rlogan

The ficticious "Paul" arises in the Marcionite canon (the first "christian" canon ever assembled).

So to say the ficticious Paul "started" Christianity is a mischaracterization. Paul was invented by the Marcionites.

This is in keeping with the tradition of every other Bible book, none of which were written by the alleged source, and all of which were written to provide phony "authority" for their creeds.

The whole "Paul" story is so absurdly amusing it demonstrates more how gullible people can be.

Doug Shaver

Sure, he can. He's the guy wrote several (not all) of the epistles with his name on them.
Just because they were fooled by an imposter doesn't mean we have to be. One of those people using the name was the real Paul. The others were just pretending to be him.

Here's a question for you. If there was no real Paul, then why did all those people use that name? If Paul never existed, then who did the people calling themselves Paul think they were claiming to be?

aa5874

You are confusing description with indentification.

For example, a poster is presently using the username "aa5874" posts on this thread, you have no idea whether or not all the posts using "aa5874" are from the same person.

In addition, you have no idea whether "aa5874" is also using some other username.

In effect, "aa5874" cannot be identified just by the username.

And further, once it can be reasonable ascertained that there are more than one person using "aa5874", then it is virtually impossible or extremely difficult to identify those who did ALLthe actual postings.

Paul appears to be a "username", so to speak, possibly developed by the Church.


But, how is it that Paul himself was fooled? Paul MUST have been a fool, then.

I think Paul was fabricated to FOOL people into thinking that there was a person who was in contact with the son of the God of the Jews after he ascended through the clouds.

Many fools believe.

I will no longer be fooled, I regard Paul as fiction, until new CREDIBLE information can be obtained.

Well, why do people lie or give false information?

Why did Joseph Smith write about the angel MORONI, did anyone know that there was an angel called MORONI before Joseph Smith? Why didn't Joseph Smith call his angel "Gabriel", a name known over 2000 years in advance from the OT?

Only the fabricators of Paul can tell you why they used the name Paul, but all I know is that the authors wrote fiction.

Amaleq13

Nonsense. Your posts are uniquely identifiable as coming from you by style, grammar, and construction whether you recognize this or not. A sock puppet account would be identified within a handful of posts by anyone even vaguely familiar with you.

Similar methodology has indicated that several of the letters attributed to Paul were likely written by the same person.

aa5874

So are you claiming that you know that every single post with the username aa5874 actually was posted by the same person and that the original registered user [aa5874] have never allowed anyone permission to post or start a thread using the username aa5874?

Do you know the status of the original aa5874?

Are you claiming that you know that aa5874 was not originally used by a group of persons or was never INITIALLY used by a group and now only one member is actively posting?

You simply cannot identify aa5874.

All you can tell is that some of the posts APPEAR to be from the same person, but you cannot identify who that person is or how many persons posted or started a thread using aa5874.

All that can be gleaned from the Epistles is that the authors wrote fiction and some of them may have been written by the same person whose identity is unknown.

Malachi151

aa5874, I really don't see what your issue is. SOMEONE had to have written the letters that we call the letters of Paul. Ultimately the guy's name makes no difference.

Even if a different person wrote every letter the point is, is that those writings were influential. What difference does it make if the guy's name was Paul, George, or Kalamazooo?

Furthermore, it seems pretty clear to me from having read all of the letters attributed to Paul that there are two distinctly different sets of letters from what looks to be two different writers, or possibly three (four if you count Hebrews), but at least the core 6 letters that are widely accepted as "authentic Paul" do very much appear to have been written by the same person in the same style covering the same sets of topics with a similar outlook.

The remaining letters (not counting Hebrews) look to me to have been written by one different person who also has the same style, etc. throughout those letters.

Its also pretty darn clear that whoever wrote those letters wrote them BEFORE the Gospels were written, so the idea of them being later fakes just doesn't make sense and actually undermines arguments FOR mythicism.

So, I really don't see why you carry on about this.

Really, one of the strongest arguments AGAINST historicity of Jesus is the reliance on the "authentic" letters of Paul to demonstrate that the early Jesus concept lacks all description of a historical human being.

So, trying to undermine the letters of Paul really seems to do more to undermine the arguments FOR "mythicism" than anything else. Mythicism arguments rely on "Paul" as a reliable witness to early Jesus belief, a witness who demonstrates that the early belief lacked any historical core.

aa5874

This is unbelievable.

It is of utmost importance to know whether the Pauline was actually written by a real person called Paul who lived and died before the fall of the Jewish Temple.

The history of Jesus believers is directly dependent on the veracity of the Epistles.

So, if they were two writers called Paul and one of then wrote at least six (6), the other could have written at least seven (7), if Hebrews is excluded, do you now just guess that the author who wrote at least six (6) is the true Paul?

Are you guessing and then call your guess "authenticity"?

Origen wrote that Hebrews was written by Paul, Eusebius wrote that all fourteen Epistles were authentic, it now appears that Paul is actually unknown. The authors called Paul appear to have no true history, no member of any Church seemed to know these authors before the fall of the Jewish Temple.

There is NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING AT ALL in the so-called Pauline Epistles that make it clear that they were written before the Gospels.

And which letters were written before the Gospels, the six, the other seven or Hebrews?

Even if you do not know who, when or where the Epistles were written, it would become obvious that the Epistles have almost no history of the human Jesus, and very little of the authors themselves.

And in any event, Jesus was the Son of a God in the Epistles and that was the Jesus that Paul needed to be converted and to receive his revelations.

A person does not undermine the Epistles when they question its authenticity.

I hope you appreciate those who have questioned the veracity of authorship so that it is now realised that Epistles have many authors.

Facts NEVER undermine.

bacht

I think variations are possible. aa5874 represents the position of viewing Paul and the other apostles as fiction, simply names attached to anonymous documents. Other mythicists will accept the historicity of people mentioned in the epistles, but question their depiction in the Gospels and Acts.

For me the explanation for the origin of Xtianity lies in a new interpretation of scripture by Jewish sectarians sometime in the early 1st C. The connection with apocalyptic ideas is central imo. Paul extended this message beyond the Jewish community, but still with the imminent advent of Christ as a motivator for and subject of his preaching.

dog-on

I would posit that a non-Jewish person, reading the Greek Septuagint, wrote what we now consider the "authentic" letters of Paul.

This person, of course, could easily have been named Paul and was, likely, the originator of the Christ myth.

This group of letters shows up during the second century, in the hands of Marcion.

I also would place "Mark" as possibly even post Justin, though a form of the story (Memoirs of the Apostles) may have existed prior. This story seems to be, simply, a "fleshing out" of the Christ, in Paul's letters.

I believe that the original intent was to use the Septuagint to prove the existance of a superior god to the god of the Jews and to show, through very ingenious mining, the existance of the Christ, the intermediary of this unknown god.

I think that this improved deity is the one that, indeed, Christians now worship.

Doug Shaver

The scholarly consensus is that one man wrote Romans and several other of the NT epistles. That man called himself Paul. We might as well use that name as well.

I am justified in believing that they are. Their style is unique and unmistakeable. If they were being produced by different people, they would have to be engaged in a conspiracy of some sort.

No, and I don't care. It would be irrelevant.

Nonsense. He's the guy who writes the posts under that name. I might not know anything else about him, but I know that much.

I'm not claiming to know anything else about Paul, either, except that he wrote those epistles.

If it were demonstrated that some of the posts under your name were forgeries, that would hardly be reason to infer your nonexistence.

About what?

It depends on the situation. But if we know the situation, then the reason is usually obvious. Your failure to suggest a reason in this case indicates that you don't know what the situation was.