Was Paul Jewish?

[Harel13]

And if you throw out the book of Acts then you can also throw out the gospel of Luke.

Oh, if only.

Do you really believe that the much respected Apostle Luke would risk writing such an account and think he could get away with it? That would surely have brought discredit to the newly formed group and put them all in danger.

Assuming for a moment that I actually think that Luke did author either one of those books, yes, indeed I do believe that he could and would have fabricated such an account. "In danger", puh-lease. The only evidence you have of this group being in danger in the time you are referring to is, guess what? Acts. Which brings a ludicrous account of none other than the High Priest hiring people to hunt down a tiny group of sectarians that don't even live in Judea! No, more likely the group only began gaining real momentum several decades later, and only then were they worth mentioning in Tacitus's writings.

Say Luke did write this stuff down. The sect was new, rife with potential, and anyone could take it in whatever direction they wanted. Yes, I can see him spinning tales. A tiny sect that no one really cares about? Desperate seekers will believe anything.

 

[ppp]

Say Luke did write this stuff down. The sect was new, rife with potential, and anyone could take it in whatever direction they wanted. Yes, I can see him spinning tales. A tiny sect that no one really cares about? Desperate seekers will believe anything.

The internet alone should be evidence of that.

 

[Brian2]

No. You are inferring that, and that is a bizarre inference. The consensus view of the most educated and best trained or historical topics will have various minority views among their ranks. You seem to be stuck in some black and white thinking there.

I am aware that the consensus can be wrong. It has happened before, and it will happen again. But the probability lies with the informed consensus. If I get the World Association of Plumbers to look at my pipes, and the consensus view of that organization is that my plumbing problem is best solved by a rerouting the pipes and adding a thingamabob to the line, then I am going to go with the consensus of the experts. Not the minority view. Not until the minority of experts can get their peers on board.

I do not see the problem with that. In fact, it seem to me to be the only sensible approach for a layman to a given field.

Yes I can understand a layman believing what many scholars say.
If you say that you do not see the circular reasoning in saying that prophecy is not true therefore we'll date the writing of the gospels late and therefore saying the authors are not the ones that tradition tells us,,,,,,,,,, I find that hard to believe.
If you do see it and accept it anyway then that could come from just saying that the scholars surely would not make such a silly mistake (ignoring the real scholars who point out the mistake) or it could come from a real belief that prophecy is not true and so they should do that even if it means throwing out the evidence that tells us the gospels were written early and by those of tradition.

 

[Brian2]

Actually, no. I am going with the methodology that does not begin with the initial presumption that whatever is claimed to be true is true. It is a subtle, but important distinction. One that I hope you are able and willing to appreciate.

Can you see that to claim that there is no evidence for a God or the supernatural, so we will make sure there is no evidence by claiming that real scholarship shows late writing and by other authors, when in reality that is not what is shown, it is just presumed, is a lie?
Prophecy shows God and the supernatural is real and modern scholarship by sceptical thinkers, hides that.

 

[Brian2]

@Harel13 do you have extra-Biblical evidence that Paul/Saul of Tarsus even existed?

I think letters from someone is usually considered evidence even if not extra biblical.

 

[Harel13]

The internet alone should be evidence of that.

This is true, but only to some extent. I don't think the comparison goes all the way, because the internet also allows for anonymity which allows for people to spout off even more than when their identity is known.

 

[Kooky]

The NT isn't part of my Bible, so anything about him is extra-biblical anyway...

In any case, I am not aware that there is any evidence of his existence outside of the NT, though I personally don't have any problem in thinking he existed. Same as I don't have any problem thinking Jesus existed. What either of them was actually like, now that's a different story (and part of the subject of the thread).

My argument is, what alternative sources do we have to suggest an alternate reading of the Christian ones that confirm his existence and describe him in their term? Any alternate image of Paul/Saul is just going to be an authorial invention in that case, which... sure, if you're going for that, why not. It's going to be a different story, yes, but not a "truer" one.

 

[Kooky]

I think letters from someone is usually considered evidence even if not extra biblical.

The Pauline "letters" are not literal mail that somebody found in his attic, though, they are religious texts that circulated among specific Christian communities, just like the gospels and the numerous other texts that did or didn't make the cut to be compiled into the NT. In this I would argue they aren't different than the rest of the Biblical texts.

 

[Rival]

The Pauline "letters" are not literal mail that somebody found in his attic, though, they are religious texts that circulated among specific Christian communities, just like the gospels and the numerous other texts that did or didn't make the cut to be compiled into the NT. In this I would argue they aren't different than the rest of the Biblical texts.

I'm not sure where you're going with this? Paul's letters are indeed letters. Unless we have a different understanding of 'mail'?

 

[Kooky]

I'm not sure where you're going with this? Paul's letters are indeed letters. Unless we have a different understanding of 'mail'?

They are not personal letters, but, in our modern parlance "open" letters addressed to an entire community. Further, they are written as instructive theological texts, and were likely circulated as such among pre-Constantinian Christian communities. Their distribution and usage does not differ significantly from any other NT text, is what I'm saying, and certainly give no more credence to the existence of a Paul than the gospels give to the existence of a Luke, Mark, Matthew, or Thomas for that matter.

 

[Rival]

They are not personal letters, but, in our modern parlance "open" letters addressed to an entire community. Further, they are written as instructive theological texts, and were likely circulated as such among pre-Constantinian Christian communities. Their distribution and usage does not differ significantly from any other NT text, is what I'm saying, and certainly give no more credence to the existence of a Paul than the gospels give to the existence of a Luke, Mark, Matthew, or Thomas for that matter.

I hear you now.

Although there are some amusing personal touches like 'I left my cloak back in so and so place, will you fetch it for me? Thanks.'

 

[ppp]

Yes I can understand a layman believing what many scholars say.
If you say that you do not see the circular reasoning in saying that prophecy is not true therefore we'll date the writing of the gospels late and therefore saying the authors are not the ones that tradition tells us,,,,,,,,,, I find that hard to believe.

Since this is not a response to what I said, nor is what you claim the reasoning to be actually the reasoning, I'm just going to chunk your post into the trash. And hope for better in the future.

 

[ppp]

Can you see that to claim that there is no evidence for a God or the supernatural, so we will make sure there is no evidence by claiming that real scholarship shows late writing and by other authors, when in reality that is not what is shown, it is just presumed, is a lie?

Your question has nothing to do with reality. It's just a clumsy frame to try the shift the burden of proof from yourself to others. You have nothing probative to offer so you're trying to make it seem like you occupy a privileged spot where everyone should assume that you're correct without you ever doing any of the work to demonstrate that you're correct.

 

[Brian2]

The Pauline "letters" are not literal mail that somebody found in his attic, though, they are religious texts that circulated among specific Christian communities, just like the gospels and the numerous other texts that did or didn't make the cut to be compiled into the NT. In this I would argue they aren't different than the rest of the Biblical texts.

If you think that Christians just made up all the text of the New Testament then you would think they would do a 'better' job. By better I mean one that laid down something that could be agreed on by all and more simple to understand and without anything that could be construed as contradictions.
That said, I guess what you say is as good as what others say about the documents that make up the Bible not being able to support each other, assuming that religious documents mean religious lies by those who collected the documents together.
So the assumption of religious lies and that the whole thing is one big lie actually leads to a situation where the evidence, the Bible, is discarded.
That's brilliant, and nobody would even guess it is circular reasoning.

 

[Brian2]

They are not personal letters, but, in our modern parlance "open" letters addressed to an entire community. Further, they are written as instructive theological texts, and were likely circulated as such among pre-Constantinian Christian communities. Their distribution and usage does not differ significantly from any other NT text, is what I'm saying, and certainly give no more credence to the existence of a Paul than the gospels give to the existence of a Luke, Mark, Matthew, or Thomas for that matter.

And of course the entire New Testament does not give one bit of credence to the existence of Jesus I suppose.

 

[Brian2]

Your question has nothing to do with reality. It's just a clumsy frame to try the shift the burden of proof from yourself to others. You have nothing probative to offer so you're trying to make it seem like you occupy a privileged spot where everyone should assume that you're correct without you ever doing any of the work to demonstrate that you're correct.

I was just pointing out the circular reasoning in assuming no supernatural and that prophecies are not real then use the conclusions obtained from that assumption to show that the prophecies cannot be real and more,,,,,,,,, that the authors of the gospels did not know Jesus or what he said or did.
It is basically ignoring the evidence for the supernatural through circular reasoning,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and then telling the world that scholarship has shown the NT (and for that matter the entire Bible) is not true.
That sort of hubris seems to have happened over my lifetime.
Actually I know you don't assume I am correct and I don't think that you should. But I can see that you assume I am not correct, and I don't think you should do that either.
Personally I don't think I need to prove anything.
I have a faith and that is it. It does not need to be proven. Bur of course it is hard to take when it is just attacked with BS arguments. It's enough to try to defend it against those.

 

[ppp]

I was just pointing

You are just repeating yourself. So, I will, too. You are engaging in a special pleading fallacy, a straw man fallacy, poisoning the well fallacy, and just a general dishonest representation of the reasoning used by those who disagree with you. If you feel the need to repeat yourself (again), just refer back to this post.

 

[Harel13]

My argument is, what alternative sources do we have to suggest an alternate reading of the Christian ones that confirm his existence and describe him in their term? Any alternate image of Paul/Saul is just going to be an authorial invention in that case, which... sure, if you're going for that, why not. It's going to be a different story, yes, but not a "truer" one.

I don't really understand your distinction between 'different story' and 'truer story', but over the last 2-3 years or so I have come across quite a number of different theories that propose different characterizations of both Jesus and Paul. These theories are based both on a different reading and interpretation of the NT and comparison of specific details with other sources, such as: Josephus, various Greek and Roman historians, classic Jewish sources, the DSS and more. Of course in the end everything is authorial invention, much like every biblical (recall my definition for biblical) criticism theory that proposes to amend portions of the text or suggests that the bible evolved from prior sources or that parts of it was composed by this author or that group or that it was written down in such and such a time. These are merely suggestions, and we do not have in general any hard evidence at this time to support one over the other. That's why my OP ended with "Thoughts?"

I suppose you could regard this thread about examining the "soft evidence".

 

[Brian2]

You are just repeating yourself. So, I will, too. You are engaging in a special pleading fallacy, a straw man fallacy, poisoning the well fallacy, and just a general dishonest representation of the reasoning used by those who disagree with you. If you feel the need to repeat yourself (again), just refer back to this post.

Not special pleading because I say the same about all religious scriptures and scholarship.
It is not straw man fallacy just because you cannot see it.
It is not poisoning the well because the sceptic arguments are already out there. If anything those arguments are poisoning the well.
But yes it might be a dishonest representation of the reasoning used by those who disagree with me,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,if I was presenting that reasoning. But I am not presenting that reasoning, I am just looking at the reality behind the reasoning that modern sceptical and disrespectful scholarship uses for the sake of what is labelled knowledge.
If you can show me where I am wrong feel free to do that, otherwise we no doubt will have to agree to disagree.

 

[ppp]

@Brian2 See Previous Post