maryhelena

That's the 'Paul' story - 'Paul' persecuted "...the church of God and tried to destroy it". aa - try putting the "Paul" story aside and look to Jewish history.

Leave Acts out of this.

The persecution is part of the NT story about 'Paul'. Before one can begin to understand what 'Paul''s persecuting was about - before one can begin to interpret the 'Paul' NT story - one must first establish whether or not that figure of 'Paul' is historical or ahistorical.

aa5874

It is the Pauline story that is being INVESTIGATED not your imagined story. It is PRECISELY what the Pauline writer claimed that is being QUESTIONED for its veracity and historical accuracy.

So, I must forget about the Pauline WRITTEN statements that are being questioned??? You are not making any sense.

I have never heard on any inquiry into any matter where the evidence presented by one side is COMPLETELY ignored.

I am terrified by your suggestion.

You cannot be serious. Acts of the Apostles is a Canonized Apologetic source which is claimed by the Church to be genuine, historically accurate and authored by a close companion and follower of Paul.

The Pauline writer made claims in his so-called letters that appear to show that he himself was the character called Saul/Paul in Acts of the Apostles.

In Acts of the Apostles it is claimed Saul/Paul persecuted the Church of Jerusalem--the Pauline writer also claimed he Persecuted the Church and WASTED it.

In Acts of the Apostles it is claimed Saul/Paul escaped in a basket by a wall in Damascus--the Pauline writer also made the same claim of himself.

In Acts of the Apostles it is claimed Saul/Paul was in Jerusalem with a character called Barnabas---the Pauline writer did claim he was in Jerusalem with Barnabas.

It is completely illogical to forget about Acts of the Apostles when it is a Canonized source and the author claimed to be a WITNESS of Paul.

How can you now establish whether or not there was a character called Paul who wrote Epistles before the Fall of the Temple and Persecuted Jews who preached Christ Crucified if you put PAUL aside and LEAVE OUT Acts of the Apostles???

I am shocked and terified that you suggest we put aside Paul and Acts.

To do a proper and reasonable inquiry one must, I repeat MUST, take into account the Pauline story, Acts of the Apostles, Apologetic sources, Jewish and Roman history.

Jewish and Roman history of the 1st century do NOT record that there was a Jesus cult that was known and persecuted in Jerusalem before the Fall of the Temple.

Persecutions of the Jesus cult of Christians occured AFTER the Fall of the Temple.

The earliest story of Christ Crucified, gMark, was composed AFTER the Fall of the Temple and there was NO mention of a Jewish Jesus cult that preached Christ Crucified to the Jews in Jerusalem.

The Pauline writings are Anachronistic.

In Galatians Paul completely FORGOT that Christ Crucified was supposed to be a Stumblingblock to the Jews and made himself the Stumblingblock to those who preached Christ Crucified.

Paul has been caught in an Anachronistic position.

maryhelena

Enjoy the trip aa - 'Paul' will take you on a never-ending journey to nowhere. Enjoy the ride but keep in mind that if it's early christian origins one is seeking, 'Paul' will not help you get there. 'Paul' plays mind-games - so take care....:wave:

aa5874

You are talking to the wrong guy. Tell that to Doherty and Ehrman.

According to Doherty the Pauline Jesus was crucified in the Sub-lunar contrary to the Pauline writings and apologetic sources.
According to Ehrman the Pauline Jesus was human contrary to the Pauline writings and apologetic sources

I have discovered that the Pauline Jesus did NOT exist at all and that the Pauline writer was a Fraud by using the Pauline writings and apologetic sources.

The real author lived After the Fall of the Temple under a different name and was unknown to the author of the earliest Canonized gMark and the Jesus cult up to the mid-2nd century.

Grog

Note here that Abe has not answered the question I posed concerning the development of Paul's kerygma concerning Jesus. So, let's look at the first from the historicist point of view:

Jesus lived and preached around 30 AD. Somehow he provoked the authorities who, according to later accounts, tortured and executed him. His followers within a few short years develop a kerygma that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb who died as an atonement for sins. Therefore, we can see Paul writing passages like Romans 13 based on his knowledge of the events that transpired in 30 AD.

Where did Jesus's followers come up with the idea that Jesus died for the sins of others? Was this a teaching of Jesus? In that case, did Jesus deliberately provoke the Jewish/Roman authorities? Was he on some sort of suicide mission? Or, in the wake of his death, did his followers, once part of a movement that apparently challenged the authority of Rome in such a way that Rome crucified their leader, turn around and decide that the torture and execution of their leader Jesus was all okay because their leader was a sacrifice for the atonement of sins anyway? To me, we end up piling on several degrees of unlikelihoods upon one another.

I have no reason to doubt that Paul believed what he wrote in Romans 3 and what he wrote in Romans 13, as well as what he wrote in 1 Cor 2. To me, there is no conflict and it all is elegantly explained by the hypothesis that Paul did not have any knowledge of the torture and execution of Jesus at the hands of Roman officials. In fact, the belief in a human sacrifice for the atonement of sins pre-dates or is contemporaneous with Paul in jewish sources:

Wisdom of Solomon, Chapter 2

[12] Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings: he upbraideth us with our offending the law, and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education.
[13] He professeth to have the knowledge of God: and he calleth himself the child of the Lord.
[14] He was made to reprove our thoughts.
[15] He is grievous unto us even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, his ways are of another fashion.
[16] We are esteemed of him as counterfeits: he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness: he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed, and maketh his boast that God is his father.
[17] Let us see if his words be true: and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him.
[18] For if the just man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hand of his enemies.
[19] Let us examine him with despitefulness and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience.
[20] Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected.
[21] Such things they did imagine, and were deceived: for their own wickedness hath blinded them.
[22] As for the mysteries of God, they knew them not: neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless souls.
[23] For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity.
[24] Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.

Note the key elements in this are repeated by Paul. Those who torture and kill the righteous child of God were deceived, blinded by their own wickedness. These ideas are echoed in Paul. Paul has a more advanced version, now the "righteous child of god" is more personified in the figure of "Jesus Christ" but really there is little more there than a name. While in the Wisdom of Solomon, the righteous man is a more general figure than in Paul's Jesus in 1 Cor 2, the leap is much smaller in WoS to 1 Cor 2 than if one must believe that early Christians attached this notion to their executed leader.

In fact, an evolutionist (as opposed to an inventionist) theory would expect to see such a development of the mytheme from earlier material. So what is jarring in the historicist case, that early Christians who walked and preached side by side with Jesus, presumably witnessing his torture and execution, turned around and preached a gospel of reconciliation with Rome, becomes an elegant example of the evolution of a mytheme from the MJ evolutionist perspective.

andrewcriddle

Two points.

1/ I can't see any indication that the death of the righteous in Wisdom of Solomon chapter 2 brings about any sort of vicarious atonement. (I said vicarious atonement, because the death of the righteous may be presented here as being for their own spiritual benefit.)

2/ The death of the righteous in Wisdom of Solomon chapter 2 is certainly at the hands of other humans, not angels/daaemons/demons.

Andrew Criddle

Grog

From WoS, Chapter 3:

[2] In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: and their departure is taken for misery,
[3] And their going from us to be utter destruction: but they are in peace.
[4] For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality.
[5] And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God proved them, and found them worthy for himself.
[6] As gold in the furnace hath he tried them, and received them as a burnt offering.

As to your comment about who kills the "righteous man" in the wisdom of solomon, I'm not sure what that point would be.

Are you saying, then, that the Jesus story re-enacts somehow this pre-Christian text? I think you understand that my point was not to say that the Wisdom of Solomon is exactly like Paul's description in 1 Cor 2? My point was that the idea of human sacrifice as atonement (see "received them as a burnt offering") pre-existed the Jesus story, in particular the crucifixion story in Paul. Remember, the Wisdom of Solomon isn't something that actually happened! So to say that, well, the WoS doesn't say demons killed the righteous man misses the point entirely. Paul DOES say Jesus was killed by demons and makes no mention of human agency.

This point also goes to Ehrman's assertion that Jews could not conceive of a savior/messiah condemned to a shameful death. They could have and did.

andrewcriddle

Chapter 3 is why I used the word vicarious.

Even if I the righteous man becomes a sacrificial offering, that sacrificial offering benefits only the righteous man himself. Paul's view of Jesus' death is very different.
The righteous man in Wisdom of Solomon is not a messiah figure.

Andrew Criddle

EarlDoherty

I have to agree there. But he was very much a model for the creation of the story of Jesus' crucifixion, the so-called (by scholars) The Suffering and Vindication of the Innocent Righteous One, which also drew on other pre-Christian writings like Isaiah 53 and parts of Daniel.

If the righteous man of the Wisdom of Solomon is not to be regarded as historical, how can we pooh-pooh any possibility that another story, the Gospel one, is likewise a fictional allegory to embody the same 'moral' for which WoS was written? Where is the clear difference when the Gospels lack any "history remembered" and the entire epistolary literature is virtually lacking in anything which could point to a history for its Christ Jesus as well? (And if anyone thinks to yet again cite "brother of the Lord," "born of woman," or the Lord's Supper as such a history, please have the courtesy and integrity not to do so unless you include and rebut mythicist argument against such an automatic interpretation.)

Earl Doherty

aa5874

What you say does NOT make much sense. Why is Paul preaching Christ Crucified to people on earth, I repeat, People ON earth, if the wicked ones ONLY killed a name in the Sub-Lunar???

Please, there is NO need for all your confusion.

Just keep it simple.

We have Galatians 1.1 where a Pauline writer claimed he was NOT the Apostle of a human being but from the resurrected Jesus.

We have Galatians 1.10-12 where the same Pauline writer claimed he did NOT his gospel from any man.

We have Galatians 4.4 where the same writer claimed Jesus was God's Son.

We have hundreds of Apologetic sources which are compatible with Galatians.

The Pauline Jesus was MYTH.

Let those who want to argue the Pauline Jesus was a figure of history
produce their source or simply stop making unsubstantiated claims.

History is rather simple. History is re-collection of past events not of imagination.

When I say the Pauline Jesus was a Myth it is SIMPLY, simply because it is so documented by the Pauline writer.