John Guillaumier’s piece ‘Paul’s teachings’ (February 9) demonstrates sheer biblical illiteracy. His attempt to set Paul against Jesus fails miserably given the sources he adopts to prove his feeble argument, meaning that Paul ignored Jesus’ injunction and “went in the way of the gentiles”.
Guillaumier cites Oscar Wilde, Will Durant and Voltaire to back up his point. All three were great scholars who achieved eminence in their own sphere of knowledge. None of them were biblical exegetes.
Biblical exegesis is the act of drawing the meaning out of a biblical text. A variety of principles are generally used when seeking to produce sound biblical exegeses, such as, among others, the socio-cultural, the grammar and the literal.
Being an avowed atheist, Guillaumier would indeed shy away from consulting biblical luminaries, the likes of Oscar Cullman, Rudolf Bultmann, Joseph Fitzmeyer, Raymond E. Brown, John L. McKenzie and a host of others. Undoubtedly, he has, for donkey’s years, kept his distance from these reliable and famed scholars.
One would confidently expect that Jesus and Paul taught the same thing. Granted, Paul focused more on theological issues than Jesus did but nothing Paul said is contrary to Jesus’s core message.
The Damascene experience was central in determining the direction of Paul’s belief and to obliterating himself behind Jesus with whom he identified himself.