Toto

Pete has mangled Carrier's words and thoughts.

Please don't add to the length of this thread with posts consisting of one line comments.

Toto

Detering writes in The Falsified Paul

. . .the Pauline letters in their entirety are inauthentic. . .

If Paul was not the writer of the letters, then who was Paul, i.e., who was the person in whose name the letters were written? Was he a legend, a historical figure, or merely a phantom?

Detering continues to write primarily about the authenticity of the Pauline letters. He proposes an alternative thesis (or theory or hypothesis) to the mainstream interpretation that there are seven indisputably "authentic" letters of Paul, and that Paul can be identified as the author of those letters.

Pete continues to confuse an axiom or a postulate which is accepted at the beginning of an investigation and a hypothesis which is tested during the investigation. If he would just make this distinction, I think that most of the confusion in this thread would be cleared up.

There may in fact be scholars who also make this confusion, or who do not write clearly enough to be sure that no one else makes this confusion. But this is not worth over 400 posts on a useless thread that I can barely stand to read.

J-D

mountainman referred to the Wikipedia article on Carrier as a source and directly quotes part of that article, which in turn quotes Carrier himself and cites sources for its quotations.

One of the sources cited is here
http://www.richardcarrier.info/Spiri...l#ahistoricity
where Carrier says thisWhen I say that some of that could and should have been more clearly expressed, I am going by Carrier's own words ('the non-historicity of Jesus', 'the theory that Jesus was originally a mythical being', 'it was very probable Jesus never actually existed as a historical person'), not by anybody's else's representation (or misrepresentation) of them.

Some parts are clearer than others. For example, it's reasonably clear to refer to 'the ... theory ... that the entire Gospel can be read out of scripture ... and someone who fanatically fasted and prayed and meditated and searched the scriptures for some solution to the major social evils of their day would be in a prime position to have such a revelation'. But even there there's an ambiguity. What does Carrier mean by 'the entire Gospel'? There are four different texts now accepted as Gospels in Christian biblical canons and we also know that there were other non-canonical Gospels (even without allowing for the possibility that there were more than we know of).

So is the theory Carrier is referring to that one original Gospel was written by somebody who fanatically fasted and prayed and meditated and searched the scriptures for some solution to the major social evils of their day and read a 'Gospel' out of scripture as a result, and that all other Gospels were produced by other authors modifying/adapting that original? Or that all the different Gospels were produced by a single author out of such a process? Or that each different Gospel was separately produced by a separate author out of such a process? Or what?

J-D

In general, figuring out what is meant by a sentence like 'Paul did not exist'--that is, any sentence of the form 'X did not exist'--is a difficult and complex question, as even a brief examination of the extensive scholarly literature on the subject discloses. That is why it is so often clearer and better to use a different form of expression.

aa5874

Your post is BS.

The claim or sentence 'Paul did NOT exist" is NOT complex at all and is no different to a sentence or claim that 'Romulus did NOT exist', 'Robin Hood did NOT exist' and 'King Arthur did NOT exist'.

J-D

Even a brief examination of the extensive scholarly literature on the subject discloses that analysing the meaning of any sentence of that form is a difficult and complex question, although I understand that finding out what anybody else thinks (whether they're scholars or not) is not high on your list of priorities.

Chili

Yes and here than Paul still exists as the cloak of faith pronouncing the Ex Cathedra voice of Peter. Kind of like a happy trinity as you cannot proclaim heaven on earth and not be in charge of destiny.

aa5874

I EXAMINE the written statements of ANTIQUITY.

I EXAMINE EVIDENCE of ANTIQUITY NOT OPINION.

Evidence from Antiquity is PRIORITY.

The evidence in writings attributed to Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the younger, the authors of the Short Ending gMark, the NT Canon, Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix, Aristides, Ephraim the Syrian, Arnobius and Apologetic authors support the non-existence of Jesus and Paul.

It is NOT complex at all to develop hypotheses that Jesus and Paul did NOT exist as stated in the NT Canon based on the EXTANT data.

mountainman

To be specific it is BS with respect to the field of history explicit in the OP, and since I have already cited a number of contemporary scholars in this field who use precisely the same form of expression.

I have produced at least three citations from the relevant field. Please provide one or two citations from the literature in the field of history to substantiate your claim.

According to you all the scholars are wrong.

They may be, but you have yet to establish the claim.

The expressions are in the background knowledge of the field, which is not philosophy but history, and I have cited use of the specific expressions at the [HISTORICAL] hypothesis level.

The questions still stand.

J-D

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and a great she-bear coming up the street popped its head into the shop. What! no soap? So he died; and she, very imprudently, married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblilies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button on top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of their boots.