Paul Never Existed

[The Nice Centurion]

Additionally we got a good possibility that Paul never existed!

Yeah, sure.

Go with that.

Question for debate:

Is that true ?

What are the pro & contra ?

[The Nice Centurion]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #20]
Just another thought!
Paul is a very convenient "Oh, I can be saved too!" character.
A fanatic Atheist/Jew turned to "fanfictional" christian is not to be missed for christian propaganda.
The list we have is endless. From Matthew the Evangelist to Alma the younger. From Simon Greenleaf to Lee Strobel et cetera.

Just the most important Prototype is Paul!

Another reason why Paul might be made up, no?

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #20]
Just another thought!
Paul is a very convenient "Oh, I can be saved too!" character.
A fanatic Atheist/Jew turned to "fanfictional" christian is not to be missed for christian propaganda.
The list we have is endless. From Matthew the Evangelist to Alma the younger. From Simon Greenleaf to Lee Strobel et cetera.

Just the most important Prototype is Paul!

Another reason why Paul might be made up, no?

Yes and no. Just a claim is nothing. Some have said that Arimathea is just made up. Yet the gospels all agree on him. It's all rather arguable, but I rather follow 'principle of embarrassment' as an indication of the truth. While a Jew who converts seems too good to be true, would a Christian writer inventing Paul have him squabble with Peter or say he din't really meet anyone but James (and some argue he wasn't even one of the 12)?
So little about Jesus and really seeing Jesus as a risen messiah, not as a god. That has to be Paul as a Jew taking the beliefs of the 12, adapting them to suit Gentiles, and Christians taking it even further in the gospels. That's why I think Paul is real "You couldn't make this guy up".

Another matter of doubt is Matthew/Levi. The tax - collector who follows Jesus is Levi in Luke, as I recall and Matthew in Matthew, though which was the chicken and which the egg is doubtful. And yes. I just checked. Levi, son of Alphaeus in Mark. So this is Synoptic original material and we must suppose 'Levi' was the original name and someone altered the name to Matthew in that gospel. Just as Mark added Alphaeus to Levi, just as he tells us who the Blind man at Jericho was. Is it credible that this was in the synoptic original (and anyone who maintains they are independent records rather than gospels based on an original common text is too much in denial to have any useful contribution to make) and both Luke and Matthew decided to omit the identification detail in BOTH cases? No. It is unanimous Jury decision that Mark added those names to the original gospel before him.

That at least is how I see Understanding the NT as distinct from the method of starting with the claims and speculating and making stuff up to explain away problems and discrepancies.

[The Nice Centurion]

It could also be suggested that Arimathea was an useful literary vehicle to get Jesus fast from cross to luxury grave.
Why does he never show up again, not even becomes a christian?

We should read up about the Paul Myth theory. Rather serious authors like Robert Prize are pretty sure and prove in an academic way that Paul never existed.

Acts is no less a fairy tale than the Voyages of Ulysses, boy!

But it could also be suggestet that Paul was an useful REALLY NEEDED literary vehicle to make christianity suitable for the gentiles ...

[TRANSPONDER]

It could also be suggested that Arimathea was an useful literary vehicle to get Jesus fast from cross to luxury grave.
Why does he never show up again, not even becomes a christian?

We should read up about the Paul Myth theory. Rather serious authors like Robert Prize are pretty sure and prove in an academic way that Paul never existed.

Acts is no less a fairy tale than the Voyages of Ulysses, boy!

But it could also be suggested that Paul was an useful REALLY NEEDED literary vehicle to make christianity suitable for the gentiles ...

Arimathea could indeed be a literary device (as Nicodemus surely is) to provide a tomb found to be open proving that Jesus must have walked out leaving the door open so everyone would guess he had risen, and the synoptics posting an angel there to explain to us if we didn't guess right.

On the other hand, if we reject a four - gospel concordance on Arimathea,, what in any of the gospels can we believe? I'm not willing to reject what's in a book without a better reason than that.

While I agree that Acts is a biographical novel based on Paul's letters, I have reason to think that Paul is more than a literary device to get from Jewish messianism to Christianity; I think he is how Judaic messianism became Christianity. If not Paul, then someone else. And in Romans, we see him carefully (and incorrectly) working his theory out, not getting it from either men or from God.

Whatever the erudite Dr. Prize may argue, I'm pretty sure that Paul was for real, though not for true. But I'll welcome it if you, rather than 'We' present the best reasons why Paul is invented. We can never be too dismissive

[The Nice Centurion]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #24]
Please elaborate if for you the Acts-Paul, the Letters-Paul or both are real!

You are right that Paul looks like the founder of Gentile Christianity, but the need to have such a Flagship Convert could also have been a reason to invent him.

Price book is understandable for laymen who already possess some academic knowledge.

But thats just one more reason to dive into that science.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #24]
Please elaborate if for you the Acts-Paul, the Letters-Paul or both are real!

You are right that Paul looks like the founder of Gentile Christianity, but the need to have such a Flagship Convert could also have been a reason to invent him.

Price book is understandable for laymen who already possess some academic knowledge.

But thats just one more reason to dive into that science.

I would say the better case is for Paul

You need someone to be the link between the 12 and the Gentile Churches. The Gospels imply that Jesus threw the Law in the Bin. Not a jot and tittle would pass away until all is Fulfilled. So all was Fulfilled on the cross and so the jots, tittles and pretty much the whole OT conveniently passed away, apart from any bits that the True Believer wants to keep that would underpin rolling back race and gender rights and freedom from religion.

But Luke, in Acts (and Christian believe it even if I don't) made it clear than in his view James (and thus the Jerusalem church) were still zealous for the Law and it was Paul alone who took Law -free Christianity to the Gentile, while Matthew (who never saw Paul's letters) thought it was the 12 who took the gospel to the gentiles while the letters of Paul makes it clear they didn't.
So if we are to look for an intermediary, Paul, who explains in Romans exactly how he is going to do it, is your first choice. Why would anyone want to invent anyone else?

This mat seem overly dismissive, but frankly I am underwhelmed by the Experts who just don't seem to understand what the gospels really are or how they were written. Even secularsaint Ehrmann seems at times to start from the premise that the gospels are a reliable record of events, and I reckon it is obvious they are Christian fabrications based on Paul, for doctrine even if there is a real (failed) messiah story there.
So while I am willing to hear any points you think are good ones for Paul being invented, I am disinclined to chase yet another "I know the truth" book.

The only one who knows the truth is me

[Yozavan]

It's reasonably established that Paul McCartney does exist, de facto bar none, notwithstanding, the speculative musings that he perished in an automobile accident in the 1960s. As a lyricist, it's not beyond his purview that perchance he penned a few Pauline epistles during his visit to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The mystical environment, coupled with narcotic endeavors and a several day diet of beans and water, could easily explain 2 Thessalonians 1:8,9 " He will come with flaming fire, taking vengeance on those they don't know God and don't obey the gospel of our lord Jesus Christ. " Furthermore, John Lennon reportedly said: " There we were, like with Maharishi, and ... I don't know, maybe it was the beans. That's all we ate for, well several days. Now Paul, Paul seemed frustrated, not about music, but with some strange city I never heard of. I think it was , um, Thesslony, or maybe Thess-Baloney. I canit recall exactly. I mean, we took things, you know it was the 60s man, but Paul was disgruntled about something. I remember saying, ' Jesus Christ man! Pull it together', like he was furious ... He kept scribbling something on a notebook. I never read it though, like, I didn't really care ".

[TRANSPONDER]

There is a fine line between conspiracy theory and reasonable doubt. This is why the argument from Julius Caesar or George Washington (you can't prove they existed) is not a good one. We have to look at the evidence and decide whether Alexander was a real person or just some made - up story.

For example, we all know about Captain Bligh and the Bounty, but it is fiddled. Bligh had a sharp tongue, but was not a sadist. I believe he had nobody flogged on that voyage and the trial was managed by Fletcher's family to make Bligh look bad. We have to look at the evidence and decide, even though we may not have 100% proof.

I am sure that there was a real Jesus, not because the Gospels say what he said and did because I don't believe he said a single word of the Christian propaganda in the gospels, but because of the cover - up of the actual Jesus hidden under the Christian overpainting. Just my conspiracy theory.

It is of course possible the whole thing was made up (there is a nice little theory that Paul, Caiaphas and Pilate concocted the whole story to discredit Judaism) but, if you are going to make up a story to show that he was the messiah born in Bethlehem and killed by Jealous Jews, then write that, not a Galilean killed by Rome for rebellion, which has to be fiddled with clumsy lies to make him into something else.

So, with Paul, not the singer, the inventor of Christianity, if Marcion had invented him and written his letters, he would have made him quite different. Known about Jesus and even sen him. Heard about the resurrection first hand, and not come up with a string of visions that don't match the gospels.

So I reckon they are both Fact, but like a lot of others, the facts are fiddled to be presented as something they are not.

p.s a thousand thanks to all. I love all you guys, gals and whatever else. Even the ones i dispute with vehemently.

[SiNcE_1985]

[Replying to 1213 in post #2]
Every main consens explains that Paul wrote only a small part of his letters.

Yeah, if every main consensus concludes that Paul wrote only a small part of his letters, then there is obviously a fair amount of evidence on the side of Paul writing those letters, which in of itself substantiates, from a historical perspective, that Paul existed.

But what if he didnt even write this small part?

You can play the what if game with anything in history...what if Herodotus didn't write "The Histories"?

What if Strabo didn't write his "Geographica"?

What if Josephus didn't write "Antiquities of the Jews"?

What is Plutarch didn't write "Parallel Lives"?

What if, what if, what if.

I'm gonna need you to share the same skepticism on other works of literal history (and historical figures) as you do with Biblical works and figures.

Now all of a sudden it is cool to doubt the existence of Paul?

As if the doubt of Jesus isnt enough..we gotta bang on Paul, too?

Please.

Man, these forums are filled with over-the-top, sensationalized threads, with no serious thinking or scholarship behind most of it.

[TRANSPONDER]

I have to agree. If some of the letters are by Paul, Paul is real. if he is real, Jesus' followers are probably real. &t the followers of Jesus were real, the Jesus they folkowed was Probably real. I see no point in denying where the evidence seems to point.

No more that the evidence should be ignored that points to Paul having invented Christianity, Jesus' followers being observant Jews and not Gentile - style Christians and the Jesus of the gospels not being the actual Jesus in terms of his words, at any rate