rlogan

Except that all manner of other names are also mentioned, and your excuse-making cannot have it both ways. None of them were the Christians' savior either.

There's your straw man. So let's put him away now. I did not say "tales of travels".

It is an entirely different statement that you are avoiding: Some anchor to the present or descriptive adjoinder that demonstrates the historical continuity.

This does not require a tale. If in fact there were Apostles and disciples then they would have done things such that very few words were necessary to refer to them. And yet there are none.

So stop turning the observation that there should be references demonstrating historical continuity into the straw man claim that the gospels need to go on with lengthy post-gospel tales.


Well they don't stop there so you're just plain wrong. Jesus comes back to earth in-spookio and his "appearance" to Paul is more of the same. So you need explanation for one vs. the other.


The primary reason to "suppose" he was not writing history is because he has spooks and bringing people back to life and all manner of other equally stupid things.

I find it remarkable how the excuse-makers try to compartmentalize all of this as if we can read Mother Goose's nursery rhymes by focusing in on one little line to determine its historicity.


This is devoid of any real substance and is merely a tautology. People do not write about things beyond the scope of their intent. Duh.

hatsoff

RLogan, you seem to have misunderstood what I'm saying: That the Gospels do not mention Paul is no indication the authors did not know of Paul, nor is it a point of evidence in favor of Jesus-mythicism.

Oh, and yes, I meant to say Luke ended with the Ascention, not the Resurrection. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

rlogan

I can only go with what you write, and this latest bit is pretty evasive in terms of addressing the OP. Paraphrased:

The Gospels did not mention Paul. But we can't conclude the writers did not know "Paul".

Well that certainly does not address the OP, does it? You have not supplied any reason why the gospels do not mention Paul. That isn't a reason.

This statement has the appearance of implying the gospel writers "knew" Paul, whatever that means, but decided not to put him in there. But I'm betting that you are actually not making that claim, because it would require a defense.

Well, I'm pretty well confident now you do not wish to address this in the context of all the other stupid mythical garbage about Jesus, the mining of the Hebrew Bible for his character, the lack of extrabiblical contemporary notice, etc - You need to take all of these one at a time and pretend the others do not exist because taking them collectively is overwhelming.

The fact that there is not one shred of historical continuity between the gospel's alleged time frame and that of the anonymous author is a bit of evidence explained nicely by myth. So is coming back from the dead. This is a positive explanation of what we have before us.

You, on the other hand, have no positive explanation whatsoever beyond "Luke didn't feel like it".


You are relentless with the straw man.

You keep pretending that the point at which the story "ends" is also the point at which any additional information whatsoever is prohibited. Even if one of the disciples later rose to worldwide fame, why - we can't mention that at all when we refer to him because it would be breaking the rule. "The martyr Peter". or "Paul the traveler" or what have you. Can't say that.

Cheers anyway.

hatsoff

That's an entirely inaccurate paraphrase. I don't see the need for such, anyhow, given that I've explained exactly what I mean very concisely:
Obviously the Gospel authors knew of Paul; for as you say Paul was famous in the community long before the Gospels were written.

What are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense.

When did I say "the Gospel writers knew Paul"?

Please, try to at least get your testimony straight, if not your facts.

rlogan

You believe the gospel writers knew OF Paul.

Can we just pin that down there and not try to shoot a moving target?


Really? Here's the OP, in case you've forgotten:

Have you explained this? No, you haven't.

Care to start discussing the OP now?

hatsoff

RLogan, I appreciate your enthusiasm for the topic, but I assure you it is indeed being discussed. If you scroll back to the OP, you'll see my explanation immediately below. That response, however, was challenged, which is how these peripheral issues were raised and pursued. Apparently you have not followed the flow of this thread, and perhaps more problematic have misunderstood key points of discussion. I don't know how I can be any clearer, though, so you may be stuck having to re-read the posts if you want to properly examine my opinion. Good luck with that.

Codec

The gospels do not speak about Paul, because he is not the subject of the gospels. You would not expect a biography of Julius Caesar to go into details about Augustus Caesar for instance.

The writers, or at least "Luke", knew of Paul, as he went on to document his travels in detail. Its quite possible the others knew about him too, but may have thought him a minor figure at the time. Its only in retrospect he becomes more important, probably due to his surviving letters. There may well have been many such missionaries, but if they were illiterate, or more bothered about preaching than writing stuff down we might never know.

Its not like Paul would have been headline news, it was a small sect at the time, and Paul was traveling far and wide. Some of the early people probably disagreed with Paul's views, and might have considered him a heretic.

There are many holes to be picked in the gospels, but I don't see Paul's non-inclusion as one of them.

Doug Shaver

If the New Testament had been written by a single person, or by a group of people under some kind of common editorial supervision, that might be a bit of a puzzle. But there was no such coordination.

The gospel authors might or might not have known about Paul's work. Even if they did know, they did not necessarily consider him a co-religionist.

Christian orthodoxy, of course, insists that they not only must have known about him but must have considered him one of their own. The rest of us are not obliged to assume any such things.

hatsoff

Luke does. Matthew chose to end with the Great Commission, instead, which is another perfectly natural conclusion. John ends his Gospel with the statement about there being much more to the story, but he did not have the stamina to write everything down. That one is a little more awkward, but still understandable. It's unclear how Mark originally ended his Gospel. The longer version ends with the Ascention, while what is left of the original document closes with the empty tomb. It is possible, however, that the autograph's conclusion was more complete.

In any case, I don't find any ending except for Mark's suspicious or unnatural, and that's a textual problem, not historical.

Clivedurdle

Is there actually any relationship between the gospels and Paul? Might Acts be a deliberate attempt to construct a non existent relationship?

Paul was waxing lyrical about his Christ, another lot humanised this Christ, a third editorial sweep joined them together?