead of going to Jerusalem and meeting with the leaders of the Jesus movement, Paul claims instead that he went to the desert of Arabia for a period of time. And then he writes, then after this he says it until three years later that he finally went to Jerusalem and he only met with two of the leaders of the movement. He met with James and with Peter for a period of 15 days only. He didn't come back to Jerusalem until 14 years later. Now the book of Acts and this is going to be a little bit complicated but let's try to focus in on this. That's the story that Paul tells us in his own letters. The book of Acts portrays the early days of Paul's involvement as a follower of Jesus a little bit differently. There in the book of Acts we're told that after his mystical experience on the road to Damascus, he proceeds to the city of Damascus to the house of Ananias. Ananias was a fellow, a member of the Church of Jesus movement and there Ananias baptizes Paul and a short while later Paul then goes to Jerusalem where he's introduced to all the apostles. Now in Paul's account in Galatians chapter 2 he seems to have very little relationship with the group in Jerusalem. This again is important. Paul seems to present in his letters that he was an independent agent, that the people in Jerusalem they were the people that dealt with the Jewish community and he himself was dealing with the Gentiles. He claims that it was Jesus himself that appointed him to be an apostle to the Gentiles and they didn't really seem to have any other relationship. Paul doesn't seem to say in his own letters that he had to report to them that they supervised what he was teaching only that they requested he raise money for the poor, ostensibly for the poor members of the Jerusalem group. That's how Paul presents the story. Again Paul's presentation is that he doesn't really have much to do with the Jesus followers in Jerusalem. They basically have their route, their field of operation in Israel among Jews. Paul claims that he is operating independently among Gentiles and he doesn't have much responsibility back to the people in Jerusalem. And acts however, again it's presented differently. There it seems Paul is more tethered to the group in Jerusalem. He has to report to them. At one point they seem to haul him in because they're bothered by things they're hearing about Paul. So there he has more of a responsibility, more of a relationship with the group back in Jerusalem and he has to basically explain what he's teaching to the Gentiles and they have to approve of what he's teaching to the Gentiles. Now the first clue that the development of Christianity was not as smooth sailing as Christians have believed over the past 2,000 years. Again what I've started off saying was that the conventional church wisdom is that it was seamless. That you had Jesus and then it spread through Paul and it was one basic movement. The first clue that this was not the case emerges from Paul's letters himself. Now what would happen is this. Paul would travel to different cities preaching what he repeatedly refers to as My Gospel. He calls it My Gospel. Apparently what would happen is after he went to these cities and he preached and he taught, other followers of the Jesus movement would show up and they would dispute what Paul had taught. So Paul's teachings were being challenged almost wherever he went he was hounded by these other teachers of the Jesus movement disputing what he was teaching and Paul would then write letters. That's why these letters are written basically. The letters that we have in the Christian Bible written by Paul are often letters to the people he had been teaching and in these letters he has to warn his students Paul is warning his students don't listen to those people don't listen to what those people are teaching you. He calls them teachers of another Gospel. Paul is constantly having to defend himself against these other followers of Jesus who are questioning what he teaches and his authority. Paul often seems on the defensive and he needs to consolidate his hold over the people that he had been teaching. It seems that aside from disputing the contents of what Paul was teaching these other rival teachers would repeatedly accuse Paul of being a liar they question his integrity not just what he was teaching they question him as a person. They question his integrity how do we know this? Because throughout his writings Paul is constantly protesting too much and Paul is constantly saying I'm not lying I'm telling you the truth I'm not lying I'm telling you the truth now when you read through the Jewish Bible you don't have Isaiah or Ezekiel or Jeremiah telling the people listen people I'm not lying to you I'm telling you the truth normally people that are prophets they give their prophecy and Paul is repeatedly having to justify himself and defend himself so what's clear is that it wasn't smooth sailing what's very clear is that Paul was not getting an easy ride. Now who might these religious opponents have been and why might they have disputed Paul's teachings he refers to them as rival teachers and sometimes mockingly as super-apostles he doesn't believe they're super-apostles but he mocks them sarcastically and he speaks about those super-apostles who are coming to confuse you. Now we should repeat that Paul never met Jesus and Jesus never met Paul for that matter. Let's be clear about this. When you read the writings of Paul, if you read his writings he never mentions Jesus as place of birth he never mentions anything about Jesus' parents or his family or his close associates. We know for example that Jesus was very closely associated and might have been a student of John the Baptizer. Paul doesn't mention John he doesn't mention anything about where Jesus lived, where he moved to, where he was located he doesn't refer to any of Jesus' alleged miracles when you read the Gospels, the four biographies of Jesus that's one of the main themes of the Gospels or the walking on water and healing people and producing meals out of a little loaf of bread what's going on every Monday can dunderstick all over the Gospels you've got these miracles of Jesus. Paul doesn't cite one miracle he doesn't relate any of Jesus' teachings you have famous teachings of Jesus like the Sermon on the Mount, all the parables of Jesus all the things Jesus taught, Paul never cites any of them there's no mention of Jesus' trial and not only do you have a person who never met Jesus you have a person in all of his writings and again he might have written between 7 and 13 books in the Christian Bible he doesn't mention literally anything about Jesus whatsoever he does teach a lot about how he viewed Jesus how he viewed the significance of Jesus' crucifixion and Jesus' alleged resurrection what I understand is that in the writings of Paul what you are not finding is the religion of Jesus it's not anything about what Jesus taught it's a religion about Jesus, that's what you're getting from Paul nothing really that tells you who Jesus was what he taught, what his values were, what he was encouraging people to do Paul's ideas, Paul's insights into how he understood Jesus specifically what the death of Jesus might have meant and his alleged resurrection, that's all you really get from Paul and he claims that he receives all of these ideas in mystical visions directly from Jesus so again who might have been Paul's opponents in these people that were dogging after him and that were following him and that were correcting his teachings and disputing with him so let's briefly at this point try to understand what the Jesus movement was all about this is going to be important, we don't know a lot about Jesus and that's for sure because number one he never wrote anything it would have been nice if we had a book signed Love Jesus there's nothing from Jesus there's virtually nothing about Jesus in contemporary historical sources meaning you have Josephus, you have Roman historians like Tacitus there's virtually nothing about Jesus in contemporary historical sources all you really have are the four biographies in the Christian Bible called the four gospels Matthew written about the year 80 the book around the year 90 and John written around the year 100 these biographies are written between 40 and 70 years after Jesus is killed this crucifixion of Jesus might actually be the one thing we can say with confidence that we know about Jesus that he lived in Israel 2000 years ago and he was crucified by the Romans that much I think it is safe to say we don't know much about these people who wrote these four biographies but one critical fact is clear these stories about Jesus were written after the letters of Paul people often don't appreciate this if anyone opens up a Christian Bible the first four books are the four gospels the first books you read, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John then later on you encounter the letters of Paul and most people think the gospels are written first it makes sense that's the story of Jesus' life and Paul who came after Jesus then Paul writes, no that's not what happened Paul wrote in the 50s Paul wrote his letters in the 50s years before the gospels were written the open question we're not going to solve this tonight is raising it as a question and this is what scholars make their money on the open question is whether and to what extent these biographies of Jesus might have been impacted by what Paul wrote meaning is it possible that the writers of these biographies of Jesus were people who had already been influenced by the teachings of Paul so we know that the Romans crucified Jesus why? because Jesus claimed to be the king of Israel and that's what the Romans placed on the cross beam over the crucifixion stake over the bar in which he was crucified it said Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews claiming to be the king of Israel was considered by the Romans to be sedition to be treason the Romans did not take lightly any challenges to their rule the Romans were extremely nervous about insurrections about revolutions about people challenging their authority and if someone comes along and says I'm the king of the Jews it's not just someone that wanders around the park at night drooling and speaking like a maniac they could dismiss that but here's a person that has a following here is a person claiming to be the king of Jews and he has people that are following him and accepting that and for the Romans that's a challenge to their authority the Romans are saying no we're in charge of Palestine we're in charge of Israel we're the rulers of this land and for someone to come along and say no I'm the king of the Jews and you should know by the way the Romans did not only crucify Jesus the estimates are they crucified approximately 100,000 Jewish people they did not crucify people for double parking their camels or for other similar crimes people were only crucified for committing the kind of crimes that challenged Roman authority they wanted to make examples of people and have them hanging up for a period of 2, 3, 4 days politically so that people will get the message don't mess around with Rome our best understanding of Jesus is that he was carrying on the tradition of John the baptizer sometimes people call him John the Baptist like he was John the Baptist or you know not John the Presbyterian or John the Episcopalian but John the Baptist that's not really what he would have been called in Hebrew it would have been Yohanan Hamat Biel John the Immerser or the better term would be John the Baptizer Jesus was basically and it seems from the Gospels a student of John Jesus goes down to the Jordan River to be immersed in the Jordan by John and John would go around teaching the kingdom of God is at hand which means that John was announcing the imminent arrival of the redemption John was telling people that the messianic age is about to happen and the messianic age included a number of changes in the world order one of them being that God will be recognized by the entire world as the king as we say in our prayers three times a day our last prayer Alaynu ends with the verse from Zechariah chapter 14 on that day God will be one and his name will be one so when John the Baptizer says the kingdom of God is at hand what he's saying is we're about to reach that time in history when the whole world accepts the kingship of God and that messianic age will include the recognition of God's people Israel as his chosen people as again Zechariah said before that in this transformed age the world is going to embrace the Jew and say we want to follow you because we know God is with you and of course in this age of universal recognition of God the prophets tell us they'll be universal peace they'll beat their swords into plowshares their sprees into pruning hooks nation will not lift up sword against nation they won't learn any war anymore so that's what the Jewish people have been looking forward to since the beginning of our history basically John the Baptizer was announcing and he was saying to do what what do you do about this he would say repent for the kingdom of God is at hand John the Baptizer was saying you can prepare for and hasten the coming of the redemption by getting your act together by repenting by changing by turning away from your sins and turning toward God this by the way is totally in line with Jewish teaching totally in line with Jewish teaching we as Jews believe and it's based upon the Bible that the redemption will come as a response to national revival and repentance of the Jewish people it says in the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy in the 59th chapter of Isaiah that the redemption will come when Israel turns to God entirely when all of us have our spiritual act together that's when it will happen and that's exactly what John the Baptizer was teaching and it seems to be what Jesus was teaching because when you go through the teachings of Jesus the number one thing he says is the kingdom of God is at hand the kingdom of heaven is about to break forth and Jesus spends his time trying to teach people how to be more faithful to God how to live properly to repent if they haven't been doing things properly that seems to be the simplest understanding of who Jesus was he urged people to repent and to keep the Torah and this is a critical point Jesus repeatedly speaks about the primacy and the need to observe the Torah consistently telling Jewish people if you want to do the right thing keep the Torah keep the commandments and live lives of righteousness his followers Jesus's followers were shocked by his crucifixion it's not what they were expecting and they basically resorted to hoping that he would return soon to usher in the messianic utopia so they weren't totally phased by his death they were covered by saying okay we as Jews believe in the resurrection of the dead Jesus is going to come back one day and he'll bring about the messianic age we know that this is exactly what his followers were hoping for they had a very traditional view of what is supposed to happen for example in Luke chapter 24 verse 21 they say we were hoping that it was going to redeem Israel that's what his followers were hoping for they were hoping that Jesus was going to be the redeemer of Israel and that wasn't a mysterious term in Acts chapter 1 verse 6 after Jesus is alleged resurrection the very first question that he's asked is is that at this time that you were restoring the kingdom to Israel that was the focus of Jesus's Jewish followers and it didn't happen in his lifetime and so they were praying and hoping that he'd come back soon and accomplish that mission but aside from this belief that Jesus was the Messiah who would soon return to bring about the redemption and conclude his mission there wasn't really much of a difference between the followers of Jesus and the general normal Jewish community it's important to understand that the basic difference between the rest of the Jewish community the regular Jewish community standard Jewish community and this small group who followed Jesus was they thought he was the Messiah their idea of the Messiah was the same as the rest of the Jewish community they just insisted it was Jesus and even though Jesus was killed they thought he'd be back to actually fulfill his mission after the death of Jesus the movement was led for the next 30 years by Jesus's brother James Jesus actually had at least four brothers and two sisters one of his brothers James took over the reigns of the movement and he led for 30 years the movement continued to worship in the temple and to bring sacrifices and to the rest of the Torah don't forget that that's an important piece of the puzzle the followers of Jesus even after he died continued to follow the Torah continued worshiping the temple continued bringing sacrifices James was known by the way as someone who was very dedicated to the importance of observing the Torah he wasn't just a regular good guy he was called James the just God Sadik you could call him in Acts 21 verse 20 James observes he says all of the Jewish people who believe that Jesus was the Messiah were in James's words zealous in their observance of the Torah he doesn't say that Jesus taught them to stop keeping the Torah he says now afterwards after Jesus was dead already that the followers of Jesus are still zealous meaning they're very punctilious and careful in their observance of the Torah because this group was based in Jerusalem they're often referred to as the Jerusalem church but the word church is obviously an anachronistic term in the second century these Jewish followers of Jesus are referred to as either Nazarenes or Ebonites and aside from their dedication to Torah observance so again this movement of Torah observant people hoping that Jesus would be the Messiah when he returns continued into the second century and we know this about the Ebonites and Nazarenes we know something else about them we know they had a very low regard for Paul and they saw Paul as an apostate so now we're getting a little bit of a handle on who these opponents of Paul might have been what emerges is that there was a Jesus movement that predated Paul's transformation these included Jesus' actual disciples including members of his own family they knew him intimately they spent three years with Jesus as Jesus teaching virtually every day they spent all day long with Jesus they came to know him thoroughly and they were intimately familiar with what he taught and what he represented and who he taught about himself if you wanted to find anyone on the planet who knew about Jesus you would go to Jesus' own students and family you wouldn't go to a person who never met Jesus all you have from Paul is the claim the claim that Jesus appeared to him so we now understand who Paul's opponents were they were people who were associated with the Jerusalem church and were disturbed why were they imposing Paul because they were disturbed by what he was teaching so let's examine now what was it Paul's teachings that might have gotten these people so upset one of the most critical things about how Paul saw himself was that he saw himself as the apostle to the Gentiles he sees that as his personal mission he claims again that he was appointed to this role by Jesus himself that he is the apostle to the Gentiles now Paul did not require that these non-Jews observe the Torah first of all the Torah itself doesn't require that Gentiles observe the Torah Gentiles only have to observe the Noahide code but getting circumcised keeping kosher observing the Sabbath the Jewish holidays that's not required of Gentiles what happened is this it seems that there were people from the Jerusalem group who were coming around and insisting that if you're a non-Jew and you want to be part of the Jesus movement you've got to convert to Judaism which means if you're a man you have to get circumcised and men and women have to observe all the commandments of the Torah that seems to have been what was happening now Paul as you can imagine who was vested and invested in spreading his message to non-Jews he realized that to require these non-Jews to get circumcised and observe all the commandments of the Torah was going to be an obstacle and a barrier so Paul is basically taking the position no you can be a follower of Jesus and you don't need to observe the Torah so Paul disputed the claims of these people that were coming around now there is apparently and I say apparently a compromise solution that you find in the book of Acts chapter 15 where James again who is a leader of the movement allegedly ruled that Gentiles coming into the Jesus movement did not need to convert to Judaism and observe all the commandments and get circumcised all what you would have to do is essentially follow the seven Noachai laws that would be it now there are many reasons to question whether or not this meeting in Jerusalem where James issued this compromise ever took place it's not really so clear that it happened but nonetheless Paul was bothered by the different standards for Jews and non-Jews and he might have thought that disparity would make non-Jews in the movement feel like lesser members and so it seems that Paul began teaching that Torah observance was not required for anyone be they Jew or non-Jew so it wasn't simply that Paul was saying that if you're not Jewish you can still join the Jesus movement and you don't need to fully convert to Judaism and observe all the commandments of the Torah what seemed to happen was that Paul was advocating that now after the death of Jesus no one has to keep the Torah Jews and non-Jews it's no longer required and where do you see this so I'll just share a few examples there are many many examples in 1st Corinthians chapter 9 verse 20 Paul says to the Jews I became as a Jew so that I might win the Jews he's interested in converting people so he's going to become like a Jew so I might win the Jews he says to those under the law meaning to those who are obligated to follow the Torah I became as one under the Torah though not being under the Torah myself he states here outright I don't believe I'm required to keep the Torah but I would do it externally in order to get through to Jewish people why that I might win those under the law in Romans chapter 10 verse 4 Paul writes the Messiah is the end of the law and he writes this numerous times in his writings that the Messiah is the end of the law you're no longer under the curse of the law I mean he basically writes this repeatedly negating the importance of the Torah in Galatians chapter 3 verses 24 and 25 he says the Torah was our tutor I liken it to training wheels on a bicycle if you're a little kid and you're learning how to ride a two-wheeler so it's hard you can't balance yourself so you have on the back wheels little training wheels so that's what Paul is saying the Torah was our tutor and by the way it wasn't a tutor for non-Jews non-Jews never had to keep the Torah Paul writes here in Galatians the Torah was our tutor for what purpose to lead us to the Messiah the whole purpose of the Torah from Paul's point of view was to lead us to faith in the Messiah that he says we may be justified by faith but now that faith has come meaning not that the Messiah is here we are no longer under a tutor you can take your training wheels and throw them in the garbage as far as Paul is concerned so it seems that the real problem the real problem is not that Paul is saying that Gentiles don't have to keep the Torah that wouldn't be so incredibly controversial it seems that the real problem was that Paul's real position is that no one needs to keep the Torah and we see Paul being directly challenged on this in the book of Acts chapter 21 where James says to Paul they've been told about you Paul they've been told about you that you were teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses meaning forsake the Torah of Moses telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the traditions so it seems that the real charge was that Paul was renouncing the importance and the requirement of keeping the Torah even for Jews for people who have been students of Jesus and heard throughout their walk with Jesus that you have to keep the Torah this was an absolute scandal now the truth is Paul had a particular issue with circumcision of all the parts of the Torah that really annoyed him circumcision was the worst possibly because it was such a primal edifier of who a Jew was and in his mind might drive a wedge between Jews and Gentiles so Paul teaches in his writings there is no longer a Jew and no longer a Gentile we are now all one in the body of the Messiah and so Paul teaches that circumcision counts for nothing he tells his listeners if you're circumcised the Messiah will benefit you not at all he even goes so far as to say in Galatians chapter 5 verse 12 that he wished that those people who were getting circumcised that the knife should slip and they should castrate themselves another serious point of departure for Paul from the Jerusalem group was his view of Jesus all the evidence points to the direction that the original followers of Jesus simply saw him as the Messiah they certainly did not see him as God or worship him or pray to him however Paul seems to view Jesus at least at least as some kind of pre-existent divine being now I will say that Paul's writings because they're extensive are often very confusing and contradictory so at times he seems to express the idea that Jesus was divine at other times he simply sees Jesus as an elevated being possibly some kind of angel but nevertheless subordinate to God so it's not entirely clear how Jesus is viewed by Paul he clearly has a very very elevated view of Jesus possibly seeing Jesus as God but what is clear is how Paul's readers understood him it's one thing to be unclear about what Paul meant but the proof as far as I'm concerned is in the pudding and Paul's students and Paul's readers how did they understand Paul so what we see very clearly is that by the end of the first century virtually all the followers of Paul's teachings came to worship Jesus as God that's how they understood Paul or possibly who want to be generous how they misunderstood Paul this from a Jewish perspective would be considered idolatry another delineating issue is the question of how we can be justified in the eyes of God John the baptizer and Jesus took the position that we could be justified in the eyes of God by living righteous lives and repenting in the wake of sin that seems to be in line with Judaism in line with what the Torah teaches that's how we're supposed to try to have a relationship with God and we can be right in the eyes of God if we follow God's teachings and we repent and turn from them if we break God's teachings we turn from our sins in the epistle of James interesting James the brother of Jesus may have actually authored the Christian Bible so in the epistle of James and again we know that James would have been a traditional Jew he emphasizes in his epistle the primacy of living the good life and being obedient to God and observing the Torah and he says that we can be justified by the works that we do by the good deeds that we do Paul however who essentially dispensed with the Torah for him faith in Jesus replaces observance of the Torah so Paul repeatedly teaches against what James taught and against what Jesus taught and against what Judaism teaches that justification is by faith alone independently of the works of the Torah meaning it doesn't matter if you keep the Torah what depends from Paul's point of view is simply do you believe in Jesus and the way Paul sees Jesus is that Jesus is a sacrifice that dies as a sin as a sacrifice for the sins of those who will believe in him now Paul basically lays his cards out on the table in the book of Galatians chapter 2 verse 21 Paul says if you could be righteous by keeping the Torah Paul says then Jesus died in vain so you see from Paul his view is that we are not able to keep the Torah if we could then Jesus did not have to die for us Paul's convinced that we don't have to keep the Torah because we're not able to keep the Torah and so Paul sees the death of Jesus as a sacrifice for sin that replaces the sacrifices in the temple as mentioned before that the followers of Jesus kept on going to the temple and bringing sacrifices even after the crucifixion of Jesus now this focus on faith in Jesus is what Paul referred to as being in the Messiah and as far as Paul's concerned that is what defines who is a part of God's covenant of the people Paul teaches that the true Israel is not a biological or genealogical issue but it's one of faith so Paul says those who believe in Jesus are the true Israel and those who don't believe in Jesus even though they may have Jewish stock are not the real Israel when I was living in Philadelphia I went to a lecture a group that the lecture was called who is a Jew and it was a two part lecture after the second part I approached the speaker in private I didn't want to confront him in public and I asked him after the two lectures I said let me ask you am I a Jew and the lecturer said no you're not a Jew and I said and why is that he said because you don't believe in God because for him Jesus is God and I don't believe in Jesus the word Jew comes from Yehudah one who praises God and as far as he was concerned I am not someone who acknowledges God so from Paul's point of view what comes to play is the very definition of what it means to be a Jew now there are other divergencies between Paul and the Jesus movement these are discussed at length in a wonderful book by Professor James Tabor called Paul and Jesus and Professor Tabor actually discusses a number of other total divergencies between what Paul taught and between what Jesus taught we're not going to go into them tonight suffice it to say that based upon the ones that I've discussed there were enough rejections of the original teachings of Jesus that got him into hot water the followers of Jesus who were based in Jerusalem and into the second century in the eyes of the Ebonites and Nazarenes so did Paul invent Christianity it's not clear to me it's a matter I believe of semantics some actually insist Professor Barry Wilson in his book insists that Christianity is a total invention of Paul it has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus other people would say well he didn't invent the whole religion out of nothing because there already was a messianic movement centered on Jesus so others argue that Paul distorted or changed the original movement but at the end of the day whether you called Paul the inventor or the transformer it's academic as far as I'm concerned now Christians will usually leap to the defense of Paul by trying to show that he was faithfully carrying out and carrying on the Jesus tradition that's the knee jerk reaction of all Christian apologists they will try to show that no every single thing that Paul taught was clearly already taught by Jesus now I wanted to make sure that it wasn't my personal religious bias that led me to this assessment of Paul and so in order to check my math what I did was look into the research of Islamic scholars on the same topic and interestingly what I found among Islamic scholars was basically the exact same assessment of how they viewed Paul's divergencies from Jesus now we know that the Jerusalem church actually disappeared so we know that within 200-250 years this movement died out why did that happen? Number one they lost their leader James passed away he was killed in the year 62 approximately. Number two Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70 and with that destruction of Jerusalem many of the followers of Jesus are killed so the movement itself was greatly decimated the survivors flee to Transjordan but they're living in a very very deflated mood to say the least and deflated more so when Jesus ultimately did not return when they were expecting him to return the expectation in the first century was that Jesus would return within that generation so by the year 50-55 or after the passing of a generation and Jesus is not returned this movement gets very very disheartened and the final nail in the coffin the final problem for the Jesus movement was the dramatic growth of Paul's Gentile Christian church and its ultimate persecution of the Jerusalem based group or the remnants of that group what happened into the second century was actually disgraceful and ironic that Paul who was the first heretic when you think about it Paul who was the first Christian heretic in his very very significant divergencies from what Judaism taught and from what Jesus himself taught that Paul basically launches a group that ends up being the persecutor of the original followers of Jesus as heretics so here the first heretic becomes the decider essentially of who the real heretics are and he turns the tables so for Paul the real heretics not for Paul so much but really his followers and the people who came after him they begin to see those Jews who are clinging to the Torah and the observance of the Torah and the traditional Jewish values they are now seen by the Christian movement as heretics today there's an exploding interest in the historical Jesus in the history of the Christian church and with the wide availability of information on the internet I believe that we may be in for a major assessment of today's Christianity by members of the church