Resurrecting the thread "The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity"

[rightcoaster]

Maccoby also points out that Pharisee Gamaliel defended the apostles in their trial, impossible if the Jesus followers and Pharisees were enemies.

The story of Gamaliel speaking up for the Christians is in Acts, not written by Paul, and so is the claim that Paul was trained by Gamaliel. The author of Acts is far from accurate ... I think the author of Acts was much given to what I call "lying for Jesus."

As for Paul's claim to have been a Pharisee, possibly he too was lying for Jesus...

As the NT evolved, the language became increasingly anti-Pharisee, anti-Jew. Maccoby says (and I suppose it makes sense) that the Sadducees were Roman collaborators, or at least benefited from not rocking the Roman boat, the Pharisees represented the anti-Roman sentiment; thus to curry favor with Rome the propaganda shifted all aspects of the evolving story, including the rewriting of history, to anti-Pharisee, whitewash Sadducee. It would be counter to this tendency for a pro-Pharisee insertion to have been made later.

But to the Jewish communities and the Gentiles outside of Judea, where the Temple-centric Sadducean philosophy and influence was subject to the inverse-square law at best, and where synagogues and Pharisaic approaches were the norm, it would be far better marketing to sound like a (Pharisaic) Jew to the Jews, and essential for the Gentile targets.