Originally Posted by Vorkosigan

Harold Leidner argues in _The Fabrication of the
Christ Myth_ that Paul's letters are valid but date
from after 70. He compares the famous passage in Gal
4:24-26:

*******
"Now this is an allegory. These women represent two
covenants. One was from Mount Sinai, bearing children
for slavery; this is Hagar.Hagar represents Sinai, a
mountain in Arabia; *it corresponds to the present
Jerusalem, for she is in slavery along with her
children. But the Jerusalem above is freeborn, and she
is our mother.*"
*******

...to a similar passage in 4 Ezra:

*****
"Zion, the mother of us all, is in great grief and
deep affliction... Our Levites are gone into
captivity, our righteous youths are enslaved...This
was the fall of Jerusalem, which has come to pass."
*********

Leidner then suggests that the famous "interpolation"
in 1 Thess 2 may be genuine, and then moves on to the
passage in Ephesians where Paul refers to the "middle
wall of separation", a passage often thought to be
allegorical, but which some commentators have
interpreted as a reference to the Stone Wall in the
Temple beyond which no Gentile was allowed to go. In
other words, that passage also refers to the
destruction of the Temple.

Leidner then re-reinterpets Paul as an orthodox Jew
galvanized by the fall of the Temple. "He was a
product of the Hellenic diaspora and had joined a
missionary sect, but now the missionary effort had
almost collapsed." Leidner goes on to compare the
Judaism of 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra with the theology of
Paul.

Frankly, I have often thought this view makes the most
sense, pyscholoically and chronologically. During the
70s, 80s, and 90s, the new communities are taking
shape out in the Diaspora and Paul is writing his
letters. They are the only "authentic" documents we
have, though now heavily reworked. Mark, writing about
120-140, writes the first narrative, drawing heavily
on Paul, the OT, and the conventions of Hellenistic
novelistic writings. It was Luke who hit upon the
strategy of historicizing the ideas of Mark and
back-projecting Christianity into the past. I doubt
Mark ever intended his story to be read as a real
historical account.

Psychologically it makes no sense to imagine that the
end of the world was nigh prior to 70 and the
destruction of the Temple. That's why in
back-projecting Christianity into the pre-70 period
the Christians were forced to invent the idea of the
Incarnation and Return Someday. This brilliant
mechanism solved the double problem of how to account
for Christ's appearance prior to 70, and how to keep
the believers in a permanent state of revolutionary
agitation and expansion.

Originally Posted by Toto

Was Paul Ever In Damascus

I am less sure about some of the sources that I referenced in that thread, but it does appear that Aretas never ruled Damascus. There might have been an ethnarch with some sort of power over the Nabatean residents of Damascus, but that is speculative.

Originally Posted by Toto

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

In any case Aretas IV ruled from c 9 BCE - 40 CE and IIUC there is not another Aretas till the 2nd century CE (Malichus II c 40 - 71 CE and Rabbell II c 71 - 106 CE)