sotto voce

There were churches within a month or so of the last commonly observed Feast of Pentecost, when visitors to Jerusalem, both Jews and proselytes, returned to Parthia, Media, Elam, Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, Rome, Cretans and Arabs.

Bronzeage

I don't see any need to explain the Book of Mormon or the Koran in the context of this discussion. The Bible, as it is used by Christians was not written by a single source who responded to a personal revelation. While this is the case for Mormon and Islam, I don't believe any credible source has ever made this claim for the Bible.


Also, I have never heard it claimed Paul intended to write the Bible when he wrote his letters. There were just communication with people who were far away. A lot of the letters deal with questions about church administration and disputes among members, so it's obvious a church existed when the letter was written.

To claim Paul's letters were written after Christian churches existed in the Greek cities of the Mediterranean area is to state the obvious.

Who disputes this?

Keith&Co.

You're right.
It's far more reasonable to expect that the letters attributed to Paul were more forgeries, later Christains retroactively writing the history they wanted.

Or that Paul was padding the numbers of coreligionists to make the scam look better for investors?

aa5874

Yes, Yes!!! It is recorded in Acts of the Apostles. You know HOW the Jesus cult was started.

The Holy Ghost STARTED the Jesus cult NOT Paul and the Pauline letters.

The HOLY GHOST came down from heaven like a Hurricane or a Cyclone [ a Mighty Rushing wind] and Put some thing like FIRE on the people's head, the people BECAME Multi-lingual and 3000 people were CONVERTED to the Jesus cult on the same day.

Examine the ACTS of the HOLY GHOST.

Acts 1 Sotto Voce you have NAILED it.

The HOLY GHOST started the Jesus movement.

Correct me if I am wrong.

The DEAD and Resurrected Jesus AUTHORISED the preaching of the gMark Jesus story and Promised to send the Powerful HOLY GHOST--NOT Paul.

See Mark 16 and gLuke 24.49.

The Powerful Holy Ghost came and FILLED the disciples with POWER and they used that POWER to convert 3000 people on that day.

It is clear that we have a Ghost story on our hands.

The Pauline letters had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the START of the Jesus cult and were NOT needed at all.

It must have been the Powerful Holy Ghost that wrote the Jesus story because ALL the authors are UNKNOWN.

The Pauline writings and Jesus stories have been found and DATED to the 2nd century

Keith&Co.

So...there's corroboration that the people he writes to actually existed?

I mean, PROOF of a church and the size of a church would be better than inferring the size of a church because Paul mentions titles.

aa5874

Please, avoid the rhetoric.

Who claims Paul started Gentile Churches of the Jesus cult BEFORE C 70 CE???

Who claims Paul started Churches of the Jesus cult and then wrote them letters???

Please Identify any Jesus cult of Christians that had disputes BEFORE the death of Nero.

Toto

In the classical period, writers often used the form of a letter to write an essay. Just because something claims to be a letter, that doesn't mean it was addressed to a real person and sent off. (Think of the Screwtape Letters.)

With Paul's "letters" we have no way of dating them internally. We have no copies of the letters themselves, only collections. We have no actual evidence of the churches (not that we would expect much in the way of evidence of a small group that met in someone's house.)

With this lack of evidence, various scholars have made different hypotheses about who Paul was, when the letters were written, if they were written as letters, whether there were actually churches. (For example, the letters to the Corinthians might have actually referred to Kerinthians, a heretical sect.)

The more you read about this, the less you know.

sotto voce

And the more you read about this, the more you know. Depending on what you read.

aa5874

Another devastating post by Toto.

Toto EXPOSES the serious problems with Scholarship.

Hypotheses are developed about Paul and his letters with LACK of evidence to support them.

Christians and fundamentalists do the very same thing.

Scholarship may have been INFILTRATED by them because they NOW use FAITH and Lack of evidence.

But what is even more devastating is that Toto knew this ALL ALONG.

Hypotheses about Paul and the Pauline letters that they are early are WORTHLESS since they LACK evidence.

I have been telling people that for years NOW and I am delighted that Toto has Publicly admitted the Lack of evidence for early Pauline letters.

stephan huller

Here are some more non-existent controversies for aa to explore in his next threads:

- there was water in the Jordan before John the Baptist came
- there were Jews in Judea before the ministry of Jesus
- there must have been gravity in the world in order to allow the Cross to stand upright
- humanity must have established verbal communication in order to establish the dialogue between Jesus and his disciples
- humanity must have discovered fire in order to have cooked fish for Jesus to eat after his resurrection
- no one went to the bathroom in antiquity because it goes unmentioned in the gospel