palom

According to Hayyim ben Yehoshua Paul, like Jesus, did not exist. He states "We now turn to the epistles supposedly written by Paul. The First Epistle of Paul to Timothy warns against the Marcionist work known as the Antithesis. Marcion was expelled from the Church of Rome in c. 144 C.E. and the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy was written shortly afterwards. Thus we again have a clear case of pseudepigraphy. The Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy and the Epistle of Paul to Titus were written by the same author and date to about the same period. These three epistles are known as the "pastoral epistles." The ten remaining "non-pastoral" epistles written in the name of Paul were known to Marcion by c. 140 C.E. Some of them were not written in Paul's name alone but are in the form of letters written by Paul in collaboration with various friends such as Sosthenes, Timothy, and Silas. The author of Luke and Acts, went out of his way to obtain all sources available and tended to use them indiscriminately, but he used nothing from the Pauline epistles. We can thus conclude that the non-pastoral epistles were written after Luke and Acts in the period c. 100 - 140 C.E. The non-canonical First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (written c. 125 C.E.) uses the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians as a source and so we can narrow down the date for that epistle to c. 100 - 125 C.E. However, we are left with the conclusion that that all the Pauline epistles are pseudepigraphic. (The semi-mythical Paul was supposed to have died during the persecutions instigated by Nero in c. 64 C.E.) Some of the Pauline epistles appear to be have been altered and edited numerous times before reaching their modern forms. As sources they use each other, Acts, the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke and the First Epistle of Peter. We may thus conclude that they provide no historical evidence of Jesus.

The Epistle to the Hebrews is a particularly interesting epistle since it is not pseudepigraphic but completely anonymous. Its author neither reveals his own name nor does he write in the name of a Christian mythological character. Fundamentalist Christians claim that it is another epistle by Paul and in fact call it the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. This idea, apparently dating to the late fourth century C.E., is not accepted by all Christians however. As a source for its information on Jesus it uses material common to Mark, Matthew and Luke, but no legitimate sources. The author of the First Epistle of Clement used it as a source and so it must have been written before that epistle (c. 125 C.E.) but after at least the Gospel of Mark (c. 75 – 100 C.E.)". He makes sense to me but I want to hear your input.

Amos

Why would Paul need to exist if Jesus did not exist?

Both Jesus and Paul were mythical characters and existed in the myth because the mythmakers said so. Anything beyond that proves unbelief and leads to confusion in the end.

Let me assure you that they existed in the myth because a myth is true (or we would not be looking for it) but is not true the literal sense of the word (or we could find the evidence of it).

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

RyanS2

Paul is generally assumed to have existed, but there are pseudopigraphy's in his name, particularly the pastorals. The Book of Hebrew was avowed by the early Church father's to be of unknown origin, they didn't attribute it to Paul. "The Epistle to the Hebrews was written by Barnabas, not by Paul" (quote from Tertullian).

In the case of what are called genuine Pauline documents, they are in the earliest manuscript collections of Paul's letters (such as the Chester Beatty Papyrus), and the earliest lists of Paul's works (Marcion). The genuine Pauline epistles are quoted at about 95CE by Clement and Ignatius.

Assuming Paul as a mythical figure doesn't do much, but post-dating all of the works would put a problem into Earl Doherty's idea of Paul betraying a Christian theology in which Christ was crucified like other pagan saviours, i.e. not in this World/time, but on a seperate place. It's curious to note though that if Paul is after the cannon, why then would he make several quotes that are along the same lines as what Jesus says, yet not attribute them to Jesus? Wells, one famous Christ-myther believes that the words of Paul were put into the words of Jesus to give the two seperate factions, (Paul's Hellenistic Church versus the more Hebraic churches of James and Peter), a closer resemblence, the same thing that the pseudo-Pauline documents try to do.

Vorkosigan

Yes, that is the problem with the letters of Ignatius and Clement as well; they don't quote large chunks. Additionally, some in the Dutch radical school have argued that the letters of Ignatius are late forgeries, after 150, the circumstances of their composition being a mite incredible. Ellegaard argued that gospels are early second century, and incorporated quotes from the earlier letters. Logically, when uncited quotes are found, either A copied B, or B copied A.

In the case of Polycarp's letters, dating from 110, the second letter to the Philippians is a later forgery, I thought. The first letter may well be a later forgery as well, in Polycarp's name.

Michael

Amos

Of course it doesn't help much because it destroys the complicated web woven by archeological criticism. It nevertheless is true and I am amazed that people are actually interested in such pursuit and wonder how they can be proud to be alive. I actually think it is a sick ambition of unbelievers.