RE: If theists understood "evidence"
October 10, 2018 at 7:18 am
(This post was last modified: October 10, 2018 at 7:24 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Let me break this down for you. Of the four pauls, one is completely legendary, two are varying degrees of lying for christ, and "authentic paul" is only authentic insomuch as we think a guy wrote it.
That guy, limited to just that content, is very vague about his cred. In that content, he merely claims to have persecuted christians, but how or where is left up to the imagination..with the exception that he says he never persecuted them in judea. This is important...because judea is the only place that a jew could accost people on account of their faith, and whatever charges they brought would only apply to fellow jews (and this would only be true before the jewish war - after..lelz). Further, the character of authentic paul is a hellenist and not a hebrew scholar, not someone who'd had rabbinical training....not someone the theocratic authorities would send to ferret out other hellenists, why not start with him?
So, knowing all of that, lets parse the persecution claim. If paul was just some well to do nut who yelled at christians from time to time..it's plausible.
If we imagine that paul was traveling the countryside as an arm of and with the blessing of the religious -and- secular authorities..merrily prosecuting christians in some more meaningful and legal sense.....in a word. No.
The hard limit in all of this is that the story must be set before the jewish war, or else the entire thing is completely implausible. The generous summary here...is that paul is exaggerating when it comes to his level of education, importance, role in society, and past acts - and that's just in "authentic" paul, and assuming it was written in the 50's.
The paul you have in mind, otoh, is completely fictitious...and yes..that is the position of the majority of new testament scholars. Christians commonly confuse their paul with the paul of biblical scholarship - so I can't fault you for being a common christian...but now you know.
You're welcome.
That guy, limited to just that content, is very vague about his cred. In that content, he merely claims to have persecuted christians, but how or where is left up to the imagination..with the exception that he says he never persecuted them in judea. This is important...because judea is the only place that a jew could accost people on account of their faith, and whatever charges they brought would only apply to fellow jews (and this would only be true before the jewish war - after..lelz). Further, the character of authentic paul is a hellenist and not a hebrew scholar, not someone who'd had rabbinical training....not someone the theocratic authorities would send to ferret out other hellenists, why not start with him?
So, knowing all of that, lets parse the persecution claim. If paul was just some well to do nut who yelled at christians from time to time..it's plausible.
If we imagine that paul was traveling the countryside as an arm of and with the blessing of the religious -and- secular authorities..merrily prosecuting christians in some more meaningful and legal sense.....in a word. No.
The hard limit in all of this is that the story must be set before the jewish war, or else the entire thing is completely implausible. The generous summary here...is that paul is exaggerating when it comes to his level of education, importance, role in society, and past acts - and that's just in "authentic" paul, and assuming it was written in the 50's.
The paul you have in mind, otoh, is completely fictitious...and yes..that is the position of the majority of new testament scholars. Christians commonly confuse their paul with the paul of biblical scholarship - so I can't fault you for being a common christian...but now you know.
You're welcome.
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