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TedM refuses to accept that once he claims Jesus was human with a human father then the NT with the Pauline writings become a Massive Conspiracy.

How is it possible that Jesus was a known human being yet Paul was able to fool the people of the Roman Empire into getting them to worship a DEAD JEW as a God--the very same Jew the Romans crucified???

How did Paul, a Jew, a Pharisee convince Roman citizens that a DEAD JEW was resurrected and that he was the Savior, Son of God, Messiah and Lord of all and that Every knee should BOW to the name of the DEAD Jew, even the Emperor of Rome???

Surely, the Pauline writings cannot be history.

It would be UNPRECEDENTED in Jewish and Roman history that a Pharisee was able to Publicly Preach "all over" the Roman Empire, even in Rome, that a DEAD JEW was LORD--the same Jew the Roman crucified.

The Pauline writings MUST be a massive conspiracy if Jesus was a DEAD JEW and Paul was a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin.

tanya

Which churches, Ted?

The oldest extant, or excavated, Christian church, so far as I am aware, is the Cenacle, in Jerusalem, site of a former synagogue. I believe, perhaps in error, that this structure dates from the fourth century.

Interesting, isn't it, that the oldest palimpsest at St. Catherines' in the mountains of the Sinai desert, also dates from the fourth century.

So, too, are the oldest explicitly Christian coins : fourth century, after Constantine, after Nicea, after the Romans had established the religion as definitive for the empire as a whole. There do exist coins older than these, portraying people thought to have been christian, but that assertion is not portrayed on the coin itself.

Contrarily, I believe, in sincerity, that there were several "massive" conspiracies, orchestrated by the Roman emperors, from at least the time of Julius Caesar. I think that part of the reason why it is so difficult to figure out who wrote what, when, and where, is precisely because of the enormity of the task facing the emperors, to embellish, regulate, and organize the disparate manuscripts representing historical observations, including the earliest descriptions of the evolution of Christianity.

In our own era, Ted, have we observed "massive conspiracy"?

I can think of two, in particular:
a. Colin Powell's recitation to the United Nations regarding the infamous Weapons of Mass Destruction supposedly sequestered by Sadam Hussein, including satellite surveillance photographs.
b. the contemptible Gulf of Tonkin resolution, passed 440 - 0 in the House of Representatives, and 98 - 2 in the Senate, justifying the horrific and monstrous assault on the poor people of Viet Nam. The resolution was based on a phony account of an attack by wooden VietNamese fishing boats against the U.S. navy with its steel hulled destroyers located within three miles of VietNam. The American people swallowed the fake propaganda hook, line and sinker. To this day, still, even now, the idiots proclaim some kind of satisfaction at the USA having participated in that horribly unjust and immoral conflict.

Though I was not alive back then, I suspect the same "massive conspiracy" had been in force for the conflict in Korea, as well as for many, many other examples throughout history.

Huon

Quotes from the First Apology, to emperor Antoninus ( 138-161) :
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Matthew, Luke, Mark, Genesis, Micah, Zechariah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Deuteronomy, Numbers, John, Exodus.

Quotes from the Second Apology, to the Roman Senate : Nothing.

Quotes from the Dialogue with Trypho :

I have preserved only the quotes from the NT :

Chapter 17 : Isaiah, Matthew

Chapter 35 : 1 Corinthians 11:19, Matthew
'There shall be schisms and heresies.'
1 Corinthians 11:19 : For there must also be factions among you,

Chapter 49 : Malachi, Matthew
Chapter 51 : Matthew
Chapter 76 : Matthew, Luke
Chapter 81 : Luke
Chapter 93 : Matthew
Chapter 94 :
even so, though a curse lies in the law against persons who are crucified, yet no curse lies on the Christ of God, by whom all that have committed things worthy of a curse are saved.

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE"--

Chapter 100 to 107 : Memoirs of the apostles, Matthew, Luke
Chapter 125 : Matthew


Summary :

1 - There shall be schisms and heresies
2 - CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE"--

Of course, no mention whatever of Paul.

TedM

I am referring to their existence in the 2nd century. They knew where they came from. IF Paul wasn't their founder they would have not accepted the obviously lie to them -- the conspiracy claiming he was the founding father of Gentile Christianity, including starting with their churches.

It's rather laughable that anyone would think that a made-up founding father of Gentile Christianity would be anything like Paul was. The difficult to reconcile accounts of his dealings with the Jerusalem group in Acts and Galatians, and the differences in his conversion experience in the same two books would not have been allowed to co-exist with such a massive conspiracy: Those two issues alone would have been made super-consistent, air tight.

James The Least

At least five of the letters attributed to "Paul" are not by the same author of the other seven. So this means that, if taken at face value, five churches received letters from an imposter and apparently didn't know or care.

Given this, plus the highly antagonistic anti-Jewish polemic of the letters, I think it's more likely than not that "Paul" was an invented character, and the letters are not real letters. The church writers got away with this by projecting everything into the past -- writing around 100, they said, "Wow look at this letter we just discovered by the apostle Paul written before his death!" People believed them, so they just kept doing the same schtick as long as they could get away with it. If you can convince people that the "Mormon Bible" is real, then why stop the gravy train? Just keep saying you're getting revelations from god and keep milking that cow.

James The Least

It certainly seems logical that the reason why the letters are written by "Paul" is that there was a person by this name that people remembered and/or reverenced. But then, you could say the same thing about the rest of the apostles. I think it's more likely that the churches preceded the gospel myth or the epistle writing. There were no apostles or Paul -- they were invented to give these churches credibility, and their bishops a supposed connection to the historical Jesus. The pew potatoes just accepted what they were told.

tanya

Thanks, Huon, well written, as always.

I have been thinking about this a little more.

What do we know about Justin? So far as I am aware, everything we know about him, comes from his own writings.

But, what if his "own" writings had been concocted in the fourth century? How do we know they weren't? We cite Irenaeus, who mentions Justin, isn't that correct?

Anyone else cite Justin?

But, let's suppose that Justin really did live in the middle of the second century, CE. And, further, let's agree to accept at face value, whatever he had written, about his own life.

Still, there are some problems.

How did Justin become a Christian? Supposedly, he met an old man at the seashore. n.b., NOT IN ONE OF Paul's churches, none of which exist today. Yeah, some old guy just happened to be walking along the seashore.....guess he had nothing else to do, what with all the many social security benefits available to senior citizens living in Roman Palestine, a couple thousand years ago. Or, maybe the old man had been collecting sea shells, holding them up to his ears, his old ears, so that he could more clearly hear the "holy spirit", over the roar of the waves and his ever progressive tinnitus.

So, he meets this old man, and they talk, and Justin becomes a believer in the divinity of Jesus. Ok, fine. So, then what? So, Justin "adopts the garments of a philosopher, and heads for Rome". WHAT?

What does that mean? Are we to believe that an itinerant, homeless beggar traveled by road from Palestine to Rome? Was it so easy in those days, to just wander about, quill in hand, ready at an instant, to splash some ink on to any old papyrus, that just happened to be laying around?

Where did Justin acquire the papyrus? How did Justin come upon the money to purchase the ink? How did he live? Even if he had left home with lots of silver in his pocket, how did he manage to hold onto it, as he traveled? Was he in a caravan, protected by armed guards?

More to the point of it all: How does a "philosopher", penniless, come into possession of one of the letters of Paul, sent to the single church in Rome? How did Justin find that church, and how did the vicar give him permission to look at, examine, and quote from that precious document?

Do we imagine that a person, a scruffy, unwashed "philosopher", wearing rags, with poor dentition, emaciated, and sleep deprived from living on the streets, could walk into ANY church, today, and demand to be shown its most prized possessions? For that matter, how did Justin gain access to the Torah? Gaius Asinius Pollio's public library in Rome? Did that venerable institution admit scruffy mendicants? And then, the elephant in the room, what happened to Justin's magnificent manuscripts? How were they preserved? Why were they preserved? Who preserved them and why would they do that?

Something about this story, reminds me of Snow White and the seven dwarfs. It is a fairy tale, concocted, I believe in the fourth century. Yup, that means that Irenaeus too, must have been a fourth century creation. And, while we are at it, why not Paul, too? Our oldest extant manuscripts of Paul, date from middle of the third century, so, Paul at least, cannot be a fourth century creation, if those palaeographic estimates of the date of origin of P46 are correct (mid third century).

That's a fairly big if. Can people living today, imitate first century Greek penmanship? If we ask some native, literate Greek author, to produce, for just a little titch of geld, some documents in "authentic" Koine Greek, do you suppose he/she would reply:

"oh, no, madam, I couldn't do that, it is too difficult, and anyway, our Greek society is now so prosperous, we have no need for such tedious employment."

yup, massive conspiracy. Complete with distribution of "official" documents, and destruction of previous copies. Of course, we have never seen anything like that, have we?

TedM

Be careful. Those are two very different things. If taken at face value, they would have cared.

Do you think an existing church didn't know its roots from just 50 years prior from the founding father of the Gentiles? Don't you think they would have said "who is this Paul character that outsiders are telling us gave us our religion? Doesn't wash.

Toto

Ted - what existing church? There is no evidence of these churches ever existing.

In any case, if Christian history is anywhere close to correct, these churches were only illegal gatherings in someone's house. By the time Paul's letters were generally known, all traces of those "churches" would have vanished. There would be no one left to say whether Paul ever wrote to them or founded the original church, or not.

TedM

I consider the fact that the epistles were addressed to churches to be evidence that they existed at the time those letters were written, even if it was in the 2nd century, Toto.

Pure speculation on your part. And, your theory that they died out goes against the history preserved in the writings of Ignatius, 1 Clement, and Revelation. Have I misunderstood what you are saying? How can you even think such a thing given the writings that reference the churches Paul was 'later' claimed to have founded?

And, you think these were gatherings of a dozen people? Most likely they were in the hundreds if not thousands--otherwise those letters would never have been written, for lack of need. That's especially true if we are talking about forgeries intended to push a religious agenda--that would only be done if there would be a significant reception--ie many people reading them.