bacht

Another possibility is that the early apostles only had visions and revelations of Christ. Paul's conversion would have been the same, just a little later. Thus his challenge to their authority would have been about including gentiles, not about missing the messiah in the flesh.

Newfie

From Wikipedia:
Perhaps there was more than one burning bush in the area.

bacht

heh, I agree these folks were kinda out there... Paul mentions visiting the third heaven ("dude this shit is righteous!")

DCHindley

Yes.

If you are referring to my files, apparently I let that one get by me. There are similar slip-ups at Phillipians 1:2, 1 Timothy 1:1, and Philemon 3. The greetings were especially difficult due to abundance of formulaic greetings and catch phrases. I think I left them and the similar formulas at the end of letters aside at first so as not to get myself distracted. While I turned my attention back to it after a while, I never gave it the attention it deserved.

As in 1 Cor 4:19 (using hO KURIOS rather than TO QEOU of Acts 18:21), or perhaps 1 Cor 16:7 (with a different verb)?

Something like Eph 5:17 is a closer parallel to James 4:15, I think. If researchers like Kloppenborg (Voluntary Associations (or via: amazon.co.uk)) are correct, and the Pauline churches were a type of private association grouped around households (of the rich), the individuals populating Paul's churches would likely be mainly slaves and retainers from the lower socio-economic classes. Then a statement like "you comprehend what the will of the lord is" (as opposed to following your own will) suggests the "lord" here is a human master, with perhaps the secondary implication that God is a type of master as well (especially when the context of this statement is that one should not behave in the manner that will eventually bring "the wrath of God ... upon the sons of disobedience").

This all deserves a slow re-evaluation in a systematic manner, something which may have to wait a bit as I may have to find a part time 2nd job for about a year before family finances stabilize after a recent job change and move to a new house. Becoming a statistic in the global financial meltdown is not appealing to me.

DCH

aa5874

You are always using Paul's words as if without error and must be true. If some Paul wrote there was a movement, then automatically you believe there must have been a movement.

Now, maybe Paul was invented to explain a fictitious shift from Jews to Gentiles.



Again, why do think that a story teller could not have written about a fictitious character called Paul who had revelations from a fictitious character called Jesus the Son of the God of the Jews?

And, if you re-read what you have written, you will immediately see the flaw in the revelation stories of Paul, why did not Peter, James and John who were with Jesus get any revelations like Paul?

It should be obvious, nobody could have gotten revelations.

The author called Paul just simply made up the revelation stories to make the fictitious character Paul get into the inner circle.

You have answered yourself. You may be right.


Tell me which Jew accepted any human as the literal son of God. It was not Philo, Josephus or Trypho.

Newfie

By a "movement" I mean the initial Christian believers, whatever form they first took. Christianity started at some point and grew from there. It's this first group, or groups that I am referring to.

Fictitious? Are you arguing then that Christianity did not grow out of Judaism and that the first "Christians" were not Jewish? If so, I'd like to hear your arguments to support this.

I find it difficult to believe that Christianity got off the ground and spread as it did in a complete vacuum, without an oral tradition based at least partially on the teachings of somebody, or some group of people. Are you suggesting that Christianity's ground zero was with Paul's churches and then spread to Judaea?

They knew the guy, supposedly, and would have known his teachings. They were already busy spreading these teachings when Paul enters the scene on the other side. The reasoning behind it is that it took an intervention by the risen Christ to make Paul "see the light."

The others needn't have felt left out. They did get to experience the Pentecost after all.

I've never gotten a divine revelation, but I hardly count that as evidence that they never happen.

There may be a clear difference between the author(s) "Paul" and the character that he builds in the letters and who appears in Acts. If Paul was a real person then he may have built himself up and included the revelation story to add credence to his opinion. If Paul was, in fact, a completely fictitious character then I would like to know by what mechanism his letters became popular enough to become canonized. Is there a historical precedent where a proven fictional character's teachings and existence have become accepted as much as Paul has?

I wasn't claiming that any did, which was my point. Moses and Abraham had special relationships with God. Had Jesus been proclaimed as a similar figure and not actually divine Christianity may have just developed as a Jewish sect, and not a separate religion. Paul claims to have been a Jew, but clearly he was steering belief in Jesus away from what practicing Jews could accept. That was what I meant.

bacht

It's not impossible that there was no Paul at all. It's not impossible that Christianity had no roots in Judea. It's not impossible that the entire New Testament was written later, even centuries after the events described (see mountainman's posts). There's just not enough evidence to answer these questions afaik.

We have a pretty good idea of what Catholic orthodoxy WANTED us to think: that there was a Jesus with Jewish followers in Palestine, and that there was an apostle Paul who spread the message to gentiles, the inheritors of the New Covenant as the New Israel.

Did it really happen this way? That question has been debated for a couple of centuries now, and there is apparently still no consensus.

aa5874

Look again, you still think that Paul's words MUST be true. What credible source do you have to support your Christian movement?

You have none.



Again, what credible source are you using to support your claim that Jesus believers did grow out of Judaism? What credible source confirms that Jews believed in Jesus as the son of the God of the Jews?

The word "Christ" predated Jesus believers by hundreds of years.

How did belief in Apollo, Zeus, the Gods of the American-Indians, belief in the Muslim religion, Hinduism, Shintoism, Mithraism or Mormonism get off the ground?

Nobody ever replied to a letter from Paul. No member of any the seven Churches is documented to have written to Paul and neither Timothy, Titus or Philemon have been verified to have lived.

Again, you seem to think Paul must be without error, you seem to believe any thing he wrote, even though scholars have questioned and rejected more than half the writings with his name.

According to Acts, Paul was actually blinded by the light.

Are you relying only on Paul alone to verify the whereabouts of Paul and the status of Jesus believers?

It should be obvious that if it was Paul's intention to deceive his readers then you would have been mis-lead.

You must try as best as you can to use external credible sources to verify Paul, over half of the letters bearing his name have been rejected or questioned, are you going to wait until ALL are rejected or questioned before you begin to even query them?

Whatever Paul say is true even when you yourself have no evidence.


Are claiming that it is not possible to place the word "Paul" at the beginning of epistles a hundred years after he was supposed to have lived to mis-lead readers?

Moses and Abraham did not have any special relationships with God. All we have are legendary tales about Moses, Abraham and some unknown legendary entity called God.

And if Paul claim he was a Jew, what credible source corroborated such a claim? Paul of course. Paul cannot be questioned and without error.

Newfie

Sure it's not impossible. Lots of stuff are not impossible, but what does the available evidence tell you is the most likely case of events? Recognized history very often depends on reaching an agreement on the most likely series of events and the motivations of people. Putting your personal feelings aside, is the evidence for a fictional Paul stronger than the evidence of his being a historical figure?

Newfie

Oh boy, are you reading me all wrong!

I am not looking to support a Christian movement. I stopped being a practicing Christian some time ago. All I am doing is trying to learn more about the religious and non-religious positions. Sometimes I ask somewhat provocative questions simply because the people who ought to be asking them, the faithful, aren't here asking them. Somebody has to play the "God's advocate" on occasion or many of the discussions on this site would soon peter out, wouldn't you agree?

I'm interested in hearing all arguments from all sides and I'm sorry if you were led to believe that I was arguing as a Christian apologist.