Originally Posted by gurugeorge

I think "Paul". As a matter of general principle, I don't really see any reason to stray too far from biblical scholarship's findings. Although I do entertain other possibilities, like him being a fabrication as aa says, or as the Dutch Radicals said, I think that if there are as many proto-gnostic sounding passages in "Paul" as some say, then they wouldn't have been put in an orthodox document written afresh. It looks like they had to be there because (parts at least) of the letters were well known and loved, and they could only be hedged around with orthodox fenceposts, not obliterated entirely. Those proto-gnostic passages must have been in the original documents, whatever they were, whether letters, or a "memoir of an apostle", or whatever, and by whomever written. Whatever the case, they had to be kept in for some reason.

The key here is to see the growing fight between an already-established but disparate and scattered (and already mutating) movement that's pretty much mystical and proto-gnostic on the one hand, and a burgeoning and powerful tendency, probably centred in Rome and Alexandria, to unify the religion, on the other This latter, and later (post-Diaspora) development, just happens to be the part of the Christian movement that had a much more well-defined historical view of the cult figure than other parts of the movement, placing him in a more specific time and place, and with a more specific biography. I surmise that one of the important influences here is the idea of the exemplary Stoic biography (the idea that a biography should exemplify philosophical principles put into action). Roman Christians would probably have had a stronger Stoic philosophical influence on them, and as practical, clever men, moved by emotions but not of a very mystical temperament, they wanted more detail, they wanted more of a story, and they thought Stoic-like biographies would be the best "setting" for the teachings. I think it's maybe an early attempt by Justin Martyr's buddies to cook up something like this that he is referring to by the "memoirs of the apostles". I think already at that time the idea must have been brewing amongst the early orthodoxy, to reinvent the apostles as having been people who knew the cult figure personally (as opposed to the genuine apostles, who were the early Jerusalem crowd and "Paul" and maybe others, all of whom were believers in a crude, un-fleshed-out Jewish Mysteries/Messiah saviour figure). i.e. they were able to take advantage of a kind of ambuguity in "Paul's" re-affirmation of the creed in Corinthians, to make out that the Jerusalem crowd weren't just the founders of the Joshua Messiah idea, but they had known Joshua Messiah personally. I think that "Peter", the real fabrication in Acts, represents post-Diaspora Jewish Christians, who colluded with the Roman Christians to create this illusion of a lineage going back to the cult figure himself (through them of course - and who'd be any the wiser?).

And that's the hidden, political purpose of the "hardening" of the historical Joshua Messiah - in order to trump the lineages of those "heretical" (to the orthodox) but already entrenched churches descended from the merely visionary "Paul". Orthodoxy had a battle on its hands, to bring to heel the Christian movement as a whole, and this was its main weapon - the forging of a lineage to the cult figure, bypassing "Paul" (who was actually the real founder of the Roman church, just like most of the others - which is why they had to have him shake hands with "Peter" in Acts). It may even be Marcion who gave the proto-orthodoxy the idea of having a unified Canon. But I think they came up with the hokey lineage before that.

I think pre-Diaspora there would already have been some "folk" attempts, even by the proto-Gnostics, to "fill in" the cult figure's mythical biography, and maybe some basic storyline sketch and some wisdom sayings. It's conceivable that this mythico-biographical sketch influenced Marcion, who created what eventually became Luke at the hands of the same individual or team that wrote Acts. Roundabout the same time as Marcion, the same biographical sketch influenced "Mark" (I take the post-135 dating for Mark, following Detering; and obviously I'm going with the later-than-consensus 125-130 dating for Acts.).

Other things to consider: "Paul" was called "the Apostle of the heretics" by Tertullian. If anything is a "smoking gun", or a something revealing that a Church Father let slip, this is it. "Paul" was claimed as their founding apostle by some of the later, full-blown Gnostic churches; students of "Paul's" were claimed as the teachers of Marcion and of Valentinus. Luke was supposedly the favourite gospel of Gnostics.

I think the "hot spot" in time for the invention of what became Christianity as we know it is from the period of the Pastoral Epistles, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr - 120-150 CE, and the formation of the Canon (including most especially the record-setting-straight Acts) in response to Marcion. Before that, Christianity is a small, scattered, disparate movement already developing from proto-Gnosticism into sundry offshoots, some more philosophical, some more mystical, some more Jewish - and some, indeed, becoming what later became orthdox.

Originally Posted by LogicandReason

Perhaps the miracle-worker was Paul.

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

I think "Paul". As a matter of general principle, I don't really see any reason to stray too far from biblical scholarship's findings.

Originally Posted by mountainman

Dear LogicandReason,

Have you had the time to acquaint yourself with the historical figure of Apollonius of Tyana who has on several occassions attracted comparisons to Paul (who, heaven forbid, for all we known, may have been an invention of Eusebius). Moreover, in an article entitled Hermes Trismegistus and Apollonius of Tyana in the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh the author Keven Brown cites numerous instances in which Apollonius is viewed as both a man of letters (collected after his death), an author of books (collected after his death) a travelling sage and philosopher, and at one time a pythagorean priest in the service to the healing god Asclepius. Unlike the christian counterparts, we have monumental (ie: non literary) evidence in positive support towards the genuine historicity of Apollonius.




Best wishes,


Pete

Originally Posted by aa5874

But, the letter writers called Paul made it appear that the Jesus stories were already known and that there were apostles that predated Paul. These apostles were already preaching the Jesus stories with the gospel of circumcision.


The letter writers implied that the Jesus stories, the gospel, was already known when the writers claimed they were persecuting Jesus believers.

Even the letter writers made it appear that they post-date the gospels.

See Galations 1-2, the supposed Peter was already preaching the "gospel of circumcision" before the letter writers preached their "gospel of UNcircumcision".

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

From what perspective was Paul writing?

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/gopher/oth...gels%20(Green)

Originally Posted by LogicandReason

How much worse can the truth be than a man crucified is the Messiah?

Originally Posted by Lucis

the crucifiction was fiction.

crucifixion. do you know what an ixion is?

"Therefore, Ixion is bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens,[8] but in later myth transferred to Tartarus"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixion

the crucifixion is not entirely fiction. you have to understand the symbolism.

Originally Posted by LogicandReason

This is true, but how do we deduce that Peter had a written "Gospel?" It has always intrigued me that Paul spends more time discussing Jewish piety rules than the life of Jesus. I think the letter writer is only name-dropping.

Originally Posted by aa5874

It is a complete fallacy to claim the letter writers called Paul were the first to write about the gospel story or the first to know of the gospel story, the letter writers themselves acknowledged that there were apostles of Jesus before them and that Peter, apostle of Jesus, preached the gospel of circumcision.

If the letter writers called Paul did actually preceed the apostles and Peter and the letter writers were actually the first to write about the gospels, I think that the letter writers would have made it absoluetly clear in their letters, however the writers called Paul made it clear that Peter and the apostles preceeded them and were already preaching the gospel to the Jews.

Romans 16.7

Galations 1.20-22

The letter writers called Paul swear that people knew of Christ before they were converted.

They (Paul) were not the first, they were last.

Even Jesus, from heaven, revealed to the letter writers that they were last.

1 Corinthians 15.3-8
The letter writers called Paul probably read the Jesus stories and then falsely claimed they had revelations.