S.C.Carlson

No person named Saulus in the NT? Maybe your copy of the NT is missing Acts 7:58; 8:1, 3; 9:1, 8, 11, 22, 24; 11:25, 30; 12:25; 13:1, 2, 7, and 9. Mine isn't.

Stephen

Doug Shaver

He spells his name Humphreys.

If Paul did not exist, where did Marcion get the idea for him? More particularly, based solely on the material in the letters, what made Marcion think that any Christian would pay any attention to whatever its purported author had to say, if this way a man no Christian had ever heard of before?

I agree that Acts was a work of fiction.

Somebody had to write them. The author claims to have been an itinerant Christian preacher acquainted with the leadership of a group of Christians in Jerusalem, among whom he identifies three as Cephas, James, and John. That such a person existed, and that he wrote a few letters that survived long enough to be preserved for posterity, is not improbable on its face. Assuming his existence, that a fictional version of his ministry would have been incorporated into a fictional account of Christianity's origins is pretty nearly to be expected.

Doug Shaver

The way the author of Acts tells it, it is.

The author of the Pauline epistles says he was converted, but he says essentially nothing about how it happened. He also tells us nothing useful about his previous life except that he persecuted the church, and even that doesn't really say anything. We have all seen what some Christians can construe as persecution.

Doug Shaver

If the letters were faked, what evidence is there that he established any churches?

Doug Shaver

Whoever the authors were did not claim to be the man whose opinions they were promulgating.

aa5874

Nonsense, you are fabricating names. The NT was written in Greek not Latin. Saul is the name in all the verses you quoted.

youngalexander

I notice that Humphreys has a book for sale Jesus Never Existed
Has anyone read this? Looks like a bit of a mishmash of the usual suspects - anything original?
Entertaining site, seems well written.

S.C.Carlson

All the verses I cited have Σαυλος, not Σαουλ.

Stephen

Chris Weimer

Saulus is the Latin transcription of the Greek Σαυλος. As Stephen mentions, he's closer to the original than you.

aa5874

So from Greek to English, the name is Saul. From Greek to Latin, the name is Saulus.

But in any event how can we link the 'Saulus' in Josephus with Saul/Paul in the NT?