Duvduv

So what was going on in the 2nd century into the 3rd century?
Various assorted small fellowships of Greek philosophy-influenced gentiles who liked the Jewish scriptures and were trying to reconcile them in various and assorted ways. They had all types of stories, teachings and traditions that focused on someone or something called Jesus Christ, on the basis of the original phenomenon of Yeshu ben Pandera of 60 BCE. Things started crystalizing and changing in the 3rd century as the orthodox gained ascendancy thanks to their worldliness as opposed to ascetic lifestyle that characterized other Christ groups.

aa5874

It is my opinion based on the evidence that there was NO character called Paul, a Pharisee, before the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE who preached about a resurrected Messianic ruler that was the END of Jewish Law and had a name above every other name in the Roman Empire.

In effect, there was NO great preacher called Paul.

In effect, Paul is an invented character with his so-called Epistles and Churches.

It is NOT realistic that people of antiquity knew Paul actually lived in the 2nd century and that the Church would have claimed the same 2nd century Paul lived 100 years earlier and was KNOWN all over the Roman Empire.

Paul was an unknown fictitious character and preached NOTHING at any time.

By contrast, the single reference to the "Acts of Pontius Pilate" must be an interpolation, because if Justin were writing to the emperor and lying to him about his archives, he would face the music for that alone. It would appear that the reason there are no interpolations referring to the named canonical gospels or Paul is that there was a limit to which interpolations were allowed. In all likelihood interpolations were not intentional forgeries but scribal insertions of marginal glosses and comments that he thought were part of the text.
Well, in Acts of the Apostles 9.25, the author claimed HIS PAUL was in a basket by a wall in Damascus and in 2 Cor. 11.32-33 the Pauline writer ADMITTED he was indeed in a basket by a wall in Damascus.

And further, Both Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline writings put forward the claim that a character called Paul did PREACH Christ all over the Roman Empire and the author of Acts claimed he also TRAVELED with Paul.

The author of Acts appears to want his readers to believe that he was a WITNESS to Paul

Duvduv

Yes, that might be the case. But so what? He also told stories about "Peter" who at least "had seen his Christ" face to face both before and after the resurrection.
The epistles don't actually put forward that a guy named Paul preached in the 1st century, etc., only the name was used. It would appear that the Church was UNABLE TO attribute such teachings to any other name about the indwelling of the Christ, even though there must certainly have been other individuals (apostles) who believed and preached the indwelling of the Christ.

Interestingly, the transition from Saul to Paul does not work in Hebrew. Saul in Hebrew is SHA'OOL, and the best Hebrew does with Paul is POWLOOS. Very different.
Also rather interesting that even in Acts the author does not show his Paul showing the slightest awe and reverence for those people who were believed to have seen and spoken to an earthly Christ. Nothing. Although such individuals were said to have seen him after his resurrection.

Toto

Duvduv - Robert M Price has a book coming out on Paul in 2012 - "Paul the Colossal Apostle." I think it will shed some light on these questions, or at least be entertaining.

Price does a regular Podcast that you might be interested in.

Toto

Paul is not a translation of Saul.

Paul means "Runt" or "the Short." In Acts 13, "Saul" meets a high official named "Paulus" and we are told that Saul's name is also Paulus. (Presumably he had three names, as most Roman citizens did.)

There is a school of thought that the original Paul was really Simon Magus, and the epithet Paul was used as a play on Magus (which means the Big or the Great.)

tanya

Do you give credence to the report that Justin Martyr claimed that Simon asserted divine status?

What of the school of thought that the original Paul was Marcion?

In both Latin and Greek? παυλοϲ ?

aa5874

The epistles do claim Paul was in Damascus during the reign of Aretas.

2 Cor.12.32-33 Also in Galatians, there is a claim that Paul was in Damascus AFTER he was called to preach the Gospel to the heathen.

Galatians 1 It is definitely claimed in the epistles that Paul was in Damascus during the reign of Aretas in the 1st century.

Toto

Which Aretas? Aretas III in the first century BCE was the last King Aretas to have any control over Damascus. Everyone tries to tie Paul to Aretas IV, but the story doesn't hang together.

Not to mention that the story of escaping through a hole in the wall was lifted from the Hebrew Scriptures, and we have no reason to think that it actually happened.

Duvduv

"Apostles before me" sounds anticlimactic.......these apostles had seen and witnessed their Savior before and after the the resurrection, and Paul expresses no awe or reverence whatsoever about them. This doesn't even arise by the author of Acts, who apparently had no access to the canonical gospel stories. His intents do not tie his Paul at all to the historical story of the Jesus figure.

Duvduv

I suppose this could be a composite, since we never read anything significant about Paul being around the country when both he and Jesus would have been alive, since they were the same age. No reverence for the places Jesus walked in the first century, born, crucified, nothing. In and out. A quick visit to Jerusalem. Maybe the visitor to Aretas was originally unrelated to the author of Galatians.