The Books of Paul:

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A paradoxical statement has no discernable truth value, but the statement by Epimenides can be seen as having a truth value (i.e. it is false), and if that is the case we can reinterpret the statement as not being paradoxical. However, establishing a truth value for the statement does not escape the problem with Paul's claim since the saying of Epimenides is false. As Prior noted above, we cannot consider the statement true (as Paul did). If sophisticated analysis determines after all that this statement by Epimenides is not paradoxical, and thus has a truth value, the only consistent supposition we can make is that it is false.

Conclusion

In the end, the following seven-point syllogism completes our argument:

Paul claims a Cretan uttered a certain proposition.
The proposition is not true.
Paul claims the proposition is true.
Paul's claim is an error.
Paul's writings are errant rather than inerrant.
Errant scripture is not inspired scripture, as held on by Muslims.
Therefore, Paul was not inspired.
Hence, whether the statement is meaningless or false, the basic argument which we have raised still stands. The conclusion of the seven point syllogism given above still rings true: Paul was not inspired.

And only God knows best

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The Influence of the Pauline Epistles Upon The Gospels of The New Testament: Study and Criticism

Christians believe that Paul of Tarsus is the 'Apostle' of Jesus(P), whom he met in a vision on his journey to Damascus. Paul is also claimed to be the author of the Epistles to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Hebrews. It is therefore strange that this self-confessed 'Apostle' of Jesus Christ fails to pay more attention to the words of Jesus(P) himself in his epistles:

All the evidence indicates that the words of Jesus were authoritative in the Church from the first, and this makes it the more remarkable that such scanty attention is paid to the words or works of Jesus in the earliest Christian writings, Paul's letters, the later Epistles, Hebrews, Revelation, and even Acts have little to report about them... Papias (ca. AD 130), the first person to actually name a written gospel, illustrates the point. Even though he defends Mark's gospel (Euseb. Hist. III.xxxix.15-16), and had himself appended a collection of Jesus tradition to his 'Interpretation of the Oracles of the Lord' (Euseb. Hist. III.xxxix.2-3), his own clear preference was for the oral tradition concerning Jesus, and the glimpses that Eusebius provides of Papias' Jesus tradition give no hint of his dependence on Mark. Neither do the more frequent citations of Jesus in the apostolic fathers, largely 'synoptic' in character show much dependence on our written gospels

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The Pauline Epistles and Their Influence Over the Selection of Gospels
It is acknowledged that the current gospels of the New Testament, which contain the words of Jesus(P), were written after the Pauline epistles. This statement is confirmed by Prof. Brandon, when he informs us that

The earliest Christian writings that have been preserved for us are the letters of the apostle Paul.[2]

All but the gospels acceptable to the Pauline faith were systematically destroyed or re-written. In fact, the gospels were not even in existence prior to the Pauline writings. Rev. Charles Anderson Scott tells us that

It is highly probable that not one of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) was in existence in the form which we have it, prior to the death of Paul. And were the documents to be taken in strict order of chronology, the Pauline Epistles would come before the synoptic Gospels.[3]

Hyam Maccoby makes an interesting observation regarding the influence of Paul as follows:

We should remember that the New Testament, as we have it, is much more dominated by Paul than appears at first sight. As we read it, we come across the Four Gospels, of which Jesus is the hero, and do not encounter Paul as a character until we embark on the post-Jesus narrative of Acts. Then we finally come into contact with Paul himself, in his letters. But this impression is misleading, for the earliest writings in the New Testament are actually Paul's letters, which were written about AD 50-60, while the Gospels were not written until the period AD 70-110. This means that the theories of Paul were already before the writers of the Gospels and colored their interpretations of Jesus' activities. Paul is, in a sense, present from the very first word of the New Testament. This is of course, not the whole story, for the Gospels are based on traditions and even written sources which go back to a time before the impact of Paul, and these early traditions and sources are not entirely obliterated in the final version and give valuable indications of what the story was like before Paulinist editors pulled it into final shape. However, the dominant outlook and shaping perspective of the Gospels is that of Paul, for the simple reason that it was the Paulinist view of what Jesus' sojourn on Earth had been about that was triumphant in the Church as it developed in history. Rival interpretations, which at one time had been orthodox, opposed to Paul's very individual views, now became heretical and were crowded out of the final version of the writings adopted by the Pauline Church as the inspired canon of the New Testament.[4]

There is no doubt that the influence of Paul is much more dominant than the influence of Jesus(P) himself in the New Testament. Scholars have known and recognised the influence Paul exerts over the New Testament, to the extent that Paul even declares that he has a different gospel than Jesus.[

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Dating for The Authorship of The New Testament
The popularly accepted dates for the authorship of the current books of the Bible are approximately as follows:

Approx. AD Event / Document

30 Crucifixion (Ascension) of Jesus

50 First Epistle of Paul

62 Last Epistle of Paul

65-70 Mark's Gospel

70 Epistle to Hebrews (The Epistle to the Hebrews is not listed in the 6th century list of the manuscripts called Codex Claromon. This leads to the suspicion that it could have been written at a later date)

80 Luke's Gospel

85-90 Matthew's Gospel

90 Acts

90-100 John's Gospel and First Epistle

95-100 Revelation

100 I & II Timothy and Titus[6]

Uncertainty about James I & II, Peter, John and Jude does not allow historians to estimate their origin dates[7]. Note that the Epistles are dated earlier than even the earliest gospel, "Mark". Thus we begin to see the degree to which the current religion of "Christianity" is based more on the teachings and writings of Paul than anything else. The gospels which are popularly believed to have been written first were in actuality written long after the writings of Paul. The more Christian scholars study the text of the Bible, the more it becomes painfully apparent that what is popularly referred to today as "Christianity" should more appropriately be called "St. Paulism".

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Were The Epistles Attributed to Paul Really Authored By Him?
Even the attribution of authorship of the epistles to Paul himself is doubtful. For example, let us take a look at the Epistle to the Hebrews. This Epistle, once attributed to Paul, is now generally accepted to have not been written by him. We read that

The Letter to the Hebrews, at one time ascribed to Paul, is now generally accepted to be by some unknown Christian of the 1st century. More like a sermon than a letter, it is one of the best and most carefully constructed compositions in the New Testament. Addressed originally to Christians out of Jewish backgrounds, the book makes extensive use of Old Testament material to demonstrate that the ministry of Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Covenant.[8]

The editors of the KJV, in their Introduction to the Epistle to the Hebrews, wrote that

The author of the Book of Hebrews is unknown. Martin Luther suggested that Apollos was the author...Tertullian said that Hebrews was a letter of Barnabas...Adolf Harnack and J. Rendel Harris speculated that it was written by Priscilla (or Prisca). William Ramsey suggested that it was done by Philip. However, the traditional position is that the Apostle Paul wrote Hebrews...Eusebius believed that Paul wrote it, but Origen was not positive of Pauline authorship.[9]

Even the books of Acts was written to fulfill a certain purpose. As Hyam Maccoby observes

As we have seen, the purposes of the book of Acts is to minimize the conflict between Paul and the leaders of the Jerusalem Church, James and Peter. Peter and Paul, in later Christian tradition, became twin saints, brothers in faith, and the idea that they were historically bitter opponents standing for irreconcilable religious standpoints would have been repudiated with horror. The work of the author of Acts was well done; he rescued Christianity from the imputation of being the individual creation of Paul, and instead gave it a respectable pedigree, as a doctrine with the authority of the so-called Jerusalem Church, conceived as continuous in spirit with the Pauline Gentile Church of Rome. Yet, for all his efforts, the truth of the matter is not hard to recover, if we examine the New Testament evidence with an eye to tell-tale inconsistencies and confusions, rather than with the determination to gloss over and harmonize all difficulties in the interests of an orthodox interpretation.[10]


Conclusions
We have seen that the Pauline Epistles were written before the gospels of the New Testament and therefore exerts an influence over the selection of the gospels of the New Testament in our hands today. Jesus(P) himself had no idea of what Paul had done to his teachings, and would have been amazed and shocked at the role assigned him by Paul as a suffering deity. Moreover, not all the epistles attributed to Paul were really written by him, and some were even written to fulfill a certain purpose. It is this reason which makes the epistles unacceptable to be divinely 'inspired', as it is clear they are the product of men.

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Paul, Peter and John are in clear contradiction with each others regarding the disbelieving husbands to believing wives!

In this article, I will address 1 Peter 3:1-6, 1 Corinthians 7:10-15, then compare it with 1 Corinthians 7:16, and John 3:15-16.

Also, please visit my rebuttal: My response to Sam Shamoun's rebuttal to my article "Paul, Peter and John are in clear contradiction with each others regarding the disbelieving husbands to believing wives!".

Let us first look at what Peter said:

1 Peter 3

1. Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives,
2. when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
3. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.
4. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
5. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands,
6. like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

This passage of Peter directly contradicts Paul's. While Peter is asking women to be positive with their disbelieving husbands so that their husbands MIGHT be persuaded to embrace Christianity through their wives positive actions " they may be won over without words.....when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.", Paul said something totally different:

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1 Corinthians 7:10-15:

10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.
11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.
12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.
13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him.
14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace.

Quick Note: Notice how the NIV Bible translators put (I, not the Lord) in parenthesis. They are suggesting that Paul in verses 12 through 15 was speaking only his own personal words and wasn't inspired by GOD Almighty, even thought HE NEVER DECLARED IT IN THESE VERSES. This is only their interpretation and addition. In any how, even if they were right, and Paul wasn't speaking GOD Almighty's Words, then this still would contradict Paul's own words in 2 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," Obviously, not all the Bible is God-breathed because Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:12-15 would've contradicted that, as he also clearly contradicted it in 1 Corinthians 7:25-35 when he said that he is not always inspired by GOD Almighty, because both sets of verses are now PERMANENTLY PRESERVED in the Bible, which obviously doesn't make all of the Bible "God-breathed". Maybe 1 Corinthians 7:25-35 is what gave the NIV Bible translators the liberty to consider 1 Corinthians 7:12-15 as Paul's own words (even though he never said so) and not GOD's. This obviously proves that the Bible is so cheap to them that they would give themselves the liberty to add and take off from it as they please without fearing anything.

Anyway, is Paul suggesting here that a disbelieving man or woman would still be purified/cleansed and win Paradise just because they are married to a believer? I don't quite understand his logic here! How can a believing woman raise her children, especially in a male-dominated society (where a woman follows everything her husband says and does) back then, to be polytheist trinitarian pagans who believe in 3 gods, while the disbelieving husband might interfere heavily with that? Would the disbelieving husband and the disbelieving children still be saved even if they don't embrace the polytheist trinity paganism just because the wife/mother is a believer? Is this what Paul meant by "sanctified"?

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Also, notice "but as it is, they are holy" in 1 Corinthians 7:14 above. It really doesn't just mean that the disbelieving children would be considered "holy", but also the disbelieving spouse (male or female).

What does Paul here mean by "holy"??!! If the disbelieving spouse would still not be saved in the End, then what is the point from considering them "holy"??!!

How does all of this fit with Paul's very next verse in 1 Corinthians 7:16:

"How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? (From the NIV Bible, 1 Corinthians 7:16)"

So if the wife/husband can never save their spouse unless GOD Almighty Wills, then again, what is the point from calling the disbelieving spouses and the disbelieving children as "holy"?!

It is clear that Paul's "holy" title to disbelieving spouses and children proved to be irrelevant and absolutely pointless! Hence, this makes the Bible imperfect in it's contents and literature, since it contains utter nonsense and foolish opinions in it. Hence, this makes the Bible not the 100% True Holy Words of GOD Almighty.


Why should GOD Almighty, if He truly inspired Paul's nonsense, call disbelievers as "holy" and still roast them in Hell? Wouldn't that make the Perfect GOD Almighty inconsistent and a hypocrite?


Where is the Divine Perfection in this?!

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As we clearly see above, while Peter recommended for the wives to be very positive with their disbelieving husbands so that these husbands might be "won over" (meaning embrace the religion) through their wives' actions, Paul said that the disbelieving husbands would be "sanctified" through their believing wives. Not only the disbelieving husbands, but also their children even if these children became disbelievers.

Now let us look at what John said:

John 3

15. that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.
16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Again, Paul clearly contradicted John 3:16 "that whoever believes in him shall not perish". How can a disbelieving husband not perish even if his wife was a believer?

No matter how you interpret 1 Peter 3:1-6, whether it meant to say that the disbelieving husbands are automatically purified through their believing wives, or it meant to say that the disbelieving husbands might be persuaded to embrace the pagan polytheist religion, 1 Peter 3:16 still would be in clear contradiction with Paul or John in either case!

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The Book of Romans:

"The writer of this letter was the apostle Paul (see 1:1). No voice from the early church was ever raised against his authorship. (From the NIV Bible Commentary, page 1705)"

Ok, but notice how in this Book, we see the actual author himself, and in the ones above, we see nothing but conclusions. If GOD was the actual inspirer of all of these Books, then He wouldn't put us in the agony of making some conclusions to figure out His Words. Is GOD the author of confusion? Paul is also clear about his ownership of the Books of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians.

But why must we take every single word that Paul spoke especially during his conversations with others as Words of GOD Almighty?!

Is Paul GOD Himself? No Christian believes in that. Paul fought with Saint Peter and accused him of being "clearly in the wrong" (Galatians: 2:11-12), and had a huge argument with Saint Barnabas (Acts 15:36-39).

Did GOD favor Paul over Barnabas and Peter and inspired him the words while he was fighting with them? I don't think so!.

Paul himself admitted before that he wasn't always inspired by GOD Almighty himself (1 Corinthians 7:25-30).

And since Paul never met Jesus in person, and only claimed that Jesus came to him in person then there is always the possibility of him being untruthful. Since Paul never performed any miracles to help us believe his claim of Prophet hood, then his claim about him being GOD's apostle is just as good as me for instance claiming to be GOD's apostle.

Benny Hyne, one of today's famous Christian missionaries who have millions of fans world wide, claims and shows on TV how he could cure the paralyzed and makes him walk again. He claims that Jesus is inside him when he performs his so-called miracles. Why can't it be a bunch of liars that he paid and brought on TV, pretend to act paralyzed and pretend to act healed?

Paul could just as well be another Benny Hyne, except that Benny Hyne performed miracles (that are fake of course), but Paul never performed anything.

I hope you see how confusing the Bible really is. Its books are believed today from conclusions only as you've seen above, and it is only to be believed by blind faith. Blind faith is not the way to believe in GOD Almighty's Words, because GOD is not the author of confusion

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The Book of Philippians:

"The early church was unanimous in its testimony that Philippians was written by the apostle Paul (see 1:1). Internally the letter reveals the stamp of genuineness. The many personal references of the author fit what we know of Paul from other NT books. (From the NIV Bible Commentary, page 1803)"

Again, it was assumed that this book was written by Paul himself. No one knows for sure whether it was Paul or somebody else. The New Testament wasn't even documented until 150-300 years after the disappearance of Jesus peace be upon him. If we're going to assume that Books that look appealing to us as the True Word of GOD Almighty, then we are committing a great crime against GOD Almighty and His Holy Words. No where in this Book we see a statement saying that it was inspired by GOD Almighty Himself.

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The Book of Colossians:

"That Colossians is a genuine letter Paul is not usually disputed. In the early church, all who speak on the subject of authorship ascribe it to Paul. In the 19th century, however, some thought that the heresy refuted in ch. 2 was second-century Gnosticism. (From the NIV Bible Commentary, page 1813)"

Again, it was assumed that Paul was the one who wrote the Book. But again, who's to say that it was inspired by GOD Almighty Himself?

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The Books of 1 and 2 Thessalonians:

"Paul's authorship of 2 Thessalonians has been questioned more often than that of 1 Thessalonians, in spite of the fact that it has more support from early Christian writers. (From the NIV Bible Commentary, page 1829)"

So basically we're not certain whether or not Paul wrote the Book. And even if Paul was the one who wrote it, we still don't know whether it was the True Words of GOD Almighty or not, because no where in the Book we see any indication that it was inspired by the Almighty GOD.