Is Paul the Founder of Christianity?

Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman

Chris Huntley

Christianity, History, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 745 Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It has long been said among historical scholars that Christianity is not the religion *of* Jesus but the religion *about* him. In this view, Jesus was a Jewish preacher who urged his fellow Jews to repent of their sins and turn back to God by observing what he demanded of them, so they could enter the coming Kingdom. But Christians did not think repentance and obedience could bring salvation at all. It was the death and resurrection of Jesus that mattered. Moreover, it is often said that Paul was the one who transformed Jesus' gospel about the coming Kingdom into a gospel of Jesus' death and resurrection. Is that true? Wouldn't that mean that Paul and Jesus had different religions? And if so, then isn't Paul, rather than Jesus, the Founder of Christianity?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Misquoting Jesus with Bart Ehrman.
0:07.0	The only show, where a six-time New York Times bestselling author and world-renowned Bible scholar
0:13.0	uncovers the many fascinating, little-known facts about the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the rise of Christianity.
0:20.0	I'm your host, Megan Lewis.
0:22.7	Let's begin.
0:24.5	Hello, everybody, and welcome back to misquoting Jesus.
0:28.2	We are actually recording a little ahead of schedule because Bart is currently in the Galapagos.
0:34.0	So Bart, I hope future you is having a delightful time.
0:37.0	My future me is having a delightful time. My future me is having a fantastic time.
0:41.0	And it's so happy that he is not recording this while on vacation in the Glappagos.
0:46.3	That would be not the most enjoyable thing that one could do.
0:51.0	Well, I'm glad that future you is having a good time.
0:53.3	Hopefully future me is also having a
0:54.8	good time. And today we are going to be talking about Paul, which is kind of a big topic. So we've
1:01.7	decided to narrow it down a bit, which I think is definitely worth doing. So next to the Holy Trinity,
1:06.6	Paul is arguably one of the most important figures in the Christian religion, and over half of the
1:12.8	books in the New Testament are related to him somehow. And he spreads the gospel across geographic
1:18.7	and ethnic lines. Some people consider him the founder of the Christian religion, and that's
1:23.9	what we're going to be talking about today. Does Christianity owe more
1:27.8	to his understanding of Jesus' death and resurrection than it does to Jesus' own teachings?
1:32.6	So I am excited to talk about this. It's not something I've really talked about, thought
1:36.7	about, discussed before. But why is it important to consider Paul's role in the formation of Christianity?
	...

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