Bible Lesson: The Death of Jesus an Evolving Myth

[John V]

You misunderstand me. I don't mean an OT theological overlay, or even a Theological overlay of Paul in the form of the Epistles, I mean theology developed outside the Bible, i.e. church tradition and later theology. Without knowledge of theology outside the Bible, modern Christians would not practice the religion they do. As is there is a remarkable variety in Christian belief simply because of the ambiguity in the OT.

It's a side note here because I began with Jesus and the Gospels, but the OT is not a particularly clear set of documents either, and just as there are several sects of Jews now, there where many sects in the couple centuries before and after 1 CE. The Pharisees and Sadducee mentioned in the synoptic Gospels were just two such sects.

I am interested in the development of that theology, but I don't think that god developed it. God is the fictional subject of theology, not the creator of it. Obviously you will disagree with that

Man is the developer of theology, and that is god's intent:

Prov 25
2 It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out.

So you say, but where do the Gospels endorse Paul?

I said that the apostles endorse Paul, in Acts, and Acts is written by the author of gLuke.

It is true that the author of Luke and Acts sort of endorses Paul in Acts. Certainly he describes Paul's life and death in Acts. But he describes a rather different Paul than the one in Paul's own letters. And while the Gospels are written after Paul, and they do describe people other than the disciples seeing Jesus after the resurrection, they do not describe Paul's vision of Jesus. With out Acts, the Gospels have no connection to Paul at all.

Maybe - but we do have Acts.

[Minimalist]

Marcion endorsed Paul.

Or invented him.