(March 4, 2013 at 4:10 pm)EGross Wrote: I like the conspiracy theory that Rabban Gamliel sent Paul, who was really a Hillel guy, to the non-Jews to sell them on a new religion in order to distinguish it from Judaism, so that the messianists in their midst would either be absorbed by one group or the other.
Makes about as much sense as anything else.
So what would be a good way of selling this religion to non-Jews? "I was persecuting Christians and then had a divine revelation on the road to Damascus," might be a good start.
Paul tells Christian communities about visiting Jerusalem in letters. When he wrote to the Galatians he said Barnabus and Titus went with him. I looked these two up and neither of them appear to have gone to Galatia so the Galateans had to take Paul's word for it.
The real problem, of course, is knowing what Paul actually wrote because even the "undisputed" epistles have been viewed with suspicion.
Quote:See also Radical Criticism, which maintains that the external evidence for attributing any of the letters to Paul is so weak, that it should be considered that all the letters appearing in the Marcion canon were written in Paul's name by members of the Marcionite Church and were afterwards edited and adopted by the Catholic Church.
Where are the snake and mushroom smilies?
