These questions accompany the articles. They follow the book’s “method of questioning”: each set runs in sequence, and each question builds on the answer to the one before it.

They suit book circles and apologetics classes, and teachers can use them as the basis for a structured module. Answer each question in writing or discuss it in a group, and take the questions in order.

The man: Who was Paul of Tarsus? #

What gave Paul, a man who never met ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, such a high place in church tradition?
How did a former persecutor become the most dominant figure in the history of Christian theology?
What in Paul’s social and intellectual background might explain his boldness in shaping a new teaching?
If he was not among the disciples, on what authority can his teaching rest?
Is his personal experience enough to rival the authority of the true disciples of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam?
Are we witnessing the beginning of a systematic deviation, organized by a man who was no prophet?

The man: The Roman #

Why does Acts change Saul’s name to Paul in the presence of the proconsul Sergius Paulus, and what might the timing tell us?
ʿĪsā ibn Maryam spoke Aramaic to the people he was sent to. What did Paul’s Greek and his Roman name make possible for him?
Paul produced his Roman citizenship at the moment of punishment. Why could Peter, John, Stephen and James not do the same?
What did Paul’s appeal to Caesar decide about who would judge him?
The Qurʾān describes messengers sent in the tongue of their own people. How does Paul measure against that description?
Did the road from Islamicjerusalem to Rome, which the religion of Paul later travelled, begin with Paul himself?

The man: Saul the persecutor #

Acts records that Saul consented to the death of Stephen and dragged men and women to prison. What would it take for such a man to be trusted as a teacher of the faith he hunted?
Why did Saul ask the high priest for letters before he set out for Damascus, and what does the request show about how he dealt with his opponents?
Paul admits that he persecuted the church “beyond measure.” Does the admission close the matter, or does it become part of his claim to authority?
What is sinat chinam (שִׂנְאַת חִנָּם, “hatred without cause”), and does the record of Saul’s conduct fit it?
If a persecutor’s repentance rests on his own report alone, how can anyone test it?
Where does the method of using institutional authority against an opponent, in place of argument, appear again in religious polemic, including in our own time?

The man: The Damascus road #

How should we assess the story of Paul’s conversion at Damascus, the experience on which his whole authority rests?
If there are three different versions of the event, which should be accepted as authentic?
If the versions contradict one another, what follows for his claim to apostleship?
Why does the church still give absolute trust to so unsteady a narrative?
Could the conversion story be a narrative constructed to build spiritual authority?
Did Paul’s apostleship come from revelation, or from a strategy designed to win influence?
When a defence needs the same Greek word, phōnē, to mean a voice in one verse of the story and a mere sound in another, what does that say about the story?

The man: The purse #

Paul says he preached the gospel “without charge,” yet argues at length for his right to be paid. How do the two claims sit together?
The leaders in Islamicjerusalem asked Paul to remember the poor. How did that request become a fund that ran through his letters for years?
Romans says the Gentiles owe the saints in Islamicjerusalem “carnal things” in return for spiritual ones. Was the collection charity, or the price of recognition?
What were the Corinthians suspecting when Paul wrote “being crafty, I caught you with guile”?
According to Acts, why did the governor Felix send for Paul so often?
How does Paul’s handling of money compare with the instruction ʿĪsā ibn Maryam gave his disciples to carry neither gold nor silver?

The man: A psychological portrait of Paul #

What state of mind made it possible for Paul to create a new system of belief?
How can guilt and the desire to dominate shape a system of belief?
Is the claim of revelation a mask for an unresolved crisis of identity or disturbance of mind?
If so, should his teaching be reassessed as the product of inner conflict, with its claim to spiritual inspiration set aside?
What are the long-term effects on a religious institution founded by a man of unstable mind?
Is the religion inherited today the result of one individual’s inner turmoil, with no divine revelation behind it?

The man: The character of Paul #

Bentham called the Temple vow a perjury. Can an oath sworn against one’s own written teaching be anything else?
Paul cursed the emissaries of James and wished them mutilated. How does that conduct compare with the test of fruits ʿĪsā ibn Maryam gave?
Paul commanded slaves to obey and subjects to submit to Nero as to God. Are these the words of revelation or of a first-century man?
Paul bruised his body and preached that all things are lawful. How does the incest, prostitution and drunkenness at Corinth bear on the doctrine that produced them?
Jefferson, Bentham and Shaw judged Paul’s character without reference to Islam. Why did they reach the verdict Muslim scholars had reached centuries earlier?

The charges: The measure #

Why should the standard for judging Paul be stated before the charges are heard, and why must it belong to neither side?
The Qurʾān offers itself to the test of contradiction. What happens when Paul’s letters, and the book written about him, are put to the same test?
What does the fiṭrah know of God without a council or a creed, and how does a Christ “in the form of God” stand before it?
If “no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another”, what remains of a doctrine of inherited sin and a redeemer who pays for it?
ʿĪsā ibn Maryam came “confirming what was before me of the Torah” and lightening some of its burdens. How does upholding the law in that way differ from abolishing it?
“Actions are but by intentions.” How does that saying judge a salvation granted by faith without deeds?

Count 1: Two portraits of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam #

If ʿĪsā ibn Maryam ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him brought the authentic message of tawḥīd, why has modern Christianity ceased to reflect it?
Who first spread the form of teaching that departed from the original revelation?
What happens to a doctrine when its founder is a figure from after the prophet’s time, and no prophet or messenger himself?
If a system is built on human influence, how does it survive and keep the loyalty of its followers?
Why was the deviation not detected earlier by the communities that came before?
Can confusion about the origin of a religion lead to the veneration of someone God never sent?

Count 2: Paul against the disciples #

If Paul’s apostleship is beyond question, why did the disciples who learned from ʿĪsā ibn Maryam directly withhold their support?
What form did the disputes between Paul and figures such as Peter and Barnabas take?
Were these disputes about strategy alone, or about fundamental theology?
If Paul departed from the revealed law while the disciples upheld it, who was carrying on the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam?
How could belief systems in conflict be merged into a single religion?
Is the Christianity inherited today the product of a historical compromise, with no continuity of revelation behind it?
If the only letter in which Peter praises Paul was written in Peter’s name after his death, what does the record left by Paul himself show of their relationship?
Paul says that three years after his call he was still unknown by face to the churches of Judaea; Acts has him raiding their houses in Jerusalem before it. Which account should a historian prefer, and what does the choice mean for the rest of the story Acts tells?

Count 3: The message remade #

How should we assess Paul’s central doctrines of original sin and faith without works?
What does the doctrine of original sin do to the idea of individual responsibility in belief?
If salvation is promised through belief in the crucifixion alone, what room is left for effort and good deeds?
Why did Paul call the law a “curse,” when God had revealed it?
If the abolition of the law rests on the crucifixion, does that mean the earlier revelation failed?
Did Paul build his doctrine of salvation on spiritual logic, or on the need to adapt to a pagan audience?
In Romans, Paul denies that faith makes the law void, then later in the same letter uses the same verb to say that believers are delivered from the law. Which of the two statements governs his teaching?
ʿĪsā ibn Maryam said that whoever breaks the least of the commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Where does that saying leave a teacher who told his congregations they were delivered from the law?
Mark ends the disciples’ quarrel over greatness with the Son of man giving his life “a ransom for many”; Luke, telling the same quarrel, ends it at service. What does the difference suggest about how widely the Gospel writers shared the doctrine Paul placed at the centre?

Count 4: Revelation or borrowing? #

How much of Paul’s teaching is original revelation, and how much is adapted from Hellenistic culture or the rabbis?
What evidence shows that many of his ideas run parallel to Jewish oral tradition and to pagan philosophy?
If so, why is his teaching still treated as divine inspiration, when it may be the thought of one man?
How do we tell revelation apart from theology shaped by its cultural setting?
Could the claim of “revelation” be a strategy to justify a synthesis of old and new teaching?
Is Paul’s teaching a form of syncretism raised to the status of a universal religion?

Count 5: How Paul came to own the New Testament #

How did Paul’s writings come to dominate the New Testament over the Gospels that record the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam?
Why are so many books of the New Testament letters of Paul, when so few come from the disciples?
If some of those letters were written by his followers, what is their status as scripture?
How was the canon of the New Testament decided, and who had the authority to fix it?
If the canon was settled long after ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, who is responsible for the final shape of this scripture?
2 Timothy 3:16 is quoted to show that the whole Bible is inspired. Which scriptures does the verse before it say Timothy had known from a child, and whose letter do most scholars take 2 Timothy to be?
Could a book regarded as “revelation” have been shaped by human judgment and church interests?
If gospels were rejected for being anonymous or late, how did four anonymous gospels, an anonymous letter to the Hebrews and a late 2 Peter pass the same tests?

Count 6: Paul, the father of a new religion #

What separates today’s Christianity from any new religion invented by human beings?
Is it fair to say that Paul founded a religion of his own, and that he never conveyed the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam?
If so, what marks the religion of Paul off from the teaching of the prophets?
How did political power and Greco-Roman culture, working through the church, help legitimize this teaching?
Did Christianity begin with revelation, or with institution-building?
Who founded this religion: Jesus of Nazareth, or Paul of Tarsus?

Count 6: The religion of Paul in Malaysia and Southeast Asia #

How did the religion of Paul arrive in Southeast Asia, and what came with it?
What is Christian Zionism, and how does it draw on the Pauline reading of sacrifice and purification?
What did the debate in the Dewan Negara in April 2017 say about the movement in Malaysia?
How has the medium of missionary work changed from the colonial school and hospital to social media?
Why does it matter that Muslim scholars in the region answer in Malay?
Are the missionary claims heard in Malaysia today the claims examined across this site, and how would you answer them?

Witness: The first witnesses against Paul #

Who were the Ebionites, and why did they reject Paul?
Most of what we know about these communities comes from church writers who condemned them. How should a reader weigh hostile witnesses?
What did the Nazarenes hold about the law of Mūsā, and how did their view differ from Paul’s?
Why did the Elkesaites reject claims to private revelation of the kind Paul made?
What does the Arabic source published by Shlomo Pines add to the record of the early followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam?
If the first followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam rejected Paul, what does that mean for the Muslim scholars who later named him the corrupter of the religion?

Witness: James, the brother of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam #

What standing did James hold in the community at Islamicjerusalem, by Paul’s own account and by the account of Acts?
James’s judgment at the council admitted Gentiles on the terms the Torah set for the stranger. How does that ruling compare with Paul’s later teaching on the law?
James and Paul cite the same verse about Abraham and reach opposite conclusions. Which reading keeps faith and deeds together?
Why did Martin Luther call the epistle of James “an epistle of straw”?
Josephus records the death of James. Why does no such notice survive for Paul?
How did the man who led the community of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam for thirty years disappear from the history of the church?

Witness: Paul in the Islamic tradition #

What is the Islamic view of a figure who altered revelation?
How do the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth (حديث, “prophetic tradition”) judge a man who claims revelation without the support of the community or a valid prophetic mission?
What is the wisdom in Islam’s insistence that Muḥammad (ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-sallam, peace and blessings be upon him) is the last prophet and messenger?
How can exposing Paul help Muslims answer modern Christian missionary claims?
If this knowledge becomes a defense of belief, what is the best way to convey it in teaching and apologetics?
Is exposing the role of Paul an intellectual and religious duty in defending the message of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam and of Islam?

Witness: The Qurʾān as witness #

The Qurʾān never names Paul. How can it serve as a witness against his teaching?
What does the Qurʾān say of the crucifixion, and what becomes of the doctrine of redemption if it is right?
How does the Qurʾān set the words of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam against the words said about him?
The verse on “lords besides Allah” names two steps. What are they, and where do they appear in the history of the church?
How does the Qurʾān describe the altering of scripture, and how does that compare with the way Paul’s letters quote the Tanakh?
Whom does the Qurʾān honour as the ḥawāriyyūn (الحواريون, “the disciples”), and who among them led the community after ʿĪsā ibn Maryam?

Witness: The hostile witnesses #

Why does a court give special weight to testimony against the witness’s own interest, and does the principle hold for these witnesses against Paul?
Jefferson removed every writing of Paul from his compilation of the Gospels. What did he believe he was recovering?
Wrede judged Paul’s influence the stronger, though not the better. What does the first half of that judgment concede, and what does the second charge?
Shaw spoke of Paul’s soul imposed upon the soul of Jesus. Which of the charges on this site does that sentence gather into one?
None of these witnesses owed anything to Islam. What does their agreement with the Muslim scholars add to the case?

Witness: An epistle to the churches of Paul #

The closing letter is written in the form and cadence of Paul’s own epistles. What does that choice of form achieve?
The writer says he once defended Paul with all his zeal. What, according to the letter, changed his mind?
The letter asks whether a revelation from heaven would speak with one voice. Which articles on this site bear on that question?
What does the letter ask its readers to test, and by what standard?
How does the letter describe the station ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ claimed for himself?
Satire holds a mirror to its subject. What does this mirror show of Paul’s letters?