Peteskibreen's Blog

SPIRITUALITY

Jesus and Paul

Thanks Glen*.

I am not a scholar nor the son of one and I’m tempted to say I am not far from being biblically illiterate. I have recently read Luke as part of my tentative Lenten focus and it is a rare thing to read the Scriptures these days. In the version I used I found the headings and chapters a nuisance while attempting to read as if for the first time. Almost impossible. However I found the story around the lawyer and Samaritan instructive where the teacher said to the lawyer he would live if he loved God and neighbour. Pre- Pauline. There is the rub for me as the kingdom was never so much introduced by Jesus as much as lived and promoted with prophetic intensity and no failed let up and had nothing to do with a fire insurance “I am saved now”. The kingdom was and always shall be. Last night I read a chapter by Bishop Spong on the resurrection in “Jesus for the non religious.” Not a bad attempt for this evolving mystic [me] while wondering how “reliable” is his source material and deductions on the non-bodily resurrection. And in the past couple of years after recommendations by friends and Wesleyans I have waded through David Bentley Taylor’s scholarly “That all shall be saved” and have been convinced by his arguments. Just joining in this conversation. It is bloody hard to be a “good Samaritan” and to live day in day out as if in a “kingdom” and not join a sect. I consider Paul to be a hard line domineering teaching Pharisee the likes of who both enthrall me and send me running into the nearest cave. If there is love and “kingdom” in Pauline writing then is that not a sign of some kind? Peter Breen.

Glen O’Brien.

*There’s a lot of discourse around at the moment distinguishing between the ‘Jesus that Paul invented’ and ‘the real Jesus’. The claim is made that the original radically revolutionary teaching of Jesus was replaced by an imperial religion created by Paul who turned Jesus from a simple Galilean peasant preacher into a cosmic God-Man figure easily manipulated for the purposes of empire. This seems to me a rather too simplistic dualism. How would we get back to some supposed ‘real Jesus’ rather than the ‘invented’ one of Paul? After all, the Gospel writers were doing the same thing that Paul was doing, creatively constructing narratives about Jesus that depicted him as a Divine Saviour figure (and not only John, but the Synoptics as well). Some of the genuine letters of Paul are earlier than some of the Gospels. So where is the ‘true Jesus’ to be found exactly? Maybe those who claim Paul invented ‘another Jesus’ have really just invented one of their own, but from what source material? 

The Pauline correspondence is a remarkably valuable gift that tells us so much about early Christianity (just as other New Testament writings do, as well as numerous noncanonical writings). Sure, Pauline Christianity is only one Christianity among many early Christianities (and there are historical reasons for the relative hegemony it has enjoyed) but it seems to me overly simplistic to construct a strict binary between Paul’s Jesus and ‘the real Jesus’. I’m more of an historian than a biblical scholar (even though I completed a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies in another life), but thankfully I count many biblical scholars among my Facebook friends (to whom I willingly defer on such questions) some of whom might like to weigh in on this. 

*Note: This post is an extract from quite a few folks in conversation with Rev Dr Glen O’Brien on FB.

Both drawings by Peter Breen as part of 2025 Body and Soul Berlin Artist Magazine #45. Collage, charcoal, graphite, guache.

A selection of drawings including these from the Berlin Magazine #45 are available as prints on 308gsm Hahnamule Photo Rag Paper. A4 $60 each plus postage.