The Paul (Villain) vs. Jesus (Hero) Narrative is Problematic

A Response to Andrew Springer

Photo by Alipio Junior on Unsplash

Andrew Springer recently published an article entitled 4 Major Lies Paul Told About Jesus, in which he argues that “The main reason today’s Christians act so un-Christ-like can be summed up in a single word: Paul.” He places Paul as the promulgator of the religion about Jesus that clearly differentiated from the religion of Jesus. In this way, Paul shifted “Jesus’ radical spiritual and political program for earthly justice into a checklist of beliefs about a dead man coming back from the grave.” It’s a nice polemical point that provides a nice dichotomy for 21st-century Christianity, but it shows a shallow or incomplete view of both Jesus and Paul. It sounds more like a modern debate between progressive Christianity and evangelical Christianity than a clear historical picture of Jesus or Paul.

I often push back against this Jesus vs. Paul narrative, so it may seem like I think they had basically the same theology and practices. That is not what I am arguing! Andrew brings up much-needed discussion, and he does it in an eloquent way. There is certainly discontinuity between these historic figures, but the narrative that Paul “lied” about Jesus or “corrupted” Jesus is one-sided at best. The narrative that they have two opposite religions or theological visions does not give enough nuance to Paul or to Jesus. I think the narrative is problematic because it only holds one stream of historical Jesus scholarship, and it does not highlight significant portions of the Synoptic presentations of Jesus. It also does not put Paul in his proper historical context, but reads a post-Reformation Paul back into the texts.

Two questions for Andrew that complicate his narrative about the historical Jesus.

1. Are We Sure Jesus’ Religion Was Not About Him at All?

Andrew says, “Paul flipped Jesus’s message on its head. To Paul, the messenger became the message. Jesus wasn’t a prophet announcing the kingdom — he was the way to the kingdom.” In this nice-and-neat dichotomy, Andrew presents Jesus as a messenger of political justice with no premonitions about his own role in the coming kingdom of God. He quotes from Matthew 25, and rightly points out the importance of ethical action to Jesus, continuing a long Jewish tradition, but does he grossly underestimate Jesus’ role in the kingdom? He quotes these verses from Matthew 25, and adds a revealing footnote.

“When the Son of Man (6) comes in his glory… all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

With a simple footnote beside Son of Man, Andrew says that scholars do not believe Jesus thought of himself as that figure. That is appealing to a consensus in scholarship that is simply not there. Sure, if we only looked at the Jesus Seminar in the 1980s and 1990s, that may seem consensual, but that does not view the field in general. It is heavily debated among scholars about Jesus’ self-conception, and the title of Son of Man is one of the most debated christological titles.

Take, for instance, this quote by Dale Allison in The New Cambridge Companion to Jesus, which was published in 2024,

Discussion of Jesus’s self-conception has been much affected by theological — as well as anti-theological — interests. Many have desired to bring his ideas as close to later creedal orthodoxy as possible. Others have wished to do the opposite. The truth seems to be that Jesus had an exalted self-perception, which is best understood not in Arian or Athanasian terms but via comparison with divine agents in Second Temple Jewish texts, such as Melchizedek in 11QMelchizedek and the Son of Man in 1 Enoch 37–71.

Perhaps Andrew is right: Jesus’ role in the apocalyptic kingdom of God was minimal, and he did not believe he was the Son of Man. But that claim still needs to acknowledge that much scholarship argues against it. Can we be that confident that Jesus was simply a meek “messenger” and had no exalted conception of himself? Arguing that he was merely an announcer of the kingdom fits well into the narrative that Jesus was corrupted and exalted against his will, but are we so certain this was a historical reality? Jesus likely had a pretty strange apocalypticism, steeped in 2nd Temple Jewish thought that would not mesh neatly with 21st-century sensibilities, but does that mean it's ahistorical?

Andrew says, “His (Jesus’)overtly political message was too much for the Romans, who had little tolerance for rebellion among conquered peoples. The colonial governor Pontius Pilate had him executed in the most horrific way possible — as they did with other would-be revolutionaries — as a stark reminder of what happens to those who dare challenge the empire.”

The question has to be asked whether Jesus’ political message alone was enough for him to be crucified. There seems to be a taming with this notion of Jesus’ “political message” where it is simply the non-violent message of Jesus exalting God that upsets the Romans and leads to crucifixion. Does that make more sense than an apocalyptic Jesus that made claims of rule or victory over the Romans? Andrew presents a Jesus that preaches against power and elitism, and seems to dampen any sense that Jesus claimed power or kingship.

Dale Allison argues that Jesus’ ascendency to kingship of Israel would make more sense. This is another quote from the Cambridge Companion,

(i) The Romans crucified him. The best explanation is that they worried about the unrest attending a popular figure some took to be “king of the Jews” (the inscription above the cross: Mark 15:2, 9, 12, 18, 26; John 18:33, 39; 19:3, 19, 21). That some imagined Jesus to be an insurrectionist with regal pretensions entails that the issue of kingship was there before Easter (cf. John 6:15). (ii) Belief in Jesus’s resurrection would not have moved anyone to identify him as Israel’s king, as if to turn him into someone he had not been before. On the contrary, the resurrection functioned to vindicate Jesus, which meant vindicating the hopes his followers already had. (iii) If Jesus selected twelve disciples (Mark 3:13–19) to represent the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt 19:28), it is significant that he is not among their number. As the one who chose them, he was rather their leader, which implies his leadership of restored Israel.

Again, perhaps Andrew is right, but his statement that these are what scholars agree on misses a large chunk of scholarship. There is a lot of work that has been done in the past three decades that thinks Jesus was not merely a messenger, but he had regal and apocalyptic aspirations and ambitions himself.

I worry that the traditions of Crossan and Borg, of which Andrew draws, have long sought to recover a Jesus for the modern day, and that they tame the apocalypticism of the historical Jesus in the process. The nature of that apocalypticism warrants a longer article!

2. Are We Sure the Synoptic Gospels Are Not Influenced By Pauline Theology?

When it comes to consensus, it is nearly unanimous among historians and New Testament scholars that the undisputed Pauline epistles are the earliest Christian writings that we possess. Books like Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Romans, and 1 and 2nd Corinthians were likely written in the 50s CE with some possibly being written in the late 40s. Therefore, these letters are within the 1st generation of Jesus followers, and they predate the gospels themselves. That is not to say that there is not earlier material in the gospels themselves, but there is no way for us to historically uncover that material with absolute certainty to say they were beliefs/practices of the earliest Christian communities about Jesus.

However, the theology/practices we find in Paul are not the earliest historical evidence of early Christian beliefs. Many scholars believe that Paul quotes from writings and traditions that were passed down to him by earlier Jesus followers. In other words, Paul is our earliest link to early Christian beliefs that were heavily about Jesus. Jesus is clearly exalted in our earliest Christian sources. Are we certain the gospels were not formed and/or shaped by Pauline theology about Jesus? If they were, how are we to historically recover what the religion of Jesus was versus the religion about Jesus?

All over the gospel texts, there is a sense that how one responds to Jesus himself matters. I don’t have that much confidence we can say this was just later development and had no connection to the historical Jesus. This is where the methodology is difficult, where some verses can be seen as historical and neighboring verses are obviously seen as ahistorical. Andrew uses the methodology of the Jesus Seminar, but misses the criticisms that have been raised against it.

Take Matthew 10:29–34

29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. 32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. 34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Can verses 32–34 be obviously seen as ahistorical, where the surrounding teaching about worry and God’s care for the sparrows clearly goes back to the historical Jesus? What happens is the historian's picture of Jesus, whether political revolutionary, sage teacher, or apocalyptic prophet, does the heavy lifting in demarcating what is historical or not. Therefore, if Jesus is clearly a wisdom teacher, but not apocalyptic, then verses 29–31 are from the historical Jesus, but verses 32–34 are not. I heavily empathize with Allison’s project that the mission of demarcating sayings is problematic, and it's best to stick with “gists” or blocks of materials.

I fear that Andrew’s project of neatly bifurcating the historical Jesus from the theological Christ is much messier than he presents at best, and impossible at worst. The picture of Jesus, Andrew believes the gospel’s present may be more Pauline than he realizes. What are we to do with that? I’m not saying there may not be a clear discontinuity; there obviously was, but how easily can we disentangle it from the gospels’ presentation of Jesus or early Christianity in general?

This article, which started as a comment on Andrew’s post, got too long just talking about Jesus alone, so I will do a quick follow-up on why Andrew presents a shallow view of Paul as well. In fact, I think it is Andrew’s misunderstanding of Paul that presents the most problems with his vision of the historical Jesus. Stay tuned!