I have been working on something for a while, and it is finally live.
apostleofdoom.org is my new project looking at Paul of Tarsus, his writings, and the enormous influence he came to have on the development of Christianity.
The premise is simple enough: what if we actually put Paul on trial?
Not literally, obviously. There is no courtroom waiting somewhere in the afterlife where Paul is going to be dragged before a judge and asked to explain himself.
But there is a case to be examined.
Paul was not one of the disciples who followed Jesus during his earthly ministry. He did not learn the message from Jesus in Galilee. His encounter with the risen Christ, according to his own account, came later and became the foundation for his authority. From there, Paul became one of the most influential figures in Christian history.
His letters became part of the New Testament. His interpretation of Jesus became enormously influential. His writings have shaped Christian theology, Christology and the understanding of salvation for centuries. That makes Paul worth examining very closely.
And that is what Apostle of Doom is about.
I have structured the site almost like a historical case file. There is The Man, The Charges, The Witnesses, The Verdict, The Book and The Journal.
The idea is not to throw a conclusion at the reader and tell them to accept it.
Start with Paul himself. Read what he actually wrote. Then compare his claims with the earlier followers of Jesus and with the message associated with Jesus himself. Then look at how Muslim scholars, from the earliest centuries of Islam onwards, understood what happened to the original message of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.
That last part is particularly important to me.
Muslim criticism of Pauline Christianity did not suddenly appear on the internet. There is a long intellectual tradition behind it, stretching back many centuries. Apostle of Doom is an attempt to bring some of that material together with the biblical and historical evidence and make the argument accessible to a modern reader.
The project is intentionally presented as a case.
There are charges. There are witnesses. There is evidence. And eventually, there is a verdict. Whether you agree with the argument is another matter.
I would rather have someone read the evidence and disagree with me than agree with something they have never actually examined.
The website is still a work in progress, and I expect the book and journal to grow considerably over time. There is a lot of material to work through, and some of the questions involved require more than a few paragraphs and a convenient quotation.
But the doors are open. Apostle of Doom is now live.
Paul has had nearly two thousand years to make his case. I think it is time we examined it.