jules?

I may need to refreshed on what letters are his vs the later fakes but when Paul mentions his plight in prison is it real and because of persicution or is he a prisoner of his faith?

Jules

Toto

There are 2 mentions of "prison" in the Pauline epistles:

Romans 16:7
Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

I don't know of any commentary on this.

2 Corinthians 11:23
Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again.

This passage has been discussed as an exercise in rhetoric in which Paul "plays the fool." He could very well have been speaking in metaphors, or satire.

There are other references to Paul being in prison in Acts, but since in one case he is saved by a miraculous earthquake that opens the doors, a standard convention of Hellenistic drama, this seems unreliable.

Tim Holt

Philemon begins "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus" too, for what it's worth.

aa5874

In the epistles, "Paul" is exteremly vague about being in prison. There are no details with respect to lenght of time, geographical location, the reason for being imprisonned, or the chronology of his imprisonment.

And, as far as I understand, "Paul" has not been confirmed to be a figure of history.

Solitary Man

Yeah, all those letters are really just imaginary. They don't exist. :huh:

I want the record to show that aa5874 has not been confirmed to be a figure of history.

aa5874

Do you not understand that forgeries were rampant in antiquity? The way the epistles are structured they are easily manipulated. For example, the word "Paul" is only found once in the entire epistles to the Romans, in the very first verse. The original writers's name could have been removed and "Paul" inserted.

Romans 1.1, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle........"

Maybe it originally read, Peter, Cephas, Matthew, John or one of the original eleven apostles and not "Paul"who was never named as an apostle in the Gospels.

Solitary Man

Except that it's universally attested that Paul was the author by Christians and Gnostics of all stripes and colors, and there's absolutely no evidence for any tampering with the author's name, nor any textual witnesses that read differently.

Zero evidence at all for your theory.

aa5874

Don't you understand that Biblical scholars claim the 'Pauline" epistles were tampered with? Who exactly are these "Pauls"?

Solitary Man

Don't you understand that you don't know what you're talking about? There weren't multiple Pauls. Biblical scholarship claims that there are seven genuine epistles: Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, I Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon. The other letters, based on stylistic evidence and evidence from content, are thought to be forgeries, people writing in the name of Paul. And lastly there is interpolation and redaction/editing from people who are not Paul in Paul's letters, authentic and non.

Classical scholarship also claims that the three books on war, Bellum Alexandrinum, Bellum Africanum, and Bellum Hispaniense, were not written by Caesar, even though they've came down through tradition as being written by him. Does that negate Caesar's existence? No. Your criteria for determining existence is bunk.

aa5874

These "Pauls" are not in any history book, they cannot negate any of the Caesars written by Suetonius, Tacitus, Josephus, Philo, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger, and others.

Your "Paul" is not known or written about by anyone outside the Church and the NT.