I saw a post on Facebook that included a video called “Proof of the Divine Origin of Judaism.”  Vid here.  While I do agree there is proof of the divine origin of Judaism (after all Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah promised in the OT), in it the speaker claims that Paul wrote the New Testament and Christianity was started by one person.  That is a complete error.

Paul did not write the entire New Testament. There were numerous people who witnessed Christ who wrote books that were included. Lawrence Kelemen claims to be a scholar, but he doesn’t appear to have studied Christianity at all or read the NT.

The NT records that Yeshua was seen after His resurrection by hundreds of people. The following is considered by scholars to be a short creed that was passed down from the 30s to Paul after he became a believer.

“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).

Yeshua is a historical figure whose ministry was public. He had hundreds if not thousands of followers, and there are records of Him outside of the NT including the fact He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He was even mentioned by the Rabbis in their traditional writings like the Talmud (was scrubbed out in 1631 due to persecution, but there were unaltered, older copies housed in various European libraries including at Oxford University).

His followers knew and saw that He had died at the hands of the Romans. If Yeshua did not rise from the dead there is no logical explanation for His followers to go around proclaiming His resurrection and salvation in His name. All of His disciples were killed or tortured for their witness, and they died for what they saw with their own eyes and touched with their own hands (according to Peter). They did not die for some “belief” like people removed from the historical events by hundreds or thousands of years.