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 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?
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?
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 does modern Christianity no longer 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?
Count 3: The law as a curse
- 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?
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?
- Could a book regarded as “revelation” have been shaped by human judgment and church interests?
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?
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?