aa5874

If I were to say that I "feel" you are wrong since I get the opposite "feeling" then nothing would be resolved.

I hope you understand that "feelings" are quite subjective.


Once you ADMIT that you have NO RATIONAL argument authenticity other than "its what he says and how he says it" then you have an extremely weak proposition.

The Curch writers did not claim Jesus was human, they claimed he was the Word, who was God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the offspring of a Ghost of God who was RAISED from the dead.

Now, the Pauline writings are about the RESURRECTED AFTERLIFE of Jesus and how he (PAUL) got his apostleship and gospel from the "FIRSTBORN of the dead."

The Pauline writers taught that the RESURRECTION was the most significant accomplishment of Jesus without which mankind would REMAIN in sin and that his preaching would be in vain.

Paul is essentially saying, "It's the resurrection stupid.


Asking WHY is NOT PROOF.

You need to find a corroborative source for the Pauline writers external of apologetics.

1. WHY doesn't ”Paul” mention and visit the places where Jesus was supposed to have been crucified and buried?

Once Jesus did not exist where would "Paul" visit?

2.Why didn't the fabricator from the RCC make Paul ”take a tour” of the holy places guided by Peter?

Once Peter did not exist who would take "Paul" on the tour?

3.Why did he allow Paul to say that his gospel was of no man?

Once Jesus was believed to be a God/man what would he allow Paul to say?

4.Why did he allow Paul to say that he was brought up into the third heaven and heard words which no man before him had heard, including Peter and the like?

How do you know Paul's count was correct? What if it there was NO heaven to count?

Even atheists believed the earth was flat.

And there goes "Chinese whispers", There goes the rumor mill. "Almost every scholar believe" so I believe".

Please state what is the basis for the mantra "almost every scholar believe"?

It must be when you have NO EVIDENCE.

No Church writer claimed the Pauline Jesus was crucified in any heaven. Not all scholars believe what you believe. Why don't you NOW believe what "most scholars believe."

You are in the minority.
You have become a victim of the RUMOR mill.

Littlejohn

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".. The truth does must be not researched in what the
priests affirm, but mainly in what they are trying to hide..."

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The concept expressed by this 'adage', has always guided me in over 14 years of study and research, from when, that is, I began to realize that the Catholic clergy hid 'something'.

Through patient researches and exhausting participations to discussion's forums, through which I gained very important research's hints, this 'something' began gradually to take shape and magnify up to show the disconcerting 'mosaic' alleging to origins of the catholic christianity, as well as to the true historical profiles of the characters involved in the human story of very historical character who is still today is called 'Jesus Christ'.

Strive themselves to demonstrate that Christianity is simply the result of an disconcerting deception, does not necessarily mean having to prove, against all logic and rational thought, that Jesus of Nazareth was himself an invention of the forger fathers who gave life to Catholic Christianity! .. This is absurd and against any scientific premise, since the evidences about existence of a historical character who was called Jesus, there are more than enough. There are other evidences also, of which, however, one can take act only after made 'to emerge' the TRUE historical profile of Jesus of Nazareth!

Since, contrary to what is said by counterfeiter 'evangelists', Jesus not only frequented the school, but also with good profit, given its excellent intelligence, he also wrote several works, one of which is now public domain, although no scholar in the whole world knows that the original text of this work was written just by Jesus of Nazareth! (Strictly speaking the truth, must be said that it is difficult to say how much of the original work of Jesus is contained in the text to which I was referring)

What I find absolutely incomprehensible in your position and in that of others who seems to share your point of view, is that to you seem much more important to try to demonstrate the non-historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, rather than the absolute falsity of bases on which was developed the Catholic Christianity! .. Again repeat, for the latter goal is not absolutely necessary demonstrate the one that at all persons of common sense seems quite unlikely, given the evidences: namely not historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth!

Greetinges


Littlejohn

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FUNNY NOTE: the Google translator go crazy when correctly must translate the pronoun 'YOU': ie it not well understand when translate 'you' in the form of the second singular person or plural. I'm asked more times why, at least in the United States, has not ever formed a committee of people with the aim to reintroduce the pronoun 'THOU' in the English grammar, still well present into it until the first decades of the nineteenth century!

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Transient

Look mate - if there was some dude who went by the name of Yahashua or some other name (your "Jesus") that these stories were based on then it is irrelevant really because he obviously did not do all the miracles, raise people from the dead etc. So IF there was some guy then probably he did very little at all - you are never going to know anyway and what's the point - if there was a god who came down and got himself killed (whatever that could mean) he did a pretty lousy job of preserving any details of his short life - it is absurd really

Littlejohn

I'm afraid, mate, you have mistaken my position (agnostic) with that of the Catholic believer! .. They are two completely different things!

Affirm the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth does not mean automatically believe in his supposed 'miracles', nor that he was a God or son of God .. All this was the product of the hallucinating lies and deceptions produced by 'holy' counterfeiter fathers about 19 centuries ago!

In Gnostic literature, the one handed down to us through 'quoting' of the heresiologist fathers, does not mention either of the 'miracles' of Jesus, nor his crucifixion, nor his resurrection or that of others, nor that he was God or the Son of God. Jesus, like John the Baptist, his teacher, was regarded rather as a 'Saviour' and a 'Perfect': typical Gnostic concepts.

The reason why into Gnostic literature (see, for example, the Gospel of Thomas) are completely absent 'miracles', is very simple: the TRUE followers and TRUE disciples of Jesus, knew that all the 'miracles' made by the Nazarene, were nothing but mere 'circus tricks', that Jesus, experienced magician and illusionist (thanks to 'training' received in Egypt) performed brilliantly to attract his 'audience', and this for different purposes.

John the Baptist, teacher and 'initiator' of Jesus, he also used the 'magic art' (see the literature of the Mandaeans) (*) in order to attract its potential followers, to the mere purpose of conveying his 'message'. (surely Jesus don't one only limited to this: another aspect that contributed to put him in 'shock' with John the Baptist, which was very debtor)




Greetings

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Note:

(*) - In the Mandaean literature has reported that John performed of the 'wonderful works' MOST POWERFUL than those of Jesus (surely an exaggeration of part, because, almost certainly, Jesus was the best of all, and just was this has allowed him to enter in the story!)


Littlejohn

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darstec

In this day and age, minority cannot be a validation. Up until the age of the Internet, there was nowhere a dissenter could go and still make a living. Orthodoxy ruled. A few years earlier and the loss of a job contradicting Orthodoxy would be the least of a scholar's worries. Of major concern might be how many seconds it would take for the skin to blister off.

So now we come to an age of expression when some can speak out without worry. Thus we see more and more scholars contradicting the established orthodoxy.

Why does Paul have to either precede or succeed the gospels? Perhaps they are contemporaneous with them or a couple of years before them, all the products of an ante Hadrian invasion and destruction.

Total removal from one's land under penalty of death and extermination of all one holds sacred will often lead to a re-examination of one's core beliefs. Just look at all the former prison residents, alcoholics and drug users who suddenly find Jesus in a day and age where it is near impossible to escape mention of him.

charles

Am I the only one who feels that this debate suffers from the ambiguity of the original question? What does 'authenticity' even imply? It could signify a range of meanings from the suggestion that like the Pastorals all the letters are posthumous inventions to the understanding that some letters were written by Paul but subsequently falsified to the idea that Paul wrote all the letters but shouldn't have had the authority to make pronouncements on doctrine. I am not sure I understand the original question.

Toto

Go back and read the OP. The emphasis is on "presume" - not authenticity. The standard approach from NT scholars has been to assume that the letters of Paul are authentic unless proven otherwise.

I think that your first two options are reasonable alternatives. No one is concerned here about whether Paul had authority to make pronouncement on doctrine. (That's a theological question.)

darstec

How could Jesus of Nazareth have existed if Nazareth itself did not exist?

And let us suppose that contrary to all evidence that Nazareth did exist in the first century CE. Which exact Jesus are we talking about? Experts say that a town like Jerusalem would have had a minimum of 100 Jesus characters and at least a quarter of them with fathers by the name of Joseph. But of course you realize that none of them were actually named Jesus, don't you?

The closest they could have come would be some Greek citizen named iesous.

darstec

You have the perfect right to quote them, but that does not make a bit of difference until you can tell us what real evidence besides faith that they are basing their proclamations on.

And until you actually engage these professors, I doubt you will know what they personally believe as distinguished from what they write to get for instance that Imprimatur or Nihil Obstat on their books. Trust me on this, many of them write one thing but would never allow a thinking student to get away with quoting the party line in an advanced class. In other words, YES, they know they are lying in their books.

Littlejohn

None of 'pauline' epistles was written before of the Gospels, which were all composed in the second century. However, any letters report some material (a little) that surely was written in the first century.

Greetings

Littlejohn

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