Paul and the Karaites
Introduction
Was the apostle Paul, the Pharisee formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, a champion of the faith and founder of Christian theology, or a charlatan leading a perversion of Judaism?
Analysis
First take a look at this study of objections to Paul himself. Now let’s turn to Karaite Judaism, because it brings some important points to the forefront of criticisms of the Christian faith and the New Testament. From experiences with both Jews and atheists, the common attitude is that if you’re a Bible literalist, you must agree with expert Jewish interpretations, because the Tanakh is their book and we Christians have nothing to say about it. Never mind that with the exception of Luke, all the New Testament writers were Jews, who couldn’t and wouldn’t have invented a risen Savior. The disciples hid in a locked room after Jesus’ crucifixion and were dejected because they thought he would restore the kingdom to Israel at that time.
Now read through this article on whether, as some claim, Jesus was actually a Karaite. Here are additional resources:
- The Karaites, a medieval Jewish sect
- Karaism
- more about Karaism
- frequently asked questions about Karaism
The fact remains that Jesus rose from the dead, and no amount of a claimed superior conclusion can change that. It’s pointless to debate whether it should have happened when in fact it did. Here are some resources on Jesus’ resurrection:
- Jesus of Testimony (full-length video)
- The King of Nations (full-length video)
- Testimony of the Evangelists
Points raised in the literature:
- 1 Cor. 15:3-4 “according to the scriptures” Genesis 3:15, Psalm 16:10, Isaiah 53:1-12, Hosea 6:2, Jonah 1:17, Daniel 9:24-26, Zechariah 12:10,13:7
- Psalm 2:7 “today I have become your father”
- Psalm 110:1 “the Lord says to my Lord”
- Israel was exiled more than once for disobedience to the laws of Moses which they were bound by covenant to obey, and the temple was destroyed in 70 a.d. just as Jesus predicted, because they rejected their promised Messiah— and none of his Jewish critics disputed the idea of a Messiah/Savior. While Karaites would dismiss Jesus’ critics as Pharisees and Talmudists, the fact is that they and Jesus were both referencing Moses and the Levitical law.
- Isaiah 53 has to be twisted beyond recognition to make it about Israel rather than the Messiah who would suffer and die for his people.
- dying for the sins of others (not necessarily karaite)
- sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22:1-19)
- sacrifice of animals in law of Moses
- ”The soul who sins will die” (Ezekiel 18:4). God extended His mercy by providing the substitute to die in place of the offerer. According to this source, “We stopped offering sacrifices because we do not have a proper place to offer them.” Though the article goes on to excuse the lack of animal sacrifices, the Torah itself makes them mandatory and gives precise and strict rules for what animals to sacrifice, and when and how. Nothing in Torah says to stop the practice. Prayer and changes of heart are certainly presumed, but this hardly means that direct commands to sacrifice animals can be ignored. But the article also errs in such statements as this: “the passage only says that blood is used to obtain atonement— not that blood is the sole means for obtaining atonement.” Again, they’re picking and choosing which parts are binding and using poor logic; just because sacrifice isn’t the only means of forgiveness hardly means sacrifice can be abandoned.
Conclusion
Kairite Judaism at least opposes Talmudic Judaism, but it presumes infallibility in its hermeneutic, and it shares with Talmudism a rejection and loathing of Jesus as Messiah. The first Christians were all Jews who had not been looking to invent a Messiah, much less to think of Jesus as such before he did miracles and then raised himself from the dead, so they serve as hostile witnesses to this charge. Being Jews in the first century before Christianity even began, they were at least as qualified to interpret the Tanakh as Jews today, in spite of their claim that they get their teachings from Jews prior to the time of Christ. Jesus did correct and rebuke the Pharisees and Sadducees, but he also pointed to himself as Messiah, so the Karaites cannot claim him as an early Karaite while ignoring anything he said that doesn’t fit with their beliefs.
Of course, what both Karaites and Talmudists think about the New Testament, especially the apostle Paul, is refuted by Paul and his many enemies then and now. Even the secular world believes that Saul of Tarsus was a top Pharisee who suddenly turned from hunter to prey regarding Christianity, renouncing his former ways as a Pharisee. Those Pharisees hated him and tried to kill him, not for rejecting the Talmud but for teaching the end of the laws of Moses. Both Jesus and Paul were hated by both the Pharisees and the Sadducees for this. So for the Karaites to claim that the Pharisees were only and always about the Talmud is disingenuous.
Claims of one group or another being the authority on scripture will never be resolved here, but the fact remains that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead qualifies him as the final authority on all this. The New Testament, of which nearly one-third consists of the letters of Paul, is all about Jesus. Without Jesus it’s all just a lot of religious bickering.