aa5874

When the dates are examined we see a BIG BLACK HOLE for the 1st century. Based on the DATED evidence and Apologetic sources that are compatible with the dated sources the Pauline writings are Anti-Marcionite texts written some time from the mid 2nd century or later.

In Galatians, the author wrote about James, John and Peter/Cephas but these characters are found in the Gospels.

There is NO evidence that James, John and Cephas/Peter did actually live and there is NO evidence that there was a Jesus with disciples or apostles.

The dated evidence suggests that the Pauline writer composed their letters AFTER the Jesus stories were KNOWN and circulated by BELIEVERS.

Paul claimed he was a Persecutor of the Faith in Galatians.

Apologetic sources did claim the Jesus cult of Christians were being persecuted in the 2nd century and there is NO eveidence that a Jesus cult was persecuted in the 1st century before c 70 CE.

angelo

I would place Josephus entire Testemunium and Tacitus in the same boat. Christian forgeries. The whole foundation of christianity is very shaky indeed.

Duvduv

In this case it is apparently the case that the idea that the epistles represent a celestial/myth Jesus sect does rest on the argument that th epistles are single documents (with occasional interpolations) written by a single person called "Paul." Therefore, one can argue that if these letters are actually composites then the mythist argument for them disappears.

Sheshbazzar

I don't see how that follows. Writers and editors can make up situations and dialog and add it in long after the original author has died.
The preacher down on the corner makes up shit for his sermons every week, if someone is impressed enough with it, it gets repeated and passed on, and often reworked, added to, and elaborated in the tellings, whether it started out as factual or true or not.
Hell, when I was a kid, us old time 'Holiness Church' kids used to make up ghost stories, and had a hilarious time playing 'Chinese Whispers'.
As I now see it, these were juvenile practice runs (aided and abetted by our elders) for when we would become adult Christians and need to invent our own impressive sounding 'testimonies'.
My last job, I worked alongside a Pastor's wife, and ghost stories were quite literally her every day stock and trade, just about every house they had ever lived in had been haunted by ghosts.
No doubt she was very successful and popular as a Pastors wife, terrific at planting superstition, and training children to tell absolute boners with a straight face.

Multiple authors writing under the Pseudonym of 'Paul' are just as capable of producing and promoting, or adding to a mythology as is any single author.



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Duvduv

In that case, Shesh, you mean that the compositor who combined the letters/tracts may still have believed in a celestial Jesus. However, the truth is we could never know since it is equally possible that an historical Jesus believer made the composite at an early stage before the appearance of the gospels..

sotto voce

That doesn't actually happen. There have been many thousands of 'interpretations' made of some part of the Bible, but none of them get general assent, get included in the New Testament; if they survive at all, which most have not. It may be supposed that, in a world of oral culture, similar limitation occurred. Tall tales fell short, sooner or later.

What if they did? It's a great red herring, this authorship debate. The believer doesn't say, "This is from Paul, I must take notice." The believer says, "Yes, that sounds just right." And doesn't care who wrote it. The Bible is what a believer thinks he could have written himself; that is how it is defined; not by authorship, nor by any external authority. Just the text.

To demonstrate that the autographs have not been adequately presented in the texts used for translation, one has to find discrepancies and self-contradiction. That's not an easy task.

Sheshbazzar

I believe in human nature. It hasn't changed all that much.
Does that Christian next door really believe their house is haunted by ghosts? Or that the tombs opened and many zombie saints wandered around Jerusalem?
The writer and/or the compositors and the Pastor's wife may or may not have convinced themselves that they believed in a celestial Jesus, or a Jesus of faith.
What they testify to, and what they write has little bearing upon any reality, and in fact, little bearing upon what they might have actually believed.
Once the religious superstitious horse-shit gets spread, some people just naturally following their human nature cannot resist that temptation to add additional layers of horse-shit on top of it. And the herd mentality sets up a 'correct' cultural paradigm where unquestioning conformity is not only expected, but is socially pressured, and a life-long 'lip service' commitment to that mythos is socially demanded.

I have family members in these Kentucky hills that are pastors. And I have seen close-up and first hand exactly how their 'religious' kin can manipulate them, and quite literally force these pastors into preaching many things that they don't actually believe.
Once one of these poor bastards gets rooked into publicly testifying that he 'Got Saved!' his ass is no longer his own. His kin will thereafter maneuver him into having to 'testify' day in and day out to every person he meets. And there is little chance of escaping what is being socially forced upon them by Mama, Papa, Grammaw, Jim Bob, Mindy Sue, and Uncle Hank.
It becomes easier and easier to go with the flow, and make up what the audience wants to hear, and earn their 'respect' by learning how to be skilled at avoiding what that audience does not want to hear.

A lot of the Fundamentalist shouting and ranting and raging is the speakers really trying to convince themselves.
People hearing it or reading it, think that is what that person really believes.
Don't count on it.

angelo

If Paul is the author of Galatians, then his credibility is extremely suspect. Anyone today who hears voices and sees visions is quickly treated with drugs for their schizophrenia.

aa5874

Please, the Pauline writer needs to be hooked up to a POLYGRAPH machine.

All ANCIENT manuscripts DATED by Paleograpy and C 14 suggest Paul was a Massive liar.

The Pauline writer did NOT live in the 1st century and before c 70 CE.

Iskander

Why?