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Historical Quotes Concerning Paul
and his doctrines
from Historians, Philosophers and Theologians:
Source: Answering-Christianity
This paper was sent to me by my brother in Islam Naim
Frasheri al-Arnaut; may Allah Almighty always be pleased with him.
Carl Sagan (Scientist; Author)
"My long-time view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of
two seemingly
immiscible parts--the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas
Jefferson attempted to
excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn't much left when he
was done, but it
was an inspiring document." (Letter to Ken Schei [author of Christianity
Betrayed])
Thomas Jefferson
"Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." (All
references not listed here, can be
found in Christianity Betrayed)
Albert Schweitzer
"Where possible Paul avoids quoting the teaching of Jesus, in fact even
mentioning it. If we had
to rely on Paul, we should not know that Jesus taught in parables, had delivered
the sermon on
the mount, and had taught His disciples the 'Our Father.' Even where they are
specially
relevant, Paul passes over the words of the Lord."
Wil Durant (Philosopher)
"Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants can be
found in the words of
Christ."
"Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ."
Walter Kaufmann (Professor of Philosophy, Princeton)
"Paul substituted faith in Christ for the Christlike life."
George Bernard Shaw
"No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul
boldly set it on its
legs again in the name of Jesus."
Thomas Hardy
"The new testament was less a Christiad than a Pauliad."
Hyam Maccoby (Talmudic Scholar)
"As we have seen, the purposes of the book of Acts is to minimize the
conflict between Paul and
the leaders of the Jerusalem Church, James and Peter. Peter and Paul, in later
Christian
tradition, became twin saints, brothers in faith, and the idea that they were
historically bitter
opponents standing for irreconcilable religious standpoints would have been
repudiated with
horror. The work of the author of Acts was well done; he rescued Christianity
from the
imputation of being the individual creation of Paul, and instead gave it a
respectable pedigree,
as a doctrine with the authority of the so-called Jerusalem Church, conceived as
continuous in
spirit with the Pauline Gentile Church of Rome. Yet, for all his efforts, the
truth of the matter is
not hard to recover, if we examine the New Testament evidence with an eye to
tell-tale
inconsistencies and confusions, rather than with the determination to gloss over
and harmonize all difficulties in the interests of an orthodox
interpretation." (The Mythmaker, p. 139,Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London,
1986)
Jeremy Bentham (English Philosopher)
"If Christianity needed an Anti-Christ, they needed look no farther than
Paul." (Paraphrased. Looking for a copy of "Not Paul, but Jesus"
in order to retrieve the exact quote.)
Carl Jung (Psychologist)
"Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in."
(U.S. News and World
Report, April 22, 1991, p. 55)
Bishop John S. Spong (Episcopal Bishop of Newark)
"Paul's words are not the Words of God. They are the words of Paul- a vast
difference."
(Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, p. 104, Harper San Francisco, 1991).
Also visit: The
Non-Muslim Western and Far Eastern Philosophers' positive opinions about
Muhammad peace be upon him.
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