Ben C Smith

Another Paul? More writings of Paul? How did you arrive at the conclusion that the Acts of Paul were supposed to have been written by Paul?

Ben.

DevilsAdvocate

I was just trying your assertions contrasting the literary characters of Paul in Acts and Epistles. I will review them to see what I missed.

I believe that you can compare the accounts in Acts with historical data and there are significan accuracies as to places, times and cultures of the first century.
I also believe that the contrasts you made of the 2 literary Pauls are sometimes contradicted by the parallel texts of Acts and Epistles....Though my hastily reconstructed timeline was not without errors. A more carefully stated timeline I think would show the same.



I don't think I misunderstand. The Sadducees of the first century were historically responsible for the temple functions. They were a political as well as religious group. Every believing orthodox Jew of the time had serious business with the temple and therefore did business with the Sadducees.The Pharisees were orthodox and observed the temple sacrifices etc. accordingly. The Sadducees disappeared with the destruction of the temple.

The Pharisees credibility had reportedly declined somewhat by the first century, but they were still a significant influence. Their center of influence was the social control of the Synagogues.

Sadducees and Pharisees were both represented in the Sanhedrin. They did business and cooperated with each other all the time.

I cannot confirm or deny. I have no position. The point is there are quite a number of these seemingly insignificant details so that someone had to have a very intimate knowledge of all of these places in order to construct the narrative from whole cloth. Unless they followed this route about the same time, it seems implausible. I am open to explanations.

I don't think I assume anything.
I don't assume the texts were written as is by their traditional authors. Nor do I assume there was an intentional creation of the texts for political purpose. I assume we have the texts that can be examined with or without bias and we have parallel historic data in literature and archaeology that we can compare with.

I do not assume Acts is historical. I do not assume Acts is without historical basis or a later fabrication to justify a political position. Neither couds my evaluation.

I do not assume Paul is historical. I do not assume he was not without an historical character basis. Neither couds my evaluation.


I do not assume christian apologists are wrong. I do not presume historians and scholars that argue against their beliefs are wrong. Neither couds my evaluation.

To assume any of these is to accept a bias and create a blindness.

I have read many scolars over many years. Some are bunk speaking opinions without basis. Others have some good points and scholarship. I will read those you suggest as well.

spamandham

The story would work just fine as is. There's no reason YOU or even the church of Scientology would have to be fiction, just because the church was rooted in a fictional story about aliens.

The same holds for Paul and Christianity. Just because the Jesus story is fiction, does not mean that the church was invented in the 4th century complete with a bogus history and different strata in the documents to fool even those who would only have the ability to detect such strata 1600 years later.

Ben C Smith

Not to my knowledge. I think confrontation between Paul and the pillars is conspicuous in its absence in Acts. (BTW, I was listing the things I thought could be found in Acts in some way; that is why this confrontation went unmentioned. )

I even have a related pet hypothesis as to why Acts does not mention Titus at all, who according to the epistles was a prominent Pauline lieutenant. Titus was the object lesson for noncircumcision that Paul throws in the faces of those who favor purity laws (Galatians), and Titus was instrumental in organizing the collection that eventually got Paul in trouble in Jerusalem (Corinthians). Acts slurs over both the purity dispute and the collection for Jerusalem, apparently in the interests of suppressing the early controversies, and thus has no strong impetus to mention the man at the heart of both of them.

(Speculation alert: If the author of Acts is also the author of the pastoral epistles, or if these works come from the same circle, then Titus 3.9 may be a sort of rehabilitation of the historical figure of Titus from the controversies that surrounded him: But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.)

Ben.

schilling.klaus

all nonsesnse.
The canonical Pauline epistles are fraudulent forgeries front and back,
believed authentic by extreme naivelings only.

no, it is not fiction, it's a spiritual allegory.
Those who don't understand this are not qualified to talk about Christian origins.

Klaus Schilling

Amaleq13

Thanks. I suspected as much.

(emphasis mine)
So the part in bold remains a discrepancy between the two.

Good point regarding Titus.

aa5874

But, your story is all fiction. Your fabrication is of little value, except for speculative purposes.

These are the facts:
1. You agree that Acts contains fiction about "Paul".
2. More that one person used the name "Paul" in the Epistles.
3. The date of writing of Acts has been not determined.
4. Justin Martyr up to the middle of the 2nd did not mention the Acts of the Apostles.

I have therefore no choice but to reject the Epistles and Acts as fiction, until further credible non-apologetic information can be derived.

You, on the other hand, disregard the facts and propose that you can identify a single figure of history called "Paul" using the very mis-leading and erroneous information from the NT and Church fathers.

Until you can provide some credible external information about this "Paul" who was fictitiously converted on the road to Damascus by a bright light, then your opinion is just baseless speculation substantiated by fiction.

spamandham

...and I'm simply to take your word for that? That's the whole crux of this discussion. If it is shown that they are indeed 3rd/4th century forgeries in whole, then I'll concede that Paul is fictional.

If you want to claim they are later frauds, it's up to you to explain the motive behind the fraud (and not just a flippant, oh it helps the fraud for Jesus, because it certainly does not). It's also up to you to explain why there are clear strata in these writings, indicating a serial change in theology over time - long before the ability to detect such strata even existed.

By the way, if you want to label someone else's efforts as 'nonsense', at least spell 'nonsense' right. Misspelling combined with arrogance gives the impression of hasty cocksure ignorance.



I can understand the claim that it's allegorical fiction regarding the plight of the Jewish people, but a spiritual allegory? What does that even mean in the context of the Gospels?

spamandham

Of course it's fiction. The point is to demonstrate the simplicity of my approach.

We are arguing over which explanation fits the evidence in the simplest manner. Your position does not adequately explain the facts:

- Inventing Paul as a purely fictional character would not have aided anyone in perpetrating a Jesus fraud, since the historicity of Jesus was not even in question, and since Paul's message does not reinforce the Gospel Jesus. Paul complicates the fraud rather than simplifying it.

- Attributing a bunch of writings to the fictional character Paul would not make any sense at all. Paul would not yet be considered an authority figure, as no-one would have even heard about him prior to the fraud

- The epistles contain layers of editing where it's clear (to us due to our methods) that the theology had changed between edits. The ancients did not have the ability to detect this, so arguing that it was an elaborate ruse to give the appearance of time sounds a bit like creationists trying to explain away the 'apparent' age of the earth.

You have at least two other choices:

1) Come up with a model that better fits the evidence and does not require implausibilities.

2) Take the agnostic position in regards to the historicity of Paul

I have not disregarded the facts, I've interpreted them into a simpler explanation that requires no implausibilities.

aa5874

Why would a presbyter, an elder of a church, make false claims about "Paul"? How many presbyters made false claims about "Paul"?