<Section #9> Clay Douglas states: “Bishop John S. Spong (Episcopal Bishop of Newark): ‘Paul’s words are not the Words of God. They are the words of Paul - a vast difference!’ Thomas Jefferson: ‘Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.’ Thomas Hardy: ‘The new testament was less a Christiad than a Pauliad’.”

In reply to section <#9>: Douglas goes on to cite three apparent critics of Paul. John S. Spong, Episcopal Bishop of Newark, is of the same city from whence the jew rabbi Joachim Prince hails. You will remember Prince from the foregoing address of H. Graber’s article, above in section <R> on pp. 21-22 and in the closing remarks on pp. 29-30, for Graber cited Prince often. No doubt both Spong and Prince attended the same ecumenical councils, sleeping together metaphorically if not otherwise! Spong’s words lead me to wonder just which part of Paul’s writings Spong disagrees with. The Episcopal church has recently garnered much media attention when one of its dioceses elevated an openly homosexual minister to the position of bishop. But that isn’t so great of a sin compared to this: that the organization had a homosexual minister, which it must have long known about since he was “openly” homosexual, in the first place! And for Spong to be a bishop in an organization that admits homosexuals as ministers makes him a willing accomplice and an approver of such behavior!

Now Paul wrote of homosexuality that “they practicing such things are worthy of death, not only they who cause them, but also they approving of those committing them” (Rom. 1:32). Paul also wrote: “Do not be led astray: neither fornicators (race mixers) ... nor adulterers ... nor homosexuals ... shall inherit the Kingdom of Yahweh” (1 Cor. 6:9-11), where the Greek word is ἀρσενοκοίτης (733) and means nothing but “homosexual” in all secular Greek writing! Paul used the word again at 1 Tim. 1:9-10: “Knowing this, that the law is not laid down for righteous, but for lawless ... fornicating, homosexual ... men.” Surely in the case of homosexuals Paul had Leviticus 20:13 in mind, which states: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Yet Spong must approve of such behavior if only by simply maintaining his position rather than separating his flock from such sinners!

And about Spong’s flock! Newark N.J. is about three miles from where I grew up in Jersey City. The two are separated by a few miles of highway and a bridge over Newark Bay. This entire region is densely populated, being in the shadow of New York City, and is the epitome of ethnic diversity in the entire country. But Newark itself is not very ethnically diverse, because except for the Ironbound section of the city, which in the 1970’s was becoming more and more Portuguese and less and less white and Italian, Newark and its western suburbs of Hillside, Irvington and East Orange are virtually all black! Newark, site of large and violent black riots in 1968, where the National Guard was called in to restore order, was in the 1970s and 1980s well over 60% black, maybe 70%, and nearly all of the non-blacks were Catholic Italians and Portuguese! I can honestly state that in the 1980s one may have had a very difficult time finding a real white family in Newark. Spong’s flock may have consisted of many goats and wolves, but I can’t imagine where he’d find any sheep with which to fill his pews! With all of this I can only wonder: what sort of man could Spong be?

Now Thomas Jefferson is a man to be admired for many things, and especially for his opposition to the central bank crowd. Yet I do not admire his Bible scholarship. While a pious man, Jefferson saw no use in most of the Bible, and so attempted to create his own version. Doing so he discarded the books of Moses, the books of the prophets and the historical books. In fact, he also discarded much of the gospel accounts and other New Testament scriptures, not only Paul.

With the Jefferson Bible, we would have no law, no Leviticus 20:13 by which to know the truth concerning homosexuals, no Daniel 2 or 7 and no 1 Samuel 8 by which to learn about the reason why we have temporal government, no Messianic prophecies, no Isaiah or Jeremiah, no history, no way to discover the truths of our own Identity or the rest of the Adamic race, no background by which to understand the life of Christ, no context! Because the Jefferson Bible contains little but words of Christ separated from the gospels, and the Psalms, we wouldn’t know much from it at all! While of course the words of Christ are important, their context both historical and immediate is just as important! Neither would we be able to understand Christ’s references to “the law and the prophets”, because we wouldn’t have them. We surely would be lost then! Since Jefferson had no use for the law and the prophets, surely not understanding much of them, it does not surprise me that he disregarded or criticized Paul, for surely he also misunderstood Paul. Yet it is obvious that he is no authority on the subject, and neither is Clayton Douglas!

Thomas Hardy was a novelist, and probably not a very good mathematician. As Douglas attempted to credit Paul with “almost two-thirds of the New Testament”, Hardy attempts likewise. As I said, Thomas Hardy was a novelist. That should be sufficient a reply.

It is no great thing, that in today’s “information age” where we have managed to preserve the writings or opinions of thousands and thousands of intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals, one is able to find a few who are critical of someone such as Paul of Tarsus. One may find many more recognizable names who would criticize Thomas Jefferson! Yet that alone wouldn’t give them credibility in any given topic, because their names are recognizable and because they were opinionated. Paul himself told us to “prove all things.” Using scripture as our ruler, concerning Romans 13 Paul of Tarsus is shown to be true, whereas Clayton Douglas has failed. Would Douglas admit his error?

Now we shall proceed with Clayton Douglas’ article, “The Seduction: Judeo-Christianity OR Pauline Christianity? Saul of Tarsus: Paul. A different view.”, and all of his ignorant, ill-begotten and unwarranted criticisms of the apostle Paul. While Douglas offered a quote from the novelist, Thomas Hardy, as we continue through Douglas’ article, it may become evident that Douglas has taken to writing fictions of his own, where he makes all sorts of false assertions, and he offers no citations whatsoever with which to support his phony ‘history’.

<Section #10> Clay Douglas states: “Who Is Saul of Tarsus? That is Paul’s original name. Shortly after Saul claimed he had his vision of Jesus, he changed his name to ‘Paul.’ Why? Did Paul seek to re-create himself for benevolent purposes? Or, was Paul deceiving everyone and his namechange was simply one of many indicators in support of this? You decide.”

In reply to section <#10>: Contrary to the opinions of those critics who often jump to such false conclusions, the truth is that Paul of Tarsus never changed his name at any time during the period of his life covered by Luke’s account in Acts or by his own epistles. Luke wrote the Acts account, not Paul. Luke calls him “Saul” 15 times in Acts chapters 7 through 13, and in Acts 13 Luke begins to refer to him as Paul, and so throughout the rest of Acts. Luke tells us: “... Saulos, who also is Paulos ...”, which only indicates that Paul already had two names. Yet, for some reason Luke does not explain, Luke called him “Saul” until he related the account of their engagement with another man of the same name: Sergius Paulus, a Roman proconsul. Paul in Greek is everywhere Παῦλος (Strong’s #3972), the same as “Paulus” the proconsul.

It is notable that Paul and Barnabas had ready access to a man of such rank as a Roman proconsul, which is nearly the equivalent of being governor of a state, but not elected. Rather, proconsuls were appointed by the Roman Senate for a term of two years. So it may be that Luke simply took this occasion to use the name “Paul” in order to show us that Paul indeed had some prior acquaintance with the man. It was not uncommon in Rome for a man to adopt the name of a benefactor. The historian Josephus took the surname Flavius in honor of the Roman general who became emperor and was his benefactor: Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, popularly known only as Vespasian. It was normal for Romans to have three or four names, but to use only one commonly. One of a Roman’s names would be that of his gens, or family, which in the case of the Roman emperors Vespasian, Titus and Domitian was Flavia. “Flavius” is literally “of Flavia” in Latin, and so Josephus adopted the name “Josephus of Flavia”, or Flavius Josephus.

As discussed earlier in this response, several New Testament figures had multiple names, and now it should be also evident that it was normal for Roman men to have more than one name. To criticize Paul for something Luke wrote is ridiculous, yet upon examination it is also plain that there is nothing wrong with Luke’s writing! It may even be that Luke was unaware of Saul’s full name until their encounter with Sergius Paulus, and from that time Luke, who was the one doing the writing, chose to call him by Paul rather than Saul. While this may all be pushed aside as conjecture, it surely is more plausible than the absolutely false conjecture that Paul changed his name!