<Section #17> Clay Douglas states: “... Saul promptly changed his name to Paul to disguise himself as a deserter from the Roman army, and to fool other disciples of Esu, who had been his enemies. Though he had access to Esu’s original scrolls stolen from Judas Iscarioth, ... Paul twisted purposefully twisted [sic] these teachings of Truth ... Paul began traveling from place to place, proclaiming the teachings of Esu. Even Esu’s closest followers were fooled into believing what the ‘new missionary’ taught. Through financial assistance of his Pharisee friends in Jerusalem, Paul set out on his first ‘missionary’ journey, teaching his twisted version of Esu’s new teachings of ‘truth.’ During his life he made three major missionary journeys through the countries bordering the east and north shores of the Mediterranean Sea, even as far east [sic west] as Italy. Everywhere he traveled, Paul established groups of believers he called churches. Those more commonly known churches were Jerusalem, Ephesus, Antioch, Corinth, Colassae [sic], Thessalonica, Philippi, Laodicea, Galatia, Athens, and Rome.”

In reply to section <#17>: It is evident that Paul did not change his name, as explained in section <#10> of this response. It is also a certainty that Paul was never in the Roman army, for which see sections <#12> and <#13> of this response. Now furthermore I must ask, what sort of man would desert an army after committing a series of infamous deeds, change his name to hide his desertion, as Douglas so forthrightly alleges, yet go around admitting that he was the perpetrator of the very deeds he is hiding from? Oh, Paul’s admissions are recorded at Acts 22:4-5, 26:11, and he admits it in his own hand at Gal. 1:13 and 23 and at 1 Tim. 1:12-13. His actions were admitted indirectly at Acts 9, described at Acts 8, and it is explained that the Christians knew who he was and of his conversion in Acts 9. Those same Christians treated him respectfully at Acts 15! And they surely knew who he was, lest Douglas expects us to think of them as idiots, as he obviously thinks his own readers are. How can a man be fleeing from what he is at the same time admitting? And while he spoke many languages and had the capacity to travel, he stayed in Judaea! Why wouldn’t those who disputed with him at Antioch not simply turn him in to the Roman authorities if he were a deserter, rather than send him to let him plead his case to the Christian elders at Jerusalem? And when he prevailed he returned to Antioch, and was accepted! (Acts 15). The plot to Douglas’ novel makes no sense at all, and it’s Douglas’ story which contains all sorts of conflicts and discrepancies, not Paul’s! If Douglas believes that anyone who has actually studied the Bible and history could accept any of his garbage, he must be an idiot!

Yet Douglas’ script becomes even more fantastic. While I ignored some of his sub-plots when responding at section <#13>, I won’t ignore them here: “he [Paul] had access to Esu’s original scrolls stolen from Judas Iscarioth.” Now if Yahshua Christ, “Esu” as Douglas calls Him, had “original scrolls”, how does Douglas have this information? Where is their existence recorded? Why didn’t Matthew mention them? or James, or Mark, or Peter? Why didn’t John, who lived at least 30 years after Paul was killed, tell us about them? Why didn’t Jude tell us about them? Because they never existed! If Douglas could tell us something material concerning any such writings, he would have already, but he can’t, so he didn’t! Either he is inventing such scrolls to suit his own purpose, or he repeats someone else’s lies because it suits his purpose! Clayton Douglas, I challenge you: offer substantial evidence from antiquity concerning the existence of these scrolls! Or, you are a liar! Or is your source perhaps some unprovable passage found in the Talmud or Gnostic ‘gospels’? And no wonder you haven’t already revealed it! Yet if you choose to withhold it, you are a liar: an inventor of tales!

Nearly every one of my claims concerning ancient history are accompanied by a reference to some ancient writer (i.e. Strabo) and a number referring to book, chapter and paragraph (i.e. 11.3.3 for the relationship of the Iberians to the Scythians). Now with some writers I don’t name a work, because only one work from each has survived, i.e. Herodotus’ Histories or Strabo’s Geography. Where I cite a writer who has more than one book surviving, I name it, i.e. Josephus’ Antiquities or Wars. All of this should be self-evident, being normal scholarly practice, and often my writing cites articles in archaeology magazines or more recent books as sources for my contentions. I would stake my reputation upon one thing, that if you would go to a decent library you would find some translation of Strabo, Josephus, Herodotus, Euripides, or whoever (and they are all currently published by Harvard University Press and others), and find the section which I cite, and that I have quoted or paraphrased it accurately. Clayton Douglas makes many, many statements which would be new to many readers, and he cites no one at all. If he isn’t getting his unique account of history from somewhere, he can only be inventing it!

Furthermore, notice above, that Douglas does acknowledge the generally recognized fact that it was Paul of Tarsus who traveled throughout the Roman world establishing Christian assemblies, where Douglas states: “Paul established groups of believers he called churches. Those more commonly known churches were Jerusalem, Ephesus, Antioch, Corinth, Colassae [sic], Thessalonica, Philippi, Laodicea, Galatia, Athens, and Rome”.  This admission will be referred to in Paul’s defense later in this exposition.

<Section #18> Clay Douglas states: “... Paul avoided many of the Laws of God. Indeed, most of the time, Paul made God’s Laws ‘of no effect.’ In other words, he simply neutralized them. For example, Paul taught the escaping of personal responsibility by believing in salvation from one’s sins through ‘God’s Son’ dying as a ransom for one’s sins. The idea of a ‘rapture’ probably began with Paul, the waiting for ‘Jesus Christ’ to return in the clouds and the snatching up of his faithful believers and taking them to ‘heaven’ to live happily ever after. Paul’s writings of lies were so widely accepted that by 323 AD at the Council of Nicea the Pharisees placed many of them into the ‘Cannonized [sic] Bible’ of the day. Some of these writings today are known as Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and I and II Thessalonians. These writings were letters of instructions to the ‘churches’ which Paul had established at various locations during his missionary travels.”

In reply to section <#18>: It is so easy to be shown a passage or two, take them out of context, and use them to write a blanket condemnation of any writer, not only Paul, which is precisely what Douglas has done here. It is clear to me that either Douglas can’t read (and that has already been established here, in section <#15> explicitly), or at least Douglas hasn’t read Paul completely. On page 13 above, in my response to the Paul-bashing H. Graber at section <J>, I have covered similar accusations against Paul concerning the law at length. It is clear that Paul said that we do not make void the law through faith, but rather as Christians we seek to establish the law. We do not seek to establish the legalism of the Pharisees, which Christ condemned and which has encompassed us again today in all of the modern governmental regulations (i.e. IRS, OSHA, EPA, DOE, ATF, etc. ad nauseum), nor do we seek to reestablish the Levitical ordinances of purification ritual and sacrifices, which as a matter of prophecy were done away with, the “works of the law” nailed to the cross. Rather we seek to establish the law which, as prophesied, Yahweh has inscribed on the hearts of the children of Israel, encompassed in the ten commandments and the warnings against fornication (race-mixing), and the admonition to be a separate people: all things which the jews have campaigned against unceasingly since we allowed them to dwell among us! Illustrating these things above in section <J>, I cited Romans 3:31; Deut. 30:6; Isa 51:7; Jer. 4:4; 31:31- 33; 32:39-40; and Ezek. 11:19-20. Then further on in that section, continuing the same response, it is shown that Paul’s position on the law does not conflict in any way with the positions of James or Peter in their epistles. Doing this I compared Romans 2:13-15, 25; 14:10; Gal. 2:4; 5:1-3, 13-14; James 1:22-25; 2:10, 12; 4:11-12; 1 Pet. 2:15-16 and 2 Pet 2:1, 19. Anyone who condemns Paul’s position on the law does so in ignorance, not knowing what is written in the law itself, or in the prophets.

Christ intends to fulfill both the law and the prophets, as the Paul-bashers love to point out (Matt. 5:17), and these writings of the prophets which tell us that under the New Covenant the children of Israel would follow the law of Yahweh “having been inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living Yahweh; not on tablets of stone, but on fleshly tablets of heart” (2 Cor. 3:3) are certainly a part of what Christ came to fulfill, and so we find that the actions of Paul are one with the intentions of Christ! Douglas chides Paul for being a Pharisee, yet Douglas follows the Pharisees! For the Pharisees being legalists, couldn’t bear to part with the traditions of the elders, which Christ condemned (Matt. 15, Mark 7), and their presumed expertise in all the matters of Mosaic Law, and so the Pharisees condemned Paul for wanting to do away with those things (i.e. Acts 18:12-15; 21:20-26; 21:28 et al.), just as the Paul-bashers do today. Here it is proven! The Paul-bashers, accusing Paul of evil for being a Pharisee, themselves are followers of the Pharisees! And that Paul was following the true way of Christ is evident, for we see that the same charges which the jews had leveled against Paul they had also leveled against the martyr Stephen! (Acts 6:13). So the Paul-bashers are followers of the jews, and Paul was a follower of Christ, “believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets” (Acts 24:14). Why don’t the Paul-bashers believe everything written in the prophets? Because they follow the jews, who claimed to know the scripture, yet time and again they were reproved by scripture! (Matt. 21:42; 22:49).

Clayton Douglas has, and properly, credited Paul of Tarsus with the founding of the “churches” (properly “assemblies”) of several places throughout the Greco-Roman world, which he lists at section <#17> though I didn’t fully address the issue there. Here, Clayton Douglas properly credits Paul with having written letters to several of those assemblies, letters still with us today. Among the assemblies which Paul is credited as having founded are those at Ephesus and Laodicea. While there is no surviving epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans, they are given mention at Colossians 2:1 and 4:13-16. Can we tell, from the Bible, that the assemblies at Ephesus and Laodicea were valid Christian assemblies? No one else is recorded in any place as having founded Christian assemblies in these cities! It is to be noticed that Peter wrote to the assemblies of Asia, and all these places, Ephesus, Laodicea and Colossae, were in the Roman province of Anatolia called Asia. Yet there is more than this.
In the Revelation of Yahshua Christ as recorded by John, there is a message to the assembly at Ephesus, which Paul founded. They were admonished for having left their “first love”, which must have been the form of Christianity which Paul brought to them, since Paul founded the assembly! So Yahshua Christ Himself testifies of the good work of Paul by His very message to this assembly. Now while the Ephesians were also praised for having rejected false apostles, this can’t mean Paul, because Paul was the first founder of the assembly, and Paul warned the Ephesians of this same thing prior to his arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 20:17-38). This message to the assembly at Ephesus is at Revelation 2:1-7. There is also a message for the assembly at Laodicea at Revelation 3:14-22. Since only Paul founded these assemblies, as Douglas admits, then the very fact alone that Yahshua Christ considers these assemblies recognizes the validity of their founding and existence as a part of His purpose! And so Paul’s work was good, and Christian! Clayton Douglas and the rest of the Paul-bashers are blind for not seeing these things, their eyes beset with the thorns of the Canaanites (Num 33:55; Josh. 23:13; Jdgs. 3:2), the jews of today.

Were there “Pharisees” at the Council of Nicaea? Christians were persecuted throughout Roman history, from the days of Claudius and Nero right up to the days of Diocletian, who persecuted Christians heavily, and who was emperor until 305 A.D. The danger of persecution did not end until the rule of Constantine was fully secured in 324 A.D., and this is apparent even though his edict of Milan in 313 A.D. made Christianity lawful. Pagans hostile to Christianity succeeded to the throne even after Constantine, though it was not again persecuted. While it cannot be proven one way or another that Nicaea was void of men of Canaanite stock, nor can it be disproven, it is very unlikely that any learned jew (i.e., a Pharisee) would have infiltrated Christianity and risked his life for it. The men who attended Nicaea were Christian bishops recently come out from the underground from across the empire! That “judaizers”, legalists who like the Pharisees would bind men to the Mosaic law and rituals, were despised is apparent in the writings of early Christians such as Eusebius. It is not likely that any of the men at Nicaea were jews, or Pharisees.

While the men at Nicaea were not perfect, we certainly cannot blame Paul, who died over 260 years prior, for any of their mistakes! And we certainly can’t blame Paul for the Romish catholic church, or even the men at Nicaea, since that beast didn’t begin to take its shape until the time of Justinian in 528 A.D. Yet that the letters of Paul were universally accepted by the men at Nicaea, who had endured so many persecutions in the face of the jews and the Pagans, and that Paul was also accepted by the Celtic Church, which had existed long before Nicaea and was a totally separate entity from the assemblies of the Mediterranean regions, is absolutely indisputable evidence that Paul’s mission and epistles and teachings were valid and ordained by Yahweh.