Thursday, August 30, 2007

Redemption And Salvation - 4

Paul and Christianity

If you are familiar with the New Testament of the Bible, you will realize that most of the books of the New Testament are dedicated to Paul the apostle. Only the four gospels are dedicated to the life and work of Jesus. In the Acts, although some of the other Apostles are mentioned, the major portion of the book is dedicated to the history, message and acts of Paul the Apostle. Now the question arises why this importance to Paul, who was not one of the original disciples of Jesus.

Those who are familiar with the New Testament know who Paul was and what he did to the followers of Jesus. For those who don't here is a brief description. Paul's original name was Saul and he was one of the staunch Jews and well versed in the scriptures of the Jews. It is said of Paul that he learned the scriptures from the great Jewish scholar and Rabbi, Gamaliel. He was also a great oppressor of the followers of Jesus until he was converted.

Ac:22:3: I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.

According to the gospels, it was Peter the disciple on whom the church of Jesus was to be built.

M't:16:18: And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And yet here in the New Testament it is Paul, who is not one of the original disciples, is exalted and whose messages are considered as the true interpretation of the Messages of Jesus. It must be noted here that Jesus spoke to the people in parables and later explained the true hidden meaning to his disciples in private. Please note Paul was NOT among the privileged disciples who received these detailed messages from Jesus. Yet today’s church, irrespective of the denomination always quotes the words of Paul to justify their doctrines of Christianity.

Even when they strive to explain important messages of Jesus, such as "Being Born again" it is the words of Paul which is quoted to justify their interpretation. The gospels claim Jesus had twelve disciples. But those familiar with the gospels know that Jesus had more than these twelve people as his disciples and most of them followed him every where and some of them were also women. Even in the acts, the women are mentioned to follow the apostles in their journey of preaching Gospel. Yet gospels suggest that Jesus had only twelve disciples. Do you wonder why?

Is not it obvious that the number twelve was chosen later on by the greedy bishops who wanted to equate Christianity with the then extant pagan religions? It is interesting that the Zodiac has twelve signs in it and twelve is a sacred number for the pagans. Of course this is a separate subject and I will not go deeper into this except to mention it here for the readers to consider and think it over.

Now coming back to Paul, let us consider a theory. I repeat this is only a theory.

Paul as Saul hated the followers of Jesus and was known to persecute them wherever he found them. In fact he was journeying from place to place to seek out the followers of Jesus and persecute them. Now this is the man who is now exalted above the original disciples of Jesus and it is on the strength of this man's interpretation of the messages of Jesus that today’s Christianity thrives.

Now let us see this scene of fast growing followers of Jesus in the time of Saul in spite of his persecution and think from Paul's point of view. Here is a religion or doctrine fast growing despite his efforts to destroy it which is contrary to the beliefs of the Jewish people in the very land of the Jews. These people are the followers of the man who claimed he is the son of god and the expected messiah of the Jews, all of which are blasphemy in the eyes of this staunch Jew, Saul. How can he stop the growth of this following of Jesus and save Jewish religion?

The easiest way to destroy any organization is to destroy it from within that organization and what a brilliant idea! Saul becomes Paul and convinces the original Apostle of hsi sincerity which is of course false. The innocent Apostles believe his learned speech and accept him within their circle and even recommend him to the various churches where he goes to preach the gospel of Jesus.

Here is the opportunity to Saul alias Paul to, having infiltrated into the folds of the followers of Jesus, to corrupt the messages of Jesus in such a crafty way using his high scholarly talent to deviate them from the original true messages of Jesus. From the way Christianity has embraced the interpretations of this Paul from his letters to the various churches, it is obvious that he has succeeded in hiding the true messages of Jesus and there by destroying it totally. All the future bishops and preachers of the gospel have eagerly accepted the teachings of Paul since it gave them more leverage to control their respective churches.

Now if you go to many of the Pentecostal churches you will hear them proudly proclaiming "We are following the Apostles". By Apostles they mean Paul and not the others. A deeper analysis of the whole Bible will show us very clearly that the religions based on the Bible are male dominated and has a secret Agenda to totally suppress the females in every way possible. Before the advent of these religions, Goddess worship was the acknowledged and accepted concept. Almost all the cultures of the world had its own goddess or goddesses.

The Catholic Church was intelligent enough to capitalize on this belief of the people and exalted Mary as the mother of Jesus (God) giving divinity to her and yet depriving the women of any freedom in the church or society. If you accept the divinity of Jesus and accept him as the son of God then you also accept the concept of a female Goddess who participated in the birth of the son of God. All these religions suppress the possibility of the existence of Goddess or Goddesses. This last bit of information is for you to think!!!

All feedback welcome

Copyright © 03/15/2007 Joel Raja Kumar J (a k a) Poet Raja


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