1.19 Paul’s Life: Examining His Contradictory Testimonies [1]

Paul’s career is chronicled in the book of Acts. Paul appeared on the scene within a year or so of the alleged Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Under the name of Saul of Tarsus, a man educated for the “rabbinate” he actively participated in attacks on the disciples and the followers of Jesus Christ. Indeed, he participated so actively that he was apparently involved in the stoning to death of “St Stephen” (Acts 8). Shortly after Stephen’s death, Paul embarked for Damascus, in Syria to further persecute the Nazarenes. On the road to Damascus, Paul claimed to have been converted to the Nazarenes faith by an extraordinary sudden appearance of a light from the heaven, which flashed around him (Acts 9:3). A voice issuing from no perceptible source demanded of him:

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Saul asked the voice to identify itself. The voice replied:

“I am Jesus the Nazarene, and you are persecuting me.”

It further instructed him to continue to Damascus where he will be told what he must subsequently do. After this historical “vision” Paul changed his mission. He thereafter joined the disciples and subsequently became as fervent in promulgating the teachings supposedly of “the Early Church”, as he had hitherto been in extirpating them.

First:

A question of the fundamental importance is; if the story of “Vision” by Paul, who had never before met Jesus, is the truth; then what did Jesus really say to Paul? There was only one vision, but we find contradictions of very serious nature within the two narration’s describing the single event. Both of these narration’s were told by Paul himself and recorded in the “first person”.

Often, Muslims hear from Christians, in the defense of these glaring contradictions is that the first narration is a shorter version of the encounter and the second is a longer version [2]

Narration No. 1

While defending himself before the people of Jerusalem, Paul narrated the first narration:

“Brothers and esteem fathers, Paul said, Listen to me as I offer my defense ... As I was on the road, nearing Damascus, about noon a very bright light from heaven suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you sir? I asked. And he replied, I am Jesus of Nazareth, the one you are persecuting. The people with me saw the light but didn’t hear the voice. I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord told me, Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that you are to do.” (Act 22:1-10, NLT)

In this first narration, Paul tells us that Jesus simply directed him to go to the city of Damascus and there he will receive instructions from someone. Paul does not mentioned having personally received ‘the instructions’ concerning his ministry and/or his mission directly from Jesus, which was recorded in the Narration No 2. The book of Acts later confirms that Paul did get ‘the instructions’ in the city of Damascus from one of the followers of Jesus Christ named Ananias:

“I was blinded by the intense light and had to be led into Damascus by my companions. A man named Ananias live there. He was a godly man in his devotion to the law, and he was well thought of by all the Jews of Damascus. He came to me and stood beside me and said, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And that very hour I could see him!. Then he told me, The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and hear him speak. You are to take his message everywhere, telling the whole world what you have seen and heard. And now, why delay? Get up and be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on the name of the Lord.” (Act 22:11-15, NLT)

Narration No 2

While defending himself before king Agrippa, Paul narrated the incident in first person:

“One day as I was on such a mission to Damascus, armed with the authority and commission of the leading priests. About noon, Your Majesty, a light from heaven brighter than the sun shone down on me and my companions. We all fell down, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to fight against my will. Who are you sir? I asked. And the Lord replied, I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. Now stand up! For I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant and my witness. You are to tell the world about this experience and about other times I will appear to you. And I will protect you from both your own people and the Gentiles. Yes, I am going to send you to the Gentiles, to open their eyes so they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me.” (Acts 26:12-18, NLT)

In this second narration, Paul said Jesus himself personally gave all the instructions for his future role as an “Apostle”. And, Jesus himself personally appointed Paul as his apostle. Paul did not mention in this narration about Jesus telling him to take the instructions from someone else when he goes to the city of Damascus. Similarly, in the earlier narration Paul did not mention that he was given any instruction of his Ministry directly from Jesus himself during the vision.

“This cuts down the defense that Paul was given the “Instructions” directly, as well as told to take more “Instructions’, when in Damascus.”

If Jesus had already given the needed guidance to Paul and also made him one of his “apostles”, then why is there the story of a disciple of Jesus named Ananias breaking the news of appointment to Paul, a few days later in the city of Damascus, who already knew it? If you are indeed a seeker of the truth, does not the second narration contradict and repudiate the first narration? If it does, then would an appointee of Christ makes “Two contradictory statements and then go against the teachings of Christ?”

Second:

The book of Acts gives a description of Paul’s conversion to the Nazarenes faith. We read in Acts 9:7 this statement:

“The man with Saul stood speechless with surprise, for they heard the sound of someone’s voice, but they saw no one!”

This statement is contradicted by the following statement of Acts 22:9:

“The people with me saw the light but didn’t hear the voice.”

The contradiction between “they heard the sound of someone’s voice” and “didn’t hear the voice” speaks for itself. Can the above discordant records be defended as the longer and the shorter records? Surprisingly in chapter 26 there is no mention of men seeing or hearing anything, although the discourse recorded here is much longer than those recorded in chapter 9 and 22.

Third:

We find in Paul’s first letter to Corinthians:

“That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (2:9, NLT)

The Christian theologians have concluded that this statement derives from the Old Testament Book of Isaiah 64:4 (NLT), which is this:

“For since the world began, nor ear has heard, and no eyes has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait from him.”

The difference between the two texts is quite obvious. The commentators of the Bible admit the presence of incompatibility in the above texts. For example, Adam Clarke, the great Protestant scholar who examined the texts thoroughly states that:

“What can I do under these difficult circumstances except present one of two alternatives to my readers: admit that the Jews changed the texts of the Hebrew and Latin translations, as a strong probability exists of alterations in the quotations of the Old Testament reproduced in the New Testament; or admit that Paul did not quote this sentence from this book. He might have quoted it from one of several forged books…Perhaps people generally would not easily accept the first possibility, but I must warn the readers that Jerome[3] considers the second possibility to be the worst kind of heresy or heterodoxy.”[4]

Fourth:

Again, in chapter 10, we find Paul making this statement:

“And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.” (10:8, NLT)

But, we found that, The Old Testament book of Numbers contradicts this statement of Paul:

“So the plague against the Israelites was stopped, but not before 24,000 people had died” (25:9, NLT)

One of these texts must be wrong.[5]

[1] The New Testament in Question, 30-31 (adapted in part)

[2] The present writer encounters this remark when having discussion with Christian’s evangelists and friends in Malaysia.

[3] St. Jerome was a Christian scholar and a great philosopher. He was born in 340 C.E. He Translated the Bible into Latin. He was a famous bibliographer and wrote many books on the Bible. (Izharul Haq, Part 1, 16). Because of his knowledge of Hebrews, Pope Damasus offered Jerome the commission to revise both the Old and the New Testament manuscripts, the purpose being to end the great differences in the wording of particularly the Gospels. His two decades of intermittent work eventually created the Vulgate Bible so special to Roman Catholics today. (The Bible Fraud: An Untold Story of Jesus Christ, 173)

[4] M. Rahmatullah Kairanvi, Izharul Haq, Part 3 (Taha Publishers Ltd, UK), 1990, 79

[5] Izharul Haq, Part 2, 48