Unbeliever

I voted at 5.5 - I don't think there was any HJ at all, it was all pure fiction, nothing else. But then, I'm no scholar!

Toto

Doherty accepts the standard historical description of Paul as having written his letters (at least the parts that are agreed to be original and not later interpolations) in the mid-first century. He accepts this even though he rejects an early date for the composition of Acts, and sees it as deriving from the mid 2nd century. This is a much more conservative stance than 5.5, which sees Paul's letters at second century compositions/forgeries.

Rick Sumner

I went with 2.2, even though it's a silly answer. 2.3 isn't any better. The "Paul of History" is best established from Paul's epistles, not all of which is authentic. The ranking moves from "The Paul of Acts" (2, 3), to viewing most of Paul as spurious (4). That's not a continuum by any stretch of even the most active imagination.

Doug Shaver

Yes, but he does not consider Acts to be a work of history, even inexact history, and so he doesn't think it contains any factual information about Paul or, particularly, Paul's thinking. Paul's teachings, according to Doherty, bore no resemblances beyond a few terminological matches to what became orthodox Christianity.

post tenebras lux

Well, I voted. Although ...... I don't know why I bothered.

Roller

2.3

jakejonesiv

This list criteria was developed by Klaus Schilling in a long discussion on the Jesus Mysteries list.

There was quite a bit of input provided then, but I don't think a "final version" was ever arrived at.

However, the list is quite useful in showing the broad range of opinion concerning the historicity of Jesus and Paul.
I entered the 5.5 position, but would like to see something intermediate on the HJ axis between 4 and 5. I don't think the angnostic position on Jesus' existence is properly categorized.


Jake Jones IV

Toto

That's true, but you can only derive the standard dating of Paul's letters by assuming that Acts bears some correspondence to history. Otherwise, Paul might have written in the late first century. I don't think that Doherty has worked out all of the implications of this - he has just accepted the overwhelming scholarly consensus on the dating of Paul.

Doug Shaver

Like after the Jewish War? If he was, then he was pretending to be someone who was an active missionary before the Jewish War. I think that hypothesis runs afoul of Occam's razor.

Yes, I gathered that from reading his book. So far in my own research, I have found no good reason to question the scholarly consensus on that point.

spin

How do you date Paul from the Pauline works? It comes down to creating a a scenario as to how the wrong Aretas, ie not III but IV, could have been in control of Damascus. But do try to date Paul using Paul and not the highly dubiously datable Acts.

See this thread I started last year.


spin