Roland

What actual evidence is there that Paul was killed for his faith? Even the staunchest Jesus myther seems to accept this idea without question, yet what basis is there for such a belief? I often hear it said that the martyrdom of Peter and the other apostles is based entirely on unsustantiated church tradition, yet when it comes to Paul, I don't find that same degree of skepticism voiced about his demise. Why is that?

spamandham

None that's credible.

We really don't even known when he lived. It's generally assumed he lived in the mid first century, but there is little/no hard evidence to confirm even this.

Doug Shaver

I've seen a few skeptics, both historicists and mythicists, who question it. The ones who don't probably just haven't bothered to check out the evidence. Most people outside the academic community, and even many within it, treat it simply as something akin to common knowledge.

I happen to be taking a history class this quarter, and the professor is manifestly not a Christian apologist. When discussing events of the first century, though, she passes on the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul in Rome as if they were undisputed.

That is exactly what they are. An awful lot of secularists, though, even among historians, are willing to give a lot of credit to church tradition just so long as the tradition isn't claiming anything miraculous.

LoungeHead

Paul is not a single person, even though there may have been a man called Saul/Paul. "Paul" is a name used by several authors as was tradition of pre-print writings that spoke in a tradition of religious and philosophical thought. Other examples are Pythagoras and Confucius.

CJD

It's just taken-for-granted knowledge, coming, if I remember correctly, from 1) the ending of Acts (which has him on house arrest in Rome); and 2) Eusebius.

But there is another perfectly viable tradition out there, namely, that Paul went on to Spain just like he planned and died in obscurity heralding his king. Or, maybe he went on to Spain, came back to his headquarters (Rome) and was martyred there.

Malachi151

But the weird thing is that none of the letters of Paul were written from Rome, that we know of, and none of "his" own writings place him there, only the Acts tradition. And Acts was supposedly written in late first century or early 2nd century, yet it doesn't tell of his death, which is strange. Either Paul was still alive when Acts was written (unlikely) or we lost a part of Acts, or Paul faded into obscurity and no one knows what happened to him, etc., but I think that the fact that Paul's martyrdom is not in Acts makes ti highly unlikely that he was martyred because if he was the author of Acts surely would have said so. The only argument against this I can think of would be to prevent Paul from being another Jesus, i.e. to prevent having a second "passion scene" or something.

Casper

Or the original Paul was actually Marcion....:devil1:

Johann_Kaspar

Does someone know how Tarzan died?

Roland

I was recently on a trip to Italy, and it's amazing how people just accept so much without question. The Vatican claims to contain the tomb of Peter and, in Venice, one can see the tomb of Mark, the alleged writer of the first gospel. There's even a whole story about how his bones were brought to Venice from Egypt. The tour guides state it all as if it were fact and I'm sure most people don't even question it.

Amaleq13

He didn't.

"Tarzan is contemptuous of the hypocrisy of civilization, and he and Jane return to Africa where, both being immortal, they still live." (Tarzan)