(February 8, 2018 at 3:10 pm)Jehanne Wrote: No evidence outside of "Paul" (or, "Pauls") exists to support the earliest one's claim that he persecuted anyone, along with his claim that he was publicly flogged (twice) by "the Jews". You can't have it both ways -- if Paul was doing official work by and for Rome, he could not have been punished by the local rulers, but if he was acting on his own, then the Romans would have punished him.
It just doesn't add up, but if you see him as a delusional epileptic with a personality disorder who was given to flights of fancy and religious extremes, then, yes, things begin to make sense. He could lie all he wanted, and no one would give a damn until those lies spread to the point where they were starting to cause the official rulers problems, and that's what probably got the (early) Paul arrested and then executed.
That is the dumbest argument one can make. You have 'proof' in Paul's texts as well as the texts of luke with no objection from Peter about who Paul was when confronted, and yet you cite the lack of roman documentation? Do you even know how the roman documentation structure worked? meaning would there even be any kind of paper work outside the local office/temple? Two and this is the biggest fail in your logic.. you do not have a complete roman record to research and definitively say Paul was not XYZ. we think we may have something like 15% of what was kept in one scriptoreum/libary (that deals with anything before the burning of Rome.) With all of those roman record lost is it your contention to maintain that if we do not currently have record of it from rome itself it did not happen?
Everywhere else i the real world Historeans take even religious text to help fill in the blanks we have about great empires or dynasties as it was common practice for the incommng tyrannts to burn everything old kinda like what ISIS tried to do recently. You take away a people's history they then become whatever you want them to be.
Everything above you wrote indicates you are one of these lemmings who is willing to give their mind's title thought and deed over to the incomming tyrants because your 'history' is gone.
