Would Jesus promote punishing the innocent instead of the guilty?

[Fake Messiah]

I also disagree when you say that his authorship is debated within academia by referring to a passage written by someone not part of this specific academia

And how is the Dutch theologian Van Manen not part of this specific academia?

[GrandizerII]

I also disagree when you say that his authorship is debated within academia by referring to a passage written by someone not part of this specific academia  

And how is the Dutch theologian Van Manen not part of this specific academia?

Was referring to the author of the passage in screenshot, not to van Manen. van Manen's view on this matter is not shared by any present NT scholar I'm aware of. Even Richard Carrier acknowledges that Paul more likely than not existed and wrote some of the Epistles later to be incorporated in the NT.

See his reasoning here:
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7643

Excerpt:

First, they all cohere in style (idioms of vocabulary, connotation, grammar, punctuation, sentence length). The forged letters do not. They neither cohere with each other (except when produced as a unit, like the Seneca correspondence), nor with the style features of the authentic six. So one person did write those six (even if, as the letters openly state, they also reflected the views of a co-worker whom Paul sometimes names in each case).
Second, they are stitched together from pieces of other letters. 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). One does not forge letters that way. Which makes this another good indicator that these are not forgeries. Rather, someone tried to semi-reverently keep an original collection, but just the parts they liked, and assembled them together into a new whole in the most logical way they could. Their meddling after that was small and nitpicking, as the manuscript evidence shows, or blatant and obviously un-Pauline, as some of the interpolations made before 150 A.D. show (see Pauline Interpolations).
Third, they all make arguments and interact persuasively in a context where the Jewish temple was still standing and its cult operating. And in a context where views of Jesus and the Church that appear in the Gospels have not yet come to exist (not even to denounce or counter or rebut, much less use or co-opt or transform). This is very unlikely unless the letters were written before the year 66 A.D. (when the Jewish War began, an event wholly unknown to the author), and before the Gospels were written (which could be as early as 70 or 75 A.D. for Mark).

[Fake Messiah]

And how is the Dutch theologian Van Manen not part of this specific academia?

Was referring to the author of the passage in screenshot, not to van Manen. van Manen's view on this matter is not shared by any present NT scholar I'm aware of. Even Richard Carrier acknowledges that Paul more likely than not existed and wrote some of the Epistles later to be incorporated in the NT.

I don't care who disagrees, I simply pointed to the fact that there is discussion about Paul, I am not claiming who is right or wrong - that's your false conclusion because you don't read what I actually write.

[GrandizerII]

Was referring to the author of the passage in screenshot, not to van Manen. van Manen's view on this matter is not shared by any present NT scholar I'm aware of. Even Richard Carrier acknowledges that Paul more likely than not existed and wrote some of the Epistles later to be incorporated in the NT.

I don't care who disagrees, I simply pointed to the fact that there is discussion about Paul, I am not claiming who is right or wrong - that's your false conclusion because you don't read what I actually write.

His authorship of the authentic Pauline Epistles isn't debated within NT scholarship academia. As in there is a clear consensus among NT scholars that Paul was a historical figure who authored some of the writings now found in the NT.

van Manen was wrong and he died more than a century ago just as a reminder.

[The Grand Nudger]

-there's the rub, you're looking at this like an argument.


The authentic pauline epistles are only authentic, and pauline, because we believe that a single person wrote them and we may as well call that person paul.  That's it, that's all, that's all that the phrase authentic pauline epistle™ means. That's the entire consensus of scholarship on pauls historicity. There is no consensus that the paul of the nt, even of the authentic epistles, is a historic character.

That they were written by a single author is no guarantee of their contents, and while miracle stories are dismissed out of hand - the damascus road incident may not be history.  The conversion of paul as a theological device is a thing, and...as before, it's not really an argument against things dismissed out of hand, but it is important to the historic development of the christian religion. What's happening here, instead, seems something like an argument over whether hercules family was really killed by, say, a stray dog.

Let me ask you this - in your experience, if some nutbar leads into his god pitch with "I used to be just like you, then I saw the light", is seeing the light the most important little white lie, or is the preamble?

[Vicki Q]

Thanks for the reply.

I note that the book it's from was published in 1950. It suggests visiting the Encyclopedia Biblica (published 1899) and Whittaker (1933). Also Christian Theology and Modern Skepticism published 1872. It references Howell Smith who doesn't Google at all easily and Joseph McCabe who never held any university position.

So set against the antique and the unknown...

Here  is the link to the (mostly living!) Wikipedia list of New Testament scholars. Which of them say the biography Paul puts forward is wrong?

[Fake Messiah]

"Who is debating? Who is debating?"

When will it ever go into your head that so called Paul's life is full of BS. Like what you said few posts ago:

how a hardline Pharisee came to be running the Gentile section of a Jewish sub-faith which believed that the Kingdom of God had been inaugurated.

What changed his mind?

Yeah, Paul was a Pharisee who hunted Christians, because that's what Pharisees do all day long. Grow up already, it's just more antisemitic propaganda crap, just like the invented Jewish custom of releasing prisoners at Passover.

Not to mention that rabbis have been saying for centuries that Paul could not have been a Pharisee because he didn't know even the basic stuff about Judaism.

[The Grand Nudger]

Paul™ of acedemic consensus was an ideological polemicist, not a jewish theologian...not a secretary, and not a historian - not even of paul.

There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself...these are the sorts of people who start movements. It does seem strangely uncurious and a bit ridiculous for christians to believe otherwise, as a belief in christ does not require a belief in paul.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I support the notion - with no evidence or scholarship to back it up - that the Pauline Epistles were actually authored by Jesus’ insane step-brother Terry. 

Boru

[Vicki Q]

Paul™ of acedemic consensus was an ideological polemicist, not a jewish theologian.  

Have you got this the wrong way round? The Paul of academic consensus was both Jewish, and a theologian. Here is the link to Wikipedia to confirm that.

I you think he's an ideological polemicist, against that consensus, could you give your evidence? Thanks.

..not a secretary,

I'm not sure what you mean by this. He may well have used an amanuensis, of course.

and not a historian - not even of paul.

Again, could you provide your evidence, and let me know which scholars on the list provided above don't agree with what I've said is the clear consensus on the accuracy of his biography?

There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself...these are the sorts of people who start movements.

Except that Paul didn't start the movement. He jumped on the bandwagon after Damascus Road.

It does seem strangely uncurious and a bit ridiculous for christians to believe otherwise, as a belief in christ does not require a belief in paul.

Paul's writings are immensely important, and provide crucial and solid evidence about what the Early Church believed about Jesus. They really did believe that Jesus had been resurrected, and that His death and resurrection was the climax of the Jewish story. They really did believe that Jesus had done things that God said He would do, and that role reserved for God meant that Jesus must in some sense have been God- an astonishing claim.

And if we know what the Early Church believed this astonishing stuff, the follow on question is why? I would argue that the simplest, most economical solution, is that these things actually happened.