Apostle of Doom
Paul of Tarsus and the corruption of the message of ʿĪsā
Saul of Tarsus hunted the followers of the Messiah, then claimed to speak for him. The articles here set out the evidence, from his own letters and from fourteen centuries of Muslim scholarship.
The charges
Six counts against Paul, each argued from his own letters and from the record of the community that knew ʿĪsā.
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Count·I
Two portraits of ʿĪsā
Muslims and Christians both claim to love ʿĪsā. They love two different figures, and the difference traces back to one man.
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Count·II
Paul against the disciples
The Jerusalem community kept the law of Mūsā. Paul set it aside, then performed it in the Temple when it suited him.
In 2 parts
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Count·III
The law as a curse
Salvation by faith alone and the law of Mūsā recast as a curse. How Paul rebuilt the message of ʿĪsā for a Gentile audience.
In 3 parts
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Count·IV
Revelation or borrowing?
Paul claimed his gospel came by direct revelation. Its central ideas were already circulating among the rabbis before him.
In 2 parts
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Count·V
How Paul came to own the New Testament
Thirteen of the twenty-seven books bear Paul's name, and the canon was settled by churches that followed him. The letters themselves do not agree.
In 3 parts
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Count·VI
Paul, the father of a new religion
The followers of ʿĪsā called themselves believers. Paul's churches acquired a new name and a new faith, and Western thinkers from Jefferson onward noticed.
In 3 parts
The man
Saul of Tarsus, from persecutor of the first believers to self-appointed apostle, and the mind behind the change.
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Profile
Who was Paul of Tarsus?
A Pharisee from Cilicia who hunted the first followers of ʿĪsā, then claimed to be their apostle. What the sources allow us to know about the man.
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The vision
The vision: from Saul to Paul
Acts records that Saul dragged men and women to prison and consented to the killing of Stephen. The Jewish tradition has a name for that hatred.
In 3 parts
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The mind
A psychological portrait of Paul
A persecutor who began to see visions, and never stopped fighting his own past. What identity theory and psychoanalysis suggest.
In 2 parts
Answers to missionary claims
Short answers to the claims Christian missionaries make most often about Paul.
Was Paul an apostle of Jesus?
Paul never met ʿĪsā (ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him) during his life. His claim rests on a vision near Damascus, which the only narrative source tells three times with contradictory details. The men who had walked with ʿĪsā never granted him the standing he claimed for himself.
Full evidence: The Damascus road: one vision, three stories
Did Muslim scholars accept Paul as a disciple?
The claim rests on a few histories that list Paul’s name among early Christian figures. The scholars who examined his teaching judged him the corrupter of the religion of ʿĪsā, from Khushaysh ibn Aṣram in the ninth century to ʿAbd al-Jabbār in the tenth and Isma’il R. al Faruqi in the twentieth.
Full evidence: Paul in the Islamic tradition
Did more than five hundred people see the risen Jesus?
Only Paul says so, and he was not there. No Gospel records the event, and Paul names none of the five hundred.
Full evidence: Revelation or borrowing?
Did Paul and the disciples teach the same gospel?
Paul’s own letter records him opposing Peter to his face at Antioch. In Jerusalem, James had to instruct him to prove in the Temple that he still kept the law he told his converts was finished.
Full evidence: Paul against the disciples
Did Jesus set aside the law of Mūsā?
ʿĪsā said he came to fulfill the law, and that not a stroke of it would pass away. Paul called the law a curse and declared Christ its end.
Full evidence: The law as a curse
Does the New Testament speak with one voice?
Paul’s letters contradict one another on the law, and more sharply still on the place of women. Scholars accept only seven of the thirteen letters that carry his name as his own work.
Full evidence: How Paul came to own the New Testament
The witnesses
The Jewish followers of ʿĪsā who refused Paul, the Muslim scholars who named him, and a letter from one who once defended him.
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The early church
The first witnesses against Paul
The first to reject Paul were followers of ʿĪsā who kept his law. Their own opponents in the church recorded their testimony.
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The Islamic tradition
Paul in the Islamic tradition
Muslim scholars named Paul as the corrupter of the religion of ʿĪsā a thousand years before Western criticism reached the same place.
In 3 parts
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Testimony
An epistle to the churches of Paul
A letter in Paul's own form, written by one who once defended him, to those who still do.