Not Paul, but Jesus
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~150,000 words · 697 passages
Cite this work
- APAJeremy Bentham. (n.d.). Not Paul, but Jesus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jeremy-bentham/not-paul-but-jesus
- MLAJeremy Bentham. "Not Paul, but Jesus." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jeremy-bentham/not-paul-but-jesus.
- ChicagoJeremy Bentham. Not Paul, but Jesus. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/jeremy-bentham/not-paul-but-jesus.
What it is about
The 1823 book in which Bentham argues that Saint Paul invented a religion different from that of Jesus and laid it over the top, published under the pseudonym Gamaliel Smith.
Context and history
Bentham applied here the same method as in his legal writings: read the text closely, compare statements, look for contradictions. He argues that the three accounts of Paul's conversion in Acts do not agree, that Paul never knew Jesus, and that the ascetic morality he introduced — especially in sexual matters — has no basis in the gospels. The pseudonym was no whim: to publish this under his own name in the England of 1823 was a real risk, and the book was ignored or attacked. He left a still more explicit third part unpublished. It should be read knowing that it is a polemical pamphlet, and that twentieth-century biblical scholarship has reworked many of these questions with other tools.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
exhibited a remarkable precocity which greatly stimulated the pride and affection of his father. At five years of age he acquired a knowledge of musical notes and learned to play the violin. At four or earlier, having previously learned to write, he was initiated into Latin grammar, and in his seventh year entered Westminster School. Meanwhile, he was taught French by a private master at home and at seven read Telemaque, a book which strongly impressed him. Learning to dance was a much more serious undertaking, as he was so weak in his legs. Young as he was, he acquired distinction at Westminster as a fabricator of Latin and Greek verses, the great end and aim of the instruction given there. When twelve years old, he was entered as a Commoner at Queen's College, Oxford, where he spent the next three years. Though very uncomfortable at Oxford, he went through the exercises of the College with credit and even with some distinction. Some Latin verses of his, on the accession of George III, attracted a great deal of attention as the production of one so young. Into all of the disputations which formed a part of the College exercises, he entered with zeal and much satisfaction; yet he never felt at home in the University because of its historical monotony, and of all of which he retained the most unfavorable recollections. In 1763, while not yet sixteen, he took the degree of A.B. Shortly after this he began his course of Law in Lincoln's Inn, and journeyed For fear of prosecution for direct heresy or denunciation of the Creed of the Church, he evaded the use of his own name as writer of the Criticism and used the name of Conyers Middleton, a Cambridge Divine, who by his writings had created a great deal of disturbance. He had been convicted twice for heresy. He had been dead fifty years when Bentham introduced him in the first lines in the Introduction to his Criticisms herein published (See Introduction). Bentham, no doubt, intended to evad