No. 1: Paul's version of the Messiah

Of all Christian theology, none is more central to most of Christianity than the idea that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Only those few who follow exclusively Jesus teachings without the Christ component can live without Jesus as the Messiah.

According to Paul, his realization that Jesus was still alive came in a vision on the road to Damascus. It is a little unclear what his traveling companions saw. In one verse in Luke they heard a voice but saw nothing. In a later verse Luke says the companions saw a light but did not hear a voice. It appears Luke needed an editor to help get his story straight but this only highlights the unbelievability of the story. What is important is that Paul believed that Jesus was still alive.

What the earliest disciples turned apostles originally taught is a mystery. The hint about the mission Jesus put forth is wrapped up in the controversial last verses of Mark's Gospel and are probably not authentic. Therefore; all that can be done is to assume that following Jesus' death the Jerusalem/Galilee sect was forced to revise the message they had heard just days earlier. Whether they were still claiming Jesus to be the messiah is probably doubtful given the dramatic ending to Jesus' life and the fact that their concept of messiah was that of a Jewish warrior king.

It was Paul who decided that even though Jesus died a Roman criminal, he was still the messiah. It was Paul who created a whole new definition for messiah, making it something few Jews recognized. In rabbinical terms awarding messiahship only comes when the mission is complete. Failing once and coming back a second time is simply not part of the concept. No Jew in the 500 years of messianic tradition would recognize what Paul was describing because Paul was making it all up on the fly.

Paul did not have a problem with Jews claiming that Jesus was not (yet) the messiah. Paul would be proven right when Jesus returned! Of course, Paul was wrong. Jesus did not return in the time that Paul said he would. The biggest dance in Christian theology involves First Thessalonians 4:13-18. In it Paul states clearly that after the dead are raised "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Subsequent Christians have gone to extraordinary lengths to claim Paul was not implying that he himself would be alive (since he ended up dying). However; Paul's words are crystal clear. This is exactly what he was implying and exactly the interpretation his readers believed. Paul was wrong. His concept of messiahship was wrong. Two thousand years of Christians continued waiting demonstrates further how wrong Paul was. Every Christian interpretation of Old Testament scripture to foretell Jesus return is also wrong. Christianity in Paul's time was little different from the Millerism of 19th century America where a bunch of Christians waited on a hillside for a return that never came. The farce that Christianity has thrust upon the world is a choreographed dance routine designed to mislead people into thinking there is validity in Paul's message. The original myth begat a second myth, which begat a third and so on. Ultimately, Christianity has enough appealing aspects such as community-building and psychological fulfillment that the myths really do not matter. They are myths nonetheless and all the apologetic dancing cannot make what is false become true.