The religion of Saul of Tarsus

I posted this 10 years ago. Today I decide to re-post it (with some grammatical corrections) as a sort of remembrance to old matey RPK, wakakaka!

10 years ago I read with much interest (the late) RPK's Islam is politics over at his blog Malaysia-Today.

I hope my reading of what he was telling us is still correct, that both Christianity (as different from Judaism) and Islam started as political movements, to change the then respective existing religio-socio-political systems.

Mind you, even the concept of a Christianity, a religion as we know of it today, and its denomination or name (Christianity) did not exist then; it was at that time essentially an attempted overhaul of a hierarchical religio-socio-political system of Judaism, one mandated and thus controlled by the antiquated Judaic authorities of that time.

Both the respective leading proponents of the religio-socio-political overhaul at their respective time in history, Yehoshua ben Yosef and Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim (Muhammad pbuh), were obviously not popular with the respective ruling authorities for their political movements, to say the least.

The former was deemed a rebel and condemned by the Great Sanhedrin (Jewish Council in ancient Israel) for execution by crucifixion (by the Romans), whilst the latter went on to become the last prophet of god and of its latest version of the Abrahamic religion, one we know today as Islam.

I personally see the priests of Judaism of that time as somewhat akin to a quasi Hindu caste system of Sanhedrin (Brahmins), the royalty like Herod and their generals (Kshatriya) and the Judean hoi polloi (Vaishyas and Shudras), though the Judean class stratification wasn't as oppressive as the Hindu varna system.

Why is the Hindu varna system considered oppressive? Read my post Cast not thy untouchable shadow on doctors - and some Hindus dare to claim that the varna is just a grouping of complementary occupations in Hindu societies? My bloody balls!

Rig Veda III.34.9 - He gained possession of the Sun and Horses, Indra obtained the Cow who feedeth many. Treasure of gold he won; he smote the Dasyus [dark skinned people], and gave protection to the Aryan color;

Rig Veda IX.73.5 - Blowing away with supernatural might from earth and from the heavens the swarthy skin which Indra hates.

Anyway, in Yehoshua ben Yosef's political movement (as RPK termed it), the Judean rabbi must have wanted to change the stagnancy, corruption and class-consciousness of the Judaic religion, but as we all know, he failed - (BTW, hope you know who Yehoshua ben Yosef was?). It was his disciple Paul who succeeded, but in a new form of religion called Christianity, though Paul himself did NOT call it Christianity.

The believers in the preaching of Yehoshua ben Yosef was of him as the god-promised Messiah that Judeans had been waiting for a thousand years. They called themselves 'assembly' (Greek word ecclesia) and were all Jews.

That's right, their belief in Yehoshua ben Yosef was of him as the promised Messiah from the tribe of Judah rather than the son of god, though as we now realize, everything that the Israelite-Judean god promised, prophesied or proclaimed (eg. the Israelites were the Chosen People) was written by ... hello there, wakakaka ... the tribe of Judah, so what do you expect, more so after having listened to UMNO-PERKASA-ISMA versions of their ketuanan Chosen-ness for decades, wakakaka!

Mind, some people especially the American Christian Right and I suspect also the Malaysian Christian Right (Chinese and Indians) still believe in every word of the bible.

Okay, the paragraphs RPK has written which caught my attention were:

Both Muhammad and Jesus propagated war, war against the system. In fact, the Jews had been at war with the Romans for quite some time. But Jesus was not only at war with the Romans. He was at war with those who collaborated with the Romans as well, the lackey of the Romans in the Jewish hierarchy.

Paul, of course, disagreed with this. He was a Roman citizen so he felt that the church must work with the Romans. Others such as Peter, Paul [hello, was there another Paul? maybe just a typo!], etc., disagreed. So there was a falling out between Paul and those from the original Jesus movement. Paul then moved to Rome to continue his compromising brand of Christianity, in opposition to Peter, who was also in Rome, who preached his more firebrand form of Christianity.

My take, wakakaka - ironically or as poetic justice would have it, Paul was from the tribe of Benjamin, a tribe massacred/eliminated to near-genocidal levels by King David and his tribe of Judah. The sorry saga of fratricidal near-genocide occurred after David, the treacherous son-in-law of King Saul, murdered his father-in-law, his male lover Ishbosheth (Jonathan, son of Saul) and the entire Saulide family, whence he then maliciously turned on the tribe of Benjamin.

David was certainly even more treacherous than his eponymous ancestor, Jacob a.k.a Israel. As we know, Jacob (Israel) avariciously cheated both his father Isaac and twin elder brother Esau the rightful but cheated heir.

Yes as mentioned, David was responsible for the murder of his patron and father-in-law King Saul who loved and doted on him, and even went to the extent of f**king Saul's son Ishbosheth (Jonathan) just to get to the throne. David and Ishbosheth were lovers, although David also married Michal, Saul's daughter and Ishbosheth's sister.

Samuel 18:1-4 (KJV) tells us: And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. ... Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

David and Jonathan

Though both his lover Ishbosheth (Jonathan) and his wife Michal (Jonathan's sister) helped the treacherous bloke all the time, he nonetheless had both of them murdered eventually as he did to their father King Saul and their entire family.

The evil that David did to the Saulide Dynasty was so horrendous that up to today, many biblical scholars, both Jews and Christians, are still writing about his heinous Machiavellian malevolent murderous treachery. His undeserved biblical status was what one author termed as an 'invented hero'.

For more on the evil of David, read:

(i) Gary Greenberg's The sins of King David which informs us: David arranged the murder of Saul, the popular first king of Israel; had Saul's seven sons hanged; did NOT slay Goliath; and had an affair with Bathsheba, impregnated her, and arranged for the murder of her husband Uriah (ironically David's most loyal & righteous general). Finally, David allied himself with the Philistines, the enemies of Israel. In sum, he was deceitful, treasonous, corrupt, a tyrant and a murderer.

(ii) Cephas T. A. Tushima's The Fate of Saul's Progeny in the Reign of David which informs us that: Contrary to the traditionally readers' views of Saul as evil and David as heroic, David was unjust and calculating in his dealings with the Saulides and, like other Near Eastern usurpers, perpetrated heinous injustices against the vanquished house of Saul.

(iii) Joel Baden's The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero which informs us: The Historical David exposes an ambitious, ruthless, flesh-and-blood man who achieved power by any means necessary, including murder, theft, bribery, sex, deceit, and treason. As Baden makes clear, the historical David stands in opposition not only to the virtuous and heroic legends, but to our very own self-definition as David’s national and religious descendants.

... and many more books on the bible's 'invented' hero.

Though, based on secular logic and justice, I'm not one to believe in the biblical nonsense about the sins of the father being visited upon the children, the Judeans believed in that as per:

Exodus 34:7 (KJV) - Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

and

Deuteronomy 5:9 (KJV) - Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

... thus it's only fitting (poetic justice) that a Benjaminite, whose tribe suffered horrendous injustice from David and his tribe of Judah, started the religion of Christianity whose followers would come to punish and persecute the Judeans (almost all from David's tribe of Judah) for nearly two thousand years.

And make a guess what was Paul's original name and who he was named after?

Yes, while Paulus (Paul) was his Latin name as he was a citizen of Rome, Saul was his Hebraic name as per the first king of the Israelites, King Saul, the man murdered by his protege and son-in-law David.

The bible informs us that prior to his 'road to Damascus', Saul of Tarsus (Paul) was giving hell to those Judean followers of Yehoshua. I wonder whether he was then harbouring a 1000-year old Benjaminite grudge against the tribe of Judah, wakakaka.

But unlike Peter, the so-called 1st Apostle who by his behaviour and attitude would be considered a Judean racist, or the other 11 apostles, Paul was what we would called a far-thinking inclusive humanist-socialist who was above petty provincial parochial mentality, and who wanted to spread the teachings of Yehoshua ben Yosef beyond the bounds of ethnic Judeans and that strip of land called Judea, and to allow gentiles (non-Jews) to join the 'assembly' (ecclesia).

And the gentiles would NOT be required to follow the rites, rituals and laws of the Judean religion. In allowing gentiles into the religion, Paul pissed off many Jews who became extremely hostile to his inclusive non-racial approach and teachings. Hello there, suddenly I'm thinking of Dato' Onn Ja'afar!

Thus it can be said that if there is one man who did more for Christianity than any other man, it was the Apostle Paul, who incidentally was NOT a member of the original 12 apostles.

Paul's influence and efforts were so great that he was referred to by Christian theologians as the joint founder of Christianity. The term 'joint founder' was a respectful concession to you-know-who, wakakaka. In reality Paul was THE founder of Christianity because Yehoshua ben Yosef did NOT claim to have found a new religion different from Judaism.

As mentioned, Paul contributed to the popularity of Christianity by being inclusive and available to gentiles (like my old matey-foe looes74, wakakaka) on an equal basis.

At one stage Paul rebuked the apostle Peter for not ‘breaking bread’ together with the new (gentile) converts, who were then considered by the original disciples of Jesus as ‘unclean’ and more or less ‘second class’ adherents - oh my god (excuse the pun), shades (excuse my 2nd pun) of caste-conscious 'untouchables'?

Galatians 2:11-14 informs us:

11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

12 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.

14 But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?

Thus, even in those days, despite being whacked kau kau by the Babylonians, Assyrians, etc and then freed by the Persians and subsequently whacked again by the Macedonians and Romans, the Judeans were unrepentantly racists as some of today's Israelis are.

Secondly, Paul turned the indignity and shame of the crucifixion of Christ into a saga of incredible sacrifice by the 'Son of God' so that the ‘people could be saved’.

In essence, by promoting the concept of Jesus' earthly 'sacrifice' to save the believers, he salvaged the day for the church, for otherwise it would have been ridiculous for the so-called Son of God to die ignominiously like a common criminal, totally ignored by his Heavenly Father.

Yehoshua ben Yosef was ignored, wasn't he? One would have expected thunder, lightning, fire and brimstone raining from heaven at that moment when he was at Golgotha.

if Lot and his family (except for his wife) could be saved,
why not Yehoshua ben Yosef?

But Paul, not unlike the post-WWII British who turned the rout and resounding defeat of British troops at Dunkirk into a magnificent 'victory', turned the shameful crucifixion of Yehoshua ben Yosef into the central pillar of Christianity, that of a divine saviour sacrificing himself for the salvation of mankind.

Now, it has been acclaimed that the most significant factor Paul instituted that led to the spread of Christianity was the abandonment of the requirement for circumcision.

Recall what I have written earlier, that Paul decided that the gentiles (non-Jews) who joined the religion would not be required to follow the rites, rituals and laws of the Judean religion.

For Judeans who kept faith with God, circumcision was mandatory, as the act was a symbol of their covenant with God as per Genesis 17:9-11.

9 And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.

10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.

11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.

Indeed the (OT) biblical instructions have specific details as to who must be circumcised.

Because of this, those originally converted to the teachings of Yehoshua ben Yosef had to be circumcised because the religion, despite being 'adjusted and amended' by Yehoshua, was still Judaism.

And Judaism followed many practices of the ancient Egyptians including circumcision, non pork taking (see my post Why Orthodox Jews Don’t Eat Pork!) family inheritance and lineage through a matriarchal line, etc. 

Gulp, I don't like the look of what appears to be a pair of pliers (on right)

Hey, what's that tool on the left?

As I had mentioned in my post Why 'God' loved Isaac more than Ishmael:

... that circumcision was then an Egyptian practice. The Egyptians were probably the first people to conduct circumcision, but then only among the royals and nobility.

Please note that when we refer to the biblical Egyptians we’re NOT talking about today’s Egyptian who are and have been mainly Arabs, and of course mainly Muslims since Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) introduced Islam to the Middle-Eastern world.

The biblical Egyptians were a different race, no, not even the people of Ptolemy’s and Cleopatra’s who came later and were mainly Macedonians and Greeks, remnants of Alexander’s army. The original Egyptians were a race of a much earlier era, and have since long gone; no one other than perhaps historians of ancient Egypt or Egyptologists know where they are now - perhaps in Padang and Negeri Sembilan? Wakakaka.

But Paul did away with the foreskin snipping, believing that the circumcision wasn't necessary for salvation.

Paul revolutionized (threw away) many Jewish traditional practices making it convenient for gentiles wishing to follow his teachings. I wonder again whether his 1000-year old Benjaminite grudge was then in action, executing his tribe's long-overdue payback against the tribe of Judah, wakakaka.

In the Book of Joshua*, Chapter 5, it was shown that circumcision was indeed not an original Hebraic religious tradition. As mentioned above, it was an Egyptian practice.

* by the by, the English name 'Joshua' is exactly the same as the Judean name 'Yehoshua', so you could say there were at least two 'Jesus' in the bible, one in the OT and one in the NT. They appear to us as if they were different names because of the 'cleverness' or deceitfulness' or 'act dunno' of the biblical authors, who must have wanted to keep the name 'Jesus' exclusive to one person. 

The bible tells us that after Joshua carried out his god's instruction to circumcise those who were born after leaving Egypt and were thus still uncircumcised, their god said (Joshua 5:9):

And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.

Modern biblical scholars take that to mean, with the circumcision the Israelites were no longer in disgrace in the eyes of the Egyptians who previously viewed them with contempt because of their uncircumcised state.

Okay, a kaytee's question for you, wakakaka: Why the f**k would the Israelites or their god be bothered about the reproach of Egypt, one where the Egyptians looked down upon the Israelites with contempt because of the latter's uncircumcised state?

Weren't those Egyptians their mortal enemies, whose innocent first born were all massacred by the Israelite god? Shouldn't the Israelites and their god be happy not to follow the Egyptian customs and rites?

And just to help you along with your thinking as to why, wakakaka, I am going to reproduce below part of what I wrote in Why 'God' loved Isaac more than Ishmael:

On Egypt as a perennial sanctuary for the Israelites-Judeans, it may worthwhile venturing across into the New Testament to recall Matthew 2:13 which advised Yosef (Yehoshua’s dad, you know, Joshua or with the Greek name of Jesus) in a dream, of Herod’s murderous hunt for the newborn messiah:

Arise, He said, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and stay there until I bring the word ………

Flee to and take refuge in Egypt? Wait a ding dong minute, wasn't Egypt the land of the Israelite-Judean's mortal enemies?

Mind, daddy Yosef and mummy Mariam were not the only Israelites or Judeans who sought sanctuary in Egypt.

When the Israelites were threatened by the advancing Babylonians, their so-called prophet Jeremiah threatened them against running to Egypt for refuge, by relaying their god’s message (Jer 42:18):

“As my anger and wrath have been poured out on those who lived in Jerusalem, so will my wrath be poured out on you when you go to Egypt”.

But the Israelites wisely (wakakaka) ignored him and scooted off to seek sanctuary in Egypt, allegedly the land of their mortal enemies.

Guess who went with them? Wakakaka, Jeremiah of course, despite and in spite of his god's dire warning of divine wrath being poured on those who disobeyed (Jer 43:4-6). I suppose he only went with them in order to be able to rail against them (with god's messages) just in case they picked up Egyptian worship (Jer 44), wakakaka.

And most surprising of all, in Deuteronomy, under 23: Exclusion From the Assembly, the Israelite god warned the Israelites not to allow the neighbouring nationalities to enter the assembly of the Lord, even unto the tenth generation, except for the Edomites and the Egyptians.

The Edomites were of course also Hebrews, ‘cousins’ to the ketuanan Israelite people, as they were descendants of Esau, the firstborn of Isaac, who lost his birthrights to Jacob through trickery and deceit.

In fact, Deuteronomy 23:7-8 read:

You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land; the children of the third generation born to them may enter the congregation of the Lord.

The Edomites I can understand, but why this special treatment for their so-called mortal enemies, the Egyptians, those oppressors who supposedly kept the Hebrews in bondage for 430 years, and required a series of terrifying divine-sent plagues to intimidate the Pharaoh before he released them from slavery.

Indeed why?

I am afraid that again, I’m going to leave all the above for you to find out, wakakaka. Call me a bloody tease if you like, wakakaka.

Indeed, wakakaka!