aa5874

The "Pauline Epistles" are useless in making any consideration on the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, these so-called letters are fundamentally weak in substance.

1. The author who called himself "Paul", in 2 Corinthians, claimed he was alive during the reign of King Aretas, yet he made no mention at all of meeting or seeing Jesus of Nazareth.

2. The author who called himself "Paul", in Galations, claimed he persecuted the Church in Jerusalem, yet he made no mention at all of anyone that he persecuted.

3. Justin Martyr never mentioned the name "Paul" at all in any of his extant writings, although writing in the 2nd century, which may indicate there were no Epistles known to be written by anyone bearing the name "Paul".

4. The date of the writing of the Pauline Epistles are not even certain.

5. The Pauline Epistles cannot be used to verify the veracity of the very same Epistles, independent external sources must be used and there appears to be none.

Amaleq13

But, given that the content of Paul's gospel was apparently specific to his audience, doesn't that suggest there was some difference with a gospel intended for a different audience? If only that it lacked any of the things Paul re-emphasizes to the Galatians (ie following the purity codes is not necessary if you have faith in Christ).

I think he could be charged as a hypocrite from nothing more than his behavior though you could argue it tacitly indicated agreement. He acted as though he agreed with Paul's gospel teachings until people from James showed up and then he acted in the opposite manner.

spin

While I can show a number of biblical examples of what is revealed after apokaluptos in the genitive, Ben C, have you got even one example that shows biblical writers putting the agent of the revelation in the genitive??

Paul recounts the fact that Jesus was revealed to him. The verses are talking about "the gospel that was proclaimed by me" (which Paul frequently calls "the gospel of christ", eg Rom 1:16, 1 Cor 9:12, etc.), the gospel of Jesus was given to Paul by the revelation to him of Jesus. This is made clearer in 1:15-16, "when god... was pleased to reveal his son in [en] me, so that I might proclaim him among the gentiles, I did not confer with any human being...". This "is me" is clearly "to me", as we would say, for god made this revelation to Paul and the "so" clause is a subordinate one explaining the purpose of the revelation, so removing it makes the meaning clear, "when god... was pleased to reveal his son in me, [...,] I did not confer with any human being...". (See also Mt 16:17, "flesh and blood did not reveal it to [en] you...".)

The same event of Jesus being revealed to Paul is referred to in both 1:12 and 1:15-16.


spin

spin

You have misunderstood the passage. Jesus was clearly revealed to him, but that doesn't mean that that was the only information received at the time of that revelation. The gospel of christ, though centered on Jesus, has more to it in Paul's mind that Jesus. The gospel of christ includes the exemptions.


I've "tossed it in" because Paul specifically mentions it twice. Somehow you seem to think that a revelation of Jesus to Paul that would be it. "OK Paul, this is Jesus. Go out and preach him!" "Ummm, preach what exactly, your lordship?" "Oh, that doesn't matter, Paul."

We are dealing with Paul's conversion with this revelation. It was when god "called [him] through grace". Along with Jesus came the practices that Paul went on to teach.

In Galatians Paul is providing some history to his readers, which included his conversion, his special position (being set apart before birth), his conflict with the Jerusalem messianists, and that provides the context for the rest of the letter which is about the exemption for the gentiles which the Galatians are confused about. It is clear that the Jerusalemites were Jews. Being messianists, Paul had hoped that he could find support from them for his (non-messianic) messiah. What they were most concerned with, being Jews, was the law. Messianism did not exempt them from the law and obviously neither would Paul's variety of messianism, so it was not his messianism that concerned them but the observance of the law. He however was selling exemption as part of his package along with his Jesus. It was the exemption that caused the most difficulty to them, being Jews.


spin

DMC

It would not be evidence. If I paid 50 people to run into a police station and declare they saw a UFO, would that be evidence of a UFO?

You cannot simply call something evidence without stating what it's evidence for. In the above example, it would be evidence that 50 people had some reason to proclaim they saw a UFO.

spin

So you're really agreeing with the position: "That nutter is evidence of something." Even agreeing with the position: "If a bunch of nutters independently said the same thing, it'd even be good evidence."

You're not agreeing with your correspondent's unstated assumption that he can say what it is evidence for. And I agree with you.


spin

angelo

Let's weigh up the evidence for the historical Jesus. We have the N/T, written by who knows who over a period of at least 40 years. More than enough time for the story to become, to say the least, muddled and incoherent.
Then we have a couple of references by historians of the time, that have been discredited by most biblical scholars who are honest enough to admit it.
There is precious little else. All other historians of that time are only writing hearsay, some, hundreds of years after the supposed events had happened. They also never had voice recorders in those days, so tales were carried by word of mouth for years. Memory been what it is, by the time it was written down the story would bear no resemblance to actual events. Some would be exaggerated beyond belief and some would be deleted if the writer didn't think it suited his telling.
And this is the tale that millions of people worldwide believe is the word of God?
Unbelievable but sadly true.

Solitary Man

Personal attack anyone? It's so funny to see these non-scholars quickly resort to calling other scholars "dishonest" when they don't agree with you.

Oh, I get it now. You're not interested in actually learning the truth. You only want to attack Christians. Geez, you do fit in here.

mountainman

The mainstream conjectures for the actual assemblage
of the NT texts range from 40 years to over a century.
Noone knows the century of authorship, nationality of
authors, names of authors, or backgrounds. They wrote
voluminously in the Greek.



In addition to this, there are hosts of other issues:

1) The Non Canonical "NT texts"?

WTF are these things? When were they written and by whom?
Why do they have strange stories like Jesus selling his slave Thomas
to a travelling Indian because his slave Thomas refused a direct
order to go to India?


2) Archaeological Evidence
We have a great paucity of evidence for the existence
of anything "christian" until the explosion of the evidence
in the fourth century. Was christianity a 4th century fraud?


3) Burning and Destruction of Knowledge
The fourth century christian regime started with its place
already in the inner court of the emperor. It burned its
opposition with a holy zeal, and much knowledge of the
actual history of antiquity has perished as a direct result
of "christian censorship by fire" in the 4th and 5th CE.

4) Intolerance and Persecution
Before christianity arrived as a state religion, there was a
generally co-operative tolerant collegiate network type
of relationship between many many cults. This was not
maintained by the christian dynasty, who are known by
their distinct intolerance, and for their persecution of
non-christian beliefs.

5) Top-Down Emperor Cult.
The state religion of christianity was implemented by the
Pontifex Maximus, a role which was a millenium old by
the fourth century. Constantine was a military supremacist.
How anyone can read the Bible and fail to understand it
was first published by a malevolent despot beats me.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Toto

Please don't turn a comment like this into an imagined personal attack.

And speaking of personal attacks . . .

There is no conflict between wanting to learn the truth and attacking at least certain aspects of Christianity, which some of us are all too familiar with. But that's for another forum.