Harel13
Active member
I'm sure every Jew who occasionally pops by this site has his favorite "who was the real Jesus?" theory, seeing as we have little faith in the words of the NT. There are also a number of theories about who Paul and the other apostles were. On Shabbat I read an interesting theory I hadn't heard before, by Avraham Korman in his book "Sects and Cults in Judaism". In it he explains that he believes that Paul was very likely really a "punisher" for the Sanhedrin, as Paul himself claims to have been. However, it seems that he was fired for some reason (not really surprising. We can make a whole list of Paul's wonderful character traits as described in the NT). Down on his luck, he met Peter one day. Peter is described in the NT as being able to mystically kill people:
What this makes him out to have been is nothing but a thug. This particular thug wanted power. He wanted a following. He collected a group of followers and built a perverted ideology based around the teachings of one Jesus ben Pantira, an ex-Pharisee who had been tried and punished by the Sanhedrin over a century prior. Evidently, traces of his teachings could still be found among certain sects (similarly, we find that traces of Second Temple cult ideologies were still preserved for a time by the Karaites and other medieval Jewish sects). Peter, originally called "Shimon", was given the name "Peter Chamor" (פטר חמור) in Jewish tradition, for he was the first to follow the Jesusian ideology, just as the firstborn donkey is to be killed. Peter, the firstborn donkey strangled his Judaism with idolatrous, heretical beliefs.
And so, Paul eventually chanced upon this Peter, and, realizing that joining this thuggish sect might be beneficial to him, joined up with him and assisted him with what may be deemed similar to a spiritual protection racket. It seems that at some point they had a falling-out (if anything in the NT is to be trusted) and Paul went his own way. He directed the spiritual racket at the non-Jews. Decades later, the legends about Jesus ben Pantira, Shaul/Paul and Shimon-Peter-Chamor were mixed and matched by several different authors to form what would become the books of the Avon-gilayon ("text of sin" as the Talmud calls it) and the rest is history.
That is essentially Korman's understanding of the early history of Christianity.
Thoughts?
Korman compared this to Josephus's description of the Sicarii in Wars of the Jews, 2:13:
Korman concluded that Peter was a Sicarius. That was how he was able to "magically" murder people: He stabbed them so quickly that no one realized what had happened.
What this makes him out to have been is nothing but a thug. This particular thug wanted power. He wanted a following. He collected a group of followers and built a perverted ideology based around the teachings of one Jesus ben Pantira, an ex-Pharisee who had been tried and punished by the Sanhedrin over a century prior. Evidently, traces of his teachings could still be found among certain sects (similarly, we find that traces of Second Temple cult ideologies were still preserved for a time by the Karaites and other medieval Jewish sects). Peter, originally called "Shimon", was given the name "Peter Chamor" (פטר חמור) in Jewish tradition, for he was the first to follow the Jesusian ideology, just as the firstborn donkey is to be killed. Peter, the firstborn donkey strangled his Judaism with idolatrous, heretical beliefs.
And so, Paul eventually chanced upon this Peter, and, realizing that joining this thuggish sect might be beneficial to him, joined up with him and assisted him with what may be deemed similar to a spiritual protection racket. It seems that at some point they had a falling-out (if anything in the NT is to be trusted) and Paul went his own way. He directed the spiritual racket at the non-Jews. Decades later, the legends about Jesus ben Pantira, Shaul/Paul and Shimon-Peter-Chamor were mixed and matched by several different authors to form what would become the books of the Avon-gilayon ("text of sin" as the Talmud calls it) and the rest is history.
That is essentially Korman's understanding of the early history of Christianity.
Thoughts?
