False Apostles? Why?

[bluegreenearth]

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul asserts the following:

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

• Are there any other New Testament texts or extra-Biblical records that explicitly describe these imposter Apostles that Paul was warning about?

• 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?

• 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?

• Was there a demonstrably reliable method any average early Christian could employ to objectively distinguish between a genuine Apostle and an imposter Apostle for them to have confidently ruled-out the possibility that Paul was an imposter Apostle?

[brunumb]

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul asserts the following:

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

That just sounds like clever marketing to me. It's like someone spruiking their own business by saying "Don't trust what anyone else says, come and buy your used car from me".

[Difflugia]

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

[nobspeople]

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul asserts the following:

But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.

That just sounds like clever marketing to me. It's like someone spruiking their own business by saying "Don't trust what anyone else says, come and buy your used car from me".

That's the biblical Christianity. It says it's the way, the truth the light because... it says so.
I see no reason why this should surprise anyone; the bible says it's the word of God because it says so; Christianity says it's true just 'cause it says.
After decades of practice, I've never seen anything that proved either of those two claims being true past the claims claiming as such. Nothing scientific, nothing spiritual, nothing emotion or economical or social or psychological. Just claims claiming other claims claiming other claims.
And yet, millions of people believe.
Marketing indeed!

[bluegreenearth]

• 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.

So, are you suggesting it was a tautology and/or circular reasoning early Christians may have used to rule-out the possibility that Paul was an imposter Apostle?

[Difflugia]

So, are you suggesting it was a tautology and/or circular reasoning early Christians may have used to rule-out the possibility that Paul was an imposter Apostle?

In a tongue-in-cheek way, yes. My reading of Paul is that he was one apostle among several (if not many) claiming divine revelation and they at least occasionally offered conflicting messages.

Paul's responses to presumed attacks ("If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.") imply that others claimed that he wasn't one. It sounds like the problem that all the apostles had is that their audience pretty much just had to take their word for it. As far as Paul was concerned, the things that made him an apostle were (1 Co 9:1) that he had "seen Jesus our Lord," that he could show "work in the Lord," and that he had performed "signs" and "wonders and miracles" (2 Co 12:12). Since Paul never describes his "wonders and miracles," I'm speculating that this may have been one of his weak points.

It also sounds to me like the various churches had their favorites and Paul struggled even in the churches that he considered "his." This is appears to have occasioned 1 Corinthians and Galatians. If Paul had something concrete to differentiate either himself or his "gospel," I'm sure he would have mentioned it. As it was, he was the one on the defensive. In the Galatian church, people were showing preference for a new favorite whose "gospel" was different than Paul's. The only argument Paul can offer is that if any new "gospel" is different than his own, even if it comes from an angel, then it's "anathema."

[1213]

...

• Was there a demonstrably reliable method any average early Christian could employ to objectively distinguish between a genuine Apostle and an imposter Apostle for them to have confidently ruled-out the possibility that Paul was an imposter Apostle?

If they had the teachings that are in the Gospels, I think they had a reliable method to recognize impostors.

[Difflugia]

For anyone that's interested in the subject, a book I enjoyed is Walter Schmithals' The Office of Apostle in the Early Church. It's out of print, but Internet Archive has a scan that may be borrowed.

Deriving primarily from Paul and teasing what Schmithals judges to be genuine traditions out of the Gospels and Acts, he essentially creates a list of facts about the apostles and synthesizes that into an overall portrait of the apostles of Paul's day. A characteristic passage is his characterization of "the Twelve:"

In Mark, for example, who has μαθεταί over forty times—and that is the old designation for the whole body of disciples in the early congregations—δώδεκα is found only ten times, and these ten passages belong collectively to the more recent traditions of Mark’s Gospel! This shows that the twelve did not originally belong in the Jesus traditions. One might respond to this by pointing to the figure of the traitor Judas, who certainly was one of the twelve and as one of the twelve already before the resurrection had left the circle of the δώδεκα. It would be unthinkable, one might say, that anyone should have added the compromising figure of the traitor to the circle of the first disciples, if Judas did not originally belong to it. Indeed! Judas Iscariot is one of the twelve and is a traitor. But he did not originally belong in the passion narratives. The traditions about him may still today be easily separated from the Gospels, and no exegete has yet been able satisfactorily to explain wherein his betrayal actually consisted. Further, since the old tradition speaks of an appearance of Jesus before the twelve, Judas must have been present at this appearance (I Cor. 15:5). His “betrayal” then comes in the time of the early church. Judas, the witness to the resurrection, was then, an apostate, who betrayed Jesus through his apostasy, and as such possibly had caused damage to the primitive community through denunciation to the authorities. When the existence of the twelve was projected back into the life of Jesus, Judas and his betrayal found a place in the passion narratives.

If the twelve had been the carefully chosen companions of Jesus on his journeys, they would not have been able so completely to disappear in the history of the young church, as in fact they did. One can only agree with K. H. Rengstorf “that there is no passage in the NT which makes it plain that the twelve played any special role either in Jerusalem or later on.” They have their significance as witnesses of the resurrection. With this, our knowledge about them as a closed circle is exhausted. What the book of Acts claims to know about them—selection of Matthias, Acts 1:15-26; further, their appearance, Acts 2:14, 6:2—is legend. Even Paul mentions the twelve only in the formula taken over from the primitive community as witnesses of the resurrection (I Cor. 15:5). Otherwise he does not know them.

[JoeyKnothead]

From the OP:

False apostles? Why?

Cause the use of religious notions is a tried and true method of separating the gullible and ignorant from their money.

[bluegreenearth]

...

• Was there a demonstrably reliable method any average early Christian could employ to objectively distinguish between a genuine Apostle and an imposter Apostle for them to have confidently ruled-out the possibility that Paul was an imposter Apostle?

If they had the teachings that are in the Gospels, I think they had a reliable method to recognize impostors.

So, Paul's contemporary target audience in his letters could have consulted the New Testament Gospels for a reliable method to confidently rule-out the possibility that Paul was an imposter Apostle?