ApostateAbe

"Combining these two..." If one of your reasons is the authority well-qualified scholars "such as Price" (et al.), then you really seem to have only one sound reason. The other reason may count if you say who et al. may be, because, I don't know if you have read much of Price, but he will argue for just about anything, not seeming to discriminate his arguments except in favor of what are most critical and skeptical.

Your other argument is, 'Half of them are certainly fake, so, hell with it, maybe they are all fake.' Not that it is especially illogical, but it seems very shallow. Why not focus on the details? Find out the arguments, if they exist, for being suspicious of the remaining epistles.

There seem to be good reasons that scholars take the remain epistles to be authentic. They speak from the point of view expected of an actual Paul, not a forger. One of them has the same apocalyptic deadline as Jesus (instead of excuses for the failure as found in the later writings). Another epistle opposes the apostles about the same event that is spun positively in the book of Acts. They do not contain anachronistic Greek words that are found in the forged epistles. They have an explicitly humble style of writing expected of Paul. They are concerned with the sorts of things that we would expect the earliest Christians to be concerned about.

judge

Fair enough, although I'm not sure where one would expect to find such.

.
Ok,what is the fraud?

mountainman

Outside of the literary material known as "Eusebius". Some sort of referential integrity between many sources of "evidence and facts" is highly regarded in historical methodology -- as an authority.


See "pseudo paul"

stephan huller

AA

Yes this is my own theory - that the Catholics invented the figure of Paul. But that doesn't mean that I can't function in a scholarly world that inherited a set of constructs from the great Church.

Whoever this 'Marcion' figure was that is referenced in the Church Fathers he is the earliest authority on Paul.

And if you don't take my word for it:

"... it is safe to assume is that Marcion made up his mind about the canonical authority of Paul before the Church as a whole did" [Blackman, Marcion and his Influence p. 111]

von Harnack once remarked that Marcion was the only person in the early church who understood Paul, and - according to uncle Adolf at least - he misunderstood him.

aa5874

But, not only are there no external corroborative sources for the Pauline writers there is ALSO no corroborative source for their main character called JESUS the Messiah.

No external source can locate "Paul" and no external source can locate the Pauline Jesus called the Messiah and Creator of heaven and earth who was EQUAL to God who was given a name ABOVE every other name BEFORE the Fall of the Temple.

How could the Pauline JESUS called the MESSIAH of the Jews the most expected PROPHETIC ruler of Jews is totally untraceable before the Fall of the Temple in the writings of Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Elder and Pliny the younger.

Tacitus and Suetonius did not write about Jesus the most wonderful Messiah of the Jews who resurrected for the sins of ALL Mankind including the Jews.

Pliny the Elder and Pliny the younger did NOT write about the Messiah called Jesus who was EQUAL to the God of the Jews and BEFORE whose name all Roman citizens should bow including the Roman Emperors.

Josephus and Philo both claimed that Jews were VEHEMENTLY opposed to the worship of a man as a God and Jews would rather have their necks chopped off than worship even an Emperor or Kings as Gods.

No external source can locate "Paul" and no external source can locate the Pauline Jesus Messiah.

Who worshiped a man as a God in Judea before the Fall of the Jewish Temple?

And which Roman Emperor reminded the Jews that they worshiped a Man as a God while refusing to worship Emperors as Gods before the Fall of the Temple?

What evidence show that Jesus believers would knowingly worship Jesus as a God knowing he was only a man living in Galilee for thirty years and did not resurrect?

We have a complete BLACKHOLE for "Paul", his teachings, his churches, the persecuted, and his resurrected JESUS.

.

"Paul" attempted to historicise fictitious characters like the apostle Peter. In Galatians 1. 18-19 a writer using the name Paul claimed he stayed with an apostle Peter for fifteen days.

The apostle Peter was a fictitious character in the Jesus stories who WITNESSEd Jesus walking on the sea, WITNESSED Jesus transfigured, WITNESSED Jesus walking through a building after Jesus was RAISED from the dead and WITNESSED Jesus eating FISH when he was supposed to be dead and buried for at least three days.

No external source can locate the apostle Peter the one who WITNESSED all the Fiction with Messiah called Jesus but "Paul" did.

No external source can locate "Paul", the Pauline Jesus the Messiah, and Peter "


How co-incidental?

The Pauline writings and Acts of the Apostles as found today appear to be fraudulent writings for the sole intent to HISTORICISE fictitious characters and events and to be used as "historical sources" in "Church History".

Toto

AFAIK the main reason is that there are no obvious signs of forgery, and there seems to be a common author, based on word usage. But this does not rule out a forger who interpolated a few genuine letters heavily, so that his language predominates. And it does not rule out a forger who wrote all of the letters in Paul's name at a later date.

This is the hard part. We have no other way of knowing what Paul thought, so we have no comparison.

Explicitly humble? You mean where Paul claims to have a direct line to Jesus? Boasts of his authority and his equality with the "Pillars?? Are you thinking of that one part of 1 Corinthians where he calls himself "abnormally born" and the least of the apostles? One reason for thinking that is an interpolation is that it contrasts with Paul's attitude in the rest of the epistles.

Doug Shaver

I've read a lot of stuff arguing both ways, and those who argue that the entire corpus is a forgery have not made their case to my satisfaction. Until better evidence to the contrary is produced, I think it's entirely rational to suppose that we're dealing with some documents that originated as the actual writings of an actual mid-first-century Christian writer.

Whether any particular statement in the epistles is authentic or interpolated, though, is another question. Any argument about Christian origins that hinges on a single Pauline proof text, or two or three isolated proof texts, is a pretty weak argument.

Doug Shaver

On just what, exactly, are we supposed to base our expectations of an actual Paul?

ApostateAbe

We base such expectations on the intuitions of our knowledge of Christian evangelists, sociology, first-century Christian history found in other Christian writings. We gain some specific external knowledge about Paul from the book of Acts. Forgers would be Christians of the second and third centuries, with a considerably different perspective. I elaborated in the remainder of my post that you cut out.

aa5874

But, a writing of antiquity could be authentic but not credible or was not written when it was claimed to have been written.

Whether the Pauline writings were forged or amended by the author himself may never be known but what is more certain is that the information contained about the history of Jesus that he was a Messiah of the Jews and Saviour of mankind, was EQUAL to God and the Creator of heaven and earth who was RAISED from the dead and seen by OVER 500 people BEFORE the Fall of the Temple, is likely to be fiction.

Neither A Messiah called Jesus or "Paul" can be accounted for external of apologetic sources. The accomplishment of Jesus that he was RAISED from the dead to save mankind from sin appears to be the product of fiction or madness before the Fall of the Temple.