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Paul of Tarsus · Acts 13:9
Paul of Tarsus, the False Apostle
Paul of Tarsus against the men who knew ʿĪsā ibn Maryam: his own letters, the account in Acts, and the Jerusalem church under James.
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What this part shows
Paul of Tarsus never met ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. He says so himself, and he says that the gospel he preached came to him by a revelation that no one else saw and that he did not learn from the men who had walked with Jesus (Galatians 1:11-17). His letters are the oldest Christian writings that survive, older than any gospel, and they are the source of the doctrines that divide Islam from Christianity: that Jesus was in the form of God, that his death was a sacrifice for sin, that faith in that death and not keeping the law is what saves. This part sets his teaching against the teaching the gospels record, and sets his account of himself against the account of the men who opposed him.
The pages run from the evidence to the verdict. The seven letters establishes which of the thirteen letters in his name are his, and the rule that every claim here rests on those seven alone. Acts against Galatians sets his own sworn account of his early years beside Luke’s and shows where they cannot both be right. Paul of Tarsus against Jesus is the centre: the law, salvation, the person of Jesus and the meaning of his death, in the words of each. James and the Jerusalem church is the community led by the brother of Jesus, which kept the law and required Paul of Tarsus to prove he was not teaching Jews to abandon it. The Ebionites are what became of that community, and what they said of him. The false apostles asks who, in the first Christian quarrel, the phrase fits.
How to read it
Every quotation of Paul of Tarsus on these pages is from the seven undisputed letters, and every quotation of Jesus is from the gospels with chapter and verse; the reader can check both. The Christian reply is given on each page in the form its best scholars give it, and then answered. The position argued is the Islamic one, and the pages say so. A reader who wants the whole case against Paul of Tarsus will find it at apostleofdoom.org; these pages give the part of it that bears on the Injīl.
Paul of Tarsus · I
The seven letters
Which letters scholars accept as Paul of Tarsus’s own, and why the argument here rests on them alone.
Paul of Tarsus · II
Acts against Galatians
Two accounts of the same years that cannot both be right: Damascus, Jerusalem, and the council.
Paul of Tarsus · III
Paul of Tarsus against Jesus
On the law, on sonship, and on atonement, set against the teaching recorded in the gospels.
Paul of Tarsus · IV
James and the Jerusalem church
The brother who led the first community, and what it required of Paul of Tarsus.
Paul of Tarsus · V
The Ebionites
The early Jewish followers of Jesus who kept the law and rejected Paul of Tarsus.
Paul of Tarsus · VI
The false apostles
Paul of Tarsus’s own charge against his rivals (2 Corinthians 11:13), and who stood on the other side of it.
The full case against Paul of Tarsus is set out at apostleofdoom.org.
Questions about Paul of Tarsus
Did Paul of Tarsus ever meet Jesus?
No. He never claims to have known Jesus in the flesh. His authority rests on a vision he says he received alone (Galatians 1:11-17; 1 Corinthians 15:8), and he says he did not consult the apostles in Jerusalem for three years afterwards. See Acts against Galatians.
Why do Muslims reject Paul of Tarsus?
Because the doctrines that separate Christianity from the teaching of Jesus recorded in the gospels, that he was divine, that his death atoned for sin, and that the law no longer binds, come from Paul of Tarsus’s letters, not from Jesus, and were contested by the apostles who had known him. See Paul of Tarsus against Jesus.
Did Paul of Tarsus and Jesus teach the same thing?
Not on the law. Jesus in Matthew says not one stroke of the law will pass and whoever relaxes the least commandment will be called least (5:17-19); Paul of Tarsus says Christ is the end of the law and those who seek to be justified by it are cut off from Christ (Romans 10:4; Galatians 5:4). Asked how to gain eternal life, Jesus said keep the commandments (Mark 10:19).
Which letters did Paul of Tarsus actually write?
Seven, by the broad agreement of scholars: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. Ephesians, Colossians and 2 Thessalonians are disputed; the Pastoral Letters were written in his name a generation later. Every claim on this website rests on the seven. See the seven letters.
Who were the Ebionites?
Jewish followers of Jesus, attested from the second century, who kept the law of Moses, held Jesus to be a man and a prophet, used only Matthew, and called Paul of Tarsus an apostate from the law. The church fathers who describe them counted them heretics. See the Ebionites.
What was the dispute between Paul of Tarsus and James?
James, the brother of Jesus, led the Jerusalem church, which kept the law. Men from James made Peter stop eating with gentiles at Antioch, and Paul of Tarsus opposed Peter to his face (Galatians 2:11-14). Years later James’s church required Paul of Tarsus to prove publicly that he did not teach Jews to abandon Moses (Acts 21:20-24). See James and the Jerusalem church.
Where this leads
If the Christ of the churches is Paul of Tarsus’s, the question is what Jesus was before him. The next part, Jesus in the Qur’an, gives the measure: ninety-three verses on ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, what they affirm, what they deny, and the gospel passages each one confirms or corrects.