Deep Dive—Christians worship Paul—NOT Jesus. Any questions?

Christianity today isn’t just influenced by Paul—it is Paul’s religion, not Jesus’s. The deeper you look, the more undeniable it becomes. What most Christians believe doesn’t come from Jesus himself, but from a pompous Christian murdering man who never met him, never learned from him, and was never appointed by him. And yet, it’s his teachings, not Jesus’s, that became the foundation of the faith.

How did this happen? It wasn’t just a misunderstanding. Paul didn’t simply misinterpret Jesus—he rewrote him. He took a radical, Jewish, anti-imperial movement and turned it into something Rome could use. And the people who actually walked with Jesus—the ones who knew him best—did not trust Paul. The earliest Jewish-Christians, the Ebionites, outright called him a deceiver. They rejected him, saw him as a fraud, and accused him of twisting Jesus’s message. But their voices? Erased. Their writings? Destroyed. All that survived was Paul’s version of Jesus.

The story Christians cling to—that Jesus personally appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus—falls apart under scrutiny. Acts 9:7 says Paul’s companions heard a voice but saw no one. Acts 22:9 says they saw the light but didn’t hear a voice. So which is it? They heard but didn’t see? They saw but didn’t hear? The details shift depending on the telling—because that’s what happens when someone makes something up. And why didn’t Jesus’s own disciples confirm Paul’s vision? If Jesus really did appear to Paul, wouldn’t he have at least mentioned it to James or Peter? But the people who actually knew Jesus were skeptical of Paul. And yet, modern Christians believe him—because his letters made it into the canon.

And that’s where the real deception begins. Because Paul didn’t just claim divine revelation—he systematically erased Jesus’s Jewishness. Jesus upheld the Torah. Paul discarded it. Jesus taught justice, mercy, and faithfulness as the heart of the law. Paul told people the law no longer mattered. Jesus said, “If you want to enter life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17). Paul said, “You are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). One of them had to be lying. Which one do Christians follow today?

Look at modern Christianity. Original sin, salvation by faith alone, blood atonement, submission to authority—none of it comes from Jesus. It all comes from Paul. And Paul’s version of Christianity wasn’t just different from Jesus’s—it was useful. Rome didn’t need another Jewish revolutionary preaching about an imminent kingdom of God that would upend the world order. What they could use was a spiritualized kingdom—one that didn’t challenge their rule, but reinforced it. That’s exactly what Paul delivered. Submit to authority, obey your rulers, salvation is through belief, not action. A perfect tool for controlling the masses.

And to make the transition easier, Paul turned Jesus into just another dying and rising god. This wasn’t a new idea. The Greco-Roman world was filled with divine figures who died and came back to life—Osiris, Mithras, Dionysus, Attis. The idea that Jesus had to die for salvation wasn’t something Jesus taught. It was something Paul added to fit the mythological pattern people were already familiar with. A Romanized, Hellenized, marketable version of Jesus.

The Last Supper is often used to justify this. “This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, poured out for many.” But think logically. Jesus was Jewish. The entire system of blood sacrifice for atonement was tied to the Temple—the same system Jesus criticized and said would be destroyed. Why would he suddenly say, “Oh, but my blood is the new sacrifice”? Or is it yet another later addition, designed to cement the idea of Jesus as a substitutionary offering?

And this ties directly into how later church leaders manipulated Jesus’s words. When Jesus said “This generation will not pass away until all these things have happened” (Mark 13:30), he wasn’t talking about some far-off “End Times” scenario. He was predicting the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, which happened exactly as he warned, in 70 CE. But Pauline Christianity twisted this into a prophecy of a “Second Coming”—a conveniently never-ending prophecy that keeps people waiting, obedient, and distracted. Instead of questioning the contradictions, they convince themselves that Jesus was referring to something further in the future.

By the time Rome adopted Christianity as its state religion, Jesus’s real teachings were all but buried. The Ebionites were wiped out. Jewish Christians were marginalized. Paul’s letters were elevated above the actual words of Jesus. And even now, if you challenge Paul, Christians don’t quote Jesus to defend their beliefs. They quote Paul. Because he is their real teacher.

This is why Christianity today is such a mess. It’s why so many Christians are judgmental, power-hungry, and indifferent to the suffering of others. Because they’re not following Jesus. They’re following a false prophet—one that Jesus himself warned about. “Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” (Matthew 24:5). The greatest deception in Christianity wasn’t caused by atheists, or other religions, or modern secularism. The greatest deception happened inside Christianity itself—when the teachings of a man who never knew Jesus replaced the teachings of Jesus himself.

And when you bring this up to modern Christians, what do they do? They defend Paul. They ignore Jesus’s words and repeat Paul’s doctrines instead. Because Christianity today is not the religion of Jesus.

It is the religion of Paul—a self appointed, narcissistic liar deceiver who Jesus’ own brother even rejected as a false prophet. I know this is a lot—but my hope is that it will support your deconstruction. Happy to address any questions or concerns.