show_no_mercy

Please post some "physical scraps about Jesus" from within 150 years of his supposed life that "never passed through the hands of the Christians".

You seem to be utterly confused about things. gThomas is a Christian document.

Davka

Hi all! New here, getting my toes wet.

aa, it seems that this thread has veered away from the OP (as threads will), but I wanted to address your original question: when did Paul/Saul become an apostle?

I suspect that the disconnect comes from the fact that the word apostle has morphed since the 1st century CE. A quick glance at dictionary.com gives 9 meanings for the word, the first 8 of which are germane to a religious context. All we need to illustrate the disconnect, however, is the following:

Your OP seems to be predicated on the assumption that when Paul claimed to be an apostle, he meant it in the (modern) sense of the second definition, i.e. one of the 12 Apostles as identified by the RCC and Orthodox Church traditions. I doubt very much that this is the case - Paul would not have had any clue that the Church was going to create this new meaning of the word "apostle," or even that such a thing as an Organized Church would come to exist. At the time of the Pauline writings, Christianity was still an obscure sect within Judaism.

My belief is that Paul was simply identifying himself as a follower of the teachings of Jesus. In this sense, there were thousands of "small a" apostles at the time of the Pauline writings.

If your intent is simply to point out the error of RCC or Orthodox teaching, then hey, I'll jump on that bandwagon. But it's really kind of pointless - a cross between shooting fish in a barrel and wrestling with pigs.

aa5874

But, I have not made any assumption about the meaning of apostle in the any modern sense. I have referred to Acts of the Apostles and the Gospels which are sources of antiquity.

Your belief must be based on the "modern sense" since in antiquity Jesus only had 12 apostles in his story.

You may have strayed from the OP.

Davka

This is precisely the disconnect I am talking about. Jesus did NOT have "only 12 apostles" in antiquity. He had thousands of apostles. The idea of "the 12 Apostles" (capital A) was introduced later, by the Church.

Here's the deal: The Pauline Epistles were written in Greek. Paul did not and could not refer to himself as "an Apostle of Christ" in the sense of the "12 Apostles," because that concept did not even exist at the time that the epistles were written.

What was written (ostensibly by Paul) was in Greek. The writer called himself an apostolos, which is a Greek word meaning "one who is sent forth." This same Greek word was applied to Barnabus in Acts 14:4. It is also used to describe Epaphodritus in Phillipians 2:25; to Andronicus and Junias in Romans 16:7, and to Silas and Timothy in 1 Thessolonians 2:6. None of these apostolos have ever been claimed to have been among what was later called the 12 Apostles.

So Paul wasn't pretending to be one of the 12. That's a later addition made by the Church, probably at the same time that they made up the entire concept of 12 Apostles.

Again: 12 Apostles is not a Biblical concept. It's a later interpretation. It's like saying "FedEx has only 12 Messengers." Actually, they have thousands of messengers, but if you wanted to create an "inner circle" of the Original 12 FedEx Messengers, I suppose you could do so. And someone would probably worship them some day. But that wouldn't make the guy who drops off FedEx packages at my house a liar for claiming to be a messenger from FedEx, just because he wasn't part of your Group of 12.

Get it?

Loomis

Nope.

Fail.

aa5874

What sources of antiquity show that Jesus had thousands of apostles?

You are just making blatant unsubstantiated claims.

In the Synoptics stories Jesus hand-picked 12 apostles or messengers.

You have no stories or version of stories where Jesus had thousands of hand-picked apostles or messengers.

In the Gospel stories the 12 apostles or messengers were taught certain things which was not taught to his thousands of followers.

Your deal is NO GOOD. You are just making unsubstantiated claims.

You cannot even show that Saul/Paul did exist before the Fall of the Temple.

But, you cannot show that Paul wrote anything at any time before the Fall of the Temple since you are claiming that the Church may have interpolated and redacted the Pauline writings.

You are just guessing.

You must realise by now that the NT Canon is a compilation of fiction.

I did not claim that Paul was pretending to be one of the 12. I am claiming that Paul was NOT an apostle or messenger of Jesus in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple.

There was no character called Jesus Christ, a mere human, a Jew, or offspring of the Holy Ghost, and Creator who was worshiped as a God by Jews before the Fall of the Temple.



"Fedex" is not a biblical concept.

The Gospel stories is about Jesus Christ who hand-picked 12 apostles or messengers. And in Acts of the Apostles one apostle or messenger, named Matthias, was later selected because Judas a former apostle or messenger was supposedly dead.

You have no stories or version of stories where Jesus hand-picked thousands of apostles or messengers. Unless you have Evidence, you are just wasting time.

Thousands of people followed Jesus in the Gospel stories but he ONLY had 12 hand-picked apostles or messengers.

I need to examine your sources for your outrageous claims.

Where are your sources of antiquity?

I do not DEAL with imagination.

Kapyong

Gday,

Philo, Seneca, Justus of Tiberias, Plutarch, Elder Pliny, Petronius, Quintilian, Persius, Lucan, Martial, Statius, et al.


K.

Davka

And this is relevant to the discussion of Jesus having only 12 "big A" Apostles (as the Church claims) while simultaneously having thousands of "small a" apostles - HOW?

EDIT: Your attempt to conflate Jesus in the NT with Joshua in the OT simply because they share the same first name (Yeshua) is a fail of epic proportions. By such logic, anything said or done by persons calling themselves "loomis" in the past thousand years can be attributed to you.

Davka

The New Testament makes the claim. Do a search on the word apostolos in a Greek interlinear NT.

Nope. Read for comprehension. The word "apostle" did not have the meaning of "one of 12 hand-picked individuals" at the time the NT was written. Otherwise, how do you explain the verses I reference in which persons other than the 12 were referred to as apostolos?



This is another issue altogether.


That's why I asked about the disconnect. And you replied that "in antiquity Jesus only had 12 apostles in his story."

Which is a fallacy. There were, according to the stories, 12 hand-picked disciples. There were also thousands of other disciples, according to the synoptic Gospels. Nobody became an apostolos until Jesus (supposedly) sent them off to spread the gospel. Since that command was (apparently) given to a far larger group of disciples than the 12 (then 11, Judas was dead) hand-picked disciples, that would have made the entire crowd "sent-out ones," or apostolos.


In what sense? In the sense of having been personally told by Jesus to go spread the gospel? I would agree. In the sense of feeling personally responsible to spread the gospel, due to a probable psychotic episode? Here we enter into mere speculation.

Unsubstantiated assertion. We have no way of knowing what happened regarding the life of the person called Jesus of Nazareth in the NT, because we have zero reliable contemporary records. Maybe Jesus is pure fiction. Maybe there was a rabbi by that name who gained a significant following in the Galilee region. Maybe some people believed him to be Messiah - there were certainly a lot of contenders for the position at the time. Maybe there were Gentile believers outside of Israel who believed the Messiah to be a god-man. Who knows? I certainly don't.

Um - you make absurd claims such as the one refuted directly above, and then claim not to deal with imagination? Care to try again?

Fact is, you are the one making unfounded claims. You apparently don't understand the concept of reading the original Greek to find out what was meant by the word "apostle." Either that, or you're being defensive and refusing to look at the facts.

Fact: many people other than the 12 hand-picked disciples are referred to as apostles.

Fact: the word "apostle" is not now and has never been restricted solely to the hand-picked disciples of Jesus (look at a dictionary).

Fact: the Pauline writer appears to have believed himself to be "sent out" (apostolos) to preach the gospel. This is no different from any contemporary preacher who similarly feels himself to be "called" to preach the gospel. Your OP rant is no different from saying that Billy Graham was never "sent out" to preach the gospel.

Paul did not claim to be one of Jesus' 12 hand-picked disciples. So what's your beef?

aa5874

You must be joking?
Why did you not do a search yourself?

You are the one who made the claim Jesus had thousands of apostles.

Give me the book, the chapter and the verse.

But, your claim makes very little sense when I can show you that the word "apostles" was used in gMark, gMathew, and gLuke to mean the "12 hand-picked messengers/disciples" of Jesus.

Please read Matthew 10.2, Mark 6.30 and gLuke 6.13.

And, again you cannot show that anything in the Pauline writings were written before anything found in the Synoptics except perhaps the late long-ending of gMark.


Your statement is highly illogical.

How can the dating of the Pauline writings be a separate issue when we are dealing with words found in the Pauline writings and the meaning of the words at a particular time in antiquity.?

Are you not claiming that "apostle" in the Pauline writings have a different meaning to apostle in the Gospels due to a difference in the time they were written?

The dating of the Pauline writings is extremely critical and is a fundamental issue.


But, again, you are writing from imagination and not from sources of antiquity. There is no Jesus story in the Canon where Jesus hand-picked thousands of apostles or messengers.

You have become a victim of your own imagination and is making stuff up.


Don't you know what words mean any more?

I am claiming:

1. Saul/Paul was a fictitious 1st century character.
2. Saul/Paul did not write any Epistles in the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple.
3. All the information with respect to Jesus and Saul/Paul are LIES.
4. Saul/Paul was not apostle/messenger/disciple/follower or apostle in ANY SENSE before the FALL of the Temple.

The Epistles were not even written before the Fall of the Temple.

:

Well, if you don't know anything about Jesus how can you claim that my position is unsubstantiated.

But, my claims are substantiated and reasonable.

I know what the NT Canon say about Jesus.

The authors wrote that Jesus was the offspring of a GHOST.

Please read Matthew 1.18 and Luke 1.35.

The JESUS in the NT Canon, the offspring of the Holy Ghost, did not exist.

But, you know nothing about Ghost and if they exist?

But, you did not refute anything. You are on record as saying that you don't really know what you say about Jesus.

This is the conclusion of your refutation or confusion. Now, you seem not to know the difference between "refutation" and "confusion".

You appear a bit confused.

I made no unfounded claim. You are the one who is confused about the meaning of the Greek word for apostles in the Pauline writings. You say that there is some "different sense" or meaning to "apostle" in the Pauline writings and "apostle" in the Jesus stories.

But, if you examine the Greek word for "apostle" or "messenger" it is the same Greek word.

You simply cannot show that "apostle" in the Pauline writings is different to "apostle" elsewhere in the Canon since the very same Greek word is used in all cases.

It is your claim that is unsubstantiated.

But, why do you assume you know what Paul believe when you have already stated that ".....WE HAVE ZERO RELIABLE CONTEMPORARY RECORDS.........."

You have become a victim of your own ERRORS.

You really don't know what Paul believed and you really don't know when he wrote that he was an apostle or why he wrote he was an apostle.

The Paul of the Epistle to Timothy also claimed he was an apostle so did that Paul also believe that he was "sent out" or was that Paul sent out to LIE about being an apostle?

Please look at the OP. Look at my beef.

The offspring of the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ, did not exist.

HOW DID PAUL BECOME AN APOSTLE?

You don't have a clue?

The Pauline writers just lied. They all lived after the writings of Justin Martyr.