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In the previous articles in this series I have shown you how Paul misrepresented the Prophetic Scriptures for his own personal agenda. In order to promote a "righteousness apart from the Law" Paul was forced to mistranslate, misquote, and misapply Jewish Scriptures in order to make them say what the original writers never intended.
This particular article is possibly one of the most important pieces of information you may have ever read. The implications of what I will show you is staggering to say the least. You should recognize immediately the magnitude of what I am showing you and you should be enraged at such a thought that such a false and hideous doctrine has been foisted upon you since your youth and for the most part you never realized it. Such teachings as espoused by Paul not only separated him for the Jewish people, but Jewish leaders as well, both Messianic and non-Messianic Jews of the first century. But the non-Jews, having never had the Torah and the Commandments of God, knew not the magnitude nor the errors of of Paul's teachings. I hope to enlighten you to the implications that go with these Pauline dogmas. If you understand what I am sharing with you then you will never be the same again.
Paul's agenda of promoting the grace of God to be received by faith alone versus faith that is not divorced from good works in the form of obeyed commandments continues with his claim in Romans 9:30-32 that "the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained it by faith but Israel who pursued a law of righteousness has not attained it...because they pursued it by works.”
Answer for yourself: Is this a correct assessment of the situation at hand?
Now please pay close attention. Amazingly Paul calls the Jew’s acts of obedience to God’s Word which were manifested in faithful works of the Law on which they were based, along with commandments fulfilled by the Jewish people a “stumbling stone” (ROM 9:30-32).
Rom 9:30-32 30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. 31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; (KJV)
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that Paul just called the Bible Yeshua used a “stumbling stone?”
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that the very documents to which Yeshua referred that of him it is written; the Law and Prophets and Writings, are considered by Paul a “stumbling stone?”
Answer for yourself: Do you think that when God moved holy men of old to receive the holy revelation that God considered His actions a "stumbling stone" as Paul would later?
Paul and his theological persuasion (Gnosticism mixed with pagan mystery religions) is completely contrary to the teachings of the Jewish Old Testament and the Bible Yeshua used his whole life. Although Yeshua might say not one jot or tittle will every pass away from the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings until all is completed, for Paul it has already passed away. Dear child of God, please understand it is Paul who has a new and different way of justification that finds its origin in his vision on the Damascus road. I find it rather strange that before when God had a revelation for a people He insured it's survival and accuracy by revealing it to millions all at once at Sinai but here we are to believe that He changed everything when giving such instructions to only one man!
Answer for yourself: What you will have to struggle with, as I have, is namely this: are we to accept the vision of a man over the written Bible that was given by holy men of old as they were moved by the Spirit of God?
Answer for yourself: Are we to accept the revelations from the vision of one man over the Bible and Sinai faith which was witnessed by millions who were all in agreement with what was said?
Answer for yourself: We are told that every Word from God is to be witnessed by two or three witnesses. Where are the other witnesses other than Paul which heard God say the same thing as Paul; that there is a justification apart from the Law and that it is now replaced by a belief in Paul's unique understanding of Yeshua and the particulars about his life and death as a form of atonement or justification before God?
What you fail to realize most of the times is that we have the whole of the witness of the Old Testament which opposes Paul's "gospel."
Answer for yourself: Ask yourself this: Is it possible that David, who penned the 119 Psalm, who wrote such glorious things about God and His Law, secretly though that it was stumbling block as did Paul?
I hope you are setting down for this.
Answer for yourself: Did you know that Romans 9-11 were not in the original Romans written by Paul and will not show up till around 200 A.D.? That is right. I would like to quote Jerome on this from his Bible Commentary, pp. 318:
"Rom 9-11….is a foreign body in the letter, added later by some editor."
That means Romans 9-11 is missing from the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament. Not only do we have Jerome's testimony, but the Marcion New Testament, which was the first collected, is likewise missing it as well in its collections of Paul's writings. This strongly suggests another than Paul is the possible author of such information. The question of its value to the believer is debatable at least.
Answer for yourself: What are we to think when it dawns on us that maybe, oh just maybe, the Jews are "blind" at all and that we better listen to them rather than the anti-Semitism of the Gentile church uses Paul for their "ambassador"? Remember that question when the reality that ...Rom 11:25 25... For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in (KJV)...was not in Romans until 200 A.D.? Who is writing this slander?
Answer for yourself: Could it be that the Torah is not a "stumbling stone" as it is depicted by those who took Paul's anti-Law bias and elaborated upon it throughout the New Testament?
When one reads Paul in the New Testament you get the sense of his grief over the Jewish people's rejection of "Paul's" gospel of justification apart from the Law. Not only that but his sadness was over the lack of the Jewish acceptance of Yeshua as their Messiah following his death. This is not as strange as it sounds, for before Yeshua's death it is estimated 7 out of 10 Jews hoped and believed in Yeshua to be the potential Messiah. His death did a lot to cause them to re-evaluate their beliefs in him since the Jewish prophecies in their Jewish Scriptures remained unfulfilled. Yet, Yeshua predicted his return before the generation had ended. There was yet hope that he might return some way and fulfill the prophecies. After 40 years, and the destruction of the Temple, when Yeshua had not come again then the last few believers were again forced to re-evaluate their beliefs in Yeshua as their Messiah. Again this is not surprising to those familiar with the Old Testament Prophets and the prophecies which must be fulfilled by the Messiah. The facts of the failure of the Jewish prophecies to be fulfilled are a harsh reality for the Christian today who serious inquires as to if Yeshua actually fulfilled the Jewish prophecies. He didn't. That is why the Jews could no longer hope in him. This is possibly one of the hardest things for the Christian to deal with once he sees it for himself. But to see this fact one has to know truthfully what these prophecies really are as taken from the Jewish Scriptures as the Christian Old Testaments and New Testament have not only butchered them but created "false prophecies" that Jesus is made to fulfill in order to pass him off as the Messiah of the world for the non-Jewish people. After years of study all but one of these prophecies in the New Testament can be shown to be false prophecies that have creatively been construed by purposeful mistranslation, misquotation, creative fiction, combining two or more passages to create a false prophecy, etc. The list is endless and heartbreaking when the Christian is shown such textual manipulation. No wonder the Jewish people who have the true Jewish Scriptures will not accept the New Testament's story about Jesus. Even after seeing it for myself I still did not want to give up on my Yeshua. I understand other's hesitancy to even listen to such events, but truth is truth. Maybe when the real Messiah comes to fulfill the Jewish Scriptures and raise the dead, then it will be Yeshua. I hope so, but fear not, if by chance it is not him I will accept whoever comes in the Name of the LORD. This sad information can be obtained at: http://returningtofaithofyeshua.freeservers.com
I am fully aware that the New Testament is full of "fulfilled" prophecies of Yeshua, which were designed to convince the non-Jew that Yeshua was the long-awaited Messiah. The Jew, who knew their own Bible, let alone the Rabbis of the day knew better and could see through Paul's blatant misuse of the Jewish Scriptures. But dear reader, and this is what I have been trying to show you for some time now, most, if not all of them (except riding into Jerusalem on an ass..but one Gospel has Jesus riding on two asses at once...what's with that?) are false fulfillments created by mistranslation on purpose, mistranslation on purpose, and purposeful citing of Old Testament passages out of context in order to make them say things completely different from what the original writers intended. The Gentiles, for whom the New Testament was created, were not competent in the Old Testament Scriptures as were the Jews, thus they would not be hesitant to believe what they read. Simply, the Gentiles were not aware that that what Paul was preaching and writing were often falsifications of the real Jewish Scriptures. I was not either many years ago, but after studying and comparing the New Testament and the Christian Old Testament with the actual Hebrew Bible, the errors are alarming. This is why I write to you to warn you of the deception. Now let us return to Paul.
Paul was preaching Yeshua as the Messiah. The people looked to their own Bible for the proof that Yeshua was he. There the prophecies laid unfulfilled yet in their day. This can mean only one thing: The Messiah has not been revealed; for some it meant he had not yet come. Others felt he had come but for some reason the prophecies had not been fulfilled. Paul felt differently. Paul would market Yeshua as the Messiah to the Gentiles but could not to the Jews for they knew better since they and their Rabbis knew their Bibles better than to accept a false "gospel." They knew what we don't or seem to forget; namely, that God is the same yesterday and forever. He changes not. Even the prophecies for the future teach that Judaism will be the end-world religion of the world to come. Justification apart from the Law has never been part of the revelation from God and never will not matter what Paul thinks he heard on some hot dusty road one day on the way to Damascus. So for Paul he extends "righteousness apart from the Torah (Law) to the non-Jew" [remember in the Covenant of Noah that there are 66 Commandments as Covenant stipulations required of God for the non-Jew to be in right standing with Him]. Being not aware of this Covenant of Noah and its required Laws Paul literally deceived these people and preached a false gospel and they warns others not to receive any other "gospel" but his! Not know of the Laws of Noah which were commanded in Acts 15 to be taken to the world where Paul was given letters in Acts 16 ordering him to teach this on his journeys, he does the opposite and teaches a that such "Laws" and "Covenant stipulations" are "stumbling stones." The non-Jews will accept his message, but the Jews who knew better rejected his message. This Jewish rejection of these Pauline untruth would cause Paul to later write that the Jews are a people who "have not having attained righteousness."
Answer for yourself: And what was their crime? The Jewish people did the only thing that God ever commanded of them…..believe in Yahweh and fulfill His commandments.
Paul was wrong. It is that simple. Greater minds than mine have tried to fathom the depths of such a man through history as to why he opposed what was cherished by the Jewish people. I don't pretend to know "why" he did what he did, but history elaborates on it to some degree. But the facts remain. Paul's gospel opposes the gospel of Yeshua, Moses, and the prophets. Paul's gospel opposes the Torah. Someone is wrong. I will take Yeshua over Paul any day.
In order to try and prove his point, for documentation Paul combined two lines from Isaiah taken from verses twenty chapters apart and again quoted them out of context [Isa. 8:14 & Isa. 28:16].
These same misquoted verses were repeated in the Epistle, 1 Peter 2:6-8.
Let us first examine correctly the verses from Isa. 8:14 and Isa. 28:16:
Paul quotes Isaiah 8:14 as being fulfilled in the Jews' rejection of Yeshua and Paul's message of justification apart from the Law, which he wants us to believe was his unique "gospel message" concerning Yeshua. It wasn't.
Rom. 9:33
As it is written, Behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Now let us begin to study the original context of Isaiah 8:14 from the Jewish Scriptures:
Isa 8:14
14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (KJV)
Answer for yourself: What was the "stone" to which Isaiah referred? Well one thing is for certain and that it was not Yeshua. Let us see for ourselves.
The events of which Isaiah spoke occurred in 735-733 B.C.E. and concerned themselves with the Syro-Ephraimitic war. A coalition between Aram and Ephraim (Northern Israel) planned war with Judah and King Ahaz. King Ahaz was given a sign that God would be "Immanuel" (God with Judah) and would be the salvation and defender of Judah against any enemy. The coalition planned to depose Ahaz and replace him by a prince Bet Tab'el, an Aramean land in northern Transjordan. In verse 9 it refers to 6 or 5 years. Within 5-6 years there would be victory for Judah against her enemies. Ahaz rejects the offer of a "sign" which, in the Old Testament, is usually some event assuring man of a divine intervention. In this case, the sign is meant to be a confirmation of Yahweh's first message to Ahaz. An immense literature has grown up around this oracle and the debate continues. Isaiah does not use the technical word for "virgin" (betula), but a word (alma) that signifies a young woman of marriageable age, whether a virgin or not. Before this child, a child born to a marriageable woman who does not have to be a virgin, would learn right from wrong, or in space of 5-6 years, the military threat toward King Ahaz and Judah would be no more. God's presence with Judah, promised as Immanuel, assured the victory. Had it not for God's presence that assured victory over Assyria and their coalition with Northern Israel, then the Davidic dynasty would have been overthrown. Such a catastrophe would have mean the cancellation of the great dynastic promise made to David's house (2 Samuel 7:12-16). It was on this royal successor to David that Judah pinned her hopes for the welfare of God's people. This child about to be born, therefore, may be the young Hezekiah in whose birth Judah would see the continuing presence of God among His people (Immanuel) and another renewal of the promise made to David.
Isaiah prophesied both deliverance and disaster for Judah. First of all, before the child reached the age of discretion, there would be deliverance from the threatening Israel-Aram coalition (v. 16); then there would be devastation wrought by the invading Assyrians (v. 17-25). Those that Ahaz made a treaty with would turn upon him and invade Judah. In verse 13 Yahweh invites that Judah make an alliance with Him as opposed to the alliance it had made with the soon to be invading army of Assyria. The irony in the passage, that Paul failed to depict correctly in his quotation in the New Testament, is that the "same" foundation of Judah, Immanuel Himself, that causes stumbling is also the cornerstone that support the new house of people of God. Yahweh and his promises (His Word...His Torah) to Ahaz was a stumbling stone which he tripped over and cause his whole nation to suffer. Yet, this "same" stone was for Judah their salvation, for although Assyria would invade Judah, it would not be victorious and Judah would not go into captivity to Assyria as had the Northern Kingdom. So as you can now see from the context, God, not the Torah, was the "stumbling stone". Paul misrepresents again the Prophet and his message in the New Testament by changing totally the context. The prophet called the "cornerstone" faithfulness to God's word. Paul makes this "cornerstone" by quoting the prophet supposedly to mean his unique understanding of this Jesus he met on the Damascus road. Instead of presenting the "cornerstone" as faithfulness to God's Word he alters completely the meaning whereby the rejection of the cornerstone is not the rejecting of God's Word but the rejection of his own unique understanding of Yeshua and the Pauline theology surrounding him.
Again the irony of the whole matter is that in accepting Paul's gospel about Jesus entails the very same sin of Ahaz; the rejection of God's Word (Torah/Law) which was and is yet today the "Cornerstone."
Paul says in Romans 33 that "it is written" and he immediately begins to quote Isaiah, again using Prophetic authority for what he says, and tells his readers that Isaiah was referring to Yeshua being rejected by the Jews. Such rejection of Paul's "Jesus theology" for Paul is the fulfillment of Isaiah's stumbling stone of 8:14. We are to believe that since the Jews rejected Paul's Yeshua and his new message of justification apart from the Law then Yeshua is a stumbling stone for those who reject Paul.
Answer for yourself: Now I ask you before God, is that what Isaiah is teaching?
Answer for yourself: Is Paul to be trusted for anything now that you have seen how he misleads his readers and completely changes the text let alone the context? Where is the fear of God to not change or take away from the Word of God?
Answer for yourself: How honest is it to say "it is written," giving Prophetic authority to a doctrine, which in reality has nothing to do with what the Prophet intended we understand from his passage?
Answer for yourself: Is Paul lying by saying "it is written" when after all it is not? Yep!
Answer for yourself: Did Paul again take a passage completely out of context and destroy its meaning and mislead the readers of his letters? Remember, the Gentiles would never have known the true Jewish texts and are we any different today in our Christian churches? Can we spot a Pauline lie?
Answer for yourself:Isn't it a little overwhelming by now, if you have been reading our articles, to see all the errors in the use of scripture by Paul?
In summary, the eighth chapter of Isaiah God told the prophet to hold firmly to his principles and not fear the ominous political situation looming before Judah. (There was a military threat against Judah formed by a coalition of Syria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel which failed). God told Isaiah that He alone should be feared and no outside force. In 8:14 God's message continued assuring the prophet that "He will be a sanctuary" to those who believe and a "stone of stumbling and rock offense" to those who do not believe and obey His message through the prophet. God and His Word is the cornerstone of this "sanctuary" which will protect the people of God from the Assyrian invader.
Isa 28:16 as taken from the Jewish Scriptures:
16 Therefore, thus said my Lord HaShem/Elohim: Behold, I am laying a stone for a foundation in Zion: a sturdy stone, a precious cornerstone, a secure foundation. Let the believer not expect it soon (meaning it will take time for the idolatry to be removed from His people).
Now let us examine Paul’s misquoted verses from Isa 28:16 found in Romans 9:33. But before we do it need to be stress what the context of Romans 9 is dealing with. Immediately preceding this verse Paul mentions how the Jews sought righteousness not by faith "only," but by the works of the Law. He mentions that they stumbled at the "stumbling stone" which he has already defined as his "gospel message concerning Jesus."
Rom.9:33
As it is written, Behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Answer for yourself: Did Paul quote the Old Testament correctly, especially in light that he tells us "it is written"? No. Where did the pronoun "him" come from in Paul's quotation of the verse?
Answer for yourself: Is Paul trying to get his audience to believe on "him;" namely Jesus as Paul presented him? You bet he is!
Answer for yourself: Where does Paul get this "rock of offense?" You can see from the Hebrew text above that the prophet makes no such mention? Is Paul again quoting this incorrectly but does so for prophetic authority for his doctrines? You bet he is.
Answer for yourself: Is Paul making it sound as if you don't believe in this "Pauline Jesus" then you have somehow displeased God or possibly even offended Him?
Now let us examine Isaiah 28:16...from the Christian KJV Bible
Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste.
Answer for yourself: Do you see for yourself that Paul misquotes Isa. 28:16 in Romans? Where is the "rock of offense?" It simply is not there.
Paul, in effort to promote his own theology, adds "him" in Romans 9:33 to make sure you reference the passage to Yeshua. Paul wants to make sure we believe Isaiah was speaking about the rejection of Yeshua as Paul was teaching about him. You hopefully can see through that on you own, having already looked at Isaiah 8:14.
Paul's seeming quotation from Isa 28:16, is simply not found in Isa.28. Paul evidently liked the phrase, 'who believes in him shall not be put to shame,” because it fit in well with his ideas [belief in Yeshua's identity and not faith in God and His Word with resultant obedience to it}. Paul used the sentence again in the next chapter Romans (10:11).
Let us examine the context of Isaiah 28 before we proceed.
Isaiah is concerned with a covenant of death. The background of the oracle is the negotiations for an alliance with Egypt against Assyria when Sennacherib was threatening all Palestine. In pursuing this course, the rulers of Judah were inviting invasion and destruction. The structure of power politics offered a false security; in contrast to it Yahweh would build his own structure (vv 16-17) whose cornerstone would be faith and its measuring rods judgment and justice. Instead of covenanting with death and Egypt, Judah is beckoned to covenant with the living God. God says he is laying a cornerstone in Zion and is later called a "tested" stone. This "stone" that has been "tested" over and over again by Israel is nothing more than the salvation guaranteed to the Davidic dynasty. A cornerstone was usually inscribed; this one probably read: "He who puts his faith in it shall not be shaken." Trust in God is the idea underlying the image of the cornerstone and not the acceptance of Paul's Yeshua or his message of justification apart from the Law. In fact the exact opposite it true. The cornerstone provides the salvation by being a sanctuary of protection and salvation to the people of God by faith in God with the result of justice and righteousness which only comes from obedience to the commandments of such a saving God. Paul would have you believe otherwise. Assyria would seem to be the punisher of the children of God, but the opposite is true, it would be God as the cornerstone of His protective sanctuary which would be responsible for the slaying of the whole of Sennacherib's army. Judah will be saved by the cornerstone of Israel….God Himself. There is absolutely not one hint of anything here referring to Yeshua as the subject of the Prophet Isaiah as Paul would have us believe from his writings in Romans. Paul again misleads Gentile readers who are unfamiliar with the Jewish Scriptures. Nothing has changed today for the Christian Churches are by and large totally ignorant of the Word of God contained in the "Old" Testament, while sadly quite conversant with Pauline literature which I have shown you to riddled and filled with mistranslation, misquotations, and misapplications. But even worse, such mistranslations, misquotations, and misapplications are done "on purpose" as to lead his readers astray from the truth whereby they accept a false doctrine and gospel.
In summary, Paul uses Isaiah and his references to Isaiah's passages 8:14 and 28:16 in a Christological manner of interpretation when referring to a “stone of stumbling.” This is a metaphor or a simile but a far cry from a literal interpretation. It is one thing to compare the Jewish rejection of Yeshua to a "stone of stumbling" in a metaphorical sense, but entirely erroneous and deceptive to say "it is written" because Isaiah did not write about it or intended such a meaning as Paul would have you believe in the least. What is really tragic is that by representing “the stone of stumbling” as the Torah and the Word of God, Paul completely destroys the religion and faith of Yeshua who he wants us to believe as he believed. Such ideas as Paul taught could not be further from the truth. The truth is that Paul lies and few knows he does unless they invest a lot of study to find the truth.
Answer for yourself: But what would be the occasion that would make the non-Jew look to see if Paul had taught the truth in the first place?
Millions read the New Testament never questioning anything. I thank the God above Whom I dearly love Who answered my prayers to make me hungry for the Word of God which were answered in receiving the mantle of a teacher. I studied more than my peers and thus know of what they neglect to look into.
Thus, according to Paul, but not to Isaiah, Yeshua has become a stumbling stone to Jews who do not believe the Pauline theology and doctrine.
In closing I wish to summarize what we have learned in this article concerning what the prophet's message really was in the chapter under discussion (Isa. 28). Isaiah was dealing here with another aspect of the political crisis in Judah. He opposed an alliance with Egypt as an unreliable and undependable ally. After denouncing the dishonesty and deceit of the pro-Egyptian party, Isaiah described an ideal state of affairs in verse 16. God said that He laid a foundation stone in Zion and "he that believes shall a firm foundation" for his life.
The meaning of this line, from a Hebraic understanding, is that the believer should remain steadfastly to the Word of God even if the realization of his hopes are long in coming (notice that this is the same message given by Habakkuk in the previous article).
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that Paul is consistent and perverts the meaning of both Habakkuk and Isaiah which by no accident preached the same thing?
Answer for yourself: What are we to think when we see that both Habakkuk and Isaiah agree on the idea of Biblical Faith in God and His Word for salvation and deliverance and Paul’s ideas which conflict with them?
So, we have come far from Paul's misconstruction of Isaiah’s reference to a stumbling stone. In the first case the stumbling block was for those who did not accept Isaiah's communication in God's name. At some point Paul transformed this into his "gospel" concerning his unique understanding of Yeshua as both a descending Gnostic savior who modeled the pattern of dying and rising godmen from mystery religions. Salvation came though "gnosis" or secret knowledge to which only Paul had and without this "Pauline Gospel" one could not be "saved." This is Gnosticism at it's zenith. One you add many of the doctrines of mystery religions to Jesus as Paul did and put this in the backdrop of historical Judaism then you have the whole ball of wax.
In the second reference the stone is not an obstacle but a sign of God's presence among the people and an assurance that eventually justice will prevail. Paul loses the original meaning totally in his quoting of the passage in his Roman epistle.
Answer for yourself: Had you?
Answer for yourself: Do you think Paul knew he could misquote the Torah to Gentiles who never knew it anyway and get away with it? You bet he did. He fooled you and me didn't he? Well, let us hope we are fooled no longer but that only will happen if we study to return to the faith once given to the Saints.
Isaiah's messages are always based on obedience to God and to His Law as the way to salvation and deliverance. Far from a repudiation of the Torah as an obstacle to achieving righteousness, the prophet emphasized the necessity of clinging to the Law and the commandments. Paul says the direct opposite!
Answer for yourself: Can Paul contradict Isaiah and get away with it? Well he has; at least to those who don't know any better. To coin a Pauline phrase....
1 Cor 10:1 1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant...(KJV).
Paul's judgment of that Law is baffling. He admitted that the Law is holy and good and was observed by Jews. From this favorable evaluation he arrived, via misquotation and misunderstanding of Isaiah, at the startling conclusion that the Torah was a stumbling block to those observing the Law. Here again is Paul's muddled reasoning and circular logic confusing the clear messages of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). Paul had an agenda. It is tied to what you already have learned of him earlier in this website: his constant rejection by the Sadducee High Priest, the Pharisees, and the Jerusalem Church. Paul's ego could not take such defeats. He needed and desire a name for himself and found it in compromising the faith of Jesus for acceptance by the non-Jews. He simply presented Jesus to them in the pagan example of their dying/rising godman and he was an overnight sensation. That is to all but the Jerusalem Church which knew better. Paul's methodology has worked beyond his wildest imagination if we look at the fruit of his doctrine in Christianity today. His arguments were imbued with the determination to bend the meaning of every Hebrew Scripture he cited in order to propagate his success and acceptance with the non-Jew. His his ulterior motives were to create a new religion whereby he was "the apostle" of the new faith. In this way, he could get revenge and lack of recognition by the Jerusalem Church which rejected him because of his false message which they knew was totally opposed by Moses, the Prophets, Yeshua, as well as themselves. If you are still with us I salute you for your courage to dig into a difficult subject. May the love for God motivate your study forever. Shalom.