Paul's Mythology: The Unspoken Bible

Paul's Mythology: The Unspoken Bible

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out
what he was never reasoned into.

-Jonathan Swift

How did Paul pull it off? How did he manage to pull the
Jesus movement from its Jewish roots? Before we get into the specifics, it
helps to understand his method of biblical interpretation and the
political-religious climate in which he lived. This is the first of a four
part series on Paul's mythology.



The uninformed take it for granted that there was a
smooth transition from Judaism to Christianity, when in fact they never found
common ground. The irony is that Christian Bibles include Hebrew Scripture in
order to support the New Testament, though they are completely at odds with
each other.


How this came about was by a method of interpretation
called Midrash. The idea is to look for meanings in the Bible, other than
literal. The problem with this technique is that it invites a lot of
self-serving rationalizing and abuse, even if it is done with good intentions.
Our highest ideal should be truth. Truth deems that we try to be objective by
aiming to interpret what the speaker is trying to communicate.



A modern example would be the U.S. Constitution. The
Supreme Court has piled on so many layers of interpretation that much of
contemporary law conflicts with original constitutional limits. In practice,
Midrash requires that the interpreter strip the language of its context and
invent new definitions and connections. Some relevant examples help to
explain.



1. Aside from being obviously a folk tale, Genesis does
not even hint that Adam's curse went beyond sentencing man to a life of hard
labor. We really have to stretch our imagination to infer that this was the
infectious curse for which Jesus died. Genesis is also clear that man was
created as a mortal being. By rationalizing, we could infer that if he wasn't
cursed, he would have eaten from the tree of life.


2. After Genesis, Hebrew Scripture defines sin in terms
of Torah law. It was endowed to Jews as a commitment to their covenant with
Yahweh. To link to the idea of inherited sin, the Torah had to be relegated to
a standard that inferior humans can't live up to. Technically this is correct,
as evidenced by their fall from grace when they were exiled. From this it was
offered as proof that righteous behavior is futile; everybody is a sinner.


3. Late Hebrew Scripture abounds in prophecies about the
coming of a day when there will be a Kingdom of Israel on earth, a place free
of sin and suffering. It would be a new Eden formed out of a new Creation. On
that day mankind would be judged by Yahweh or his consecrated Messiah from the
family of David. After much destruction, those judged righteous would be
entitled to live in the new Kingdom. There are mutations, but this is the
general picture.


Watch how terms shift meaning: The parochial fantasies of
the Kingdom of Israel changed to the Kingdom of God to the Kingdom of Heaven
to the more universal sounding, Heaven. The Messiah went from a human Davidic
son of God to a incarnate divine Son of God. The
harsh sounding word, Judgment, was replaced with a more positive sounding
Salvation. Once the Torah was relegated as a stopgap measure until the
apocalypse, it was no longer necessary to be Jewish as long as one had faith.



This is just a sampling of how Midrash works, but it
shows that whenever reality disappoints, the best alternative is to alter the
semantics with subtle shifts. It also gives a lie to the claim that the Bible
came into print by revelation from God. Could a so-called perfect deity be so
fickle every time his plan got frustrated?



Next, it helps to get a flavor for the environment Paul
lived in. As much as apologists insist that Christianity came into its own
independent of outside influence, that defense is not credible. Aside from its
Jewish influence, there are too many similarities with pagan mythology to be
ignored.

Historical Background

According to historians, in the years following the
Jewish exile 586 BCE, Jews migrated throughout Asia Minor. Under Hellenistic
rule, a large number settled in Alexandria, Egypt. After the Roman-Jewish war
in 70 CE, many Jewish prisoners were brought to Rome. Within those years and
after, without central rule in Israel and Judah, a variety of messianic cults
sprang from different speculations of how the messiah would restore the
Kingdom of Israel. The Jesus sect embodied one of those speculations.



Now let it be said that the death and resurrection of
savior gods who had the power to bring immortal life was typical of pagan
religions in Paul's day. This introduction presents a sampling of the many
religions, sects and cults that swirled around the Mesopotamia area.
Syncretism was a common process by which polytheistic religions were not only
tolerant of each other; they borrowed ideas from each other. It explains why
Greek speaking gentiles were able to accept Paul's mythology of a personal
resurrection.



Egypt had Osiris who was said
to be slain by the powers of darkness embodied by his brother Set. He rose
from the dead and was enthroned in the world of souls to judge every Egyptian
according to his works. There is no more obvious testimony to the Egyptian
belief in resurrection than their pyramids and mummies.



The Phoenician fertility god known to the Greeks as
Adonis was slain by a boar when he was in the prime of life. His death was
annually mourned in the spring, chiefly by women to symbolize the goddess
Aphrodite's loss. His yearly death and resurrection was timed to the death and
resurrection of vegetation. He was the counterpart to the Babylonian god,
Tammuz, which Ezekiel describes below.

¹⁴Then he
brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the LORD; and
behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. (Ez.
8:14)

In Phrygia, now known as Turkey, the death and
resurrection of the god Attis, symbolized the end
of winter and arrival of spring. When he was unfaithful to the goddess
Cybele, she had him castrated, which caused his
death.



Zoroastrianism was popular in ancient Persia (Iran).
Zoroastrians saw history as a cosmic struggle between the power of light and
goodness and that of darkness and evil. Mankind was perceived as a mere pawn
in this cosmic struggle. Upon death each person's soul will be judged at the
Bridge of Discrimination. The follower of Truth will cross and be led to
paradise, and the adherents of Lie will fall into hell. All evil will
eventually be eliminated on earth in an ordeal of fire and molten metal.


The Mithra cult began as an
ancient Persian god of light and wisdom. Mithra
was supposed to have slain the divine bull from whose dying body sprang all
plants and animals beneficial to humanity. Paul's home town of Tarsus was also
a center of Mithraic worship, the religion that
bears closest resemblance to Christianity.



It's most distinctive feature was the practice of
drinking the blood of the sacred bull or a chalice of wine in place of wine.
There are other similarities with Christianity: the ideals of humility and
brotherly love, baptism, the rite of communion, the use of holy water, the
adoration of Shepherds at Mithra's birth, the
adoption of Sundays and December 25 as holy days, and the belief in the
immortality of the soul, the last judgment, and the resurrection.




In the mid-4th century BCE, Alexander the Great conquered
the Persian Empire and the eastern Mediterranean region. It had the effect of
inaugurating the Hellenistic Age, in which Greek language, philosophy and
culture spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean. When the Romans conquered
the area in the first century BCE, they eagerly absorbed Hellenism.



From the Greeks, comes Dionysus, a son of Zeus who was
said to die each winter and be reborn each spring. Hercules was another son of
Zeus, said to be born of a human mother. The Greeks helped spread the cult of
Mithraism by identifying Mithra with Helios, the
Greek god of the sun. When the Romans absorbed Greek culture, they absorbed
Mithraism as well. Christianity did not emerge from this babble because of
some truth. It was a legacy of Roman imperialism.

Religious Darwinism

Although we are used to associating Darwin's theory of
natural selection and survival of the fittest with biology, the process
applies as well to religious movements and other categories of social
evolution. It was standard practice for kingdoms to have their gods. As
Jeremiah tells us, there was as many gods as there were cities.

²⁸But where
are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save
you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods,
O Judah. (Jer. 2:28)

More or less, they had the same themes but encapsulated
in different languages. As the smaller kingdoms were swallowed by the larger
ones, the religions of the smaller kingdoms usually merged into the larger
ones or fell into obsolescence.



From the days of the Babylonian exile 586 BCE to the Fall
of Jerusalem 70 CE, the hope of a restored kingdom of Israel was rooted deep
in Jewish beliefs. Palestine went from Babylonian rule to Persian rule, then
to the Greeks, then to the Romans. There can be no doubt that the Jews
absorbed a great deal from their captors. Greek culture especially was
absorbed into the region in the same way American culture has spread
throughout the world. In the third century BCE, Hebrew Scriptures were
translated into Greek, the Septuagint.



By the first century BCE, Yahweh was transformed from a
local tribal god, the God of Israel, to a Supreme Being, the God of the
universe. Instead of the Kingdom of Israel, the fantasy grew to the Kingdom of
God. Instead of a flesh and blood king, the next king would be a supernatural
intermediary. This cosmic messiah was going to terminate the old world and
inaugurate a new one inhabited by Yahweh's chosen people.



The Book of Daniel was the last to be incorporated into
Jewish Scripture. In the next passage, we can see the seeds of reward and
punishment when the messiah comes at the end of history.

²And many
of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to
everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

³And those who are wise shall shine
like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to
righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

¹³But go your way till the end;
and you shall rest, and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the
days." (Dan. 12:2-3, 13)

At the end, the anointed one will put an end to sin and
will restore and build Jerusalem. First, there will be a flood, and at the end
there will be a war causing desolation. He shall make a strong covenant and
shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease.

²⁴"Seventy
weeks of years are decreed concerning your people and your holy city, to
finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity,
to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet,
and to anoint a most holy place.

²⁵Know therefore and understand
that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the
coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for
sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a
troubled time.

²⁶And after the sixty-two weeks,
an anointed one shall be cut off, and shall have nothing; and the people
of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its
end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations
are decreed.

²⁷And he shall make a strong
covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall
cause sacrifice and offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations
shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the
desolator." (Dan. 9:24-25)

This apocalyptic vision was so ingrained that the
Synoptic Gospel writers have Jesus announcing the good news (gospel) at the
beginning of his mission. Yes, dear Christians, Jesus was out to save Jewish
sinners before the world came to end. His mission was contingent on a one time
event.

¹⁷"Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt. 4:17)

¹⁵"The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in
the gospel."(Mark 1:15)

⁴³"I must
preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was
sent for this purpose." (Luke 4:43)

⁵These twelve
Jesus sent out, charging them, "Go nowhere
among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans,

⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel.

⁷And preach as you go, saying, 'The
kingdom of heaven is at hand.' (Matt. 10:5-7)

The Book of Revelation predicted that Rome (personified
as Babylon) would be completely destroyed into oblivion. Of course it is still
standing.

²¹Then a
mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea,
saying, "So shall Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and
shall be found no more; (Rev. 18:21)

It also predicted that a tenth of Jerusalem would be
destroyed and seven thousand people would be killed in the earthquake. Of
course Jerusalem was completely destroyed and there was no earthquake.

¹³And at that
hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell;
seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were
terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven. (Rev. 11:13)

The Roman-Jewish War of 66-70 in which the Romans razed
Jerusalem and built a new city on top of the ruins, killed off the sects that
were pushing for a restoration of an earthly kingdom of Israel. There was no
chance of defeating the Romans. The prophecies were worthless; but to the
religious mind, time stands still. So the Kingdom of God would have to move
upstairs to heaven and wait for the messiah's return.


I've presented this introduction as a way of showing that
Christianity did not erupt suddenly because of Jesus' dramatic influence. It
evolved slowly in Darwinian fashion where a large variety of religions, sects
and cults where pared down to a few remaining survivors. The origins of
religion evolved out of a felt need to make sense out of a natural world
poorly understood. There was a lot of hubris involved here too.


This is where Paul comes in. By authoritative accounts,
he was a Jew whose mission began no earlier than 33 CE. His surviving letters
are dated between the years 50-60. He came from the city of Tarsus in southern
Turkey. Tarsus was located on a major highway and was an important market for
trade between Syria, Egypt and central Asia Minor. In his early life, he could
not fail to be impressed by the currents of different religions flowing
through Tarsus. This would explain why his ideas contain a mix of Judaic and
pagan mythologies.


That his sect survived among the messianic movements has
more to do with a lucky chain of events. He did not survive long enough to see
the Roman-Jewish war, but it gave his followers credibility. His Kingdom of
God was not on earth; it was in heaven. He had no quarrel with the Romans. In
fact he taught that they were anointed by God. Such flattery might have been a
factor when the Roman Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity as the official
religion of the empire in the 4th century. From that time, the word went out
to eradicate the pagan religions. You might say Christianity owes its success
to Darwinism.


When reading Paul it is essential to keep in mind that
his actions were governed by his belief that the world was going to end soon.
He saw himself as the only man who was graced by God to spread the word about
the coming of Judgment Day. On that fateful day there would much destruction.
When the dust settles, the unrighteous and the demonic powers will have been
annihilated. There will be a new creation, a new Eden inhabited by the
righteous. Of course, he expected to be among the righteous.


This is important enough to repeat: He foresaw a one time
opportunity to live forever (as a spirit) that was to occur on the day of the
apocalypse. As the centuries rolled by, the Catholic Church had to devise new
schemes to keep its authority alive. So as explained above, it was by a series
of semantic shifts that Judgment Day was divorced from the Apocalypse and
tacked onto the time of an individual's death.


I give Paul credit for his interpretation of the Bible
out of convenience, though I'm convinced that he drew heavily from his Jewish
contemporaries. On his overall mythology, we can't know what is original to
him, but it is not important. What is important is his unchallenged reputation
as the ideological founder of Christianity.

Authority

From the time of the Babylonian exile 586 BCE to the
Jewish-Roman War of 66-70 CE, the Jews did their best to resist any authority
that interfered with their tradition. Paul did not foresee the destruction of
Jerusalem. So it seems likely that his previous allegiance to Roman authority
fit with his quest to break off from Jewish tradition. When the war was over,
it made him appear prophetic.


Arguably, if it were not for the establishment of
Christianity as the official religion of Rome by Emperor Constantine in 313,
the fledgling Christian movement would not have survived. Officially,
Constantine claims that he had a vision of Christ which he credits to a major
battle victory that accounted for his rise to power. But some scholars believe
that he needed a new source of revenue. The pagans had the money and the
Christians had the friendliness.


To Paul, all authority comes from God. Whoever resists
the authorities resists what God has appointed and will incur judgment. When
you do wrong, they do not use the sword in vain. They are servants of God who
execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Pay your taxes, for they are ministers of
God. It didn't seem to matter to him that they were ruthless murderers. Add to
the fact that they were pagans; it would imply that God was supporting the
pagan religions.

¹Let every
person be subject to the governing authorities. For
there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been
instituted by God.

²Therefore he who resists the
authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur
judgment.

³For rulers are not a terror to
good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of
him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his
approval,

⁴for he is God's servant for your
good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain;
he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer.

⁵Therefore one must be subject, not
only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

⁶For the same reason you also pay
taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.


⁷Pay all of them their dues,
taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom
respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.(Rom. 13:1-7)

Jesus also preached cooperation with the Romans.

²¹."Render
therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that
are God's." (Matt. 22:21)

On many occasions
Paul claimed that his authority came by grace from God. Just so there is no
confusion here, he treats Jesus as a separate deity from God the Father.

⁹For I am the
least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the
church of God.

¹⁰But
by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in
vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I,
but the grace of God which is with me.
(1 Cor. 15:9-10)

¹⁵But
on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder,
because of the grace given me by God

¹⁶to
be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of
the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable,
sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
(Rom. 15:15-16)

Meanwhile, Jesus said
all authority has been given to him. So we would think that Paul would say he
preached on authority from Jesus.

¹⁸."All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (Matt. 28:18)

Instead he disavows any prior knowledge of Jesus until
the mystery was disclosed to him through the prophetic writings. By "prophetic
writings" he was referring to Hebrew Scripture. The Gospels weren't written in
his time.

²⁵Now to him
who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of
Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept
secret for long ages

²⁶but is now disclosed and
through the prophetic writings is made known to all nations, according to
the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith
(Rom. 16:25)

I don't recommend to Christians that they share Paul's
confidence in the prophets. Isaiah, for example, walked around naked and
barefoot for three years because he thought God told him to. If that wasn't
bad enough, he believed that his actions would force the Egyptians and
Ethiopians to do the same.

²at that time
the LORD had spoken by Isaiah the son of Amoz,
saying, "Go, and loose the sackcloth from your loins and take off your shoes
from your feet," and he had done so, walking naked and barefoot-

³the LORD said, "As my servant
Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a
portent against Egypt and Ethiopia,

⁴so shall the king of Assyria lead
away the Egyptians captives and the Ethiopians exiles, both the young and the
old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
(Isa. 20:2-4)

Final Thought


When Paul claims his authority came by God's grace, all
anyone has is his word for it. There is no reason to suspect he didn't believe
himself, but it doesn't matter. In his time, people were not cognizant of the
fact that their thoughts were self generated. This is the conceit upon which
Christians are placing their faith.


Related Reading




Paul's Confessions of Ignorance




Paul's Mystery