Paul and Jesus: The True Story

by David Wenham

Overview

It has been fashionable in New Testament scholarship to view the apostle Paul as a religious "freelancer" who corrupted Jesus' teachings. David Wenham has written convincingly against this view, and in this new book he introduces readers to the "true" Paul.

Rooted in a thorough knowledge of the New Testament, this book fulfills two important purposes. First, it provides a superb introduction to Paul himself. Wenham describes Paul's early life, shows the importance of his conversion, and follows him on his missionary journeys. Second, the book explores Paul's relation to Jesus. Writing in dialogue with those who wish to distance Paul from Jesus, Wenham shows just how important the ministry and teaching of Jesus were to Paul's own thought and evangelism. What emerges from a study of Paul's epistles is a man who drew extensively on the traditions of Jesus and faithfully worked to spread his message to the rest of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802839831
Publisher:	Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Publication date:	01/23/2007
Pages:	212
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.48(d)

Read an Excerpt

Paul and Jesus

The True Story

---

By David Wenham

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Copyright © 2002 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-8028-3983-5

---

Chapter One

2 The big bang!

The story of Paul's meeting with the risen Jesus on the Damascus Road must be the most famous conversion story of all time. However we understand the event, it changed the world - and not just for Paul himself. It did, of course, change Paul's world. Some people have questioned whether it should be called a 'conversion', since in Paul's view it was not a case of changing his religion, but of finding the Messiah for whom he and other Jews had been waiting. However, if the word 'conversion' means turning from one way to another, that certainly happened to Paul. It was a dramatic change. In 2 Corinthians 5.17 Paul can use the phrase 'new creation' of the person who becomes a Christian. It was like that for him: the light that shone at creation shone into his heart, and brought new life (2 Corinthians 4.3). It also brought a whole new understanding of God and his purposes: when Paul says in Galatians 1.12 that he received his gospel 'by revelation from Jesus Christ', he is clearly referring to his conversion as the momentous occasion when he came to understand the good news.

It all happened when he was leading an anti-Christian campaign. There had been a campaign going on against the Christian movement for some time: the arrest and execution of Jesus in around AD 30 was the first main attempt toeliminate the troublesome movement, as the authorities saw it. But unfortunately for them this did not stop the Christian momentum for any length of time; indeed rather the opposite happened. The Christians claimed that Jesus had come to life again, and the authorities found themselves faced with a rapidly growing movement of people, who were not only propagating the ideas that had made Jesus so offensive but were also claiming that the authorities had disgracefully executed someone who had now been brought to life again by God and who was the Jewish Messiah.

There seem to have been sporadic attempts to stop the progress of the emerging Church, but things seem to have taken a more violent turn with Stephen, as we have seen. Whether this was because he was more vocal in his criticism of Jewish religion than the twelve apostles had been, or whether it was that the Jewish leaders were getting more desperate as they saw the 'heresy' spreading from the original Galilean-led group to other Jewish groups, or whether it was particular individuals who became involved in the anti-Christian campaign, we don't know. But certainly one very forceful individual got involved, namely the young Pharisaic student Saul.

The impact on the Christian movement of the persecution that followed Stephen's martyrdom was dramatic. But once again the effect was more positive than negative, from a Christian point of view, as the Christians who were forced to leave Jerusalem spread the message to all sorts of places (Acts 8.1, 4). Damascus in Syria was one of the places which soon had a group of Christians associated with the Jewish synagogues there. From the point of view of the Jerusalem authorities, the situation was alarming; the cancer was spreading across the Jewish world, corrupting Jews and also, no doubt, Gentile 'God-fearing' supporters of the synagogue. In this context Saul was authorized to pursue the Christians in Damascus; we may guess that this was his initiative, which was then approved by the authorities.

All of this is spelled out by the book of Acts, but Paul's letter to the Galatians confirms that he was a zealous persecutor of the Christians, and that his conversion took place in or near Damascus (1.13-15). As for a date: these developments may well have taken place within a year or two of the death of Jesus, and so Saul was on the Damascus Road in AD 31 or 32. (For a scholarly discussion of all dating issues see R. Riesner, Paul's Early Period.)

What was Paul thinking as he went to Damascus?

Who knows exactly what Paul was thinking as he went on that fateful journey? It would be unwise to speculate too much. On the other hand, we can be reasonably confident about various things. He must have thought that the Christian movement was pernicious and needed stamping out, and he must have thought that it was God's will that this should happen. More precisely, we can consider this question under the following four sub-headings.

What will Paul have thought about Jesus?

He must have known something, probably quite a lot, about Jesus, especially if he had been engaged in furious debate with people like Stephen. He will have known that Jesus was a popular religious leader, with a following in Galilee, who claimed that God's deliverance of his people, promised in the Old Testament, was coming in and through his ministry. He will have known of Jesus' supposed miracles of healing and exorcism: they were acclaimed by his followers as divinely inspired signs, but rejected by Paul and other Pharisees as bogus or as demon-inspired.

He will have known of the Christians' claim that Jesus was the Messiah, God's chosen leader; but presumably he saw Jesus as a false prophet, guilty of misleading the people. In particular he will have objected to Jesus' apparent laxity towards the Old Testament law, and his carelessness about purity. The Pharisees were famous for detailed observance of the law, and for their attempts to separate themselves from anything unclean or impure - the name 'Pharisee' may well have meant 'separatist' originally. They wanted to keep the Jewish nation holy and distinctive at a time when foreign influences were very strong. Jesus in some ways seemed to be pulling in the opposite direction, claiming to be from God, but taking a relaxed view of the sabbath and mixing freely with people who were known sinners. Paul will have objected to Jesus on these grounds. He will also very likely have objected to Jesus' provocative words and actions in relation to the temple; Jesus' driving out of the traders and his predictions of the temple's destruction were seen as an arrogant insult to the most sacred institution of Judaism.

Paul will have known the Christian tales about Jesus' having risen from the dead, but have emphatically rejected them; he was clear that Jesus was dead, duly executed for his sins. The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy spoke of prophets who do miraculous signs but lead people away from the true worship of God, and commanded that they be put to death (13.1-5). The same book of Deuteronomy also describes what to do with the bodies of those who have been executed by hanging, and says that they must not be left hanging overnight, 'because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse' (21.22-3). We may guess that Paul the Pharisee will have taken these laws very seriously, and have seen Jesus as deserving death for misleading the people.

What was Paul's view of the law and of how to be right with God?

As we have implied, Paul was motivated by 'zeal for the law' (Galatians 3.14, Philippians 3.5,6). Like the writer of Psalm 119 (e.g. vv. 9-11), Paul will have regarded the law of God not as a burden, but as God's gift to his people and as the way to live a righteous life pleasing to God. He, like other Pharisees, saw it as his vocation to help people keep the law. Of course, he also believed in the grace and love of God towards Israel; but keeping the law was the way to remain in that love, and not to fall under the judgement of God.

What will Paul have thought about himself and his standing before God?

It seems clear that he was a very scrupulous, law-keeping Pharisaic Jew, and in Philippians 3.6 he can even refer to himself as 'blameless under the law' - before his conversion. In attacking the Christians he will have seen himself as upholding God's law and religious purity, in the face of Christian laxity. And presumably he thought of himself, with some justification, as righteous before God. Not that he will have thought of himself as perfect in every respect, but he will have seen himself, understandably, as a member of God's chosen people and as a particularly righteous one; he was a high scorer religiously, setting a good example to others. Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18.9-14 may be deliberately caricaturing Pharisaic attitudes, with the Pharisee thanking God 'that I am not like all other men - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get'. And yet it is not unlikely that Paul might have been similarly thankful for his religious achievements. Not that he was complacent; he was pursuing what he saw as the way of righteousness, fiercely.

What was Paul's attitude to Christians and to Gentiles?

He will have seen the Gentiles as outside the people of God and as unclean sinners, from whom faithful Jews should keep separate. As for the Christians, they had been misled by Jesus, and were misleading others. Paul will have objected to their proclamation of Jesus as Messiah, to the liberalism of some of them towards the Jewish law, and to their increasing association with non-Jews, such as Samaritans. One especially worrying development was the way the Christian heresy was spreading internationally. The Christians needed urgently to be brought to heel, before the contagion got out of control.

Whether Paul would have expressed his views in exactly these terms cannot be proved. But it is not fanciful to suggest that that is roughly how he is likely to have seen things as he travelled up the Damascus Road.

But then came the conversion.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Paul and Jesus by David Wenham Copyright © 2002 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
	Introduction	ix
	Map of Paul's World	xii
Part 1	Beginnings
1	Before Paul met Jesus	3
	What's your name and where do you come from?	3
	Paul's first contacts with Jesus and his followers	5
2	The big bang!	9
	What was Paul thinking as he went to Damascus?	10
	Paul's dramatic conversion	13
	What happened to Paul's ideas as a result of his conversion?	14
3	New directions	19
	Ananias	19
	What happened next?	20
4	Antioch: capital city of the East	26
	Paul comes to Antioch	28
	The question of Paul's second visit to Jerusalem	31
	What about dates?	35
Part 2	Missionary Journeys and Letters
5	Travels in and around Galatia	39
	What happened next according to Acts?	39
	What happened next according to Paul?	41
	Relating Acts and Galatians	44
6	What is going on in Galatians?	49
	Paul's context and Paul's opponents	49
	How does Paul respond to these charges?	51
7	What does Galatians tell us about Paul and Jesus?	60
	The cross and resurrection of Jesus	62
	Jesus as Son of God having the Spirit	63
	The kingdom of God	67
	The apostles	68
	The destruction of the temple and being crucified with Christ	72
	Love and the law	74
8	Travelling in Greece	77
	On the way there	77
	Ministry in Greece according to Acts	79
	Ministry in Greece according to Paul's letters	83
9	What is going on in 1 Thessalonians?	91
	A sigh of relief	91
	Issues raised by Timothy	92
10	What does 1 Thessalonians tell us about Paul and Jesus?	96
	The Lord's future coming	96
	The judgement of the Jews	102
	The suddenness of the Lord's coming	106
	Suffering	107
	The kingdom and ethics	108
	Conclusion	109
11	A look at 2 Thessalonians	111
	Doubts about 2 Thessalonians	112
	Paul and Jesus in 2 Thessalonians	115
12	Travelling on to Ephesus	121
	What happened next according to Acts?	121
	What happened next according to Paul?	123
13	What is going on in 1 Corinthians?	127
	A spiritual church	127
	Women and men in Corinth	130
	Food matters	134
	Leadership issues	136
	Resurrection at last	138
	Chaos in Corinth!	139
14	What does 1 Corinthians tell us about Paul and Jesus?	143
	The resurrection	143
	The Lord's Supper	147
	Sexual relations	149
	Apostleship	156
	Baptism and the kingdom of God	161
	Faith, knowledge and charity	162
	Wisdom and revelation	163
	The Sermon on the Mount	164
	Church discipline	165
	Adam and the Son of Man	165
	The Lord's return	167
	Conclusion	167
Part 3	Finishing the Story
15	And so on	171
	The ongoing story in Acts	171
	Paul and Jesus in the later letters	173
16	The true story	179
	The story of Paul in Acts	179
	The story of Jesus in Paul	181
	The true stories of Paul and Jesus	184
	Index of biblical references	189
	Index of subjects	193