Did Paul Get His Gospel from James and the Apostles Who Knew Jesus?

In this excerpt of a private slide lecture I presented to my students and patrons recently that I am now sharing more widely. I will cover this in more detail next month with my "Tabor Research Community," which I invite Youtube viewers of my channel to join, see below. You can also download a TYPO corrected version of my notes here--the one on screen I composed hurriedly, during the Helena storm, with no power and internet,...so it had some embarrassing errors--I hope now mostly corrected:

I invite you to join my Tabor Research Community for lots more, discussions, my responses to messages, a monthly Zoom meetings, and a fantastic and diverse group of historically oriented students of the Bible. In our end of October meeting we will be discussing all this in detail.

See details here:

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__________________________________________
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley
מהמלים בקשר את המלים ועל סמך המלים
Retired Prof. of Religious Studies/Christian Origins
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

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[markrossow]

( note that when I watch Dr. Tabor's YT channel I am shown "Tuttle Twins" homeschooler textbooks for elementary-age children -- note that these are Extreme #Propaganda;
giving "End the Fed !!" etc
to the Under-10s )

[louisnemzer]

Saul of Tarsus calls himself an apostle, yet never knew Jesus when he was alive, nor does he claim any continuity with any of the people who heard the message directly from Jesus.

[Ammeeeeeeer]

The best videos is always when James Tabor talks about James the Just 😁

[SixSevenPodcast]

I think this may be your best one yet — to me it lays out the fudamental dichotomy between Jesus and Paul as plainly as can be. They simply were not speaking the same “salvific” lingo and the only reason people thing they do if because they read the book as one commissioned work, and not as a composer of certain commissioned works of God and/or men. It’s shocking at first to geeks with this growing up more fundamentalist, but scholars like Dr. T lay it out so smoothly and folk can go unpack it more from there should they choose to honestly solve the riddle: did the self-appointed gospel reflect that of the actual hand chosen by Yahshua gospel that preceded it? The verdict: no. It’s stands unique.

Folk assume they surely must be on the same page bc of how English has caused everyone to read-into and infer and surmise and presume all sorts of things tied to emotional anchors in doctrine and dogma, under the line of thinking that God protected an infallible collection of books — despite the culture the books are about being in exile for millennia — and that the language hops from Aramaic to Greek to Latin to English have all been a 1:1 accurate translation process. No one has ever explicitly told us this, we just all kinda grew up assuming this in the background. Until we woke up to it.

Thank you Jim for breaking it down for the greater lecture halls of the YouTube undergrads lol. Great episode. I’m looking forward to breaking bread with you one day… I was just with Kameron W the other day speaking about what we’ve both leads from your sharing your perspective over the years… he speaks highly of you and I understand why. 10/10 would recommend. 💯👊🏽

[peterhook]

good stuff again, the kind of video that makes me write comment after comment and then delete them and restart lol. Good work.

[essenechurch]

I always appreciate your take on these topics. Great stuff!

[Busabuck]

In order for Mark to have any validity, Paul's letters would have to be valid ? Since Mark got his stuff from Paul. No?

[EdwardM-tp]

In the beginning 2nd Corinthians 11 Paul talks of another gospel and another Jesus and another Spirit. Later on he makes it clear that he's talking of the Jerusalem headquarters where Peter, James and John perform their activities from with his reference to "those Super Apostles", whom he then demonizes! So clearly Paul came up with his own gospel, his own Jesus, and his own Spirit instead of continuing with the message going forth from Jerusalem.

[vikingdemonpr]

Thought the book of Acts is known to be ahistorical, it has its tidbits of facts. For example, the episode in whicb Paul returns to Jerusalem and goes to James and he asks Paul to help with some brothers who made a nazirite vow. Then he's attacked at the temple. I think that was a setup by the Jamesian group because they discovered what Paul was teaching abroad.

[nlyThis]

Paul's gospel was heavy into the Pharisaical "Resurrection of the Dead", a subject which the evangelists had their Jesus hardly ever mention at all - except his own, of course.
In fact, the author of the Johannine narrative even has him claim to BE the Resurrection.

[placeswelive]

I find it entertaining that people who listen to this aren't expected to know what the Siddur is.

[Peejayk]

Love your work DrTabor! But it is sad that you don’t talk about Marcion when you talk about Paul’s letters. Marcion was the first to introduce Paul’s letter to the world. Please address the work done by Marcus Vinzent, Mark Bilby, Jack Bull as well as Dr David Litwa and other marcionite scholars. The current form of Paul’s letter we have are later redactions of Marcion’s collection called Apostolos. Also his Eungelion is quite possibly an earlier form of the Gospels.

[ezekielsaltar]

The primary source for this teaching is in the Talmud, Succah 45b:

"The world never has less than thirty-six righteous men who receive the Divine Presence every day, for it is said, 'Happy are they that wait lo [for Him]' and the numerical value of 'lo' is thirty-six."

[neclark]

Saul/Paul had the Chutzpah ('Stones') to elbow his way to the 'Front of the Parousia Parade' -- where he grabbed the Mace from the hand(s) of the then-Leader(s)' of the nascent "Jesus Movement" -- and Pridefully declared that HE was The ONE whom god had "Chosen before Birth" to take the reins -- Supposedly handed to him by Jesus, Himself...

[morningSTARranch]

I agree Paul had an independent gospel. I think he took it to James and James says ok but certain laws must be taught also. I think Paul breaks from that and even breaks from Jews needing to keep any laws. The very end of Acts in the Greek seems to suggest Paul even breaks from identifying himself as Jewish, but he is of this new creation awaiting for transformation. As Eisenman says, if you want to know Jesus, go to James. I wish I was convinced that James is the righteous teacher from qumran, still have more to ponder.

[jericosha]

I'm really curious how you think through the claims of Paul potentially killing James. Why would someone write that? To slander Paul? Or is it true? Love your channel and lectures. Thanks for being a presence on YouTube.

[geoffkryten]

9:30 If I might interject, Joseph Smith was never a messianic figure, he was a prophet. I’m fifth generation LDS, so we don’t need to argue about that. I don’t want the viewer to be misled by the comparison here to David Koresh, there are huge differences between these two people.

[stephen-fh]

Gospel of Thomas, Logion 12: "Who is it who shall be great over us?" That reminds me of Mark 10:42-44. James and John desire to be greatest, but Jesus says he who is the least of the apostles and servant of all is the greatest -- meaning Paul. As Robert Eisenman said, the Gentile Gospels many times reverse the teaching of the Jerusalem Church.

[grantsmythe]

Sounds as close to a Near Death Experience as one can get, though one can have such an experience without dying or coming close to death. Yes, it is "High Cotton".

[leom]

I believe Paul made up his own gospel .Jesus warned the true apostles about hijackers, he warned us that he wont be in the desert, if someone claims it. He warned us about wolf's aka benjamin aka Paul, he warned us about people who will be called least, Paul calls himself least a few times. Rev 2 2 is directly about someone who was rejevted in whole Asia, Paul admits he was rejected in Asia.

Jewish Christianity was the true way of Jesus and the apostles. Paul and the 12 also split in Galatians 2 12 to 14 and Paul was never with them again after that in his letters. He was alone in prison, the apostles would have supported him, if they were his friends. I also believe chapter 1 of the clementine homilies is authentic.