By Abdullah Kareem

Paul contradicted the accounts of Jesus when he wrote

It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44)

I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1 Corinthians 15:50)

To the contrary, Jesus ascended to Heaven in a physical body (Luke 24:51). This means Paradise is physical, flesh and bone can enter God’s domain, so Paul was wrong to say that Paradise is spiritual, based on his preconditioning that Jesus was spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44-50). According to Paul, the Gospels are wrong; the “resurrection” was spiritual.
The ultra-conservatives keep insisting on a “physical” resurrection of Jesus. Paul, whose work pre-dates the first Gospel, insists on the exact opposite. His fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians could not possibly be clearer. I invite you to read to reread that passage for yourself. This passage is almost pure Platonism. Paul knows only a spiritual resurrection.  (Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 174)

Paul never used anything but the passive verb to discuss the Easter event and he used that form thirty-seven times. For Paul, Jesus was raised by God. Jesus did not rise. It is a simple distinction to make, but it has overwhelmingly important consequences…We must keep in mind that Paul knew nothing of an event called the ascension that was separate or different from Jesus’ resurrection. Paul’s writings contain no hint of the two-stage process that would develop later, where resurrection brought Jesus from the grave back to life and ascension then took Jesus from earth to heaven. Paul’s proclamation was that God had raised Jesus into God’s very life. That was Easter for Paul. For Paul there were no empty tombs, no disappearance from the grave of the physical body, no physical resurrection, no physical appearances of a Christ who would eat fish, offer his wounds for inspection, or rise physically into the sky after an appropriate length of time. None of these ideas can be found in reading Paul. For Paul the body of Jesus who died was perishable, weak, physical. The Jesus who was raised was clothed by the raising God with a body fit for God’s kingdom. It was imperishable, glorified, and spiritual. (John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality, p. 50, 241)
The most striking feature of the early documents is that they do not set Jesus’ life in a specific historical situation. There is no Galilean ministry, and there are no parables, no miracles, no Passion in Jerusalem, no indication of time, place of attendant circumstances at all. The words Calvary, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Galilee never appear in the early epistles, and the word Jerusalem is never used there in connection with Jesus (Doherty, pp. 68, 73). Instead, Jesus figures as a basically supernatural personage who took the “likeness” of man, “emptied” then of his supernatural powers Phil 2:7. (G.A. Wells, Can We Trust the New Testament?

Paul denied the stories of Elijah and Elisha resurrecting dead bodies to their former state (2Kgs. 17:20-23). The false apostle never believed in physical resurrection, only of the spirit (ruach). The missionary will quote the Acts where Paul “resurrects a dead man” (8:17). Yet, the Book of Acts is composed by Luke, who is Paul’s companion; it’s obvious that Luke embellished the story.

We know about Paul not only from his own letters but also from the book of Acts, which gives a full account of his life. Paul, in fact, is the hero of Acts, which was written by an admirer and follower of his, namely, Luke, who was also the author of the Gospel of that name. From Acts, it would appear that there was some friction between Paul and the leaders of the ‘Jerusalem Church’, the surviving companions of Jesus; but this friction was resolved, and they all became the best of friends, with common aims and purposes. From certain of Paul’s letters, particularly Galatians, it seems that the friction was more serious than in the picture given in Acts, which thus appears to be partly a propaganda exercise, intended to portray unity in the early Church. The question recurs: what would Jesus have thought of Paul, and what did the Apostles think of him?  (Hyam Maccoby, The Problem of Paul)
Of the 22 times in the New Testament where Paul is referred to as an apostle, only twice is he referred to as an apostle by someone other than himself. These two instances came from the same person. Not from Yahshua or any of the original apostles, but from Paul’s close traveling companion and personal press secretary Luke. Both accounts are found in Luke’s record of the Acts of the Apostles, (chapter 14:4,14). Here Paul is referred to as an apostle along with Barnabas. By this time in the record, Luke would have been very familiar with Paul calling himself an apostle and was no doubt in agreement with Paul’s assessment of himself. By these statistics alone, it is evident that Paul is by far his own biggest fan… and his side kick Luke was his number two fan. This  leaves no one else anywhere in the Bible going on record as recognizing his apostleship!

The “miracles” attributed to Paul are myths, based on hearsay, not eyewitnesses (who are they?).

The scholar Muhammad Ataur-Raheem analyses Romans 16:20 where Paul testifies he was creating a new religion.

Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation.

If Paul had been spreading the original teaching of Jesus then “another man’s foundation” would have been the same as his. They would both have been involved in building the same structure. The people who were hearing about Jesus, or rather Christ, for the first time from Paul’s lips, had no means of comparing his account with that of the Apostles who still held to Jesus’ teaching. Paul’s version was the only one to which they had access. (Jesus Prophet of Islam, p. 68)

The boy that Elijah resurrected was dead, he prayed and God restored his soul.
Then he cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this boy’s life (soul) return to him!”   The LORD heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!” (2 Kings 17:20-23)

Then he got on the bed and lay upon the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out upon him, the boy’s body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out upon him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. 2 Kings 4:34-36
Paul also denied the Book of Kings where Elijah ascends to heaven physically (2 Kings 2:11). The Bible denies the physical resurrection (Job 7:9, 14:12), so Christianity is false. This means Jesus was not resurrected (according to Christianity); Islam upholds the resurrection on the Day of Judgment.

But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:12-17)

Paul explains that if there is no resurrection, then Jesus hasn’t been raised, so Christianity is false. But if there is resurrection, then Jesus has been raised, (at least according to Paul) but he shoots himself. The Old Testament (accepted by Paul) clearly denies the resurrection (Job 7:9).
The earliest attested form of the belief in Jesus’ resurrection occurs in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul compares the  general resurrection to that of Jesus and thus implies his conception of the latter. The risen Jesus “became a … Spirit” (v. 45). His was a spiritual, not a natural body (v. 44) and did not have flesh, since such is entirely unsuited to immortality (v. 50). (Robert Price, The Resurrection, [1]

This is a problem for Christianity, not Islam. The Holy Quran states that Resurrection is a fact, but the previous Scripture (the Bible) totally denies it, contradicting 2 Kings 17:20-23.
But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. (Job 10:12)

As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return. (Job 7:9)

The verses are clear, the body does not rise, the SOUL does not return. Physical resurrection is only possible if the soul returns to the body, but if the soul ascends to Heaven, it cannot return to its body. The soul (ruach) departs from the body and returns to God (Ecc. 12:6-7). Paul, the false apostle, contradicts the Gospels that imply a physical resurrection (Luke 24:41-43). The apostles thought Jesus resurrected spiritually (Luke 24:37), but Jesus told the disciples he was NOT resurrected (Luke 24:39, 20:36). The agony of death never touched him, the body resuscitated. Jesus ate broiled fish to prove he was alive, not resurrected.

It is of interest to note that when the tomb was visited on Sunday morning each of the gospels describes Jesus as ‘risen’, which is hardly surprising given the fact that cold rock slabs, unlike warm, wave suppressed waterbeds, don’t exactly invite a person to sleep in. What is missing from the Bible, however, is the statement that Jesus was resurrected. Jesus is reported to have said, “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father” (John 16:28). But where does Jesus say he would die and be resurrected in the process? The word ‘resurrected’ is nowhere to be found. ‘Risen from the dead’ is mentioned a handful of times, but never from the lips of Jesus himself. (Lawrence Brown, The First and Final Commandment, p. 211)
The apostles were “terrified and affrighted”, and supposed that they had seen a spirit (Lk. 24:37), but Jesus never died (upon the cross), the soul never departed from his body [1][2]. A sponge of vinegar (drug) was given to Jesus and he immediately “died” when he really fell unconscious.

If Jesus actually died and resurrected (physically), it would contradict Job 7:9-14:12! But if Jesus only swooned and later resuscitated, he NEVER rose from the dead, so that won’t contradict Job 7:9, 14:10.

Did God change His mind? The passages Job 7:9, 14:12 were inspired, but God later changed His mind (?). There are only three resurrections in the Bible (**), so either God changed His mind, or Job 7:9, 14:12 is uninspired. Let’s assume that Job 7:9-14:12 is not inspired, so then Jesus did resurrect Lazarus. Also, the miracles of Elijah and Elisha are disqualified. Yet Jesus never “rose from the dead”, the myth of “dying-rising god” was attached to his life.

The witnesses to Lazarus were MANY, but no one witnessed the resurrection of Jesus!
Regardless of whether Jesus rose “spiritually” (1 Cor. 15:50) or “physically” (Lk 24:41-43), the Bible denies the resurrection. And Paul certainly had no problems with Job 7:9, 14:12 because it speaks o fphysical resurrection, Paul only accepted a spiritual resurrection (1 Cor 15: 50). The Gospels are problematic because they describe Jesus’ resurrection as physical, contradicting Job 7:9, 14:12 but agreeing with 2 Kings 17:20-23!

The Bible doesn’t openly say Paradise is physical, but gives implications that Paradise is corporeal (Luke 24:51, 2 Kings 2:11), contrary to what Paul believed (1 Cor. 15:35-40).

The Quran honors and glorifies Heaven (36:55), but the Bible says “There was war in Heaven” (Rev. 12:7). How can bloodshed and war take place? That is contrary to God’ promise that Heaven is peaceful.

Verily the Companions of the Garden shall that Day have joy in all that they do; They and their associates will be in groves of (cool) shade, reclining on Thrones (of dignity); (Every) fruit (enjoyment) will be there for them; they shall have whatever they call for; The word from a Merciful Lord (for them) is: Peace! (Quran 36:55-58)

But those who believe and do deeds of righteousness, – We shall soon admit them to gardens, with rivers flowing beneath, to dwell therein for ever. Allah’s promise is the Truth, and whose word can be truer than Allah’s? 4:122

And We shall remove from their hearts any lurking sense of injury;- beneath them will be rivers flowing;- and they shall say: “Praise be to Allah, who hath guided us to this (felicity): never could we have found guidance, had it not been for the guidance of Allah. indeed it was the truth, that the apostles of our Lord brought unto us.” And they shall hear the cry: “Behold! the garden before you! Ye have been made its inheritors, for your deeds (of righteousness).” 7:43

Here is the Biblical description of Paradise.

And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. (Revelation 12:7)

And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.’ (Revelations 2:27)

The Muslim apologist Shabir Ally had argued with Shamoun on the nature of Paradise, he said: “Are we going to play harp and sing hymn?” the audience laughed.

According to Paul, there is no Easter or “resurrection” at the empty tomb. In fact, there is no “empty tomb” in the Pauline epistles! [1][2][3]. Paul says the 12 apostles saw Jesus along with 500 other witnesses, but no eyewitnesses came forward.

Where is this event and the figure of over 500 people confirmed by any other writers in the New Testament? Paul gives no geographic location of this mass crowd Jesus that was supposed to have appeared to, nor does he give the names of anyone involved. Paul himself wasn’t among any of these people and again is relying on second hand information. Paul makes no mention of any women seeing Jesus prior to Jesus being seen by men. Yet, the Gospel writers state that it was a woman(or women) who first saw the resurrected Jesus. If Paul is attempting to establish a series of chronological events, as he appears to be trying to do, then he contradicts the gospels.

The real absurdity is that you attempt to claim as factual that which Paul is writing from his second hand information years after the event was supposed to have taken place. There is little way the people at Corinth would have been able to prove his assertions right or wrong 20+ years after the event was supposed to have happened…Paul even admitted he operated from expediency. He changed himself into whatever form helped him sell a story to potential converts, and in selling his story, Paul expected to receive a big prize for all his efforts. [1]

Notice that this evidence never mentions the time or place of any of these appearances. The most basic documentation is missing. The Gospels are adamant that Jesus was buried in a tomb near or in Jerusalem , that there was a guard at a tomb, that women visited the tomb early, that there were earthquakes, angels, burial shrouds left behind , that Jesus was touched and ate bread etc etc. Paul, in a letter saying what was of first importance to people who doubted that the resurrection had happened, could not be bothered to mention any of the proofs that the Gospels , 20 or 30 years later, would give. Perhaps he didn’t know of them. Perhaps he didn’t think that the Gospel stories were important. In turn the Gospel writers leave out such convincing evidences as an appearance to 500 brethren or an appearance to James, the leader of the Christian Church in Jerusalem. The appearances described by Paul clash head-on with the appearances in the Gospels. Remember that Jesus could not have appeared to the ‘twelve’ as Paul said, as Judas was dead. [2]

“…Then Paul went on to refer to an appearance by Jesus to five hundred brethren at once, adding his comment that “most are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.” Who were the five hundred brethren? What happened to this tradition? It was not picked up and described in any recognizable form in any of the later Gospels. There have been attempts to identify Luke’s story of Pentecost with this Pauline reference, but no consensus has been reached. It is possible that there was a common link between this note of an appearance to five hundred and Pentecost, though a considerable journey must be made before an event that has a risen body form can be identified with one that has a Holy Spirit form. It is enough now to acknowledge that Paul’s reference to Jesus’ appearance to five hundred people at once is found nowhere in the Gospel tradition. (John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? p. 52)

Paul did not give a location for any of his witnesses to whom he asserted the risen Jesus had appeared. By Paul’s day the Christian movement was certainly centered in Jerusalem. Indeed the word Galilee was not used by Paul in any of the epistles …” (ibid, p. 173)

The “500 witnesses” were already dead when the Gospels were composed (170-180 CE). Where are the testimonies of those 500 witnesses? The early Christians were Gnostics who denied Jesus was crucified. The Gnostics say it was Simon of Cyrene who died on the cross, they believed Jesus stood by and laughed at them.

The Pauline epistles are uninspired (Rom 3:7, Eph, 1 Cor. 7:25-26, 40, Phil. 2:25), but the Gospels are believed to be inspired. Yet, the Gospels and Paul contradict each other. And the “apostle” even contradicts the Book of Acts, his own biography! [1][2]. Since the Old Testament denies the resurrection (Job 7:9, 14:10, Ecc 9:6), this destroys the “miracle” of Jesus rising from the dead! (Matt. 28:17, Luke 24:11 Mark 16:14).

We ask the question: Why does Paul deny that Jesus physically ascended to Heaven? Even the Quran says Jesus ascended to Heaven (4:157), but he wasn’t crucified.

Jesus ate broiled fish and honeycomb to prove he was not resurrected and not a spirit, resurrected bodies get spiritualized (Lk. 20:36, 1 Cor. 15:44). Even the apostles doubted Jesus rose from the dead (Luke 24:11), they questioned the appearance of Jesus. They were “terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit” (Luke 24:27) implies that the 12 apostles did not expect Jesus to rise. But when Jesus appeared, they assumed he was a spirit (Luke. 24:37), but Jesus only resuscitated. [1][2][3][4].

Paul, the false apostle, knows nothing about Jesus’ ascension. He completely ignores the Gospels (oops!), they didn’t exist yet. Instead, we find a shadow figure called ‘Christ’ (Eph. 3:4, Col. 1:27, 4:3). The question is: How can Jesus ascend to Heaven when Paradise is spiritual (Lk 20:36)? The answer is simple: Paradise is not spiritual as the Christians claim (1 Cor. 15:50), but rather Paradise is physical (Quran 36:55).

The only explanation is that Jesus acquired a spiritual body after he entered Paradise, so Lk. 24:51 and 1 Cor 15:50 are reconciled. But there is no evidence to prove this, Paul said “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” and “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”. In other words, the soul enters Paradise, not the body. The living body cannot become spirit unless it dies (Heb. 9:27). Needless to say, the soul returns to God (Ecc. 12:6), and the body remains on earth (Ecc. 12:7). Jesus never died and resurrected, or else he would’ve became a spirit (Luke 20:36, 24:37, 1 Cor. 15:50), yet the body of Jesus is not buried on earth, he ascended to Heaven physically (Luke 24:51). The “apostle” Paul is wrong, the flesh can enter Paradise (2 Kings 2:11, Gen 5:24), the living soul of the deceased enters Paradise and takes on a physical body. (Quran 83:28-29, 4:56).

Let us quote these passages:

And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. (Genesis 5:23-24)

And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. (2 Kings 2:11)

The above passages imply that Heaven is physical, not spiritual. Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus ascended to Heaven in a physical body. The only reason why Christians believe Paradise is spiritual because Paul said so (1 Cor. 15:44-50).

Amazingly, even Jesus says Heaven is spiritual (Luke 20:36). How can Jesus say Paradise is spiritual and later ascend to Heaven in a physical body? That doesn’t make sense. Did Jesus contradict himself? Did Jesus falsify his own words? Did he actually predict his death?

“…The Gospels, however, were religious dramas used for worship and as a form of evangelism. They were meant not to impart history but to buttress and convey belief. The editor of John’s Gospel (the least historical of them all) boldly and honestly states his aims in the text itself when he says, “But these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah”. The goal is to establish the faithful and to create new converts, not to create an authentic biography. (Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 126)

How can Jesus ascend to Heaven in a physical body after he said Heaven is only spiritual? The problem casts doubt on the sayings, not Jesus.

The gospels were written by people more interested in a living Lord present in their midst than in Jesus the historical man from Nazareth. Many scholars now hold that much of what is placed on the lips of Jesus in the Gospels was put there by Gospel writers (just as the writers of Hellenistic history placed speeches on the lips of famous persons). It is really the understanding that Gospels are faith documents that has led to what is called the “quest for the historical Jesus”. (Bonnie Thurston, Women in the New Testament, p. 63)

Keep in mind what Paul said: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” and “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44, 50)

According to wikipedia, the Christians believe Paradise is spiritual:

In Christianity it is believed that Heaven is a spiritual place, unreachable by humans and only to be entered after death. As a spiritual location it could be located somewhere within the known universe and as humans we would be unaware of its presence and unable to see it, or it could be located in another dimension or plane of existence. [1]

The Bible itself denies the concept of Paradise as a spiritual domain, where playing harp and singing hymn is all you do.

Jesus gave the implication that Paradise is physical (despite what Pauline writers made him say Luke 20:36) According to Matthew, he said: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Matthew 6:18-20).

Here we shall expose the Biblical evidence that Heaven is physical.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To those who are victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. Revelation 2:7

In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:2)

And I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. (Revelation 10:10)

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure (thesauros) in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)

The word thesauros could mean…

1) the place in which good and precious things are collected and laid up

a) a casket, coffer, or other receptacle, in which valuables are kept

b) a treasury

c) storehouse, repository, magazine

2) the things laid up in a treasury, collected treasures

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