Quote:Someone had to write those letters, even if not an actual Paul.
Well that is the issue. There is little in the way of historical markers in any of the pauline corpus. Somehow the legend progresses from saul to paul like magic. We are told that he escaped from King Aretas in Damascus but the only time in history that Aretas (King of Nabatea) controlled Damascus was Aretas III between 84 and 64 BC. Xtians ignore that like the plague and try to shoehorn Aretas IV into the role but in 64 BC G. Pompey, carrying out his great campaign in the East took Damascus and there is no indication that the Romans ever gave it up. Certainly not to Aretas IV who is last seen in history fleeing from the army of Lucius Vitellius Veteris, Imperial Legate of Syria, after foolishly attacking Herod Antipas, a Roman ally.
Next anomaly is the xtian obsession with Corinth. Corinth did not exist for a century after Mummius sacked, burned and leveled it in 146 BC at the conclusion of the Achaean War. It was picked as a site for a Roman colony by Caesar in 44 BC but he was assassinated shortly after and so the job of carrying out his wishes fell to his successors who most likely were in no position to act on them until the Civil Wars were over - Greece being a major battleground between Octavian/Antony and the murderers and later on also between Octavian/Agrippa and Antony/Cleopatra. But even then, archaeology indicates that first century Corinth did not grow as expected and history tells us that it was not until Vespasian "re-founded" the colony in 70-71 that Corinth actually started to prosper. According to the tale that later xtians wove this paul guy was there 20 years before Vespasian acted. The evidence on the ground suggests it was hardly the thriving city it later became. Finally, the Greek geographer Pausanias, around the time of Hadrian, visited Corinth and having an obsession for religious articles noted all sorts of shrines and temples but failed to observe anything remotely "jewish" let alone xtian.
Is it possible that Marcion got hold of a series of letters written by some long forgotten gnostic-type group? Sure. The evidence suggests they were scattered all over the Eastern Med. We will never know what Marcion did with them and we can only guess what editing they underwent when the later xtians decided they could make use of them.
So, again, when someone claims that there are x number of "authentic" pauline epistles I want to know how they are defining the word "authentic."
