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To learn from Paul, it is necessary to step back from 'Christianity' as we know it now, and back into the multi-strands of Judaism that abounded among Jews in Judea and in the Diaspora, before the cataclysmic disaster of 70 CE, when the Temple and the city of Jerusalem were destroyed by the Romans. Everything written after that disaster, was yet another attempt to come to terms with it. Only the seven unedited letters of Paul in the New Testament reflect people and events of the Jesus-strands of Judaism before then, - as they really were, - during the 40 years between the crucifixion of Jesus and the end of the Temple. They are:

The Jewish historian, Josephus, verifies the historical existence of three important people in the Jesus Movement, - John, the Baptiser, Jesus, and James, the 'brother of the Lord'. None of these three people have left any of their own writings, but Paul's correspondence to his friends and fellow-believers in the Jesus-Movement, is genuine, and of great historical significance. From these letters we can get information, eg. of arguments among different groups of Jesus-Jews as they all struggled to understand the significance of the Resurrection for themselves as Jews, - arguments which were later smoothed over as much as possible in the Acts of the Apostles, which was written towards the end of that momentous first century of the Christian Era, (1^st CE.), and especially after the Jesus Movements had begun to be a new religion, separated from the synagogues from which they had been banished. Before 70 CE, the Jesus-Jews, like all others had looked to Jerusalem as their centre point of reference, and not only paid their 'Temple Tax', but also their contributions to the headquarters of the Jesus Movement which was there, under the leadership of James, the brother of Jesus.

It must be remembered that Paul had no idea he was writing 'Scripture'! Only the letter to the Romans shows evidence of having been carefully thought out, because Paul was sending it on ahead of himself, to people, already Jesus-Jews, whom he had not yet met. Paul's letter to the Romans is often described as a 'monumental theological achievement'. The other letters, however, are usually responses to troubles affecting his friends and converts for whom he maintains a lively concern. They reflect his flexible thinking, and in others, especially Galatians, his anger over other Jesus-Jews who had arrived and sought to 'correct' what he had taught.

From careful reading it is possible to learn a lot,

• a) about Paul, himself,
• b) about others in the Jesus-strands of Judaism, and
• c) of his own creative thinking in trying to explain how the death and resurrection of Jesus, whom he invests with the well-known title, the Messiah / the Anointed One /the Christ, is indeed the fulfilment of all God's promises to his people throughout all their history, from Abraham onwards. Paul even makes the connection between the crucified Jesus and the Passover lamb, (1 Cor 5.7), linking Jesus's death with salvation from the slavery of sin, with the long-ago event when their God, YHWH, had saved them from slavery in Egypt.

About Paul, and other Jesus-Jews The fact that Paul's natural language for writing to his friends was Greek, and that his quotqtions from Scripture were always from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew writings, indicates that he was brought up and educated in the Jewish Diaspora, outside Judea, and could never, therefore ever have met Jesus himself. He was born a Hebrew, of the tribe of Benjamin, and circumcised on the eighth day according to the Law, and was a Pharisee. (note the lack of criticism of Pharisees in Paul's writings, when compared with the later gospels, eg. Matth.23). Paul admits he was more advanced in Judaism than others of his own age, and more zealous for the traditions of the ancestors, and several times he admits he had persecuted the Church. Some of his relatives were converted before himself, - he mentions Andronicus and Junia, and also Herodion, - but his conversion was because of a direct experience himself of the Risen Christ.. He gives no details of this, but claims in

I Cor 15, that his experience was the same, and as valid, as that of Cephas/Peter, and all the apostles, and also James the brother of Jesus. It was a life-changing experience from which Paul never subsequently wavered during the many hardships of his later life.

His call to be an apostle was from no human suggestion, but a direct call from God. So strong was the conviction that Paul felt, that he wrote he had been set apart by God before he was born, (cp. Jeremiah), to be an apostle to the gentiles - whom God had promised, in Isaiah, to bring in, to his holy hill.

He says he was untrained in speech, (rhetoric), but not in knowledge, that his bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible. His 'gospel' was learned 'by revelation', direct from God, and not of any human origin. Possibly this refers to the three years he spent alone in Arabia after his conversion, before he went to Damascus. No reason is given, but only the comment that he left there, let down in a basket from a window in the city wall! Only then does he seem to have gone to Jerusalem - for the first time ? - to meet the leaders at the centre of the Jesus Movement.

In Jerusalem, (Gal. 1), Paul spent fifteen days with Peter, (no doubt learning as much about Jesus as he could from one of his closest friends), and was then introduced to James. (Was this a job interview?). Then he set off to Syria and Cilicia, still unknown by sight to the Jesus people in Jerusalem.

Paul's life -style was simple, and he was unmarried. He was self-supporting on his travels, and did not accept the hospitality due to him as an apostle, like others, mentioning Peter and the brothers of Jesus, who all travelled with their wives! He suffered perpetual physical pain from 'a thorn in my flesh', and states that 'the mark of Christ is branded on my body'. (was this the stigmata?) He was a visionary, and could speak 'in tongues'. For the sake of the gospel he endured many hardships and dangers, as well as imprisonments, and wrote several letters while 'a prisoner'. His trouble-makers were not always civic authorities, but often other groups of Jesus-Jews who were upset because he did not insist that gentile converts should be circumcised as well as baptised.

News of these disputes was brought back to the leaders in Jerusalem, and 14 years after his previous visit, Paul was summoned to report on his work, (Gal 2). He met the leaders in private, James, Peter and John, the 'pillars of the church', and they approved his work among the gentiles, while also approving a compromise for those who preached only to Jews. They added the proviso that Paul should make a collection for the poor of Jerusalem. This seems to have been a 'Christian' version of the Temple Tax, like a subscription, proving one's membership, for later on when Paul was planning to bring this collection to Jerusalem, he was worried lest it might not have been accepted, thus 'saying' that Paul's converts were not recognised as valid, legitimate, 'paid-up' members of the Jesus community. (Romans 15.26-30).

Please note: There are many features of the 'story of Paul' in the Acts which do not correlate easily with Paul's own words, eg. did he sit at the feet of Gamaliel? Or did he watch the stoning of Stephen? Did he undertake 'three' journeys? Was he initially the 'companion' of Barnabas? And so on .........

And we do not know what his initial teaching was like when telling others about Jesus. Only to the Corinthians did he write a reminder of what he had taught them about the events of the Last Supper.

Paul's teaching about Jesus, from phrases in the letters

NB. Paul used well-known titles in the Second Temple Judaisms from 167 BCE onwards, such as 'Messiah', (Christ, in Greek), the human person they believed God would send to become the 'Righteous King' in place of the Herodians and the Romans, and also 'Son of God', a title used of the Davidic kings in history, from the Temple psalms, eg. Pss. 2, and 110. He used them to describe Jesus, but he did not necessarily mean then, what Christians mean by these words now.

He wrote of Jesus as 'in the fullness of time God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law', the 'Son, descended from David, according to the flesh' but then quoted from another strand of thought about Jesus, to the Philippians, that he was 'in the form of God, but not equal, taking the form of a slave, born in human likeness, and had humbled himself even unto death', picking up a connection already being made by others, with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah.

Paul writes of Jesus as 'the Wisdom of God', a theme picked up years later, in the Fourth Gospel as the 'Word of God', and he linked the death of Jesus with the death of the Passover Lamb, opening the way for the later Story-tellers to develop the theme. He states that Jesus was killed by 'the rulers of the age',

(ie. the Romans), and also that he was killed 'by the Jews'.

Then Paul refers to the Risen Jesus, now 'declared to be Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead' (Rom 1.4), and is now the Lord of both the dead and the living'; God has exalted him because of the cross, so 'Jesus Christ is Lord' , the free gift of God, who was 'handed over to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification'. So impressive is this for Paul, that he writes 'in Christ is a new creation', and implies that as Moses had to veil his face when meeting God at Sinai, all this is set aside in Christ. Paul was convinced that Jesus was the fulfilment of all God's promises to the Jews and to the gentiles, and that the End of the cosmic world was imminent, as the visionary apocalyptic prophets had forecast.

Paul's writings do not give us any clues about miracles or parables we read about in the gospels, but the letters do not repeat his initial teachings, (and even the Romans whom he had not met, were already Jesus-Jews). He does not mention any derogatory comments about Peter who denied Jesus, or James, who like Paul, did not revere his brother until after the resurrection experience, but neither does he mention an 'empty tomb', or Easter stories , or anything about a 'virgin birth'.

QUESTION; Was Paul really reflecting a more political mission of Jesus? one in which he was making a bid to be the new Davidic King? NB His brother inherited the leadership, & - the title above the cross!