Who Was the Real Paul? The little that we know about the life of Paul comes not from his epsitles, but from Acts, particularly the latter portions not believed to have been written by the author of Luke. However, this is one of the most heavily redacted scriptures in the New Testament and is not always in agreement with the epistles as to the whereabouts of Paul. It also depicts Paul as a more mild mannered team player rather than the fiery individualistic evangelist depicted in the epistles. The early chapters are primarily centered around the original surviving 11 Apostles in particular Peter. Some of its more debatable entries are that Judas of Galilee rose up after Theudas and that Peter was to be crucified by Agrippa I in 44 CE and not by Tiberius Alexander in 47 CE. Apollonius visited Taxila, India c 36-38 CE. From there he brought back 9 writings that he received from Phraotes. These writings form the basis for the original 9 epistles of Paul. After his return, Apollonius formed an order according to Gymnosophic ideas and practices whose initiation was taken from the scriptures where it said, 'Thou art a priest after the order of Melchisedec,' or 'A priest after the order of the Sun.' Later during the 40s, this time with his trusted companion Damis, he makes another journey this one taking them to far eastern India. This is where they find 4 channeled Buddhist documents pertaining to the 4 horticultural seasons, which they bring back with them to Jerusalem which form the basis for the gospels. On his journeys Apollonius covers many of the same areas that Jesus and or St. Thomas are purported to have visited. We have also demonstrated the fact that Paul was baptized by John, and not on the road to Damascus, while 'Jesus' would have still been alive and living in Israel according to the gospel timeline. The Romans were opposed to John's baptism since it signified solidarity of those opposed to the Roman occupation of Israel. After his return from his first trip in 39 CE, Apollonius apparently split with the Essene and created his own order of Nazarites known as the 'Order of the Nazarenes' which would later be known as the 'Essene Brotherhood' in Southern Judea, near Gaza which earned him the title Apollonius the Nazarene. This is why at times Jesus is called not only the Nazorean, but also the Nazarene. Most Christian scholars mistakenly conflate these two distinctly separate orders. The following is from Epiphanius' description of the founder of the Ebionites: "For he has the Samaritans repulsiveness but the Jews name, the viewpoint of the Ossaeans, Nazoraeans and Nazaraeans,..." Clearly Epiphanius considered both of these distinctly different sects sharing a commonality. "...the Gospel Jesus consists of four basic components: soteriology, which came from the mystery-cults; ethics, which came primarily from India; eschatology, largely derived from Persia; and the supernatural Messianic concept which was an Essene adaption of a Zorastrian doctrine."—Martin A. Larson, "The Story of Christian Origins" Many Christian scholars have noted that the authors of the scriptures were well educated men and not some itinerrant Jewish Apostles. Apollonius left his home in Tyana at age 14, the same age that many state that Jesus left his home, and moved to Tarsus, the home of Paul, to study philosophy, mainly that of Pythagoras. As a student of Pythagorean philosophy, Apollos must have been anxious to witness the precepts of his mentor being put to practice by the Essene community in Israel. After he had studied in Tarsus for about a dozen years he moved on to Antioch and then to Jerusalem. This means that he may have first arrived in Jerusalem c 27-28 CE, or around the time that we have shown that Paul, Apollos was baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist. In the following video Dr. Richard Carrier outlines why the gospels are a myth: It has been noted that gospel accounts written in either Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic are all originals and not translations. This would be difficult for any Jew to have accomplished, especailly an uneducated one, but Apollonius was a Cappadocian who wrote in the Hebraic-Samaritan language, and as an educated person of Greek descent obviously also spoke that language. The 9 epistles are second century Marcionite compositions copied from the mutilated memoirs of Damis of the original 9 documents brought back by Apollonius from Taxila, India. The Prologues to the Epistles suggest that only 9 were of Pauline origin. The gospel accounts come from the Tamil people of far off southeastern India. It was these 4 writings which were used by both Marcion, of Sinope, and the satirist Lucian, and in all liklihood Orthodox Church scribes under the oversight of Irenaeus to create the 4 gospels. The baptism of Jesus is based on the Gnostic texts of the baptism of Hibil-Ziwa and the crucifixion is supposedly based on the crucifixion of Yeshai the result is that the texts take on the nature of the true story of a real living sacrificed human savior. Add to this the apochryphal texts written by the disgruntled Nazoreans and early Church Presbyters and you are left with the impression that the story is true. According to Philostratus' biography of 'Apollonius of Tyana,' he, much like Paul, was very self absorbed. It was his practice of dressing and acting like a living god which got him thrown in jail by the Roman Emperor Domitian. Since, much like Jesus Christ, there is no historical evidence that an evangelist by the name of Paul ever existed, it is not a far reach to assume that this person, Paul, actually was Apollonius. It was Apollonius and his companions Damis and Lucius who were entrusted by Vespasian to create the scriptures for the new religious order. This project is mentioned briefly in chapter 9 of the Philostratus biography. There is also another person of interest, that being the heretical Jewish Rabbi Elisha ben Abuiah who was the Jewish persecutor of the Christians who underwent a miraculous conversion and later became an apostate to the law and converted to Christianity and who is conflated with Apollonius to become just Paul. Both Paul and Apollonius were from Tarsus in Asia Minor which was a hotbed of both Buddhism and Persian 'Sun God' worship of Mithras. In 'Antiquity Unveiled,' Damis reports that it was he who wrote the memoirs of Apollonius which became the framework of both the Philostratus biography and Acts. He also claims that the Greek followers of Prometheus mutilated those memoirs as they were opposed to the introduction of the Indian Christos among the Greeks, and strongly opposed the teachings of Apollonius. This is supported by the following from Acts, which we have demonstrated occurred c 30 CE. It also goes a long way in explaining the reason for the vicarious blood atonement, or mock crucifixion mentioned in the Safed scroll. "When he [Paul] came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the Apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Grecian Jews, but they tried to kill him. When the brothers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus"—Acts 9:26-30. The fact that the Grecian Jews are among the 'Christians' tells us that these are not Pharisaic Jews by religion, but called Jews because they live in Judea. These could be the Greek followers of Prometheus. What we find represented here is the clash between 2 different competing factions of Christianity. On one side, we find the Apostolic tradition led by those following the teachings of Peter and James and on the other we have Paul. We find that Apollonius' (Paul's) Epistles were originally embraced, not by the Orthodox Church but by, yet a third faction, the Gnostics. However, it was Marcion who crafted Paul, out of the fragmentary Apollonian manuscripts that he found, as a vehicle to convey his very own theology. This explains why Paul's Epistles have not even a hint of Pythagoreanism or Buddhism as you would expect from Apollonius. Marcion was a worldly man and realized that Apollonius' message was far too Gnostic and dualistic for the mass market. Although much of Paul's dualism still comes across. It was then up to the conspirators in Rome to tie Paul to the Gospel Jesus and Judaism. They searched the history books of Josephus, but could not find a Paul. So they crafted Paul, a Jew from Tarsus, out of Jospehus' references to a Saul an avaricious Herodian aristocrat. They then added the miraculous conversion from the life of heretical Jewish Rabbi Elisha ben Abuiah, known as Aher (traitor), to the mix thus giving Paul divine authority. All of these alterations had to have been composed after the failed war of bar Kosiba c 130-35 CE, when the Jewish Christians lost whatever power they still enjoyed to the Romans. Continued Table of Contents