ExMormon_Dude

Hi guys, I hope you don't mind but I do have a few questions. I appreciate any response, thanks!

1. When is the earliest mention of Paul/Saul outside of the bible and by who?
2. When is the earliest mention of each or all of Pauls epistles outside of the bible and by who?
3. When is the earliest mention of the word 'Christian(s)' outside of the bible?
4. A. On a scale of 0-10, what was the likelyhood of Pauls writings originally being gnostic? B. And what evidences would support such a notion?

I've been purchasing books from Amazon for the past two months now. About 50 of the well known titles so far concerning Jesus existence and Pauls writings (though I haven't read most of them yet). My belief is that most of the characters in the NT never existed except for Ceasar, Pilate, Herod and a few others attested to outside of the bible. I also think that Jesus is just a composite of OT prophets, sayings and expectations mixed with Hellenistic influences to appeal to a gentile audience. Just wanting an opinion from the experts here if this sounds like a silly idea. I would appreciate any advice, thank you!:wave:

Toto

Welcome, Dude. You know that there are no contemporaneous mentions of Paul, and the earliest mentions are in other Christian literature of dubious provenance, difficult to date. I think that either Clement or Ignatius is the first to mention Paul, and either of these can probably be dated to the second century.

Earliest mention of Paul's epistles outside the Bible would be Marcion, dated around 140 CE?

The earliest mention of Christian is disputed. Tacitus and Suetonius mention Christians, but it's hard to know if those early Christians were followers of Jesus of Nazareth, or if Christian had some other meaning.

Paul's writings originally gnostic? It's possible. The later Gnostics used Paul, and the orthodox took him back, but it's virtually impossible to know how his letters originally read, or who he was.

Which books are you reading?

ExMormon_Dude

Thanks Toto! Over the past few months I've purchased the following mostly from Amazon:

1. All books pertaining to Jesus - Robert Price
2. All books pertaining to Jesus - George Wells
3. Questioning Q & The Case Against Q - Mark Goodacre
4. Jesus Puzzle & Challenging the Verdict - Earl Doherty
5. The Gnostic Paul - Elaine Pagels
6. The Mythmaker - Hyamm Maccoby
7. The Messiah Myth - Thomas Thompson
8. Interpolations in the Pauline Letters - William Walker (very expensive)
9. The Pre-Nicene New Testament - Robert Price
10. About 60+ anti-Mormon books collected over a year

In transit I have the following arriving over the next couple of months:

1. Irenaeus Against Heresies
2. Against Marcion
3. The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark
4. Does the New Testament Imitate Homer?
5. The Legend and the Apostle - Dennis McDonald
6. The Docetae Gnosis - G. R. S. Mead
7. Paul the Gnostic Opponent of Peter - Gerald Massey
8. Paul & The Gnostics - Walter Schmithals
9. Authority in Paul & Peter - Winsome Munro
10. The Origins of the New Testament - Alfred Loisy
11. The recovery of Paul's letter to the Galatians - J.C. O'Neill
12. Paul's Letter to the Romans - J.C. O'Neill
13. The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus - Marvin Meyer
14. The Making of the New Testament Documents - E. Earle Ellis

This wasn't cheap ordering from Australia. I also have Mere Christianity & What's So Great About Christianity (good waste of money). I've only gotten through a couple of Prices & Wells books so far but I have probably more than 10,000 PDF books on my computer from months of downloading. Religion, History, Philosophy, Psychology and tons of debates in flv format (500Gb of info to be exact). Feel free to ask me any questions, Cheers....John:wave:

bacht

Good luck dude, don't wear your eyes out reading

Jayrok

Quite a long list of books you have there. A couple more you might would like to read are Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard E. Friedman and The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman.

I think these two are essential reading for anyone interested in Judaism and Christianity.

neilgodfrey

I would suggest balancing "The Bible Unearthed" with "In Search of Ancient Israel" by Philip Davies and misc titles by Niels Peter Lemche. A weakness in the Finkelstein and Silberman work is their failure to address the arguments of Davies against an a priori acceptance of the biblical Josiah story as having any historicity.

ApostateAbe

ExMormon_Dude, you might want to return some of those books and trade them for material that helps to give you a balanced perspective. Maybe you didn't know this, or maybe you did, but the mythical Jesus theory is on the fringe of the field of critical New Testament scholarship. I say, "critical," as in non-Christians (they are critical of Christian scholarship). The Jesus myth theory is like young-Earth creationism to them. And that is because of the evidence--such as the linguistic dating of the writings, and the most sensible explanations of the contents. I would hate to see you lose a bullshit religion only to replace it with new bullshit. I suggest the book, "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium" by Bart Ehrman. The theory is that Jesus started as a Jewish cult leader following in the footsteps of John the Baptist who made end-times prophecies that failed. It is a theory based on evidence. Now that you have lost your religion, replace it with a new way of thinking that decides things based on evidence, reason and debate.

aa5874

Virtually all the extent information about Jesus of the NT claimed he was a God, the son of the God of the Jews.

See the gospels called Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the epistles called Paul, Peter, James, Jude, Revelation, the epistles called Ignatius, and Clement.

See the non-canonised gospels.

See the writings of Justin Martyr, Ireaneus, Tatian, Tertullian, Origen, Eusebius, other Church writers, and even the forged passages the TF.

Virtually all claimed Jesus of the NT was a God.

There are no credible non-apologetic sources that have identified or mentioned a human named Jesus who was baptised by John the Baptist or was crucified during the time of Tiberius.

The theory that Jesus of the NT was just human is another invention of human imagination.

ApostateAbe

You have stated a valid fact. Very well said indeed! Now you need a credible link between the fact and the conclusion.

All extent writings on Jesus refer to Jesus as the son of God. That is not true, therefore Jesus started as a myth.

It doesn't quite work as an argument, because the only writings on Jesus that are expected to be preserved would be the writings where copyists are motivated to preserve and distribute them (writing was much rarer, more costly and more temporary in that period). The only people motivated to do such a thing would be the ones that adhere to the religion, which is a religion that esteemed Jesus as God. It is terribly unlikely that there would exist a line of copyists who would say anything else about Jesus.

Suppose that all extant writings on Muhammad refer to him as Allah's One True Prophet. I am not sure if that is true, but for now suppose it were so (I imagine it could be). Would this argument be valid?

All extent writings on Muhammad refer to Muhammad as Allah's One True Prophet. That is not true, therefore Muhammad started as a myth.

You must compare the fringe critical theory to the leading critical theory, to see which one explains the evidence the best. The fringe critical theory has not explained the evidence cited by the leading critical theory--the citations of living associates of Jesus, the failed prophecies of Jesus, the accurate descriptions of the social environment of Jesus, and so on.

aa5874

Just show me the information for the human Jesus. Where can I find a single word about the human Jesus during the reign of Tiberius? That's ALL I need.

There are many many plausible theories about the human Jesus, and they all have the same single major problem, the evidence is imaginary.