Post by CoUrTnEy on Sept 22, 2004 18:24:45 GMT -5
Did Paul invent Christianity?
Ankerberg: You are an expert on the Apostle Paul. A lot of people have said that Paul was the one that really created Christ, the Messiah, the God-man, if you want. What would you say to those folks?
Witherington: Well, if Paul was a person operating 50, 60, 70 years after the time of Jesus, that could be a reasonable historical argument. We could actually debate that. But the truth of the matter is that Paul was converted within three or four years of the death of Jesus. And Paul himself tells us that among the other things that he did, he went up to Jerusalem and he consulted with the pillar apostles. Galatians is very clear about this. He talked with Peter, James and John. And you may be sure that they didn’t talk about the weather. They talked about matters of theological and ethical importance. Missionary strategies: who was going to go to the Gentiles, who was going to go to the Jews. I mean it’s the height of naiveté to suggest that Paul could have invented a Gospel about Jesus as the Christ, or as the son of God, not run it by the pillar apostles in Jerusalem, and gotten away with it. I mean, the truth of the matter is that there weren’t millions of followers of Jesus in first century A.D. Rather there was a rather tightly interwoven group of Christians in various parts of the empire and all of them had as their touchstone the original Christians in Jerusalem: Peter, James and John and the original followers of Jesus.
And so, if Paul affirmed these things, you may be sure that he affirmed them in agreement with the earliest apostles.
Ankerberg: Yes, in 1 Corinthians 15 he says "whether it was we or they, this is what we all preached."
Witherington: And this is what we all believed. And he says that this was handed down a sacred tradition.
(this exerpt is from John Ankerberg's website http://www.ankerberg.com)
Ankerberg: You are an expert on the Apostle Paul. A lot of people have said that Paul was the one that really created Christ, the Messiah, the God-man, if you want. What would you say to those folks?
Witherington: Well, if Paul was a person operating 50, 60, 70 years after the time of Jesus, that could be a reasonable historical argument. We could actually debate that. But the truth of the matter is that Paul was converted within three or four years of the death of Jesus. And Paul himself tells us that among the other things that he did, he went up to Jerusalem and he consulted with the pillar apostles. Galatians is very clear about this. He talked with Peter, James and John. And you may be sure that they didn’t talk about the weather. They talked about matters of theological and ethical importance. Missionary strategies: who was going to go to the Gentiles, who was going to go to the Jews. I mean it’s the height of naiveté to suggest that Paul could have invented a Gospel about Jesus as the Christ, or as the son of God, not run it by the pillar apostles in Jerusalem, and gotten away with it. I mean, the truth of the matter is that there weren’t millions of followers of Jesus in first century A.D. Rather there was a rather tightly interwoven group of Christians in various parts of the empire and all of them had as their touchstone the original Christians in Jerusalem: Peter, James and John and the original followers of Jesus.
And so, if Paul affirmed these things, you may be sure that he affirmed them in agreement with the earliest apostles.
Ankerberg: Yes, in 1 Corinthians 15 he says "whether it was we or they, this is what we all preached."
Witherington: And this is what we all believed. And he says that this was handed down a sacred tradition.
(this exerpt is from John Ankerberg's website http://www.ankerberg.com)