spin

The substance is that you have nothing to say on the subject. You just keep trying to derail from Shesh's blunder. This is truly a tag-team match: one poster misses the point until tagged and you the other come and miss the point.

That's progress. It's just sad that you don't understand what I don't care about.

aa5874

Again, you present nothing of substance. What are you arguing about? What is your position on the credibility of Paul.

I am arguing that Paul is not credible.

The Pauline Corpus is a pack of fiction and without corroboration within the Canon itself.

spin

That's just an assertion based on the fact that you ignore the discourse.

That people repeatedly making unsupported assertions when they are aware of doing so, as seen in this thread amongst others, should be suspended.

That may be your intent, but you don't have any evidence that will separate your dismissal of that corpus from many other ancient corpuses.

You see that's the sort of unsupported nonsense that is a waste of space.

You won't understand my complaint because you don't understand the notion of evidence clearly enough.

MrMacSon

To be fair, aa5874 has post numerous premises as part of arguments arguing

• "that Paul is not credible" and
• "The Pauline Corpus is a pack of fiction and without corroboration within the Canon itself."

aa5874

It appears to me that many here do not understand what an argument is. It is most alarming that some here think that one must not develop any argument that can show that scholars had made massive blunders with respect to the Pauline writings and that these blunders must be corrected immediately.

Once it is understood that the Pauline Corpus and Acts of the Apostles were invented to present a false history of the Jesus cult then our chronological problems are easily resolved.

The abundance of evidence show that the story of Jesus was fabricated sometime in the 2nd century and that Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline letters were were invented to cover up the Big Black hole exposed in the writings of Justin Martyr.

It is claimed by Justin that Jesus was born without sexual union and that after he ascended to heaven that almost all of Samaria worship Simon as the First God and mentioned NOTHING of the Activities of the Jesus cult.

If Justin knew of Paul then there would be no reason why he would NOT mention him when he mentioned Simon Magus and Menander since the time of Claudius.

It is clear that Justin's Jesus did not ever exist and that Simon Magus and Menander Predated the Jesus cult which also means that Saul/Paul never met any apostles in Jerusalem.

spin

I see no fairness in that. You could be just as fair to mm, ralfellis and Adam in that they have rationales for their nonsense.

Jeffrey Gibson

Do we have any evidence apart from what we find in "apologetic writers" not only that Justin existed, but that the writings attributed to him are actually from him?

Do we have any non apologetic evidence that corroborates what he tells us about himself -- that he was a Gentile, that he received a Greek education that he tried first the school of a Stoic philosopher, who was unable to explain God's being to him, that he went to hear a Pythagorean philosopher who demanded that he first learn music, astronomy and geometry, which he did not wish to do, etc., etc.?

Is Justin ever quoted by non Christian writers? If so, by whom? And where? Is he ever mentioned by non Christian writers as the author of On the Sovereignty of God or a work entitled The Psalmist or a treatise in scholastic form entitled On the Soul?

Jeffrey

aa5874

My argument is that the Pauline Corpus is not credible based on the EXSTING AVAILABLE evidence.

Virtually all the additional details about Jesus by the Pauline writers are NOT corroborated in the very Canon of the Jesus cult.

From the very start, outside the Pauline Corpus, there is ONLY one source in the Canon that mentions the activities of Paul--the book of Acts of the Apostles.

The earliest Acts of the Apostles could have been written is sometime after Festus became procurator of Judea or sometime after c 58-62 CE.

In Acts of the Apostles there is no mention whatsoever of the Pauline Corpus or that Saul/Paul intended to write the Pastorals and letters to Seven Churches in the Roman Empire.

Now, when we examine the Canonised Gospels we would expect the authors to be influenced by the Pauline Corpus if Paul evangelised the Roman Empire from c 37 -62 CE and started Churches in major cities.

There is NO influence whatsoever by Paul, the supposed evangelist of the uncircumcised, in the early Canonised Gospels.

The authors of the early Canonised Gospels are influenced almost exclusively by the author of gMark instead of Paul.

The Jesus story from unknown author of gMark was copied virtually 100% [word by word] by the author of the long version gMark and the author of gMatthew used virtually all the story of Jesus in the short gMark and added more "details".

The author of gLuke also used stories from gMark.

This is precisely what is expected if a text was early and was known and circulated in the Roman Empire.

The Septuagint predated the Canon and we see that virtually all Jesus cult writers used the Septuagint.

The Pauline Corpus show no signs of predating the early Canonised Gospels.

Although there are 13 Epistles under the name of Paul not one verse is found in the earliest Canonised Gospels.

Astonishingly, the authors of the earliest Jesus story missed ALL 2000 verses found in the Pauline Corpus.

And most remarkable they used virtually ALL the 678 verses of the short gMark.

The pattern in the Canon is extremely consistent from the earliest gMark to Acts of the Apostles--the Pauline Corpus was unknown and never referenced or used to shape their story of Jesus.

It is clear that the Pauline Corpus was a late invention in an attempt to historicise the fiction of the resurrection of Jesus with fabricated revelations that were unknown in the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse of John.

The Pauline Corpus is not only a compilation of Fiction it does NOT represent the teachings of the Jesus cult up to at least c 180 CE.

Around c 180 CE, it was taught in the Roman Empire that Jesus was crucified c 48-50 CE which suggestss or shows that virtually all accounts that Paul preached Christ Crucified since 37-41 CE in the Pauline Corpus could NOT be credible --See "Against Heresies" 2.22.

"Against Heresies" 2.22 corroborates the Canonised Gospels, the Apocalypse of John, Aristides, Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix Octavius, and Celsus in "Against Celsus--the Pauline Corpus was unknown in the 2nd century.

Those authors mentioned stories of Jesus without making reference to or without showing any influence by the Pauline Corpus.

The argument for LATE Paul writings is FAR stronger than those for early Pauline writings.

In fact, no corroborative evidence can be found in or out the Canon to support the credibility of the Pauline Corpus.

Essentially, as we can see from these very threads that arguments for credible Pauline Corpus are virtually non-existing or no supporting evidence from antiquity is presented.

Iskander

Paul is not credible in that there is no resurrection, apparitions and so forth.
Have a rest my dear friend

Sheshbazzar

It is my personal view, that the problem with 'Paul' is the other way around.

In that, if all of that 'Pauline' preaching, teaching, and missionary activity, and the writing of the 'Pauline epistles' had preceded the Gospels, there should be much more evidence to be found within the Gospels of this 'Pauline' doctrinal influence.

Not only is 'Paul' missing from the Gospels, but any evidence of any awareness of his existence, of his missionary activities, of his distinctive doctrines regarding circumcision, all foods becoming clean, the end of the Law, salvation by grace without the works of the Law.....just to name a few. Are entirely missing from the Gospels.

I can see only two reasonable scenarios that would explain this (allowing for the moment that both Epistles and Gospels are indeed authentic 1st century productions.)

A.) The Gospels were first, and thus the Gospel writers had no knowledge of Paul, his teachings or his extensive missionary activities when composing the Gospels.

B.) The Epistles and the Gospels arose entirely independently. Thus the Gospel writers had no knowledge of Paul or 'Paul's Gospel' (or they were aware, and scrupulously avoided it) And Paul had no knowledge of the Gospels ( or did possess such knowledge and avoided admitting to it.)

This would allow for the 'Pauline epistles' having being written earlier than the Gospels, BUT introduces serious problems with Paul's own claims to have visited Jerusalem and to have preached and performed mighty 'signs and wonders' in Jerusalem, and to have had communications with the Jerusalem apostles (Ro 15:18-19, 15:25, 15:31 Gal 1:18, 2:1 ...and Acts of course, if accepted, expands considerably on the nature of these relations between Paul and the Jerusalem apostles )
But even omitting Acts, and going solely by the claims made in the first person by Paul his self, there is a problem here.
If these Jerusalem apostles and believers were as acquainted with Paul and his doctrines as he claims, and even receiving funds from him,Why would these allegedly written latter Gospels reflect no knowledge at all of Paul, the Pauline antinomian teachings, or of the salvatory nature of Jesus death?

These considerations aside, As a atheist and skeptic, I personally do not accept that any of this ever happened.
I am personally convinced that the entire NT is nothing more than contrived and fully fictional religious cult propaganda. No first century 'Jesus', no 'apostles', no 'Paul', only religious fiction writings, taken as being history by the credulous.