Glossary

The names and terms that recur across the chapters, as the book defines them.

Antioch

A city in Syria, the early center of the mission that included Paul and Barnabas, where the disciples were first called Christians.

Apostle to the Gentiles

Paul’s title for himself (Romans 11:13), claiming the mission to non-Jews as his own. See also Paul the Apostle.

Barnabas

An early preacher faithful to the tawḥīd and law taught by ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, who parted from Paul after their conflict over the law of Mūsā and circumcision.

Christology

The branch of Christian theology concerned with the nature and role of Christ. Paul pioneered a Christology of absolute divinity.

Cilicia

The Roman province in the south-east of Asia Minor where Tarsus, Paul’s birthplace, stood. He preached there after his call.

Corinth

The Greek port city where Paul spent a year and a half (Acts 18:11) and to which he wrote two of his letters.

Damascus

The city in al-Shām (present-day Syria) near which Saul claimed to have received the revelation that made him a follower of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.

Ephesus

The chief city of Roman Asia, where Paul stayed about two years (Acts 19:10) and wrote to the Corinthians.

Fiṭrah

The original, pure state in which human beings are created, inclined toward the truth and the oneness of God. In Islam it is the natural human instinct to know and worship the One God. People depart from it through outside influence such as misguided teaching or upbringing.

Gamaliel

The leading Jewish rabbi who taught Paul in Jerusalem in his youth.

Gentile

From the Latin for the nations: anyone who is not a Jew. Here it refers mainly to the Greco-Roman population that Paul targeted.

Ḥawāriyyūn

(الحواريون) The faithful disciples of ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ, who continued his mission after he was raised to the heavens.

Hellenism

The influence of Greek culture and philosophy that spread through the Middle East after the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Injīl

The original revelation sent down by God to ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. It is distinct from the books called gospels in Christianity today.

ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ

A prophet of God from the Children of Israel who brought the teaching of tawḥīd and upheld the law of the Torah. Islam rejects the claims that he was the son of God and that he founded Christianity.

Jerusalem Council

The early meeting of the disciples that decided whether Gentile converts had to keep the law of the Torah.

Jesus of Nazareth

The name by which ʿĪsā ibn Maryam is known in the Christian tradition. In Islam he is a prophet and messenger of God.

Logos

(Λόγος) A concept in Greek philosophy and in the writings of Philo of Alexandria: an intermediary between God and creation. It shaped early Christian theology.

Original sin

The Christian belief that all people bear guilt for the sin of Ādam. Islam rejects it.

Paul (Saul of Tarsus)

A Jew of Tarsus who claimed to have received revelation and to be an apostle, and who then altered the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam to win over Gentiles.

Paul the Apostle

The name the church gives Paul after his call, also written Saint Paul or St Paul. In his own letters he calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ and the apostle of the Gentiles.

Paulinism

The system of belief built on Paul’s letters, also called Pauline Christianity, or Paulism by its critics. The case on this site is that it is not the religion taught by ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.

Peter (Cephas)

One of the leading disciples of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, who held to the law of the Torah.

Pharisees

A Jewish party that stressed strict observance of the Torah and the oral tradition; the ideological opponents of the Sadducees. Paul was a Pharisee.

Philo of Alexandria

A Hellenistic Jewish thinker known for joining Platonic philosophy to the Torah. His idea of the Logos is thought to have influenced early Christian theology.

Sadducees

A conservative Jewish party that rejected the oral tradition and accepted only the written Torah.

Saul of Tarsus

Paul’s Hebrew name, Shaʾul, the name he bore as a Pharisee and persecutor before his call. Acts uses it until Cyprus (Acts 13:9) and Paul after.

Stephen

The first martyr of the Jerusalem community, stoned with the approval of Saul before his conversion.

Talmud

The compiled body of Jewish oral tradition. Some of Paul’s teaching appears to draw on the interpretations it records.

Tarsus

Paul’s birthplace, in Cilicia in Anatolia (modern Türkiye), a center of Greco-Roman learning.

Tawḥīd

(توحيد) Belief in the oneness of God, the foundation of the teaching of every prophet including ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. Paul altered it into a mixed conception of divinity.

Torah

The scripture revealed to Mūsā, containing the law binding on the Children of Israel.

Transvaluation

The reversal of a teaching into its opposite while its name is kept: here, Paul’s turning of the ethic of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, the law kept from the heart, into a dogma of salvation by the cross. See The measure: the standard of this case.

Trinity

The Christian doctrine that God is three in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It contradicts the original teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.

Typology

A symbolic method of interpretation that treats figures and events of the Hebrew Bible as foreshadowings of Christian events. Paul pioneered it to support his claims about Christ.

Urgemeinde

German for “original community”: the first followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam in Jerusalem, who held to tawḥīd and the law of the Torah.