bluegreenearth wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 3:17 pm- Are there any other New Testament texts or extra-Biblical records that explicitly describe these imposter Apostles that Paul was warning about?
In context, it just looks to me like Paul's equivalent of modern Christians calling themselves "Bible-based Christians" as an accusation that the others aren't.
Paul believed his authority and status as an apostle came from genuine visions and perhaps a supernaturally-guided ability to find hidden meanings in the Old Testament. "False apostles" would be those whose visions and understanding came from some other source, either something like a demon or a person's own imagination.
bluegreenearth wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 3:17 pm- If the role of a Christian Apostle during the time of Paul was an extremely risky and often deadly business as many apologists routinely suggest to me, then why would any non-Christian be so duplicitous as to identify as an Apostle of Christ?
- What were the financial incentives for impersonating a Christian Apostle and would they have been enough to justify the nearly constant threat of imprisonment, torture, and execution that many apologists argue was the expected fate of many early Christians?
- Was the privilege of being perceived as an Apostle by an extremely small minority of Christians worth experiencing an apparently continuous amount of persecution from nearly everyone else?
- If not for money or fame, what other possible and reasonable motivations would a 1st century non-Christian have to impersonate an Apostle of Christ?
Those are good questions. Maybe it expanded one's dating options enough to be worth it, like being a
youth pastor.
bluegreenearth wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 3:17 pm- Could a 1st century Roman citizen who was falsely claiming to be a Christian Apostle be reasonably compared with a 21st century Iranian citizen falsely claiming to be an LGBTQ+ advocate?
I suspect it was more like a 21st century American citizen falsely claiming to be a Christian and
signing Bibles; their opponents already hate them, but it panders to the expectations of their target audience.
bluegreenearth wrote: ↑Wed Jun 23, 2021 3:17 pm- Was there a demonstrably reliable method that any average early Christian could employ to objectively distinguish between a genuine Apostle and an imposter Apostle for them to have confidently ruled-out Paul as a possible imposter Apostle?
According to Paul, the Corinthians themselves were evidence of his apostleship (1 Cor 9:2), though I suspect he was excluding the ones that were sleeping with their stepmothers. For the apostleship of others, it was evidence enough that they agreed with Paul.