If theists understood "evidence"

[The Grand Nudger]

Yabut, these are god-breathed anecdotes.  Even the fictitious ones!

[RoadRunner79]

Ok... but everything is not a scientific investigation. And it seems that anecdotes are said to not evidence for a scientific claim, because these claims are of a different nature than others. It’s not denying the claims of the anecdote, but saying that it is not eneough to establish a pattern or a scientific rule. We still rely on the observation of others, and for them to transmit that information verbally or in written form to others.

Often an example for this is something like my aunt drank eight glasses of water everyday and her cancer went into remission. The anecdotal saying is not saying that these things didn’t happen or that the testimony is not evidence in the issue of these things being true or false. It’s not evidence, when one claims that drinking X amount of water cures cancer. The statements may likely be true, but they don’t make the correlation between the two events.

[The Grand Nudger]

You think that the anecdotes are claims "of a different nature"?

LOL, we're just trying to establish whether or not the narrative presented in paul is credible.  Whats so different about that?

[RoadRunner79]

You think that the anecdotes are claims "of a different nature"?

LOL, we're just trying to establish whether or not the narrative presented in paul is credible.  Whats so different about that?

No... I was replying to something in another post. 

Context is good.  Prooftexting is bad.

[The Grand Nudger]

Let me break this down for you.  Of the four pauls, one is completely legendary, two are varying degrees of lying for christ, and "authentic paul" is only authentic insomuch as we think a guy wrote it.

That guy, limited to just that content, is very vague about his cred.  In that content, he merely claims to have persecuted christians, but how or where is left up to the imagination..with the exception that he says he never persecuted them in judea.  This is important...because judea is the only place that a jew could accost people on account of their faith, and whatever charges they brought would only apply to fellow jews (and this would only be true before the jewish war - after..lelz). Further, the character of authentic paul is a hellenist and not a hebrew scholar, not someone who'd had rabbinical training....not someone the theocratic authorities would send to ferret out other hellenists, why not start with him?  

So, knowing all of that, lets parse the persecution claim.  If paul was just some well to do nut who yelled at christians from time to time..it's plausible.  

If we imagine that paul was traveling the countryside as an arm of and with the blessing of the religious -and- secular authorities..merrily prosecuting christians in some more meaningful and legal sense.....in a word.  No.  

The hard limit in all of this is that the story must be set before the jewish war, or else the entire thing is completely implausible.  The generous summary here...is that paul is exaggerating when it comes to his level of education, importance, role in society, and past acts - and that's just in "authentic" paul, and assuming it was written in the 50's.

The paul you have in mind, otoh, is completely fictitious...and yes..that is the position of the majority of new testament scholars. Christians commonly confuse their paul with the paul of biblical scholarship - so I can't fault you for being a common christian...but now you know.

You're welcome.

[RoadRunner79]

---

Let me break this down for you.  Of the four pauls, one is completely legendary, two are varying degrees of lying for christ, and "authentic paul" is only authentic insomuch as we think a guy wrote it.

That guy, limited to just that content, is very vague about his cred.  In that content, he merely claims to have persecuted christians, but how or where is left up to the imagination..with the exception that he says he never persecuted them in judea.  This is important...because judea is the only place that a jew could accost people on account of their faith, and whatever charges they brought would only apply to fellow jews (and this would only be true before the jewish war - after..lelz). Further, the character of authentic paul is a hellenist and not a hebrew scholar, not someone who'd had rabbinical training....not someone the theocratic authorities would send to ferret out other hellenists, why not start with him?  

So, knowing all of that, lets parse the persecution claim.  If paul was just some well to do nut who yelled at christians from time to time..it's plausible.  

If we imagine that paul was traveling the countryside as an arm of and with the blessing of the religious -and- secular authorities..merrily prosecuting christians in some more meaningful and legal sense.....in a word.  No.  

The hard limit in all of this is that the story must be set before the jewish war, or else the entire thing is completely implausible.  The generous summary here...is that paul is exaggerating when it comes to his level of education, importance, role in society, and past acts - and that's just in "authentic" paul, and assuming it was written in the 50's.  

The paul you have in mind, otoh, is completely fictitious...and yes..that is the position of the majority of new testament scholars.  Christians commonly confuse their paul with the paul of biblical scholarship - so I can't fault you for being a common christian...but now you know.  

You're welcome.  

---

It seems that we jumped topics completely now (leaping more than creeping). I have discussed this recently, and you are going to have to support your claims with more than fanciful stories, like with evidence and reason.

[GrandizerII]

---

Let me break this down for you.  Of the four pauls, one is completely legendary, two are varying degrees of lying for christ, and "authentic paul" is only authentic insomuch as we think a guy wrote it.

That guy, limited to just that content, is very vague about his cred.  In that content, he merely claims to have persecuted christians, but how or where is left up to the imagination..with the exception that he says he never persecuted them in judea.  This is important...because judea is the only place that a jew could accost people on account of their faith, and whatever charges they brought would only apply to fellow jews (and this would only be true before the jewish war - after..lelz). Further, the character of authentic paul is a hellenist and not a hebrew scholar, not someone who'd had rabbinical training....not someone the theocratic authorities would send to ferret out other hellenists, why not start with him?  

So, knowing all of that, lets parse the persecution claim.  If paul was just some well to do nut who yelled at christians from time to time..it's plausible.  

If we imagine that paul was traveling the countryside as an arm of and with the blessing of the religious -and- secular authorities..merrily prosecuting christians in some more meaningful and legal sense.....in a word.  No.  

The hard limit in all of this is that the story must be set before the jewish war, or else the entire thing is completely implausible.  The generous summary here...is that paul is exaggerating when it comes to his level of education, importance, role in society, and past acts - and that's just in "authentic" paul, and assuming it was written in the 50's.  

The paul you have in mind, otoh, is completely fictitious...and yes..that is the position of the majority of new testament scholars.  Christians commonly confuse their paul with the paul of biblical scholarship - so I can't fault you for being a common christian...but now you know.  

You're welcome.  

---

It seems that we jumped topics completely now (leaping more than creeping).   I have discussed this recently, and you are going to have to support your claims with more than fanciful stories, like with evidence and reason.

LMAO, you're so predictable ...

[RoadRunner79]

It seems that we jumped topics completely now (leaping more than creeping).   I have discussed this recently, and you are going to have to support your claims with more than fanciful stories, like with evidence and reason.

LMAO, you're so predictable ...

Well it's getting off topic, and as I said, I've recently discussed this.   I believe that after a bunch of run around, if we can get to it (and the poster even knows) we are going to find out, that the only evidence for these claims is essentially textual criticism.   A little bit different style or words used in the writings.  And this is easily explained by what we know of Paul used of an amanuenses as well as differences in time of writing or audience, and purpose.   It certainly doesn't warrant the storytelling above or necessarily indicate any such thing. 

Now forgive me, if I don't want to do this dance, for something that is off topic and I have recently discussed.  Perhaps it would be better suited to that thread or a new one.    I'm still curious as to the "what" behind the OP if theists only understood evidence.   Perhaps you would like to answer that?

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't believe Paul, for reasons that I have stated before, namely, I believe that Paul was a "storyteller" who told overt lies, in particular, his claim to have persecuted early Christians.  I think that this story was invented by Paul in order to give him credibility within the early Christian community, but within the known structure of the Roman Empire in Palestine, I think that his claims were impossible.  Neither the local nor the Roman authorities would have tolerated such behavior, either due to one of their citizens or one of their subjects.  Paul's claims are equivalent to someone claiming that Sheriff Joe Shapiro went to New York City, set up his own jail in a rented hotel room and started making his own arrests.  A few decades from now someone may write such a story, and while it may make for entertaining reading, it would be viewed as being an historical impossibility.  Ditto for Paul.

By the way, there is a principle of law at work here:



Paul is not a credible witness to history -- he likely suffered from epileptic seizures, which he interpreted as being of divine origin, he believed in a flat Earth, and he was a liar.

Do the majority of scholars support your view?  I never see this as a major argument articulated by scholars.

It seems to me, that during this time period, the Romans and the Jews had a complicated on again - off again relationship.   I also think that it is incorrect to compare modern practices to those of 1st century Rome (anachronistic fallacy).  During the time of Jesus (and Paul) they where trying to get along with the Jews,  shortly after, was the Jewish war.  There was a tension and power struggle between the two.   I don't think that the Romans had any problem with killing people, but the question is, would they have allowed the Jewish authorities to do so.  I'm certainly not any kind of authority or expert in this area, but given my knowledge of their relationship and the behavior of the Romans I think that the answer is it's complicated. It fluctuated and what they allowed or didn't allow depended on that complicated relationship which could change rapidly.

Let me break this down for you.  Of the four pauls, one is completely legendary, two are varying degrees of lying for christ, and "authentic paul" is only authentic insomuch as we think a guy wrote it.

That guy, limited to just that content, is very vague about his cred.  In that content, he merely claims to have persecuted christians, but how or where is left up to the imagination..with the exception that he says he never persecuted them in judea.  This is important...because judea is the only place that a jew could accost people on account of their faith, and whatever charges they brought would only apply to fellow jews (and this would only be true before the jewish war - after..lelz). Further, the character of authentic paul is a hellenist and not a hebrew scholar, not someone who'd had rabbinical training....not someone the theocratic authorities would send to ferret out other hellenists, why not start with him?  

So, knowing all of that, lets parse the persecution claim.  If paul was just some well to do nut who yelled at christians from time to time..it's plausible.  

If we imagine that paul was traveling the countryside as an arm of and with the blessing of the religious -and- secular authorities..merrily prosecuting christians in some more meaningful and legal sense.....in a word.  No.  

The hard limit in all of this is that the story must be set before the jewish war, or else the entire thing is completely implausible.  The generous summary here...is that paul is exaggerating when it comes to his level of education, importance, role in society, and past acts - and that's just in "authentic" paul, and assuming it was written in the 50's.  

The paul you have in mind, otoh, is completely fictitious...and yes..that is the position of the majority of new testament scholars.  Christians commonly confuse their paul with the paul of biblical scholarship - so I can't fault you for being a common christian...but now you know.  

You're welcome.  

It seems that we jumped topics completely now (leaping more than creeping).   I have discussed this recently, and you are going to have to support your claims with more than fanciful stories, like with evidence and reason.

Have we?  

No, we have not. I directly answered questions you asked. Yes, it is the majority opinion of new testament scholarship that the bulk of what is attributed to paul and about paul is not authentic. The majority of the paul as persecutor tidbits we have are in legendary paul. Limiting ourselves to authentic paul, we find a trivial and vague claim...that -must- be trivial and vague..or else it would not support either the person of paul or the dating of the authentics.

If we assume that authentic paul is historically authentic, we are left with a hellenist, not a hebrew....who inflated his background as needed for polemic in the decades preceding the jewish war.

So, what would you like to do? Affirm the narrative continuity of legends, and in the process argue -against- the notion of a historical paul in authentic paul..or accept authentic paul as historically accurate and place him within the context of damascene authority in the 30's to 50's?

[RoadRunner79]

Do the majority of scholars support your view?  I never see this as a major argument articulated by scholars.

It seems to me, that during this time period, the Romans and the Jews had a complicated on again - off again relationship.   I also think that it is incorrect to compare modern practices to those of 1st century Rome (anachronistic fallacy).  During the time of Jesus (and Paul) they where trying to get along with the Jews,  shortly after, was the Jewish war.  There was a tension and power struggle between the two.   I don't think that the Romans had any problem with killing people, but the question is, would they have allowed the Jewish authorities to do so.  I'm certainly not any kind of authority or expert in this area, but given my knowledge of their relationship and the behavior of the Romans I think that the answer is it's complicated. It fluctuated and what they allowed or didn't allow depended on that complicated relationship which could change rapidly.

It seems that we jumped topics completely now (leaping more than creeping).   I have discussed this recently, and you are going to have to support your claims with more than fanciful stories, like with evidence and reason.

Have we?  

No, we have not.  I directly answered questions you asked.  Yes, it is the majority opinion of new testament scholarship that the bulk of what is attributed to paul and about paul is not authentic.  The majority of the paul as persecutor tidbits we have are in legendary paul.  Limiting ourselves to authentic paul, we find a trivial and vague claim...that -must- be trivial and vague..or else it would not support either the person of paul or the dating of the authentics.

Ok... more to the context of the thread, I'm going to ask what the evidence and reasons for these claims is.  As I stated above, I don't think that you have much more than textual criticism for these.  So perhaps we can discuss the nature of this evidence and what it implies.  Understand what the evidence is specifically, and then discuss how that should apply to your claims.  

And I think that it is off topic, because you jumped from another claim about Paul to something else about Paul.  However the purpose of the thread was to discuss evidence, and apparently what "only if theist understood"   Your purpose seems to be something else.