Tabor wants to explore how Paul, who never met Jesus, could be such a dominant force in Christianity. Paul claims to have had out of body experiences and personal revelation of Jesus, making him the number one apostle. He also boasts of working harder than the others (3). He also has “far superior” commiseration with Christ (4) and wants to be known as Number One.
There was a “Christianity before Paul” and one after (2).
Like Hyam Maccoby in The Mythmaker, Tabor argues that Paul had a “bitter break” with original Jesus movement and essentially invented Christianity. He did this through a “literary victory, reinforced by an emerging theological orthodoxy back by Roman political power after the time of the emperor Constantine” (7).
Tabor argues that the “literary victory” is based on three things:
One, gospel of Mark is Pauline in theology.
Two, Luke-Acts expands Mark’s story and Pauline theology.
Three, “six later letters written in Paul’s name” “muted” his radical message and “pleased the church” (7).
Tabor calls Acts “the master narrative,” which he hints is deceptive because the author wants to be anonymous and make the document appear older than it is (7).
The date of Acts could be 90 A.D. or even “well into the second century A.D.” (8).
Such a manuscript should not be taken as history but propaganda. For one, there is a “deliberate obscuring of the original Christianity before Paul” (9), a claim similar to Maccoby’s.
Paul’s claim at being the number one apostle is reinforced when he says he was chosen, “unlike the other apostles, before he was even born--while still in his mother’s womb” (18). Paul is a “second Christ” commissioned to spread the gospel throughout the world (18).
Paul’s rift with the others is indicated in his letters: “I am not the least inferior to these super-apostles,” whom he calls “false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:5, 13).
That Paul is referring to the apostles and not unnamed Jews is Tabor’s claim (19).
Tabor claims that pre-Paul Christians did not see Jesus as divine or as a “Dying-and-Rising Savior” (25). The James of the early Christians is “suppressed” and in effect cancelled out (30). James argues for works and faith whereas Paul emphasizes the latter.
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