Clivedurdle

Paul's looks earlier - it is simpler.

razlyubleno

Are you saying that gMatthew came before Paul?

razly

Juststeve

Paul wrote before Matthew and without the benefits of having met Jesus or hearing him preach. Paul’s theory of salvation was just that, Paul’s theory.

Some regard should be given to the nature of Paul’s audience. He was trying to sell a new religion to pagans, not to Jews. How better to sell a new religion than to keep the price of admission minimal, just believe, and promise great rewards, eternal salvation. Following the law can be difficult, not to mention the surgery. How many converts would he have won if like Peter he thought one must first be a Jew to become a Christian?

You must admire his marketing skills.

Steve

aa5874

1. No church writer placed the writings of "Paul" before gMatthew.

2. The writer Paul does not ever claim to be the first to know about Jesus.

3. The church writer Eusebius claimed it was said the "Paul" was familiar with gLuke.

4. The writer Paul claimed Jesus was betrayed and his revelation of the betrayal is almost identical to the betrayal found in gLuke.

5. The letters with the name Paul were written as though the reader had some prior information about origin of Jesus of the NT.

6.There is no written information of antiquity that can show "Paul" wrote before gMatthew.

This is Irenaeus in Against Heresies.


"Paul" claimed he preached a gospel of uncircumcion, this theology could not have preceeded gMatthew[/b].

Look at the writer "Paul" in Romans.


1:16 - "Paul's" theology was after gMatthew.

razlyubleno

Who needs to meet Jesus, when you can get everything you need to know through revelation? Paul's theory was God's theory. [/sarcasm]

I'd quibble with the idea that Paul crafted his theology to make it appealing, since that implies a certain amount of dishonesty, or at least, deceptiveness; and I think unless there's evidence that Paul was anything but genuine in his beliefs, then we should stray away from the notion of snake-oil salesman.

In any case, I don't see that he would've had fewer converts if he'd been converting people to Judaism... as a matter of fact, that might have been easier to sell, since Judaism had the appeal of being an ancient religion. People convert to cultic religions for very personal reasons, and I doubt there's a sociological net that would catch all converts to a particular cult at once.

The reason why we see Paul with more of a gentile audience than a Jewish one, may have nothing to do with Paul's message being custom-tailored to attract gentiles... it may simply be that Paul had a particular message, and that this message failed to appeal to very many Jews. It's not clear that this was on purpose. And what's more, his letters were not written to people whom he was trying to convert, remember; they were written to people who were already converted, to existing congregations.

razly

razlyubleno

Neither does Matthew.

It's very clear that Paul was not familiar with any gospel writing at all. Paul betrays absolutely zero knowledge of any such material.

That doesn't prove anything. Paul is only ever very vague, and it's not surprising that you can find parallels between a vague story and some other story.

That information may very well have been oral.

The church fathers are piecing together erroneous traditions to try and make a coherent chronology. The account of Irenaeus rests upon the traditional attributions of authorship (e.g., that gMark was written by John Mark), and it's pretty clear that those attributions are bogus. The fathers are taking bad information and weaving a story around it. They can't be relied upon.

How so?

I think the gospels may have been written as a reaction to (what I believe to be) Paul's mythicism.

razly

Elijah

For me it's about the resurrection of the dead. It's a pyramid scheme were if you believe in Jesus you are put on the list to be brought back with his second coming.

aa5874

There is absolutely no information from antiquity that any writer named Paul wrote any theological theory of salvation before gMatthew.

Absolutely none.

All indications are that Jesus of the NT was marketed before the writer called Paul wrote his theological theories of salvation.

The writer Paul in his letters, wrote that there were others before him preaching the theory of circumcision in conjunction with worshipping a man as a god who was sacrificed.

aa5874

But, "Paul" claimed a character called Jesus was betrayed, crucified, died, was resurrected and ascended to heaven.

These are funndamental events of the gospel stories.

Where did "Paul" get the name Jesus from? Did he just guess that everyone knew Jesus?

Did Jesus from heaven, tell "Paul" that he was betrayed, and eventually ascended to heaven or did "Paul" just simly read or hear about the stories.

How did "Paul" know that Jesus was supposed to be raised on the third day? Only in the gospels was a character called Jesus claim he would rise from the dead on the third day.

"Paul" had information about the betrayal, and used words found only in gLuke.

1 Cor.11.23-25 Luke 22.19-20 The writer Paul was aware that Jesus was believed to have risen on the third day.

Mt 16:21 - 1Cor 15:4 - It just cannot be proven that the writer Paul had zero knowledge of the gospel stories, the evidence shows the complete opposite. Paul was likely to have known of the Jesus stories or writings about Jesus as he wrote his letters.


The theory of salvation from Paul is late, the writer himself places himself after the apostles before him. The writer Paul even claimed he persecuted the church.

It is inconceivable or completely unrealstic that the persecutor of the church was the first to write about Jesus. Such a scenario is wholly incredible.

Clivedurdle

Isn't this from Acts? This is the sort of thing I want to tease out - does Paul really refer to the Gospels or outside sources? I do not think he does! We have another thread here asking does the breaking of bread motif come from Zarathustra.

http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=265801