Will the Double Talk Please Cease!

Paul and Replacement Theology in Christianity
by Shlomoh Sherman
October 29, 2010


The Catholic Church leaders in the Arab world have made a public statement that Jews no longer are the Chosen People and that chosenness has passed on to the believers in Christ. That is no surprise. This has been an ongoing understanding for as long as a religion called Christianity has been in existence. And when was that? That was when the Antiochites began calling people "Christians", over 2000 years ago. And who cares what Middle East Christian Clerics have to say about Jews anyway? Their words are powerless because IF Israelis wanted to shut them up, they easily could. That's what would happen to them anywhere else in the Middle East,  - but not in Israel. What ENRAGES me is that the Vatican has said nothing - just as it always says nothing when Jews are concerned, except when the Pope tells Theodore Herzl to get lost. But what can we expect? After all, the New Testament itself says that we have been replaced. And that is what I want to address - within the statements of Saul the Tarsian. But since he himself preferred to be called by a Roman [gentile] name, Paul,  rather than by his Jewish name, I should honor his request.

Look at the article below. It is one example of the gobbledygook that is now being passed around to "rehabilitate" Paul. He didn't really mean what we think he said when we read his words. He really did not set Christian antisemitism in motion. Kristen May says that Paul was "not in opposition with the Jews" or that he did not "set the foundation for anti-Jewish sentiment."  Oh really. Then, out of the other side of her mouth, she says, HE SIMPLY ARGUES THAT EVERYBODY, BOTH JEW AND GENTILE, CAN ONLY BE MADE RIGHT WITH GOD THROUGH CHRIST’ and “IF THEY REJECT CHRIST AS THE MESSIAH AND THE PATH TO SALVATION, JEWS WILL NOT TAKE PART IN GOD'S KINGDOM, BUT INSTEAD BE REPLACED BY THOSE WHO DO BELIEVE.’ Well which is it? Jews are already chosen or they are replaced? Unfortunately, Ms May does not say what “REPLACED BY THOSE WHO DO BELIEVE’ means. My understanding of what Kristen is saying is that “NOT TAKE PART’ means not “made right’. Such great words for Jews to read! AND since the overwhelming majority of Jews chose to ignore Christ, ignore, not reject, then we must have been replaced. But of course, that is not the cosmic truth; it´s only an opinion of Paul, Luther, and now, a group of maliciously benighted [and here I am being polite] Jew-hatin´ Levantine assholes. I believe that the reason that Ms May and others speak with contradicting statements is that Paul himself spoke that way. The impetus comes from him, and the Christian world is left with his uncomfortable contradictions.

First read Kristen May´s essay:


The Apostle Paul's Writings: Did He Have Anti-Jewish Sentiment?
By Kristen May
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1278773/the_apostle_pauls_writings_did_he_have.html?cat=34

Paul, as the writer of many of the books in the New Testament, has shaped the views of Christians today. It has been suggested that he is the father of Christian anti-Judaism through the idea that God has rejected his people, the Jews, and replaced them with the Christians. Although there are few who believe that Paul was against Judaism, scholars have found different ways to reconcile the theology. For example, John Gager sets out to prove in his essay entitled "Paul, the Apostle of Judaism" that Paul is not the father of Christian anti-Judaism, but rather understands that there are two separate paths to salvation, one for the Jews, and another for the Gentiles. In this way, all will be saved.

Most Biblical scholars instead insist that Paul believed there is only one path that all must use for salvation: faith in the significant death and resurrection of Jesus. When looking at Paul's views on the relationship between Jews, Gentiles, and God, they suggest a different sort of "rejection-replacement theology" than that referred to by Gager. This theology is grounded in the idea that the Jews, through their lack of faith and their adherence to the law that has no power to save, rejected God, so God replaced the old faith required for salvation with a new faith: that in Jesus.

The rejection-replacement process was a fulfillment of his promises, and any Jew who was familiar with those promises and did not reject the Messiah would not be replaced, but would enter seamlessly into God's people, who are now called Christians. Paul was the father of Christianity for the Gentiles, but that does not put him in opposition with the Jews or set the foundation for anti-Jewish sentiment. This view is much more in line with Paul's writings in the New Testament. HE SIMPLY ARGUES THAT EVERYBODY, BOTH JEW AND GENTILE, CAN ONLY BE MADE RIGHT WITH GOD THROUGH CHRIST.

Despite the fact that Paul's letters were written to Gentile congregations, they support the idea that God intends to offer salvation to all through Christ. This offer is not a rejection of the Jewish people, and therefore, not cause for anti-Jewish sentiment. It is, instead, a fulfillment of God's promises to the Jewish people. If they are willing to accept it through faith in the mysterious ways in which God works, sending a Messiah who was against all expectations, the Jewish people can enter into salvation through Christ. IF, HOWEVER, THEY REJECT CHRIST AS THE MESSIAH AND THE PATH TO SALVATION, JEWS WILL NOT TAKE PART IN GOD'S KINGDOM, BUT INSTEAD BE REPLACED BY THOSE WHO DO BELIEVE.

2010 © Associated Content, All rights reserved.


The most FAMOUS double talk statements about Jews come from Paul´s letters to the Romans. Now for those of you un-versed in Jewish Nazarene history, let me
tell you briefly about the KENESIAH in Rome. By the mid decades of the first Christian century, Jewish messianism was rampant in the Imperial City. There were many
militant Jewish groups operating there, and none of them were peaceful, not even the Nazarenes. Oh yes, Christians will tell you that Jesus was a pacific leader who was not interested in violently opposing Rome - but just read the gospels, especially Matthew´s. Read between the lines, and you will see a very different Jesus from the one we know and like. And oh, I almost forgot, read Revelation -

"And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and WAGES WAR. And His eyes are a flame of fire ... And He is clothed with a robe DIPPED IN BLOOD ... And the armies, which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from his mouth COMES A SHARP SWORD, so that with it He may SMITE THE NATIONS; and he will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the winepress of the FIERCE WRATH OF GOD, the Almighty." [Revelation 19:11-15].

Ok, the Nazarenes were just one group among many that came to Rome to recruit new members. Jesus´ lieutenant, Peter, escaped from jail in Israel and came to Rome to found a Jewish messianic KENESIAH. An historical memory of this is confirmed by Catholicism´s decision to call him the first Pope even though they give the REAL glory to Paul. Later, when Paul was brought, as a criminal, to Rome, he established another congregation of gentile Christians, and it is to THAT congregation that he is writing. So what does he say about us Jews in his letter to those Roman gentiles?

Romans 11.28: "From the standpoint of the gospel they [JEWS] ARE ENEMIES for your sake, but from the standpoint of God´s choice they are beloved FOR THE SAKE OF THE FATHERS; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, SO THESE [Jews] ALSO NOW HAVE BEEN DISOBEDIENT, in order that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all."

Translation: First and foremast, Jews are disobedient and enemies for the sake of the gentiles. Secondly, they are beloved, not because they are intrinsically good guys but only FOR THE SAKE OF THE FATHERS. Had it not been for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they would be far from beloved. Thanks Paul, I THINK.

Next on the agenda, the REAL way the New Testament feels about Jews, without the frills.

“For you, brothers, became imitators of God´s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, WHO KILLED THE LORD JESUS AND THE PROPHETS and also drove us out. THEY DISPLEASE GOD and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way THEY ALWAYS HEAP UP THEIR SINS TO THE LIMIT. The wrath of God has come upon them at last. “
1 Thessalonians 2:14

Wait a moment! Jews killed the prophets? Yes, maybe the false ones! When did we kill Elijah, Isaiah, or Ezekiel? This is an unadulterated lie. AND WE KILLED JESUS?  And WE DISPLEASE GOD? Well now you may have a point there, Paul. Why else a million babies thrown in the ovens ALIVE? HOSTILE TO ALL MEN? No, opposite! I could go on [and on] but just let me show another of his statements.

“Tell me, YOU WHO WANT TO BE UNDER THE LAW, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise. These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: “Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.’ Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman´s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman´s son.’ Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.’
Galatians 4:21-31

Look. My friend Grace said that he didn´t even give them a choice. IF he had said, “OK, you guys don´t have to follow the MITSVOT of the TORAH BUT if some of you want to, go ahead.’ But no! “Go ahead and follow the Law and be a slave like Hagar because that´s who the Jews are!’

OK. Does this sound like replacement or not? And a nasty case of it. Our rabbis say that the righteous of all peoples and nations have a place in the Kingdom of Heaven. What does HE say? And some are trying to exonerate this person - while the Levantine priests are continuing this unholy nastiness!

For Heaven´s sake, don´t be so shocked at Catholic priests bad mouthing Jews and Israel. They are jealous and impotent in the face of reality. As long as there is Israel, they are full of it, and we Jews should ignore them the way we do their messiah.

Now I will say one last word about the writings of Paul the Apostate. I say Apostate because, not only did he ditch his Jewish name but in all his letters, as he addresses his converts, he uses the expression "we". "We are no longer under the law" means he identifies with his followers WHO NEVER WERE UNDER THE LAW. No one knows exactly how he wrote and how he didn´t write, and what exactly he said and didn´t. It could be that his writings were edited by the antisemites whom he created. Who knows? We will never know unless someone discovers some ancient scroll. But there are things we do know.

This is what JEFFERY L. SHELER has to say about Saul in his REASSESSING AN APOSTLE, found at http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/paul/rpaul.htm


As a Christian missionary and theologian, Paul knew little and cared less about the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. More important in Paul's mind was the death and Resurrection of the exalted Christ who appeared to him in a mystical vision.

The mother church in Jerusalem, led by Jesus's brother James, had kept strong ties to traditional Judaism. Its members worshiped at the temple and carefully observed the law of M  Moses. As more and more gentiles joined the fellowship of believers, LEADERS OF THE JERUSALEM CHURCH GREW INCREASINGLY CONCERNED THAT THE LAWS OF JUDAISM WERE BEING NEGLECTED, particularly the law requiring circumcision of male converts. The question threatening to fracture the young church was a crucial one: Did one need to become a Jew first to become a Christian?

Paul had not been among the original disciples of Jesus. Nor had he been converted by them. Consequently, HE GAVE LITTLE DEFERENCE TO THEIR VIEWS when they differed from what he believed Christ had revealed to him directly. He was summoned to Jerusalem to explain himself to the "pillars" of the Jerusalem church: the Apostles James, Peter, and John. A compromise was reached that temporarily defused the issue: Circumcision would not be required of gentile converts, but following certain other Judaic rules would be expected [which Paul never implemented]. Paul's mission to the gentiles would continue. But only with the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Romans in A.D. 70 would the issue finally become moot. Christianity's Jewish wing disappeared in the aftermath, and the thriving gentile church continued to spread throughout the Roman Empire. The split from Judaism was now assured. Christianity would become a separate faith shaped by Paul's vision of salvation through the Risen Savior, not by works under the old Mosaic Law.

British biographer A. N. Wilson, in his 1997 book Paul: The Mind of the Apostle, argues that PAUL'S RISEN CHRIST HAD LITTLE TO DO WITH THE HISTORICAL JESUS. Christ was for Paul "not so much the man [the disciples] remembered (though of course he was that) but a presence of divine love in the hearts of believers." THERE WAS NO QUOTING OF JESUS'S PARABLES OR APHORISMS IN PAUL'S WRITINGS, adds Gregory C. Jenks, rector at St. Matthew's Anglican Church in Drayton, Australia. "The good news," for Paul, says Jenks, "focused on what God did in Jesus on the cross, and on his imminent appearance as Christ, the exalted one."

The debate over the life and works of Paul is certain to continue, not least because it goes to the very character of Christianity itself–whether, as Houlden says, it is "a religion devoted to the perpetual imitation of Jesus and the following of his teachings" or a faith "centering on elicited response" to the exalted figure of Christ.

Do we need an intermediary between mankind and God?
The answer is no and if Paul was a rabbi as he claimed he would know this. Paul would have known that Gentiles don't even need to convert to Judaism for "salvation" as the official Christian business lobby claims. There are thousands who have come to proudly identify as a Noachide, or B'nai Noah (children of Noah) while Jews alone are covered by the Sinai Covenant.

The seven Noachide commandments are:

The prohibition of idolatry
The prohibition of blasphemy
The prohibition of murder
The prohibition of theft
The prohibition of immoral sexual relations
The prohibition of eating the limb of a living animal
The commandment to establish courts of law enforcing the above commandments

This is why Jews don't proselytize BECAUSE THERE IS NO NEED TO. GENTILES ARE NOT DAMNED FOR NOT BEING JEWS, we are already covered as long as we follow God's Seven Laws. But if one believes that God was born between the legs of a human woman, YOU ARE GUILTY OF IDOLATRY under both covenants. This also breaks the power of churches because one has a direct relationship to God. Phony faith in some intermediary deity such as Jesus isn't even needed. Christianity started out as a Jewish heresy but Paul turned it into a savior-god cult. This is what caused so much conflict between Paul (who never even met Jesus in the flesh) verses James.


I agree with most of what Sheler has to say but I don´t think that Christianity started out as a Jewish heresy. I believe that there was a movement called Nazarenism which may or may not have pre-dated Jesus himself. The Nazarenes were a sect, not a heresy. Saul took the persona of Jesus the Nazarene and grafted that
name onto his savior-god and started a new religion which called itself the new, real “Judaism’ but that´s all he did. He did not consult with the real disciples of Jesus, most of all James who was nothing like Paul and who probably conspired to have Paul arrested and done away with. How could James agree with or countenance the anti-Jewish statements of the imposter?  Even Paul´s own followers in Corinth and Galatia intuited that something was wrong with what he was teaching, and wanted to become real Jews. But Paul put a stop to that and railed against James and Peter in the most disgusting way. I advise anyone interested to read Paul´s letters to the Corinthians and Galatians, and judge for yourself how threatened Paul was by the real followers of Jesus the Nazarene. Believe me, I have been studying Jesus and Paul for decades, and have read almost all there is to read, written by eminent Biblical scholars, both Jewish and gentile, and I think I have a pretty good handle on the situation. Even if some well-meaning people try to rehabilitate the Apostate, authentic Jews will never accept that, simply because a direct line leads from that miserable man and his writings to Auschwitz, and I kid you not. And the shame is that because of him, the real Jesus is lost to the Jewish People. If you are curious, you can read my series of essays on Jesus at my website, at http://www.shlomohsherman.com/literary/jn/index.html.

When Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans, Jews rallied to their real saviors, the Pharisees, who gave them the religious and emotional strength to carry on as Jews in an ever increasingly hostile world, made more hostile by the success of Christianity. After that, the sect of the Pharisees became the official Jewish religion, and all other sects were declared anathema. Then, and only then, did the Nazarenes become heretics, and with good reason. They worshiped a man whose name was becoming more and more associated with gentile hatred and derision. Not only did Jesus not appear to help the besieged Jews when the Temple was in flames but Christians were saying that the destruction of our Temple proved that we were doomed and rejected by God and that they were now the replacement Chosen People.

There is one more important verse that any reader of this should know. It is Paul's absolute definition of a Jew; not one that makes a Jew happy.

Romans2:28,29: A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written TORAH.

Here, he is saying that KAVANNAH makes a Jew, that is, some inward feeling that drives one to declare himself a Jew, and nothing else. Paul was the first person identifying with non Jews to define who is Jewish, and Adolph Eichmann was the last. He told the SS, "I decide who is a Jew and who not!" These two men belong together because they are both responsible for the Holocaust. And this verse in Romans  2 is not only the ultimate insult to Jews but a justification for the theology of replacement.

This is not an indictment of Christianity, real Christianity, which is a valid religion whose followers number many fine people as well as those not so fine. As an American, I am bound to respect all faiths [except the one that threatens America]. I welcome all people of good will, Christian or not. But please don´t tell me to read the letters of Paul and tell me that he was some kind of “rabbi’ or "saint", or that he didn´t inspire Jew-hatred. I read English pretty well. Too bad I can´t read KOINE.

 As to the Catholic priests who say hateful things about Israel, YIMACH SHEM VE´ZICHRON SHELHEM, may their name and memory be blotted out along with all the enemies of Jews. Israel will be around along after they go down to the grave.


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