Monday, May 14, 2012
Answering Shmuley Boteach: Did Paul Dupe the Apostles?
In his new book Kosher Jesus, Shmuley Boteach argues that Jesus died and was buried. The Jesus movement was on its last legs, until Paul came on the scene, preaching some new crackpot revelation about Jesus.
In defiance of their teacher's own words, Paul preaches a total break from all the Torah's principles. More and more gentiles embrace the new belief-based religion. As much as the old disciples would like to distance themselves from the stranger's new ways, they find they cannot. He has brought new life to their dying movement, injecting new blood and new funds. The rabbi's disciples have long suffered in extreme poverty, and the Roman converts come with gold.
When I was reading through a book on evangelism by Earley & Wheeler, I noticed a passage about the martyrdom of Jesus' apostles.
Stephen was stoned to death about AD 34. James, the brother of John, was beheaded about AD 44. Philip was scourged, thrown into prison, and afterwards crucified about AD 54. Matthew suffered martyrdom by the sword about AD 60. James, the brother of Jesus, was beaten, stoned, and had his brains bashed out with a club. Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem and then beheaded. Andrew was arrested and crucified on a cross, two ends of which were fixed transversely in the ground. Mark was dragged to pieces by people of Alexandria in front of Serapis, their pagan idol. Peter was crucified upside down. Paul gave his neck to the sword (about 64). Barthomew was beaten and crucified in India. Thomas was thrust through with a spear by pagan priests. Luke was hanged on an olive tree in Greece. Jude, the half brother of Jesus, was crucified in Edessa in about AD 72.
If the original disciples were willing to lie about their master's fate and embrace some new teaching by Paul because of material gain, at what point would they have realized this wasn't working? Early Christianity was a very dangerous religion to embrace. Once it ceased to be recognized by the Roman government as a branch of the protected religion of Judaism, the persecutions and mass executions began, and did not stop until shortly after the year 300.
The time from the earliest apostle's martyrdom to the last is about 40 years. Generally, conspiracies only last until a key member is caught and interrogated. Martyrdom, on the other hand, is a sign that the martyrs believe what they are dying for. Liars make terrible martyrs. However, the disciples of Jesus, on Shmuley's account, knew Paul's gospel was a lie and preached it anyway.
How then do you explain this willingness of the apostles to die for this faith? I would expect that at least one of these apostles would have admitted the scandal to save his life. It would be quite profitable for an apostle to save his life by turning on the early church and exposing the fraud to the Romans who wanted to wipe out Christianity.
But of course, this is Shmuley's work. You didn't think he would let something like plausibility get in the way of a good story, did you?
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Hey Drew it's Funkifizzle again. In my humble opinion, this whole idea of "How could people die in the name of Paul if he was a phoney!?" rhetoric does absolutely nothing for the sake of the validity of the gospels. Ever hear of Marshall Applewhite and his religious cult, "Heavens Gate"? This lunatic claimed to be the second coming of jesus and convinced 39 followers to commit suicide so that their souls could board a supposed spacecraft attached to the Hale-Bopp comet. Applewhite believed that after their deaths, a UFO would take their souls to another "level of existence above human", which Applewhite described as being both physical and spiritual. This mass suicide took place in 1997. Using your mode of logic, since these people "died for their beliefs" this means that their looney cult must speak the truth. Common man, people have been dying for centuries in the name of falsehood. Granted, I see where you are trying to go with this, but when put into a historical perspective, these followers of Paul/jesus might as well have been followers of Marshall Applewhite.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Are you going to respond to my refutations of your Isaiah 53 article? Shalom.
Obviously, they believed that Jesus was their Messiah. They had seen Him crucified, buried, and resurrected from the dead. No torture could force them to speak anything but the Truth. They each died testifying to that truth.
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing we can tell about the Heaven's Gate people. They believed what they were told. The difference with the apostles is that under Shmuley's model, they would have known firsthand that they were preaching a lie. People do not die for what they know firsthand is false.
ReplyDeleteHey Drew, it's funkifizzle again. I should have clarified that I am not necessarily going by Shmuely's model. I was speaking from a more general perspective. But from Shmuley's perspective, I wouldn't necessarily rule out that possiblity. The fact is, we don't know what the apostles or the people involved in the Heaven's Gate cult truly "believed." We can assume based upon their actions, but keep in mind that Marshall Applewhite HIMSELF committed suicide that night along with his followers. Now, you can always dismiss the guy and his followers as "crazy" just as much as you could call the apostles "crazy" based upon your criterion of "If someone dies for a cause, they must believe that the cause they stand for is absolutely true." My point is that your criterion is a poor standard of evidence, with or without Shmuley's assumption. Were the apostles knowingly perpetuating a lie? Was Marshall Applewhite knowingly perpetuating a lie? In both cases, they each died for their respective causes. Their deaths do not validate their causes as being truthful.
DeleteApplewhite was crazy and believed what he taught. Unlike the apostles, he could not have known firsthand that he died for a lie.
DeleteYou write: "If the original disciples were willing to lie about their master's fate and embrace some new teaching by Paul because of material gain, at what point would they have realized this wasn't working?"
ReplyDeleteEven if we accept the reports that Jesus' disciples died for their belief in Jesus -- who says that they believed in the New Testament or in the ressurection of Jesus? Maybe they just believed that he was the messiah and nothing more?
In other words, how do you know that they embraced (and therefore died for) the Paulian innovations?