Paul of Tarsus - the first Christian?

Original sin:
Proverbs 20:9
'Who can say, "I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin"?'John 8:7
'"If any of you is without sin cast the first stone."'Atonement sacrifice:
Isaiah 53:4-5
'Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.'Salvation by faith:
John 3:16
'For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not persih but have eternal life.'Mark 16:16
'Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.'Paul seems to be in line with what Jesus taught and the scriptures to me.

It's true that John and Mark were written during Paul's ministry, but Mark did not get his information from Paul, he got his information from eye-witness sources (most likely Peter). Why would someone go to Paul for a qoute on Jesus? They might have been influenced by Paul's ministry, but that doesn't make any difference when you are writing a biographical account of somebody. I'm influenced by U2, does that mean if i make a biographical account of Elvis, that my information would be any different? Absolutely not. Also, John (the apostle and earlier disciple,'who Jesus loved') was an eye-witness account in himself. If Paul said anything remotely wrong, John, as well as the other eye-witnesses would have disputed Paul's teachings.Another thing, with James as the apparant leader of the church, and holding up Jewish ways, how does that affect the authors of the gospels? In Galatians 2, the early church pillars agreed that Paul and Barnabas go and preach to the Gentiles while they preach to the Jews. They readily agreed with Pauls teachings, and if Pauls teachings directly contradicted Jesus teachings (who they are going to eventually be martyred for), then they would not have accepted Paul.Also, the context by which ramoss pointed out is a context read from a Jewish standpoint, ones who do not believe the Messiah has come already, so they interpret it as Israel. Isaiah 53:1 was directly fulfilled by Jesus as described in John 12:38, and also Isaiah 53:4 was partly fulfilled by Jesus in Matthew 8:17. So if one was to truely read it in context it is easy to see that the verses was a direct prophesy of Jesus' ministry.

Where does the author state his sources?The are many historical documents written by the early church which say that the book of Mark was written by John Mark. The best evidence comes from Papias (130 A.D.) who actually qoutes an earlier source saying Mark was a close associate of the apostle Peter, and that most of his accounts came from Peter.
Many biblical scholars agree that Mark who wrote the gospels is also the Mark as described in Acts who had a house in Jerusalem which was a meeting place for believers (Acts 12:12), he also accompanied Paul in his first missionary journey (Acts 13:5).'I doubt if Paul was alive when the Book of Mark was written'The date for which the gospel of Mark was written is uncertain at this point but more scholars agree that it was before the death of Peter (64 or 67 A.D.). The Paschal Chronicle assigns it to 40 A.D., the 'Chronicle' of Esubius says it was written in 'the third year of Cluadius' (43 A.D.), Clement of Alexandria pointed out that Peter was in Rome when Mark wrote the gospel. Some say it is clear it was written before 70 A.D. since there was no indication of the Temple in Jerusalem already being destroyed in the prediction noted in Mark 13:2. The gospel, to most scholars, find that it was written between the dates of 50 A.D. and 67 A.D.
It is concluded that Paul died under the reign of Nero and the persecution which preceded then. Nero was Emperor from 54-68 A.D., thus Paul had to have died within that timeframe, therefore Paul was alive during the time which the gospel of Mark was written.'Sure it does. It depends on the purpose and the beliefs of the author.'Not when the main focus on your beliefs reflect that of honesty and truth, that the man many of the disciples were martyred for called himself 'The way, the truth, and the life.' These men were called to be honest and they had other that forced them to be accountable. They constantly spoke of the good news of Jesus Christ, never the good news of Paul.'The book of John was written around 80-100AD and the name of the author is not mentioned in the book. Even in the book "Case for Christ" by Strobel, it is stated that the authors of the gospels are unknown. Since the author is unknown, we have no proof that the author was an eyewitness.'The evidence given by the early ecclesiastical authors, whose reference to questions of authorship is but incidental, agrees with that of the above mentioned sources. St. Dionysius of Alexandria, it is true, sought for a different author for the Apocalypse, owing to the special difficulties which were being then urged by the Millennarianists in Egypt; but he always took for granted as an undoubted fact that the Apostle John was the author of the Fourth Gospel. Equally clear is the testimony of Origen. He knew from the tradition of the Church that John was the last of the Evangelists to compose his Gospel, and at least a great portion of his commentary on the Gospel of John, in which he everywhere makes clear his conviction of the Apostolic origin of the work has come down to us. Origen's teacher, Clement of Alexandria, relates as " the tradition of the old presbyters", that the Apostle John, the last of the Evangelists, "filled with the Holy Ghost, had written a spiritual Gospel".Of still greater importance is the testimony of St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, linked immediately with the Apostolic Age as he is, through his teacher Polycarp, the disciple of the Apostle John. The native country of Irenaeus (Asia Minor) and the scene of his subsequent ministry (Gaul) render him a witness of the Faith in both the Eastern and the Western Church. He cites in his writings at least one hundred verses from the Fourth Gospel, often with the remark, "as John, the disciple of the Lord, says". In speaking of the composition of the Four Gospels, he says of the last: " Later John, the disciple of the Lord who rested on His breast, also wrote a Gospel, while he was residing at Ephesus in Asia". As here, so also in the other texts it is clear that by "John, the disciple of the Lord," he means none other than the Apostle John.I have to agree that the age of the book comes close to 100 A.D. but rhe old age of the apostle could be explained in the John 21:23, could not also.'You said that Paul's teachings were not different than those of Jesus. Since the disciples (the men who were physically with Jesus) were still practicing Judaism and Paul's teachings seem to deviate from Judaism, then IMO Paul is not upholding the teachings of Jesus. IMO there was some contention between the Jerusalem Church and Paul.'Paul's teachings did not deviate that of Jesus teaching, but actually re-enforced his teaching to a greater degree. Jesus followed the Jewish laws, he even said he came to fulfill them. The difference between the Jewish belief and the Christian belief is Jesus Christ, and Paul supported the teachings of Jesus Christ, as well as the disciples, therefore, they were all on the same track.'How else does one read Jewish Scripture? (That's a rhetorical question)
CONTEXT: 1. The explanatory words and ideas surrounding a particular word or statement in a discourse.
2. The circumstances in which an event occurs.
Isaiah's words were given for a specific audience and time. There is no indication that God intended otherwise.'Isaiah's word were prophetic, therefore the specific date and time cannot be told until the event has already happened. Jewish beliefs say that the Messiah hasn't come yet, therefore they read it as an affliction to Israel. Christian belief sees it as the Messiah has come, that Jesus is him, and since Jesus fulfills the prophesies in Isaiah 53, every one of them, it quite safe for Christians to interpret it as a prophesy of Jesus.

As i said, there were many external evidences that point to Mark being the author.
Irenaeus (130-200) says that the Gospel of Mark was written "When Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the church there"; he adds, "After their departure, Mark, Peter's disciple, has himself delivered to us in writing the substance of Peter's preaching" (Adv. Haer. 3.1.1; H.E. 5. 8. 2-4).
Eusebius reports that Clement of Alexandria, in his Hypotyposeis, citing an ancient tradition of the elders, described how the Gospel of Mark came into being as follows, "When Peter had preached the gospel publicly in Rome...those who were present...besought Mark, since he had followed him (Peter) for a long time and remembered the things that had been spoken, to write out the things that had been said; and when he had done this he gave the gospel to those who asked him. When Peter learned of it later, he neither obstructed nor commended" (H.E. 6.14.6-7).
The fragment of the Anti-Marcionite prologue says, "Mark declared, who is called 'stump-fingered,' because he had rather small fingers in comparison with the stature of the rest of his body. He was the interpreter of Peter. After the death of Peter himself he wrote down this same gospel in the regions of Italy."Again I had other evidence that said that it was written probably earlier that 70 A.D.Whether Mark passed on his writings after Paul and Peter died has no real point, but he did write it when Peter was still alive, and again I showed evidence in the last post for that.If Paul died after Peter did, which is very likely, and that the gospel of Mark was written while Peter was alive, which is very likely again, then Paul was alive during the writing of the gospel of Mark. Again i had evidence in the last post to show that.

I'm sorry, i can't take this as credible since you use Iranaeus as a credible source in the last post, and now you say it isn't credible at all, or at least losing his credibility. I don't know if you find Iranaeus' qoutes as useful or not, either way, what i said still held true since your qoute does not really put any discount on the account Irenaeus at all since there are no apparant contradictions with the account of Iranaeus and that of Papias, if there were, they would not have been considered valid.

Also the Gospel of Mark is non-literary, having a simple and popular style; it has affinities with the spoken Greek as revealed by the papyri and inscriptions. Moreover, the gospel has a Semitic flavor to it. By this is meant that Semitic syntactical features influence the form of the Greek. For example, corresponding to Hebrew and Aramaic syntax, frequently verbs are found at the beginning of a sentence in the Gospel of Mark. Two other examples of a Semitic syntactical feature is the abundant presence of asyndeta, the placing of clauses together without the use of conjunctions, and parataxis, the joining of clauses with the conjunction kai (and) (imitative of the waw-consecutive in Hebrew and Aramaic). From the above data, one can infer that the author’s first language was not Greek, and he did not have a Hellenistic education, so that he did not have enough facility in Greek to write in a highly literary style. The Semitic features of the Gospel of Mark probably indicate that the mother tongue of the author was a Semitic language (probably Aramaic), which is consistent with his being a Palestinian Jew. These line up with the information given in the Bible that Mark was probably a resident of Jerusalem, since his mother had a house in the city (Acts 12:12). He traveled with Paul and Barnabas from Jerusalem to Antioch (Acts 12:25), and then traveled with them on the first missionary journey (13:13). He left Paul and Barnabas in Pamphylia (13:13; 15:37). Later, because Paul did not want to take him along on a second missionary journey, he traveled with Barnabas to Cyprus and other places (15:39). (Mark was the cousin of Barnabas [Col 4:10].) Mark is with Paul in Rome during Paul's first imprisonment in Rome (Philemon 24). During his second imprisonment, Paul asks Timothy to bring Mark to Rome (2 Tim 4:11). He is with Peter in Rome when he writes 1 Peter (5:13).