aa5874

How can fiction pre-exist as a tradition with multiple unknown characters? All you have done is pre-determined, by your imaginative skills, that some Paul existed and fabricate a reason for his reality.

You say two existing traditions, with all these inconsistencies, fiction and multiple unknown characters, why not three, four or five. Let your imagination run wild.

Since you claim there were two pre-existing tradtions, from what credible source did you derive such information?

spamandham

No, all I've done is start by assuming there was a reason Tertullian wrote 'Against Marcion' and that the reason was not part of some grand pointless fiction conspiracy. If there were not multiple traditions, why on earth would Tertullian write it?

There's evidence of at least 2, that's why. If I see evidence of three, four, or more, then the conclusion will be there were three, four, or more. It doesn't matter to me that you consider this evidence worthless. I don't think your standards are even remotely reasonable.

If you consider all apologetic sources historically worthless, then how can you make any claims at all in regards to early Christian history? Almost all the evidence comes from such sources.

...the wheels on the bus go round and round.

aa5874

Well, that is the fundamental flaw with your position, you just assume and then regard your assumptions as credible.

You agree that Acts appears to be fiction and that there may have been more than one person using the name Paul, yet you continue to assume that you can, without external corroboration, determine which Paul lived and what he wrote. Tertullian, Irenaeus, Eusebius and the Churches didn't know Paul, they all thought he was the Paul in Acts, the Paul that wrote the three Pastorals, and the one who wrote to the seven Churches but they were all wrong.

You think you know Paul because you assume so.



That is what happens when you ignore the evidence, and make assumptions without verification from external credible sources.

spamandham

At the moment, we're discussing the evidence for 2 traditions, a claim you deny. We are not presently discussing who Paul was or what he may or may not have written.

aa5874

But the OP is about Paul, Jesus and the disciples and we have already agreed on the following.

1. Acts appears to be fiction,i.e the history of Paul.
2. There may be more than one person using the name Paul.
3. There appears to be no credible non-apologetic source for Paul.

And when I superimpose these three fundamental factors with the accounts of Eusebius in Church History and the NT, I conclude that Jesus, the disciples and Paul are fiction.

You on the other hand use the same three factors, with accounts frrom Tertullian, to claim there is evidence for two traditions, but your arguments can get nowhere because Tertullian never realised that the history of Paul was fiction, and that multiple personalities were posing as Paul. And to make matters worse, Tertullian would have written over 100 years after the supposed Paul.

What traditions are talking about? Tertullian was mis-led by "Paul" and he never realised it. Even Eusebius thought "Paul "was real, the Churches and even millions today, but they were mis-led.

spamandham

Arguments consist of smaller points. So far, I have been unable to get you beyond "Paul is fiction because his conversion story in Acts is clearly bogus and we only know about him through apologetic sources'.

True or false:
Tertullian counts as evidence of a second tradition he was opposed to.

DevilsAdvocate

Every argument here seems to hinge on the incredulity of the narative and the lack of independant secular confirmation that you find credible completely dismissing Josephus and Clement of Rome among many others as forgeries or co-conspirators. It is treated as if it is the only ancient literature with historical basis that has been embellished by retelling and editing, and it is therefore incredible in its entirity. These positions hardly add credibility to our positions any more than similar strategies of dismissal or claims of perfection add to the positions of biblical apologists. Why should any first or second century secular writers care about the personalities in this upstart jewish sect? There are references to the early Christian sect of the Jews (which is how the Romans viewed it) from Pliney and others regarding the Nazarene sect problem and how they should be managed, but no persons identified. Even Marcus Aurelius seems to reference the problem at one point, but in the mid to late second century it was not a big enough issue for him to be concerned in his most personal thoughts.

There will likely be no "proof" of any of this in reality, but to provide a balanced argument something more than the credibility of a few unusual details of the narative should be examined before resorting to conspiracy theories. As with other historical documents, the authenticity should be examined from the text itself to determine when the writtings would reasonably be assumed to have been penned based on the historic context reflected in the accounts, the structure, diversity and complexity of the language and accounts, and the general agreement and disagreement of the text.

There are two problems with doing this. One is that in doing so without bias one may find the text itself reflects knowledge and diversity of language, political perspective and customs a fourth century Greek or Latin speaking author would unlikely be familiar with, and the examination could support much earlier authorship... even in some cases fragments from before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The fabrication of semi-redundant texts with varying degrees of parallelism in three of the Gospels and almost complete departure from the structure and account in the case of the Gospel of John would point to an incredible degree of sophistication in a forgery to promote political ends. Reference to letters of Paul in the writings identified as Peter's (though even many apologists would argue that) could be viewed as adding some credulity.

The biggest problem is the same obstacle for both sides of the issue... It must be done in an unbiased manner without a preconceived notion as to the outcome. Our biases are extremely difficult to dismiss when we our purpose is to support a specific agenda. Having them reflected obviously in our argument and reflecting a superficial knowledge of what we are arguing against displays us as buffoons to more rational thinkers.

aa5874

Well, you probably have not read my posts. I have already shown clearly that Jesus, presented as a god and a man in the NT, becomes a completely fabricated character of fiction without the god element, for example, the author's story about the birth of Jesus and the genealogy of Joseph are transformed to a pack of lies without the god element.

Similarly, I have shown that Paul is fictionalised if he was never in contact with the god Jesus. Paul's conversion, his revelations, his gospel, not of or from man, and his ministry is critically dependent upon this god, but as soon as you dismiss the god factor, Paul becomes an outrageous liar.

So, if without the god aspect, Jesus and Paul are subjects of fiction, then by extension or deduction, it can be deduced that it is hardly likely that there was any Paul writing epistles about his conversion to Churches around the middle of the 1st century.

And to give my analysis a boost, no non-apologetic writer in the 1st century made mention of these two figures, even though they mentioned Herod the Great, Philip, Antiper , Cyrenius, John the Baptist, Tiberius, Pilate, Claudius, Gamaliel, Felix, Festus, Herodias, Nero, the Pharisees and the Ssdducees.

I do not regard Tertullian as a credible source when discussing Jesus, the disciples and Paul, and this lack of credibilty is extended to Philo and Josephus with respect to discussions about the God of the Jews, although I deem Josephus and Philo to be extremely useful in understanding the traditions of Jewish antiquity.

Tertullian counts as evidence of the other tradition called fiction in antiquity.

spamandham

Ok, so we at least agree that there is evidence for 2 traditions at some point. Can we agree that one of those traditions was Pauline?

Toto

Who is this our? Please note that aa5874 speaks only for himself and has been critiqued by both atheists and Christians.

Do you have an example where the Romans view Christians as a Jewish sect? The Jews were a legal religion, while the earliest references to Christians treat them as a mysterious but illegal conspiracy.

I hope you stick around. This thread is not typical of this forum.