(June 9, 2016 at 9:46 pm)Minimalist Wrote:(June 9, 2016 at 7:54 pm)Jehanne Wrote: The earlier ones, typically:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/
The later ones, such as the Pastoral Letters, are all forgeries.
But we don't have original copies of these so-called "authentic ones." We have a prolific xtian writer in mid 2d century Rome who never heard of anyone named "paul" in spite of the fact that the story they put out was that "paul" was the guy who brought jesusism to the gentiles...including Rome itself a century earlier. This writer's name is Justin. Justin did hear of Marcion, though. And the really funny thing is that it was Marcion who popularized the so-called epistles of this paul guy in the 140s AD.
The whole story reeks of bullshit.
That's true; no originals of the New Testament exist, just "copies of the copies" to quote Professor Bart Ehrman. Still, Paul was mentioned by the author of Luke (who was anonymous, not a disciple of Jesus), and he was also mentioned by the author of Jude (a forgery), who seems to have known of some of Paul's earlier letters. Paul is a historical figure and no scholar doubts this, not even Timothy Price.