The Jesus story has details that is most definitely made up i just realized!!!

[Fake Messiah]

Paul, in the 7 epistles that are undisputed as having been written by him, refers to some actions of the historical Jesus -- namely, his last meal,

What Paul is talking about is a custom of "Lord's Supper". Paul claims that Lord told him about this custom, he thinks no one would know any of this if he didn't share what his Lord whispered to his ear. Yet Paul is riffing off motifs from other places, like in Genesis 14:18 where priest-king Melchizedek, like Christ, also takes bread and wine and offers a blessing. Also by Paul's time, communion rituals involving bread and a cup of wine or water had long been a staple feature of the pagan mystery faiths found throughout the Mediterranean world.
Paul was very aware of this, so what does he do? He simply calls other regions that do this "fakes" 1 Corinthians 10:21 "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons."
This is far from the only thing that Paul rips-off, because for starters the honorary title of the cult gods in the mysteries was Kyrios, "Lord" - the exact same word used in the NT for Jesus.

The thing is that Paul bluntly admits that he's making up Jesus himself by looking into the scriptures and not even talking to other people (like witnesses). See it for yourself:

Galatians 1:11-12   I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Galatians 1:15-16  But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

Considering that Paul's writings date before the gospels, writer of Mark reverse-engineered a cosmic savior deity from Paul into a flesh-and-blood man on earth doing a sloppy job.

[GrandizerII]

Considering that Paul's writings date before the gospels, writer of Mark reverse-engineered a cosmic savior deity from Paul into a flesh-and-blood man on earth doing a sloppy job.

Maybe, we don't know. Could also be "Mark" was unaware of the Epistles.

With scant details, we can't make confident conclusions. Too many gaps in what we do know regarding the origin of Christianity.

[The Grand Nudger]

What him?  The search for the historical paul dead-ended a long time ago.  What is meant, by "authentic", is simply that we think a singular person wrote them, not that this person was paul, whoever paul was.

[GrandizerII]

What him?  The search for the historical paul dead-ended a long time ago.  What is meant, by "authentic", is simply that we think a singular person wrote them, not that this person was paul, whoever paul was.

The name "Paul" is in these "authentic epistles". These epistles are considered "authentic" when it has been determined that they were written by the original "Paul", not some later authors pretending their letters were written ages ago by the original "Paul".

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

What him?  The search for the historical paul dead-ended a long time ago.  What is meant, by "authentic", is simply that we think a singular person wrote them, not that this person was paul, whoever paul was.

Sort of reminds me of the claim that 'The Iliad' wasn't written by Homer, but by another Greek of the same name.

Boru

[Jehanne]

What him?  The search for the historical paul dead-ended a long time ago.  What is meant, by "authentic", is simply that we think a singular person wrote them, not that this person was paul, whoever paul was.

Do you believe that Pontius Pilate existed and was the Roman Goren of Palestine, and if so, why?  What historical evidence do you have to backup your claim?

[mordant]

What him?  The search for the historical paul dead-ended a long time ago.  What is meant, by "authentic", is simply that we think a singular person wrote them, not that this person was paul, whoever paul was.

The name "Paul" is in these "authentic epistles". These epistles are considered "authentic" when it has been determined that they were written by the original "Paul", not some later authors pretending their letters were written ages ago by the original "Paul".

No. What was determined was that (depending on whether you accept Philemon as "authentic") either six or seven of the epistles were written by the same person in the same style, claiming to be the Apostle Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus. The others were not written in the same way (vocabulary, structure, sentence length, etc).

Even the "authentic" letters are widely regarded as a mash-up of shorter letters, the identity of the original recipients they were addressed to being long since lost. People did not write such stem-winding letters and it is likely that some admirer collected the alleged Paul's "best hits" and inartfully organized them together.

I'm not saying they weren't written by THAT Paul, but only that we don't know enough to say that it's proven. It's more accurate to say that the corpus of canonical writings traditionally attributed to Paul has been shown to not be written in the same style by the same person and we've identified a subset that DO look like they have a common author, and that author DOES claim to be Paul.

[GrandizerII]

The name "Paul" is in these "authentic epistles". These epistles are considered "authentic" when it has been determined that they were written by the original "Paul", not some later authors pretending their letters were written ages ago by the original "Paul".

No. What was determined was that (depending on whether you accept Philemon as "authentic") either six or seven of the epistles were written by the same person in the same style, claiming to be the Apostle Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus. The others were not written in the same way (vocabulary, structure, sentence length, etc).

Even the "authentic" letters are widely regarded as a mash-up of shorter letters, the identity of the original recipients they were addressed to being long since lost. People did not write such stem-winding letters and it is likely that some admirer collected the alleged Paul's "best hits" and inartfully organized them together.

I'm not saying they weren't written by THAT Paul, but only that we don't know enough to say that it's proven. It's more accurate to say that the corpus of canonical writings traditionally attributed to Paul has been shown to not be written in the same style by the same person and we've identified a subset that DO look like they have a common author, and that author DOES claim to be Paul.

Ok, which scholars say that the "authentics" were a mashup of shorter letters, and that people in those days did not write such stem winding letters? I'd like to see their reasoning for this.

[mordant]

Ok, which scholars say that the "authentics" were a mashup of shorter letters, and that people in those days did not write such stem winding letters? I'd like to see their reasoning for this.

Carrier mentions it:

"Each full letter named in the New Testament actually contains pieces of several letters, whose full content and original destination are now lost (see OHJ, p. 511). Sometimes so badly connected up as to be nearly unintelligible (e.g. the transition between 1 Cor. 8 and 9: OHJ, pp. 582-83)."

"OHJ" refers to Carrier's own book, "On the Historicity of Jesus".

Here's the link (the context is he's arguing for the historicity of Paul, and the correctness of the attribution of the "authentics" and their likely being authored in the 50s):

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7643

(I was a bit surprised to find Carrier, a Jesus mythicist, arguing for the historicity of Paul. One wag on another forum said it's because he needs Paul to be authentic since part of his mythicist argument hinges on Paul; but I don't find his reasoning very strained at all, either for the mythical Jesus or the historic Paul).

This notion of the Pauline epistles being "mash ups" is not unique to Carrier. For example here's a South African theologian named Jordaan discussing the reasons for supposing that Paul at least wrote 2 Corinthians in pieces over a longer period of time, although I think Carrier's curated solution makes more sense. Jordaan also references several other writers over the past couple of centuries who have had similar views:

https://indieskriflig.org.za/index.php/s.../1783/2900

[The Grand Nudger]

Try Miller's "Pastoral Letters as Composite Documents".  Theres a great summary of composite doc production as it relates to both the ot and the nt, and it's purpose, specifically in training up new clergy. The central point is that no singular paul (or psuedo paul) can claim authorship of the full contents. They were curated by scribal communities that we would call liturgical academies.

They're not letters at all, at least not in the form we have presented to us. They're wisdom sayings...on how to run a church. It even says so on the packaging, lol. We can imagine, if we like, that the authentics were "other than", but that's an amusing bit of compartmentalization...because even if the actual apostle paul really wrote everything we see in them guided by the correcting hand of an angel...that's not why the church selected what it did, from the available body of "paul", in any case.