Below is Chapter 4 of my book, “Disbelief”.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE PROTO-CHURCH
The origins of Christian religion and the Catholic Church are somewhat murky.
Scholars agree that the proto-religion began to emerge at around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem by Roman legions in 70 A.D. According to historian Flavius Josephus, the entire city was laid waste and most of the surviving inhabitants were sold into slavery. Many Jews who survived death or capture fled to areas throughout the Mediterranean, with their confidence in Judaism severely shaken.
A New Twist on an Old Idea
It is not surprising that some of the Jewish priests displaced from the Holy Lands began to tinker with their theological product. Obviously, the original “Messiah” idea had to be-reworked, because no one had arrived in the past 150 years to save the Jews from the Greeks, the Seleucids, or the Romans. So, how could these religious salesmen make lemonade from the lemons they had been dealt?
The solution that they collectively devised was a transformation of the Messiah concept: instead of fulfilling all the worldly dreams of their parishioners, the new Savior would provide the faithful with heavenly rewards and everlasting life. Plus, some of the unpopular aspects of Judaism (circumcision and dietary restrictions) would not be imposed on converts. This was the New Covenant called Christianity, and it sold like hotcakes to the oppressed, frustrated, and gullible public.
Cell by Cell Theology
There was no organized Christian church in those days. Instead, it appears that there were independent cells or sects scattered in the Mediterranean regions, each led by a head priest usually known as a bishop (from the Greek word episcopos, meaning overseer). The theology of each of the cells or sects was determined by the bishop, and evidently there were many variants of the emerging “Jesus Christ” theology in play during the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries (i.e. up to 300 A.D.).
The many regional bishops communicated with each other, sharing ideas and arguing amongst themselves about the fine points of the emerging Jesus Christ doctrine. The Biblical character known as the Apostle Paul, his alleged travels amongst and communication with the various bishopropics during the first century, and the attempt by some of the clerics to harmonize all of the Jesus sect activity into one smoothly-running organization with a common dogma, are the central theme of the New Testament once the reader gets past the Gospels.
The Mysterious Paul of Tarsus
A man named Paul of Tarsus dominates half of the New Testament. From the biblical story, one learns that the self-appointed Apostle was a religious leader in Jerusalem, traveled extensively throughout Asia Minor, had social interchange and scrapes with provincial governors, had audiences before kings and emperors, was thrown into jails for seditious ideas, and helped establish Christian churches far and wide. This well-known personage eventually found his way to Rome, where he allegedly infuriated the Jews living there, was taken into custody by the government, and was eventually beheaded by the Romans…for reasons unknown.
Interestingly, outside of the Bible, no historic person, government official, or church functionary ever formally recollected meeting the Apostle…until after Paul’s alleged “letters” and “epistles” were mentioned by (since excommunicated) bishop Marcion in the mid- to late-2nd century. Only later, more than a century after the life of the mysterious character, and after the “Apostle Paul” story had been vetted by Catholic big-shots, would this wonderful Paul fellow be suddenly remembered by Christian clergy far and wide. Thus, Paul of Tarsus joined the illustrious founders of the new faith (including Jesus, his family, his twelve disciples, and virtually every character mentioned in the Gospels) who all had one specific thing in common: no record of their existence in this world…except as characters in the book called the Holy Bible.
Really…Who Was This Guy?
As the official story goes, Paul (then known by his Hebrew name, Saul), was an ex-Pharisee in Jerusalem at about the time as the first Jesus Christ sects were emerging. Paul was an ultra-orthodox Jew, a member of the ruling priestly class, and it is said that he was a chief persecutor of the early Christians (Acts 7:58-8:3). In his own words, (in Galatians 1:4), he described himself as “exceedingly zealous of the traditions” (i.e. the tenets of the Jewish faith). Not much is known about Paul’s early years, but he must have been born outside of Palestine, within the confines of the Roman Empire, because during his ministry he had occasion to use his “Roman citizenship” to help him out of a legal jam (Acts 22:28).
If scripture can be believed, Paul was a contemporary of Jesus in time and place, raised in Jerusalem (“at the feet of Gamaliel”-Acts 22:3), at precisely the time that the Son of God was overturning moneylenders’ tables in Gamaliel’s Temple and generally provoking the top Jewish religious leaders in the holy city. One would think that this Paul character would have met, listened to, argued with, or, possibly, sought to persecute Jesus when he brought his noisy pageant to Jerusalem. If Paul was who he claimed to be, he should have been very active in the church persecution of Jesus Christ, and would have at least attended, and maybe led, the Jewish cheering section at the crucifixion. After all, how many self-proclaimed Sons of God were there roaming the streets of Jerusalem and chastising the elders of the Temple? Yet, it is apparent in the hundreds of pages of New Testament devoted to Paul that he never met nor witnessed Jesus Christ in-the-flesh, or never heard of the man from Nazareth while he was alive.
The story of Paul is chronicled in two New Testament sources: the Book of Acts and the Epistles which bear his name. The two sources have remarkably different stories to tell about this Church father.
In Acts, which relates the church-building “acts of the apostles”, Paul is a team player, a zealous Christian missionary, recruited directly by the Holy Spirit, and sent by the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples to assist in establishing churches in outlying areas and to reinforce the developing theology.
Although Paul’s name is cited 177 times in Acts, only once is it coupled with the familiar title “apostle”. In every other instance, Paul is an entity quite separate from, and implicitly subordinate to, Jesus’ apostles.
In Paul’s Epistles, which are letters sent by Paul to fellow holy men and emerging churches throughout Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, he is a self-confident maverick, representing no one but himself and under no one’s direction. He is driving the train, and incessantly pounds home the point that he is an apostle and that his appointment and mission statement comes directly from Jesus himself (Galatians 1:11-16)…even though Jesus had been crucified by that time. The Paul described in the Epistles certainly considers himself the equal of Jesus’ original disciples, and once even had the temerity to chew out the Apostle Peter (the ostensible leader of Christianity at the time) in Antioch over Peter’s views on dietary proscriptions (Galatians 2:11-21). This episode cemented Paul’s reputation (in later Church tradition) as the so-called “Apostle to the Gentiles”.
Defining The Faith
The Pauline Epistles, or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen New Testament books which have the name “Paul” as the first word, hence implying authorship by Paul. They provide insight into the beliefs and controversies of early Christianity, and were foundational to Christian theology and ethics. The Epistle to the Hebrews was also anciently attributed to Paul, but does not bear his name.
The Pauline Epistles are largely written to the churches he had allegedly visited in such places as Cyprus, Asia Minor (now Turkey), mainland Greece, Crete, and Rome. His letters are full of expositions of what Christians should believe and how they should live. In his correspondence, Paul exhibits little knowledge about the life and specific teachings of Jesus. However, this does not deter him from expounding, at great length, on the major theological principles of the new religion. Among the concepts that Paul first put forward and were later adopted by the Church are:
Original Sin – Paul believed that human beings are born into sinfulness, i.e. the absence of holiness and perfect charity (Romans 5:12-21)
Atonement – Paul believed that Christians are redeemed from the Law (specifically circumcision and dietary purity) and from sin by Jesus’ death and resurrection (Corinthians 15:3,4)
Role of Women — Paul believed that women should be quiet and submissive to men, and learn (theology) from their husbands (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)
Intellect – Paul lectured the faithful “not to think beyond what is written” (by the priests) (1 Corinthians 4:1-8)
Lord’s Supper – Paul’s writings contain the earliest mention of the “Lord’s Supper”, a rite traditionally identified as the Christian Eucharist (1 Corinthians 10:16)
Predestination – Paul believed that everything that happens on earth is part of “God’s plan” (Ephesians 1:3-14)
Salvation – Paul believed that faith, not good works, is the ticket to salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Second Coming – Paul believed that Jesus would return within his lifetime, at which time the faithful would share in God’s Kingdom (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18)
The bottom line is that the character of Paul, or whoever wrote under his name, was a member of the priestly class. The theology that was being developed by Paul (in the Epistles) was designed to produce a superior, merchandisable product for dissemination by the ex-Jewish, but now new “Christian”, priestly salesmen.
If one looks at the key points of Paul’s instructions (to the letter recipients), it is apparent that the “new-improved” religious product has several powerful sales “hooks”: (1) Sin/Atonement – Everyone is a sinner, from birth, so they need to get to church and get right with Jesus; (2) Salvation – Only through faith (i.e. bending to the dictates of the priestly class), not good deeds, can one get to Heaven; and, (3) Urgency — Jesus is returning very soon, so get down to your nearest church and start praying. In addition, Predestination allows the priesthood, or the faithful, to offer up an excuse when bad things happen to Christians or when prayer doesn’t work. And, although it was nothing novel, the New Testament (through Paul’s teachings) reinforces the old prohibition against women becoming active in the Church, ensuring that male priests would continue to run the show. Last, but not least, the priests would teach the faithful everything they needed to know in life.
The completeness of Paul’s theology, ostensibly in the 1st century, looks remarkably similar to Christian thought in 350, when the various Jewish-Christian factions finally agreed upon “orthodoxy”. It is almost as if the creed was developed and, then, the story of Paul was concocted to provide a metaphor for the spreading of the “good news”. This becomes all the more plausible when one considers the fact that, outside of the Bible, no one ever heard of Paul during his lifetime.
Expensive Letters
Apostle Paul was apparently the Ozzie Nelson of his time…he never seemed to have a job to support his living habits and the rather expensive hobby of writing lengthy letters to people in far off places. Yet, readers of the Epistles are expected to accept that this unemployed philosopher and religious rabble-rouser had the wherewithal to commission the production of very expensive documents.
Back in antiquity, only the wealthy or governmental officials could “write letters”, because one would have to acquire papyrus (a thick paper-like material made from the papyrus sedge) and the labor of a scribe (a paid, professional writer) to put the author’s thoughts to paper. Again, both the papyrus and scribe were costly, and our hero, Paul, survived on the generosity of the Jewish-Christians he happened to meet during his travels. The idea that he could commission the preparation of lengthy papyrus letters, at his whim, is preposterous.
Another thing that strains credulity is the length of some of the Epistles. Paul’s “Epistle to the Romans” was 7,111 words in the original Greek. That would have made it the longest and most expensive letter ever written in the ancient world. Similarly, “1 Corinthians” goes on for 7,000 words. In comparison, the longest letter of Cicero, circa 54 A.D., has 5,200 words. And, yet, Cicero was a wealthy Roman aristocrat, a high government official of Rome, who was more than able to afford secretaries and scribes. Letters dictated by famous historians of the day, Seneca and Pliny, average about 1,000 words. These were also individuals with position and staff. The itinerant, on-the-go preacher Paul had neither, which suggests the real possibility that the letters were written by a team of authors and scribes in the scriptorium of a monestary, probably in the second or third century A.D.
Another curiosity of Paul’s letters is that they survived at all. They were often argumentative and scathing in tone, telling the reader what he should believe and how he should practice that belief. Why would the recipients (supposedly in the mid- to late-first century) keep them safe for generations? According to Paul, the existing world would soon pass away when Jesus returned (during their lifetime). Who, in a time of apocalyptic anticipation, would have been so motivated and able to gather an extensive and bulky collection of letters purportedly sent everywhere from Rome to Galatia?
The most plausible answer is that these letters were not collected from recipients, but were produced at a later date by Church writers and never delivered to the supposed adressees.
Who Wrote, and When?
It is, therefore, not surprising that Paul’s letters were unknown to the Gospel writers and early Church leaders, and un-cited by anyone on earth for a century or more, until Marcion, a bishop from Pontus, allegedly published them in the second century. As it is, the oldest extant copy (papyrus fragment) of any of portion of the Pauline Epistles is dated by historians in the 175-225 A.D. range. There are no known New Testament original manuscripts; everything that is known comes from copies of copies, etc., of supposed (earlier) originals.
Whilst so much ancient writing is fragmentary, in the Pauline Epistles there exists a comprehensive body of doctrine, meeting all the needs of a functioning church. Though many curious and suspicious gaps obscure the life of the evangelist Paul, his theology in the Epistles is complete and entire. It is almost like some Church official wrote the Epistles as a handbook for neophyte Christians in the 3rd century, and then just annotated the name of “Paul” to them so that no one would know who actually wrote them. That could be why there is no historical record of anyone by the name of Paul of Tarsus doing all the things he did in Acts…except in the Holy Bible. All that was left was for Church “tradition” to claim that they had been written in the 1st century.
Biblical scholars are pretty much in agreement that about half of the Epistles were written by one person using the name of Paul, and that the others are pseudepigraphic, i.e. representing that they are written by the same person, but are not. Biblical scholars agree that the real author of the Epistles was not Paul, the alleged evangelist, but don’t know who that person was who wrote as Paul, either in the “legitimate” letters or the fakes. Left unanswered is whether Paul, as described in the Epistles, was a actual, flesh-and-bones person or, if so, did he experience any of the things attributed to him in another New Testament book, “Acts of the Apostles”.
Laying the Foundation
The alleged evangelical work of the Apostle Paul and other key figures in the Jesus Movement in the 1st century is told in the “Acts of the Apostles”. Church tradition (again, no one actually knows, or is telling, the truth) has it that this book was written by a guy named “Luke”, who was supposedly a companion of the Apostle Paul. The reader is left to assume that this Luke fellow is the same character who supposedly wrote the Gospel of Luke. This would tie the Gospels (which are anecdotal tales about the god-man Jesus Christ) to the ethereal “Jesus Christ” theology movement.
By the order in which the books of the New Testament are presented, the reader is also left to assume that the story/life of Jesus preceded the Jesus Christ evangelical movement. However, that is not agreed upon by biblical scholars. Most of them believe that the earliest books of the New Testament are the Epistles, which barely, if at all, allude to a once-human being, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, or include any details of his life. It is therefore probable that the Gospels were written later than the Epistles, and were used to “flesh-out” the dry theological catechism with a fantastic background story that would keep the parishioners awake in church.
Saints Doing Good Works
Biblical scholars are in wide agreement that the author of the Gospel of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, and most seem to think that the combination of Luke-Acts once constituted a two-volume work.
The Gospel of Luke tells the story of Jesus’ life, and Acts recalls the exploits of Jesus’ followers as they spread the Good News. In neither case, according to Luke, was he (the author) an eyewitness to Jesus or any of his purported speeches or acts. Instead, based on information “handed down” by predecessors, the author Luke determined to pass along to a certain Theophilus “things most surely believed among us”…”that thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed” (Luke 1:1-4). In Acts, “Luke” continues the conversation with Theophilus that he began in his Gospel.
Tellingly, “Theophilus” in Koine Greek means friend of God or (be)loved by God. Thus, it is apparent that the Luke-Acts stories were meant not for an individual person but, rather, for the larger audience of Christians, as instructional pieces.
As in the Gospels, Acts tells a story spiced up by miracles and pious speeches by the good guys and acts of inhumane persecution toward the good Christians by Jews and Romans alike. The impression given is that Jesus’ twelve disciples were commissioned to spread the word, and off they went, doing just that. Strangely, though, only a few of the original twelve disciples are heard of after the Gospels. Following the crucifixion of Jesus, the late Judas Iscariot was replaced, by vote of the remaining eleven disciples, by a man named Matthias. The new disciple was never mentioned again. And, following that meeting in Jerusalem, all of the other disciples likewise disappear from mention except Peter, John, and Phillip, who seem to confine their missionary work to Palestine. But, for the most part, the action in Acts focuses on two “apostles”, the original disciple Peter and the self-proclaimed apostle, Paul. Peter is evidently the leader of the nascent church in Jerusalem, where “the Twelve” are presumably kept busy running the retail store, whereas Paul is seemingly the only salesman making cold calls in the outlying areas.
The Apostle Peter and the Jerusalem marketing team got off to a rousing start on the first day of Pentacost following Jesus’ crucifixion. According to the story (Acts 2:1-47), the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, allowing them to speak in tongues (i.e. different languages, previously foreign to them), and they converted 3,000 souls to Christianity on the spot. On another day, preaching at the Temple (in Jerusalem!), Peter and John performed a miracle healing and recruited another 5,000 believers (Acts 4:1-4). Supposedly, the Hebrew church elders (the same ones that had condemned Jesus) were outraged about religious conversions at their Jewish temple and were about to deal fiercely with Peter and his gang of troublemakers. But, at the eleventh hour, the respected Pharisee and teacher, Gamaliel, talked the church council out of slaying them (Acts 5:25-42).
All of this is quite interesting and extraordinary (i.e. implausible) for that time and place. And, one would think that historians, particulary those who focused on cultural and religious events in and around Jerusalem, would have noted such bizarre goings-on down at the Temple, particularly when the Jesus Cult was recruiting Hebrew converts from the steps of Herod’s Temple. Philo of Alexandria, a famous Jewish historian who was alive at that time and was chronicling actual religious events in the area, made no mention of miracles, mass conversions to Christianity, or of any disciples of Jesus Christ ticking off the Temple elders during that time (i.e. 30-40 A.D.).
Of course, Philo also hadn’t been aware of Jesus Christ’s ministry, his crucifixion, or his resurrection earlier that year. Is it possible that none of it actually happened?
Two Different Pauls
Beginning with Chapter 8 of Acts, the evangelical story of the young Christian church begins to unfold through the evolving story of Saul of Tarsus (later called Paul the Apostle).
At first he is a crusading Jewish hardliner, wreaking havoc on the new “Christian” cult. But, then, he is converted by the Holy Spirit, and quickly becomes the number one evangelist and theorist in the Jesus Christ movement. All manner of travels, escapades, miracles, and weird incidents are attributed to Paul in Acts…none of which are mentioned in Paul’s own letters to the faithful. This is especially curious because Church tradition has it that “Luke”, the author of Acts, was Paul’s companion during much of his missionary travels. One would think that Paul, in the 44,000 words that comprise his Epistles, would at least casually mention a few of the miracles he performed, the venomous snake bite that he survived, the shipwreck that he also survived, the various escapes that he made from angry mobs, the stoning-to-death that he somehow survived, and his emprisonment(s) by the Romans. But, no, Paul recalls none of the extraordinary events that “Luke” supposedly witnessed.
Not surprisingly, Paul makes no mention of his supposed traveling companion, “Luke”, in any of his Epistles that are deemed by scholars to be authentic. So, if Paul has such little regard for his supposed companion that he never mentions him, should the reader trust anything that “Luke” says about him or, more importantly, anything that “Luke” testifies to at all? The bottom line is that there is no evidence whatsoever that “Luke” ever met any of the disciples, or any of the colorful characters in Acts, or witnessed any of the incidents described therein.
The “authenticity” of each book in the New Testament has been a subject of scholarly debate for thousands of years. The truth is that no one knows who wrote the Gospel tales. What is agreed upon by scholars is that much of the material in Mark was later used in the other three Gospels, raising the question of how much of the remaining material was cribbed from other sources or just plain invented.
Most biblical scholars ascribe to the theory that one person (who may have been “Paul” the evangelist) wrote seven of the so-called Pauline Epistles: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Six additional letters bearing Paul’s name do not enjoy academic consensus as being authentic Pauline Epistles: Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. The anonymous Letter to the Hebrews has traditionally been considered by the Church to be from Paul’s hand, but most modern scholars reject that claim. There are two other known books written in Paul’s name, Epistle to the Laodicians and Third Epistle to the Corinthians, which are not included in the New Testament. They are widely considered to be inauthentic, and representative of many “fake” Gospels and Epistles that were floating around between the 1st and 3rd century A.D.
The Catholic Church eventually decreed which material was deemed “authentic” and worthy of placement in the New Testament. But, this does not mean that stories deemed “authentic” by the Church were necessarily true. What “authentic” means in this context is that the stories served the purpose of advancing Church dogma and orthodoxy; in other words, the end justifies the means.
There most likely were many evangelists like the character of “Paul” spreading the Jesus Christ message throughout the Mediterranean and Asia Minor regions in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries. Obviously, the rise of a great religion didn’t “just happen” because of one super-missionary. Therefore, the Book of Acts could very well represent a metaphor representing all of the church founders who toiled, anonymously, in the very early years. They were the ones who founded the emergent Christian churches that Paul allegedly visited.
Although nowadays the Apostle Paul is, by tradition, credited with starting up many new Christian churches (like a Johnny Appleseed in American popular lore), he really does none of these things in Acts or in his own Epistles. What he does is visit early Jewish-Christian groups in outlying communities (and, importantly, never in large cities) and coaches-up the new parishes. Or, afterward, sends letters of encouragement and instruction to those he met in his travels. Since none of the things in Acts can be verified as actually happening by any non-Biblical source, the idea that Acts is metaphorical gains credulity.
Also adding to the skepticism that the adventures in Acts actually happened, consider the following:
- Paul is stoned to death in Lystra and his body is dumped outside the city. He rises from the dead and returns to the city, alive (Acts 14:19). Fact: There is no recorded case in human history where a person “stoned to death” has ever been resurrected. Resurrections only happen in Biblical stories.
- Paul, a Jew who was converted to Christianity by Jesus Christ himself, is “warned by the Holy Spirit” not to go to Jerusalem. He defies God and goes anyway…and predictably infuriates Jews, giving himself a good excuse to be taken into protective custody by Roman authorities (Acts 21-26)
- The Roman procurator Felix appeases the Jewish high priests by imprisoning Paul for two years. When Felix’s replacement, Festus, decides to further prosecute Paul at the request of the evil, Jewish clergy, the self-proclaimed Apostle makes his famous “appeal to Caesar” (Acts 25:11). What is bizarre is that Paul is lodging his appeal before his case is even heard. What all of this ensures is that that Paul will head to Rome, the objective of the story.
- Nowhere in Paul’s authentic Epistles does he mention spending any time imprisoned under Roman authority. As prolific a letter writer as he was, one would think that he would have had a lot of time on his hands to make note of such an unpleasant experience.
- Paul is put on a ship for Rome and the boat predictably shipwrecks, following a script purloined from historian Josephus’ book Life, 3. In Josephus’ story, the ship was transporting a number of rabble-rousing Judean priests (read Jewish) to “plead their case before Caesar”. This sounds like it could be the very shipwreck…except that heroic Paul is not identified in Josephus’ tale, and the stories end differently. While the shipwreck victims are stranded on the island of Malta, Paul is bitten on the hand by a viper, and survives the poisonous bite. This is rather amazing because, according to naturalists, there are no poisonous snakes on Malta, and there never have been.
- Paul lingered on Malta for three months, performing miracles and generally impressing everyone. Paul even healed the father of the chief man of the island, named Publius (Acts 28:7-11). Christian tradition has it that the whole island was converted to Christ and the Roman governor Publius accepted from Paul his appointment as “first bishop”. Although all of these events supposedly occurred on Malta in the first century, historians and archaeologists have found no evidence of the Christian religion on the island prior to the 4th
- After all the great fanfare, Paul is delivered to Rome…where he never lodges any appeal with Caesar. Instead, he has a chat with some Jewish leaders that he called together (while a prisoner!), and nothing happens one way or the other (Acts 28:17-29). That’s basically the end of the story, as the Apostle Paul is last mentioned residing in Rome for two years in a rented house (Acts 28:30-31). What a letdown!
“No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”
Church “tradition” has it that both Paul and the Apostle Peter were eventually killed in Rome during the reign of Emperor Nero. Supposedly, Paul was beheaded (and, where his head fell and bounced, three fountains sprung up!), and Peter was crucified upside down (at his request, because he did not feel worthy of the same fate as Christ!). These are fantastic stories, and make for good reading…but they are not found in the Bible (or any real historical record).
In fact, the Apostle Peter is last mentioned in Acts presiding over a meeting in Jerusalem wherein the disciples were discussing circumcision (Acts 15:7-11). He was apparently a healthy man at that time, ostensibly the leader of the disciples of Christ in Jerusalem, and was deemed by Jesus Christ himself “the rock” upon which the Church would be built. Yet, he simply disappears from the Bible at this point, as if his later good works and martyrdom are insignificant. Similarly, the Apostle Paul, the greatest evangelist and theorist in the early Church, and the subject of two thirds of Acts, simply disappears from view after renting a house in Rome (while, if you can believe, a prisoner of the government!).
If, in fact, both or either of these future pillars of the Mother Church had suffered persecution and execution at the hands of the Romans, it is inconceivable that such events wouldn’t have found their way into Acts or some other Church-approved Biblical story….because persecution and martyrdom are central Christian themes in the New Testament.
But, did these horrible deaths actually happen? Not surprisingly, there was no mention of the highly unusual public executions until many decades later by, of course, only Christian sources. One would think that a man being crucified upside down, and a decapitated head bouncing and creating springs, would get the attention of scribes and historians in metropolitan Rome. But, no, there is not one historical note of such things happening…until the Catholic Church was in a position to write, and re-write, history.
Then, miraculously, the remains of martyred saints, pieces of the True Cross, wood from Jesus’ manger, and all manner of supposed holy relics, gospels, and epistles surfaced…after being unknown or publicly unmentioned for hundreds of years.
The Final Chapter
The last book in the New Testament, The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, is basically intended to put the fear of God into believers and would-be-believers. It is old-school, Old Testament rhetoric which shouts out “Repent – The End is Near!” It lends credence to the idea, supported by many early Christians (including the Apostle Paul), that Jesus was expected to return to earth during their lifetimes
Church tradition has it that the author of Revelation, “Saint John the Divine”, is the one and only Apostle John, who also wrote a Gospel and a couple of Epistles in his own name. Interestingly, early church leaders Dionysius and Eusebius rejected the idea that the Apostle himself wrote Revelation, and most modern scholars agree. “John” may not have been an Apostle, but whoever he was, his tale is the outpouring of a Jew seriously embittered by Roman imperialism. The book’s payoff is the bizarre horrors and gory fate that awaits these enemies of the Lord.
Revelation is a strange book to be included in the New Testament, because it is so Jewish. The theme of the other New Testament books preceding it are preoccupied with establishing and disseminating the “new covenant” between God and his faithful, the believers in Christ. Revelation, on the other hand, promotes no such theology, and within its four hundred or so verses are some five hundred and fifty references to the Old Testament.
The author John is clearly not onboard with early-proto Christian ideas: in Revelation, his Christ is born in Heaven and rules on earth, while in the rest of the New Testament, Christ is born on earth and rules in Heaven! John also skips such theological staples as the Trinity, Original Sin, Faith not Works, Baptism and the Eucharist. He rails against idolatry, and concentrates his hatred and lust for revenge against “Babylon” (i.e. the Roman Empire).
Christ, in Revelation, is never associated with the incarnate (i.e. in the flesh) Jesus. Christ’s primary role in John’s vision is as a Jewish warlord who is both judge and jury: “And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.“ (Revelation 19:13-15) So much for the so-called Prince of Peace!
The apocalyptic end of days on earth, as envisioned by the author, is comprised of two components: in the first, Christ rules an earthly kingdom for a thousand years while Satan, confined but not defeated, is locked up in a pit. During this period, 144,000 Jewish males (12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel) are the only ones to share the kingdom. In this heaven, there is not a single woman. The male elect are “… not defiled by women; they are virgins” (Revelation 14:4) Pretty much everyone else on earth is either cast into a lake of fire and brimstone or unceremoniously dispatched by God’s minions. At the end of the thousand years there is another apocalypse unleashed on humanity (Question: Weren’t they already dead?) and Satan and his evildoers are finally dispatched. Presumably, all of the true believers and non-idol worshippers are then brought back to life and get to enjoy the new Heaven on Earth.
Again, the purpose of this Jewish messianic-apocalyptic-prophetic material following the Christian-themed “Good News” of the New Testament is unclear…except when one considers the timing of the book and the pedigree of the author. “John” was clearly a Jew, and the book was written in the latter part of the first century. Hebrew scripture had foretold of a Messiah, the “Christ” stories of the time identified him as the “deliverer”, and the Romans had just sacked Jerusalem and burned the Temple to the ground. “John’s” vision describes, in Technicolor, the retribution against Satan (i.e. Mr. 666, Emperor Nero). Since most of the early converts to the Christian cause were Jews, including the converted priests who wrote the New Testament, the “happy ending” that is Revelation makes a lot of sense to the early Jewish-Christians, and gave them hope that their pain and humiliation would be short-lived.
As the reader may be aware, Revelation was incorrect about the Second Coming. It did not “come quickly” (Revelation 22:20). As a matter of fact, it hasn’t come yet. So, Saint John’s prophetic words were wrong. However, John joins some distinguished company…Jesus Christ, himself, for starters. In Matthew (16:28), Jesus is talking to his disciples and is quoted: “Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Putting It All Together
Examination of the New Testament reveals a carefully-crafted religious product sandwiched between obvious mythology and an apocalyptic prediction. The Christian theology is a new and improved Judaism, absent messianism but spiced up with “heaven”, designed to attract pagans as well as disillusioned Jews
Acts was obviously meant to tidy up the mythology of the Gospels, yet it left hanging the “church-building” and martyrdom heroics of superstar Apostles Peter and Paul. This could have been intentional, however. As both Peter and Paul simply disappear from view and discussion in the New Testament, there is no evidence to link them with actual historical fact. This is an oft-repeated plot device in the Bible: no graves, no physical remains, no fingerprints, and no credible (i.e. non-Biblical) witnesses.
If the Church is to be believed, everything in the New Testament was accomplished and written about by the end of the 1st century A.D. However, no reputable Biblical scholar believes this. What is more likely, from a logical standpoint, is that the Book of Revelation was produced first (probably late 1st century A.D.), followed by the Gospel of Mark (end of 1st century), then the other copycat Gospels and “genuine” Pauline Epistles (early to mid-2nd century), then the Acts of the Apostles (mid-to late 2nd century), followed by a bunch of fake Gospels and Epistles (3rd century).
The Jesus Christ mythology and theology couldn’t have been completed in the 1st century because there was no agreement on what “Christianity” was until early in the 4th century. To put it in more familiar terms, “corporate” had not yet delivered the sales brochures to the dealerships.