James The Least

Not really. Your arguments are so obscure and chameleon-like that just when one thinks one understands their drift, suddenly they change shape and wiggle away like different parts of a caterpillar.

James The Least

Plausible explanation for Paul's non-existence:

Christians read the Prophetic books and decided to imitate them, complete with a "Hebrew of the Hebrews" doing the narration to keep them authentic sounding. It is well-documented how Galatians follows Jeremiah in parts, and Brodie has documented several similar examples, as I posted here some months back. The fiction of Saul persecuting the church was a mimesis of Saul persecuting David in the Book of Solomon.

No "historical Paul" with a bold "mission to the Gentiles" is necessary to explain the letters, just Christian apologists using their imaginations and literary skills.

James The Least

I trust most people here have not read that book: the cheapest copy at Amazon US is $44.00. Google Books does offer a preview of many pages, so perhaps that will suffice to get the gist of the author's arguments. It's hugely relevant to this topic.

aa5874

Again, please tell us which credible source of antiquity claimed Paul established the Gentiles Churches before c 68 CE??

The Letters attributed to Ignatius does NOT, does NOT, state any where that Paul established the Gentile Churches before c 68 CE.

Now, if you assume the Ignatian letters were composed 115 CE then the Pauline letters could have been written 114 CE.

If you assume the Ignatian letters were written 100 CE then the Pauline letters could have been written 99 CE.

You really have NO idea at all when the Pauline letters were composed using the Ignatian Epistles.

Your mode of argument is highly illogical.

You seem to have NO idea that the Ignatian letter only shows that it was written AFTER stories about Paul were known and may idicate that the very Ignatian letter was composed AFTER 150 CE.

Justin Martyr did NOT acknowledge Paul, the Pauline Revealed Gospel and the Pauline letters up to c 150 CE.

The Ignatian letter is most likely a forgery or fraud.

Toto

How do you go from an offhand mention of Paul in a letter allegedly written in the early second century to evidence that Paul established the Gentile churches in the first century?

Note that Paul's letter to the Ephesians is considered "deutero-Pauline" (i.e. forged). The entire Ignatian corpus is suspect.

sotto voce

Pure projection.

Chili

. . . as the battle continues and will never be done or "the narrow gate" would not be narrow and "the eye of the needle" image would not be used.

Paul was fiction, for all I care, to present the proper allignment of people (not for people), towards this real life experience that he knew first hand that the Jews could never understand, or doxo-graphy would not be Orthodox.

Paul was taken his reader into 'encounter' to transform 'aestetic' into [Platonic] 'kin-aestetic' first hand by way of perception and sensation that resembles crucifixion. For this 'a plot' is needed that is contrary to orthodoxy for the 'mystery of Judaism' to unfold on its own in the mind of the believer, that so never can be orthodox and must be 'pagan' for sure, that in recollection becomes: from encounter to memory and beyond, for which orthodoxy must be torn down to its very last stone.

A beautiful line here was expressed by Golding in The Spire that goes like this (first page Chapter 6 in true poetic form):And so orthodoxy must be challenged so that the son can be son, just like "the bird that builts its nest is hatched therein" in Robert Southwell's "Nativity Poem," so that "the child can bemome the father of Man" as in "behold the father is his daughter's son," that Odin saw in: "Downward I peered/ to ruins I applied myself/ wailing learned of them/ then fell down thence."

In essence then, Paul wants not 'new wine in old skins' but 'new wine in new skins' and can only provide the plot so the believer will know it first hand that according to Golding is as easy as eating and drinking and primary (prior to nature) in us for which only the proper alligment is needed to encounter in series and then reorganize that which was ours by indoctrination. It so actually confirms Plato's theory of recollection that simply is based on the idea that if potentially we are God after transformation the knowledge already must be within us before transformation or the word 'transform' is not properly used.

Chili

Detective first class who deserves at least one a but not two because his world is to flat.

TedM

It is compatible with the orthodox position. But it is much more than a mention of Paul's epistles. It clearly indicates that his readers knew who Paul was, that he wrote multiple epistles, and that they were familiar with those epistles. Surely you know that the 7 letters of Ignatius are chalked full of quotations from Pauline epistles, and without providing references to those epistles. The strong implication is that his readers were VERY FAMILIAR with those epistles. That takes time. It is highly compatible with a tradition established within multiple churches by Paul himself.

aa5874

You don't even understand that Ignatius writings are most likely historically bogus.

Based on Scholars There was NO actual Pauline Epistle to the Ephesians--The Epistle to the Ephesians was invented-- yet Ignatius implies that the Ephesians had a Pauline Epistle.

Secondly, Ignatius made reference to other Pauline and non-Pauline letters that were most likely forgeries and composed AFTER Ignatius should have been martyred.

Ignatius mentioned passages that appear to be from forgeries like Ephesians, Colossians, 1&2 Timothy, and falsely attributed Epistles 1 John, 1 Peter, and James.

It is clear that the Ignatian Epistles were composed long after the end of the 1st century.

The Ignatian letters are historically bogus.