If Paul teaches faith alone, he "is inconsistent with authority greater than his own [i.e., Jesus]...."William Paley (1825)

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Spies and Apostles

The History Channel aired on Naked Archaeologist a show entitled "Spies and Apostles."

Season Three in 2010 had 2 episodes:

  1. "Apostles & Spies, Part 1 (US premier: 23 November 2010 (History Channel International))
  2. "Apostles & Spies, Part 2 (US premier: 24 November 2010 (History Channel International))

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Archaeologist

A 2 minute clips of Part 1 is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWvkG5px704

The Byline summarizes this story:

Was St. Paul working for the Romans to infiltrate the Jesus movement? Archaeology shows that James, the brother of Jesus, may have gotten short shrift in the Gospels, thanks to Paul's espionage tricks.

I Do Not Recommend This Video

I ordered and watched this video. It invokes a lot of melodrama to excite one about the theory that Paul was a Roman agent. While plausible, it likely cannot ever be proven. It also would suggest Paul was a liar from inception of his conversion, which one should doubt. Could Paul keep up a deliberate masquerade for over 17 years? What about the "signs and wonders" (per Luke) surrounded him? One would have to think Luke made up all those signs. The truth is that something supernatural happened to Paul -- the question is whether it was the "blinding angel of light" whom Paul truly met on the road outside Damascus? (Jesus warned us that the false prophets will have signs and wonders to accompany them.) Or did Paul truly meet Jesus? But to say Paul lied about his conversion, and Luke lied about the signs and wonders appears an unjustified way to read those accounts.