Toto

Kenneth Humphries has posted a new essay on his site, www.jesusneverexisted.com - St. Paul the Apostle: Up Close and Personal.

To summarize briefly, Humphries thinks that the letters from Paul were written by Marcion to give his own philosophy a historical basis, and were then appropriated and jazzed up by the Catholic faction. The Catholic faction then wrote the fictional book of Acts to turn Paul into a complaint, domesticated 13th apostle.

Humphries sees the "Saul" in Acts as based on a certain Saulus described in Josephus, who was a hot headed Herodian aristocrat. I think that this idea comes from Eisenman's James the Brother of Jesus, although Eiseman thought that the Saul in Josephus was Paul, not just a literary model. I did not find Eisenman's idea very persuasive, but literary dependencies are more likely.

Humphries provides food for thought even if you do not accept the entire thesis.

However, even if the epistles are largely invented or interpolated, it seems likely to me that there was a historical Paul at some time - he has few mythic qualities, and is not a mythic hero like Jesus.

joedad

Without having read the entire article, I take it that Humphries makes the argument that Paul’s conversion is incredible on its face. It is as if Nero or Diocletian converted. Does Humphries attempt to find any historical parallels that make this conversion story somewhat believable?

gnosis92

How do we know Gamaliel, Hillel, Josepheus, Marcion or anyone else existed?

aa5874

No-one knows Saul/Paul. No contemporary historian mentions a single word about Saul/Paul. Saul/Paul only lives in the NT.

Chris Weimer

No one knows your great uncle's cousin twice-removed. For all I know, he never existed, and you were cloned by aliens with your entire family history fabricated.

Because, you know, both are about equal.

Toto

This is not true if Saul / Paul can be identified with the Saulus in Josephus, or with Simon Magus.

Toto

His point is that the story of Paul is not at all believable.

Vivisector

My first impression is that it's a weak case.

Half or more of the space is devoted to the implausibility of the accounts in Acts (which seem to be almost universally regarded as, at the very least, highly romanticized) and to arguments from silence. Furthermore, silences taken as key are associated with details found only in Acts. It seems that the only thing accomplished here is to demonstrate why historians take many details of Acts with a grain of salt.

The first third of the "Reality Check" section discusses the hypothesis that the Marcionites wrote Paul's epistles. I don't regard this as a strength of the argument, and I think it would be difficult to demonstrate Marcionite authorship. I have no particular problem with the second two-thirds of the section - in fact, I think the author is largely correct. But I don't think Marcionite authorship of the Pauline epistles is a necessary requirement for the rehabilitation of Paul that occurs in Acts.

The first two paragraphs of "The Fabricated Paul" seem entirely speculative, predicated on the hypothesis that Marcion (or Marcionites) wrote the Pauline epistles. The table comparing Josephus to Acts is suggestive to me of no more than that the author of Acts might have drawn storyline elements from Josephus and reflects, as far as I can tell, virtually nothing on the authorship of the Pauline epistles or the historicity of Paul. As far as Josephus/Acts parallels go, it strikes me that the hypothesis of borrowed storyline would suffer from, at a minimum, Acts' silence on Saul's/Paul's membership in the royal family (I know, it's an argument from silence, and I generally don't like them, but the author makes much use of it himself) and Acts' association of Paul with Felix rather than Florus.

I think the essay might raise (again) interesting questions about the relationship between Acts and Josephus, but I don't see it as raising substantial questions on the historicity of Paul or authorship of the Pauline epistles - at least, not the "genuine" ones.

V.

joedad

If Marcion was the writer of the epistles, it does not mean that Paul is mythical. It only means that Marcion is Paul. I personally find that more believable than the story of Paul’s conversion.

Many HJers are convinced there was a historical Jesus but not a historical Jesus as presented in the NT. Why not Paul too? Otherwise it’s a distinction without a difference. We don't even know who authored the gospels.

rlogan

Once we shed the "big bang" propaganda line regarding the fictional Jesus, the really interesting questions can be addressed. I have occasionally questioned the existence of "Paul" as depicted in the Bible, even stripped of the ludicrous embellishments, and that the hunt should be based on motive, means, and opportunity. It is pretty clear on the face of it for many of the epistles that they are liturgical devices with cryptic pro-authority meassages dressed up with gibberish.

Of course the proposed authorship is speculation. The original fabricators, redactors, tyrannical church and state supressors and all has made authoritative answers impossible.