Islamic position
You call yourself a follower of Jesus. Most of what you were taught about him comes from a man who never met him in his lifetime: Paul of Tarsus .
Paul of Tarsus says so himself. His gospel, he writes, “is not of human origin; I did not receive it from any human being, nor was I taught it” (Galatians 1:11-12). He calls it “my gospel” (Romans 2:16).
Where his gospel came from
Scholarly consensus
Paul of Tarsus began as the church’s enemy. “I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13); he calls himself “the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Corinthians 15:9).
After his vision he did not go to the men who had known Jesus. “I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia” (Galatians 1:16-17). Three years passed before he met Peter, and then for 15 days (Galatians 1:18).
So the gospel he carried to the nations was formed away from the disciples, from a vision, by a man who had never heard Jesus speak. He says it with pride. Read it as a warning.
Two gospels
Set them side by side, the Messiah first, in the 4 places where they part.
- “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17). Paul of Tarsus: “a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28).
- “Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19). Paul of Tarsus: “Christ is the end of the law” (Romans 10:4).
- “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Mark 12:29). Paul of Tarsus: “though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” (Philippians 2:6).
- The tax collector goes home justified for one prayer (Luke 18:13-14). Paul of Tarsus: “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).
Every line on the right is from the seven letters scholars accept as his own (see the seven letters). You cannot hold both columns; you have to choose.
What he did to the law
Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day (Luke 2:21), under the covenant God called everlasting (Genesis 17:13). Paul of Tarsus told the Galatians: “if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you” (Galatians 5:2).
He wrote of food: “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself” (Romans 14:14). The gospels never put that sentence in the mouth of Jesus. The note “Thus he declared all foods clean” in Mark 7:19 belongs to the narrator, and many translations print it in brackets.
Jesus said that not one stroke of a letter would pass from the law until all is accomplished (Matthew 5:18). Paul of Tarsus called the law a guardian until Christ came, after which “we are no longer under a guardian” (Galatians 3:24-25). Both cannot be the gospel.
What he made of the death
In Gethsemane Jesus prayed to be spared: “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me” (Mark 14:36). The gospels give him one line on what his death would mean: “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Paul of Tarsus built a whole gospel on that one line. “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2); “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3). He traces sin and death to Ādam, “as by one man sin entered the world” (Romans 5:12), and that is the root of the doctrine of original sin.
Ezekiel had already answered it: “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20). The Qur’an says that God forgave Ādam (2:37), that no soul bears another’s burden (6:164), and that ʿĪsā was neither killed nor crucified but raised to God (4:157-158).
The men who walked with him
Scholarly consensus
James, the brother of Jesus, led the church in Jerusalem, and the letter under his name answers the formula of Paul of Tarsus word for word: “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). Peter and Paul of Tarsus fell out at Antioch, and Paul of Tarsus says he “opposed him to his face” (Galatians 2:11).
The first community chose an apostle from the men who had been with Jesus “beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up” (Acts 1:21-22). Paul of Tarsus fails that test, and his commission rests on a vision (1 Corinthians 15:8). The whole case is on the false apostles.
The charge in Jerusalem
Scholarly consensus
Acts, written by his admirer, records what the church in Jerusalem had heard about him. James and the elders tell him: “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law, and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses” (Acts 21:20-21).
Their remedy was a test. He was to purify himself in the Temple with 4 men under a vow, “so that all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law” (Acts 21:24).
Set that beside his own letter: “if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you” (Galatians 5:2). The followers of Jesus in Jerusalem kept the law and suspected him of abandoning it, and his letters show the suspicion was right. More on that community is on James and the Jerusalem church.
The warning you were given
Islamic position
The Messiah told you what to do with such a man. “Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray” (Matthew 24:11); “you will recognise them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16).
Revelation praises the church at Ephesus for testing “those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false” (Revelation 2:2). Run the same test: put his letters beside the words of Jesus, and keep the words of Jesus.
His own method
Paul of Tarsus describes how he won people: “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews… To those outside the law I became as one outside the law… I have become all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:20-22).
Jesus gave his followers a different rule: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’” (Matthew 5:37). A teacher who changes his face for each audience is the man the Messiah told you to test by his fruit.
He sets himself above his rivals at Corinth, “I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles” (2 Corinthians 11:5), and says of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, “what they were makes no difference to me” (Galatians 2:6). Those leaders were James, Peter and John, the men who had walked with Jesus (Galatians 2:9).
The disciples, and the Qur’an
The Qur’an never names Paul of Tarsus. It names the disciples of ʿĪsā, who said: “We are the helpers of God. We believe in God; bear witness that we are Muslims” (3:52).
And it asks you to stand where they stood: “O you who believe, be helpers of God, as ʿĪsā son of Maryam said to the disciples, ‘Who are my helpers for God?’” (61:14). Their religion was the one God, the commandments kept, and ʿĪsā His messenger. Come back to it.
What leaving him means in practice
Pray as the Messiah taught you, to God: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9). The prayer he gave you is addressed to God alone, and asks forgiveness of God alone.
Drop the doctrines that come only from the letters: original sin from Romans 5, the law abolished from Galatians, salvation by faith apart from works from Romans 3. Keep what the Messiah said: the one God, the commandments, mercy, repentance.
Then ask yourself who taught those things after him in full. The Qur’an answers: the Messenger whom ʿĪsā announced, “whose name is Aḥmad” (61:6; see the good news of Aḥmad).
What to do
Read the seven letters of Paul of Tarsus, then read the words of Jesus in Mark, Matthew and Luke, and mark every place where they part. The full comparison is on Paul of Tarsus against Jesus.
When you have chosen the Messiah over Paul of Tarsus, the next step is on Why Islam?
Questions about leaving Paul of Tarsus
Did Paul of Tarsus ever meet Jesus?
Only in a vision. Paul of Tarsus says the risen Christ appeared to him “last of all” (1 Corinthians 15:8), and Acts sets it on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3-6). He never heard Jesus teach.
Can I follow Jesus without Paul of Tarsus?
Yes. His words are in Mark, Matthew and Luke, and the first followers in Jerusalem kept them without the theology of the letters; the Ebionites did so for centuries.
Do Muslims count Paul of Tarsus as an apostle?
Muslims hold that no prophet came between ʿĪsā and Muḥammad (al-Bukhārī 3442), and the Qur’an names only the disciples who were with ʿĪsā (3:52; 5:111). A commission received in a vision after ʿĪsā was raised is outside both.
Is Paul of Tarsus in the Qur’an?
He is absent from it. The Qur’an names the disciples of ʿĪsā as his helpers (3:52; 61:14), and they are the only followers of ʿĪsā it names.
What should I keep from the letters of Paul of Tarsus?
What agrees with the words of Jesus and with the Qur’an, such as his call to love your neighbour (Romans 13:9), which is the second commandment Jesus gave (Mark 12:31). The rest is weighed by the same measure, as on the measure.
Sources
- The Bible: Genesis 17:13; Ezekiel 18:20; Matthew 5:18-19, 37; 6:9; 7:16; 19:17; 24:11; Mark 7:19; 10:45; 12:29-31; 14:36; Luke 2:21; 18:13-14; Acts 1:21-22; 9:3-6; 21:20-24; Revelation 2:2; James 2:24.
- The seven letters of Paul of Tarsus: Romans 2:16; 3:28; 5:12; 10:4; 13:9; 14:14; 1 Corinthians 2:2; 9:20-22; 15:3, 8-9, 17; 2 Corinthians 11:5; Galatians 1:11-18; 2:6-11; 3:24-25; 5:2; Philippians 2:6.
- The Qur’an: 2:37; 3:52; 4:157-158; 5:111; 6:164; 61:6, 14.
- Al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ, 3442, on no prophet between ʿĪsā and Muḥammad.