The Quest for the Historical Paul

[Minimalist]

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily...ical-paul/

What can we reliably know about Paul and how can we know it? As is the case with Jesus, this is not an easy question. Historians have been involved in what has been called the “Quest for the Historical Jesus” for the past one hundred and seventy-five years, evaluating and sifting through our sources, trying to determine what we can reliably say about him.[/url] As it happens, the quest for the historical Paul began almost simultaneously, inaugurated by the German scholar Ferdinand Christian Baur.[url=http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/the-quest-for-the-historical-paul/#note02][ii] Baur put his finger squarely on the problem: There are [i]four different “Pauls” in the New Testament, not one, and each is quite distinct from the others. New Testament scholars today are generally agreed on this point.[/i]

I imagine our resident christards will lose their minds over Tabor's last comment whereas I am more concerned with the initial premise of an "authentic" Paul.  I'm not sure what "authentic" means in this context.

[IATIA]

The bible was put together from random scriptures. They liked the writings of a "Paul" and so anything that was written by a "Paul" had to be included, source not withstanding. After all, there was only one person named "Paul" in those days.

[Minimalist]

If by "authentic" Tabor means that the first 7 have a certain stylistic similarity and a more or less unified theme best explained by having been written by one author (as opposed to the rest of the bullshit which is all over the place) that is one thing.  But we do not have the originals so we cannot know if those 7 were "homogenized" by a later editor but one thing that editor forgot was that there is a historical marker in 2 Corinthians - or as Donald Drumpf would say "Two Corinthians walk into a bar....." which points to a period between 84 and 64 BC.  That would blow the jesus story out of the water at least the jesus story which was later concocted by the so-called "early church fathers."

[Alex K]

What's that marker, Min?

[Minimalist]

King James Bible

In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:

2 Cor 11  32

Aretas III of Nabatea did occupy Damascus for about 20 years until Gnaeus Pompey reached the area in 64 BC and kicked him out.  Aretas IV of Nabatea, who died in 40 AD, never occupied Damascus which was part of what the Romans called "The Decapolis."

Xtians will try to sprain their scrotums giving Damascus to this later Aretas but it doesn't work historically.  He is last seen in history fleeing from the army of the Governor of Syria, Lucius Vitellius, c 37 AD after attacking Herod Antipas.  Attacking a Roman ally was almost never a good idea and the only thing that saved Aretas IV at that time was the death of Tiberius.  Vitellius stopped his pursuit awaiting new orders from Caligula.

[Alex K]

So who does the author of Corinthians refer to when talking about Christ if we are in 60 bc? Or is this question too naive because the text has been tinkered with and there is no single author of Cor.

[Minimalist]

Yes.  That is the question, isn't it?

BTW, I'll give you one other little thought.  Corinth did not exist in 60 BC....except as a burned out ruin which is the way the Romans left it in 146 BC.  The simplest answer to that little problem is that by the time the proto-orthodox xtians got around to rehabilitating 'paul' into their writings Corinth was a going concern and the letters were simply "re-addressed."

[vorlon13]

Kinda thinking "Paul" is the equivalent of Brigham Young and playing to his "Joe Smith", of that era; Jesus Christ.

Jesus to whatever extent he existed as a person or group, had imposed too many congenital errors in his movement, even by standards then as now, hyper relaxed for the religious orbit. "Paul" salvaged what he could, rewrote other segments as needed, made up shit as required, and deliberately misinterpreted all the rest.

And here we are, 1800-2000 years later, and the fucking Mormons are using the same play book, LOL !!

And bless their little conniving Mormon hearts, they thoughtfully documented the whole sordid mess of what they did.

Praise Jesus, er, Joe, well, somebody . . . .

[Minimalist]

Except if the Aretas reference to the first century BC is accurate then "paul" pre-dates "jesus" by nearly a century.  To use your mormon analogy, that would put Brigham Young in the late 1700's which would cause even a mormon fuckwit some problems.

[vorlon13]

No, no it wouldn't.




For example, Joe Smith's HANDWRITTEN version of his first visitation is not the 'official' version the church requires a convert to believe in as a condition of being a Mormon.

and it gets worse . . . . . .