aa5874

Absolute rubbish. Only the illogical would argue the opposite.

It is abundantly clear that the aurthor of Acts did not appear to know the Pauline story.

The Pauline story corrected Acts of the Apostles.

The author of Acts did not appear to know that "Paul" went to Arabia, returned to Damascus and after three years went to Jerusalem.

The author of Acts appear not to know that when "Paul" went to Jerusalem, he did not meet all the apostles. Paul only met Peter and the Lord's brother.

The author of Acts appear not to know that it was 14-17 years after the Damascus conversion that "Paul" and Barnabas went to see all the apostles.

These new details from "Paul" are a good indication that the Pauline writer wrote after Acts of the Apostles.

Acts 19.26-28 "Paul" corrected this error. He wrote that he went to Jerusalem to visit Peter, not the apostles, just Peter, and stayed with him for fifteen days.

Galatians 1.18Acts 19.27-28 Again the author of Acts appear not to realise that "Paul" only visited Jerusalem two times in 14 years.

And in addition, the Pauline letters have added details about the resurrection that is not found in the gospels or Acts of the Apostles.

"Paul" claimed over 500 people saw Jesus in a resurrected state. This claim is a late claim. No gospel writer or the author of Acts seemed aware of the over 500 people.

It would have been illogical or non-sensical for the author of Matthew to have fabricated the "stolen body" story with the soldiers when the churches all over the Roman Empire that "Paul" visited would have known Jesus had appeared to over 500 people.

The "over 500 people resurrection" story by "Paul is AFTER the "stolen body" story by the author of Matthew.


"Paul" was absolutely aware of the gospels.

Amaleq13

There is nothing illogical about the fact that your argument is just as easily applied to support the opposite conclusion.

But I do note that you utterly failed to address that point and, instead, chose to attack the individual making the claim (ie ad hominem).

Engaging in a logical fallacy while accusing someone of being illogical?

Sweet.

It is abundantly clear that the author of Paul's letters does not appear to know the Acts story. See how that works both ways?

You need to prove this assertion rather than just repeat it. Nothing you have provided so far appears to support it. Where is the evidence that the author of Paul's letters knew Acts?

Assuming that he did and assuming that the differences constitute corrections is clearly flawed logic.

The absence of those details is a good indication that the author of Acts either had no knowledge of Paul's letters or disagreed with them.

This is what I mean when I inform you that your argument works both ways and is, therefore, useless in establishing a reliable conclusion.

Assuming what is in Paul is "new" or "added" is circular reasoning. It is not logically sound to assume your conclusion while trying to prove it.

No, there is no logical problem here. The body is still missing from the tomb and the Jews are still claiming the body was stolen in Matthew's story regardless of the number of people Paul claims saw Christ risen.

Again, repeating an unsubstantiated claim does not provide support for it. You have still offered nothing logical and credible to support this repeated assertion.

This is usually where you start ignoring the points you cannot or will not address. Please surprise me with some honest effort to defend your claims with sound reasoning and credible evidence.

Clivedurdle

I need to repeat this - I think there is a core gnostic Paul who wrote reasonable amounts of what we have who may have only used the term Lord and possibly by chance referred to annointing and joshua or these were important parts of his new revelation and gospel of non circumcising Judaism to the gentiles. Pagels I think shows this conclusively but does not go into our discussion of the evolution of the terms jesus and christ.

Earl, where are you?

spamandham

There seems to be an implied assumption here that one day someone sat down and wrote Acts, and someone else sat down one day and wrote the epistles, and what we have today is pretty much what those people wrote on those days.

When I read the epistles, even the 'genuine' ones, they read like hack jobs. Paul can't seem to keep a coherent thought running from the start of a sentence to the end of it in many cases. He's a jumble-headed idiot as best I can tell who's theology is all over the map. This is not what I would expect from either a leader who effectively started the gentile church, nor from a fraudster trying to invent a fake history for the church.

Instead, it's what I would expect from a composite work that is the result of multiple authors over time.

IMHO, it's too simplistic to say that Acts was earlier than Paul or vice versa.

aa5874

That must have been what happened. Acts was written by at least one human being and the Pauline letters were written by at least one person. And what we have today is what those people wrote.

If you think that there were other words in Acts or the Pauline letters then please provide the words and let's not speculate.

There are no indications that the Pauline writer was ever regarded as a heretic.

According to church writers Valentinus,and Marcion preached some kind of spitual Jesus and they were deemed to be heretics, it is therefore reasonable to think that if "Paul" preached a spiritual Jesus that he too would have been called a heretic.

Why do you assume Acts or the Pauline letters were interpolated? If so, why did they not correct all the errors?

It is too simplistic to claim the Pauline letters were interpolated without any evidence whatsoever.

Where in the epistles is "Paul" a jumble-headed idiot?

Was Paul a jumble-headed idiot when he claimed Jesus supped on the night he was betrayed, was crucified, died, raised on the third day , ascended and was coming back a second time?

Now, who effectively started the gentile churches, and in what century? If Paul was a jumble-headed idiot, you can look for another leader.

So, all the writers produced over time what appears to you to be the writings of a jumble-headed idiot whose theology was all over the place.

Now, tell me again?

Who effectively started the gentile chuches and in what century?

The jumble-headed idiot, the product of multiple authors over time?

Well, your conclusions are probably based on the fact that you consider the writings of Paul as a result of a jumble-headed idiot or multiple authors over time.

spamandham

The assumption that the letters we have today are essentially works created in a single sitting (per letter, not necessarily the whole canon) is not supported by anything, so to question that assumption also requires nothing.

Since I'm not particularly interested in a pissing contest, I'm not even going to attempt to provide evidence for the idea that the letters evolved over time.

...not sure what this has to do with the discussion, but ok.

In regard to the epistles, as much has already been proven by the experts, and I'm willing to accept what they say in that regard since it seems reasonable.

In regards to Acts, I'm not sure I've seen arguments for interpolation, but none are really necessary as an a priori presumption of authenticity is unjustifiable.

Does it matter?

Yeah, pretty much. That seems the simplest conclusion based on my own investigation.

How should I know? I might ask you the same question.

If a single person had written them, that person would have to have been mentally unfit (jumble-headed idiot) for the task of creating the gentile church.

Similarly, the idea that an intentional single-sitting-fraud would end up so scatter brained makes just as little sense.

Therefor, I consider it most likely that these letters are multi-author hack jobs written over time. I don't know how much time, but considering the evolution of theology within these letters, it must have been at least decades if not longer.

aa5874

Where is the Pauline writer a scatter-brained jumble-headed idiot in the letters?

"Paul" claimed Jesus after he had supped in the night was betrayed, crucified, died and rose on the third day, ascended to heaven and was coming back a second time.

"Paul" is consistent with the gospel story.

"Paul" wrote that he preached Christ crucified and that Jesus died for the sins of the world.

Nothing scatter brained there. The words of Paul are consistent with gospels.

Paul claimed he spoke in tongues. This tongue-talking gift is found in Acts of the Apostles.

"Paul" was no scatter brain jumble-headed idiot.

Paul was absolutely aware of the gospels and falsely claimed he had 'revelations".

1600 years later many people still believe "Paul" had revelations.

"Paul" had no revelations, he was aware of the gospels. Jesus did not exist.

The Pauline writer could detect when Peter was not in conformity with the gospels.

Galatians 2:14 -
How did "Paul" know the truth of the gospel? He did not get it from revelations, he got it from the gospels.

Doug Shaver

That is what I meant. By "evidence," I was not referring to the internal consistency of the pseudopigrapha. I was referring to their inconsistency with the other letters attributed to Paul.

I don't know of a good metric for parsimony. It seems to be at least partially a matter of personal intuition. I hope you will concede that reasonable people may have differing intuitions.

My hypothesis calls for a real Paul and one or more forgers. There are known historical analogues for this situation. It has happened several times, and my hypothesis presupposes nothing that is not applied in those other cases.

Your hypothesis calls for two or more forgers, one of whom had to invent the person that he was pretending to be. I am not aware of any other time in history when this has happened. If you're assuming something about Christian history that nobody assumes about all the rest of human history, then I think that's one too many assumptions.

I'm not assuming that the apparently authentic writings were letters in the ordinary sense that were actually distributed to the ostensible addressees. The epistle style could have been just a literary gimmick, for all I know. Belief in a historical Paul does not commit anyone to any particular interpretation of what he wrote. But on the conventional interpretation, about 150 years elapsed between the time of his writing and the time that the first extant copies were produced. It does not strain my credulity to think that, during those 150 years, there was sufficient time for pseudopigrapha to be produced and for Christians in general to accept the notion that they were authentic. Under that scenario, it is not surprising that the oldest extant collections would include the pseudopigrapha.

Possible, yes, but I don't think it's likely to have happened that way. The writer or writers of the pseudopigrapha need only have been familiar with the originals. It would have been convenient but not necessary for them to have had the entire collection in front of them.

So? If I am writing a religious polemic and am afraid that nobody will take me seriously because I have no reputation as an authority, then I might decide to pretend to be someone who does have such a reputation. But in that case, it would hardly serve my purpose to pretend to be someone that my readership has never heard of. And they could hardly have heard of someone who never existed until I conjured him up in my imagination.

Not really. However, I will admit to having overstated my objection in this instance.

Simple. Because you want to persuade people about some ideas that were not presented in the originals. You know that the author of the originals is considered an authority, and you know that you are not considered an authority, and so you claim to be the author of the originals.

There are two possibilities here. (1) You have seen a bunch of evidence that has never come to my attention. (2) You and I have examined more or less the same body of evidence but come to different conclusions from it.

Doug Shaver

No, actually they're unavoidable. The trick is not to avoid them altogether. The trick is to avoid the ones that guarantee you will reach a preferred conclusion.

OK. But if you want to discredit circular arguments, it's not a good idea to use circular arguments yourself.

Yes, that possibility is certainly open. But it is not the only possibility, and it's intellectually wrong to conduct an investigation on the assumption that it is.

I can accept that there might have been a charismatic rabbi like Jesus of Nazareth who was executed by Roman authorities on charges of sedition or some such. I don't think there was because I see what looks to me like compelling evidence to the contrary. I don't see similar evidence contrary to Paul's historicity.

There is no theory, and cannot be any theory, about Christian origins that does not rely heavily on speculation. The surviving evidence is just not sufficient to allow any of us to say that we know exactly how this religion, as we now know it, came into existence.

I don't look to any of the texts, canonical or otherwise, for data on what actually happened during Christianity's early centuries. I look to them for data on what Christians at various times and places believed had happened. Then I try to figure out, as best I can, whether they might have had good reason to believe it. On many points I often conclude that they did not, but then I'm asking myself why they believed it if it wasn't so. If I can think of a reason that doesn't presuppose somebody lying to them, then to my mind it's a plausible scenario.

Yes, the texts are all fantastic. To us, that is. But we're atheists. Of course we can't believe anything that's in them. They're all about what we should believe about some god. But we're pretty sure there is no god, so of course we're not going to believe them. But that doesn't make them lies. We atheists are outnumbered a hundred to one by people who honestly, sincerely, believe every word of that crap -- and that's without hearing it from anybody who knew that it was crap. Every modern believer has heard the crap from other true believers. If millions of people now can believe it without having been lied to, then what is so incredible about a few thousand people honestly and sincerely believing it during the first and second centuries without having been lied to?

Clivedurdle

I have a book somewhere - might be Baginni - with a story of a ship that gets wrecked and they decide to repair it.

In the boatyard they lay it out and next to it start to build an exact replica. Bits from the old one get put in the new one, bits from the new into the old, or two lots of new. The new boat ends up with more old bits than the old one!

The same questions relate to fraud. Which is the real boat? Does it matter?