The Inclusion of the Pauline Epistles in the NT must be Reconsidered

Thanks for the acceptance. I would like to start by introducing the minor dilemma which first caused me to start looking at the canon more skeptically. It was the citation by a church leader of 2 Tim 3:16 in order to justify the inspiration of the canon, including the Book of Revelation. I am not currently disputing Revelation, but I am arguing the 2 Tim 3:16 can only refer to what both Timothy and Paul understood to be Scripture at the time of that writing. Even if we give the best intention to Paul, he could not have known what writing were later to be written and then considered Scripture by meetings of bishops. There is no reason to assume that God necessarily would work to make sure we get the right Bible. It is my argument that we must question the “inspiration” of the canon. Paul sometimes claims inspiration and sometimes he expressly denies inspiration. There is no reason to expect that a teacher would immediately follow Jesus and expound upon his teachings. Even the Apostles would not have the authority to make up new doctrines and the account in Acts does not make it sufficiently clear that Paul should be numbered as an Apostle. Even if Paul is to be considered an Apostle, it is certainly possible that he could have erred, and the question becomes this – “Does Paul contradict Jesus, the Hebrew Scriptures, or the ‘other’ Apostles?” I will try to expound on some of these points. It is baseless to assume that God must have intervened if the canon was being formed in error at the Council of Trent. This evangelical website (http://bible.org...) is a good example of the utter credulity with which many modern evangelicals regard the 397 AD 66-book canon. God allowed the book of Deuteronomy to fall out of use. It remained that way until King Josiah stumbled across a copy and brought it back. Here we see that God does not automatically intervene when books go missing. The Book of Enoch was included in the canon used by the Ethiopian Church, and God did not intervene to prevent them from doing so. If the Book of Enoch is correctly considered canonical by the Ethiopian church, then God did not intervene to prevent the Council of Trent from excluding it. John Calvin agreed that the canon from Trent is not necessarily correct. He doubted that 2 Peter was written by Peter and questioned its inclusion in the canon. Martin Luther felt even more strongly that the canon from Trent was not necessarily correct as he rejected the inclusion of Revelation and James. I think these two were right to not accept the canon without question. A self-claim to inspiration was not a criterion for canon inclusion. Jude, James, and the author of Hebrews all do not claim inspiration in their works. Luke specifically acknowledges his work as a historical one (Luke 1). Therefore, it is not entirely clear that the canon was even meant by its formers to be a list of inspired and inerrant Scripture rather than a mix of inspired Scripture and edifying supplementary commentary. Paul sometimes claims to be speaking for the LORD. At many points throughout his writings, Paul claims to be speaking in the name of the LORD (1 Cor 2:13, 1 Thess 2:13, 1 Tim 2: 11, Eph 4:17, 1 Thess 2:13). In order for this to be true, nothing that Paul says may contradict something the LORD has said previously. I will return to this point later. Paul sometimes claims to be “just saying.” At other points in his gospel, Paul admits that he is merely giving his personal opinion. The best example is that it is Paul’s personal opinion that it’s better not to marry – unless of course your one of those “weaker” souls who has lustful desires. The inclusion of personal opinions is strange in a document that is taken to be literally word-for-word as the Word of God and scrutinized in the original language for deep theological meaning. There is no reason to expect a teacher to come after Jesus. If there was going to be a teacher who would come right after Jesus and add many new dogmas and doctrines from YHWH, it seems to be something that Jesus would have wanted to highlight. Instead, he explicitly warns of the opposite: false teachers that would come in his name (Matthew 7:15-23). The Apostles are commissioned in Matthew 28 to tell the nations to obey all things that Jesus commanded. Note that they are not told to come up with new doctrines; they are only commanded to fill the role of messenger. Jesus retains the right to teach for himself, and forbids his disciples from considering themselves Rabbis or teachers (Matthew 23:8,10). Again, the NT mission is to spread the teachings of Jesus not the teachings of any other man. Paul contradicts Jesus on the general issue of the Law of Moses. In a parable, Jesus states that he will reject those who did marvelous works in his name if they were workers of “lawlessness” (Matthew 7). The Greek word Nomos is one that was often used to refer to the Torah, and the word Anomia that appears in Matthew 7 refers to Torahlessness. Even if “Nomos” does not mean “Torah” in the Matthew 7 word “Anomia,” in 1 Cor 9:20-22 Paul expressly states that he is not under “Nomos” (meaning he is “Anomia”) and is therefore guilty of what Jesus condemns no matter what “Nomos” or “Anomia” means. That Jesus is a respecter of the Law of Moses is even clearer in Matthew 5. Jesus condemns anyone who would teach anyone else to break the Torah (Matthew 5:17-19). In Matthew 19, Jesus tells a young rich man that in order to obtain eternal life one must keep the commandments. According to Paul, the commandments are null (Ephesians 2:15) and even recognition of the Sabbath – one of the Ten Commandments – is no longer applicable (Col 2). Paul contradicts Jesus on Salvation doctrine. According to Jesus, one must keep the commandments in order to obtain eternal life (Matthew 19:16-18). He also shows in many parables - the Parable of the Trespasser (Matt 18), the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt 25), the Parable of the Sower ( Luke 8), and the Parable of the Unprofitable Servant (Matt 25) – a very severe and demanding salvation message much more involved than “salvation by faith alone.” I have already demonstrated that Paul is not in the least bit concerned with people obeying the commandments. Paul replaces Jesus’ severe doctrine of salvation with a much easier doctrine of grace. Paul contradicts the other Apostles specifically on the issue of meat offered to idols. As I showed earlier, the other Apostles believed that Gentiles must not eat meat that has been offered to idols. This is a Mosaic Law from the Book of Exodus. In Revelation 2, Jesus speaks of false prophets who teach the teachings of Balaam, that eating meat offered to idols is permissible. Note that the prohibition on eating this meat is not contingent upon whether or not someone thinks it is wrong or if it will be a stumbling block to someone. It is a black and white prohibition. Paul disagrees with Jesus and the other Apostles on this matter (1 Cor 8). According to Paul, it is only bad to eat such meat if you’re around a “weaker” brother. In summary, I have tried to demonstrate some reasons for questioning the canon and investigating Paul’s incongruence with Jesus. Paul’s message of salvation is far more simplistic than anything Christ said. The parable of the sheep and the goats proves that Jesus did not consider faith alone to be saving, as Paul does. The only way to avoid contradictions like these is to take Paul literally and make the words of Jesus mean something other than what they plainly say.