Paul and Caitlin build their case against the Apostle Paul using his own words. In Galatians 1, Paul openly admits he never met Jesus, never sat under his teaching, and never learned from the actual apostles, he says his gospel came entirely from a personal, private revelation that no one else witnessed or could corroborate. He even calls it “my gospel,” twice, in his own letters. As Paul Davis puts it from his legal background: this wouldn’t hold up in any court. You can’t be the sole witness to your own vision and call it evidence.
The episode traces what happened next: Paul spent three years in the wilderness before ever meeting the Jerusalem apostles, then publicly rebuked Peter to his face in Galatians 2, the opposite of the private conflict-resolution process Jesus taught in Matthew 18. Paul and Caitlin compare Paul’s claimed visions to other historical figures who claimed private revelation from God (Joseph Smith, Muhammad, David Koresh, Jim Jones) and ask why Paul’s version gets treated as beyond question. They also dig into the forgery problem: 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus almost certainly weren’t written by Paul at all, and no author of the New Testament was likely someone who actually knew Jesus.
The conversation lands on how this “hijacking” became official doctrine: the split between the original Nazarene/Ebionite Jesus movement and Paul’s gospel, and how Constantine and Eusebius chose Paul’s theology at the Council of Nicaea, not because it was true, but because it was useful for consolidating the Roman Empire. Anyone who disagreed was declared a heretic once Christianity became Rome’s official state religion under Theodosius.
This is Part 2 of the Hijacking Jesus series. Catch Part 1 for how the original Essene and Nazarene movement Jesus came from got buried in the first place.
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