(March 20, 2012 at 8:41 pm)Minimalist Wrote: "Paul" is as mythic a figure as "jesus."
http://www.truthseekers.co.za/content/view/258/53/
Quote:Two Pauls – One Illusion
The trail-blazing Christian missionary and apostle, St Paul, appears nowhere in the secular histories of his age (not in Tacitus, not in Pliny, not in Josephus, etc.) Though Paul, we are told, mingled in the company of provincial governors and had audiences before kings and emperors, no scribe thought it worthwhile to record these events. The popular image of the saint is selectively crafted from two sources: the Book of Acts and the Epistles which bear his name. Yet the two sources actually present two radically different individuals and two wildly divergent stories. Biblical scholars are only too familiar with the conundrum that chunks of Paul's own story, gleaned from the epistles, are incompatible with the tale recorded in Acts but live with the "divine mystery" of it all. Perish the thought that they might recognize the whole saga is a work of pious fiction.
Pious fiction? How about wholesale plagiarism? Ever read Greek tragedy? The entire theme that we read in Acts regarding Paul was quite well known.
