Why are Paul's writings in the Bible?

[Bucky Ball]

I never said Carrier was "economically obigated". 
That's ALL you got ? 
I want to know who else is in your "consensus" claim.
YOU claimed consensus. You don't know what that consists of ?

That's all I got? Are you not reading my posts properly?

I claimed consensus, yes. Do YOU know what that consists of? Hint: It's not only going to involve a handful of scholars that may be to your liking. Again, you're rigging the game so that no matter what I say, you will not be satisfied.

Also, why don't you present your positive case for the mythicist Paul? Bring it to the table, so we can analyze it.

You claimed consensus. 
I'm simply asking who that consists of, and who in it consists of those not economically obligated. 
It's YOUR claim. Sopport it or STFU.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, yeah, a historical Paul should be a non-issue. It's also a more parsimonious view than to say that there was never a man by the name of Paul who wrote/authorized at least some of the epistles in his name, because then you'd have to ask what the motivation here is then to just attribute these epistles to a fictional character. I can understand later works attributed to Paul being pseudepigraphical due to his later popularity, but every single epistle in his name? What was so special about the name "Paul"?

b-mine.

The trouble is that we know that happened even if there were a boy named paul.  We may as well ask what was so special about the name Drizzt Do'Urden.  Created as a supporting character by R.A. Salvatore, and certainly not historical, it's probably one of the most famous fan fic characters in the genre.  Dracula is similarly well represented.  Both of these characters were created to discuss then-present racial tensions (to very different conclusions, lol) - which is very much a thing irl.  Salvatore based the character off of other characters in other works of fiction (fiction also existing, irl), and Stoker loosely modeled Dracula off a certain historic figure.

Now, I know, I know, we want to say that these examples are known works of fiction and so it's not one for one - full of magic and beasties...but...so is magic book.  The historic paul in the context of biblical studies is not the man himself - but what we think is the core and most consistent of the messaging.  Written by someone other than the historic person paul which we also think existed.  From a copy, or from oral tradition, or from memory, or from knowing him. Or mix and match them all. Nothing we have is believed to have been written by paul.  

Then there's a mirrored question.  We know that the name paul was important.  It's not likely that a single motivation explains every attribution or that there even is an explanation for every attribution (i mean that as an issue of trivia and as a brute fact about attribution).  Issues of historicity are a side gig - because there are other letters that have been at various times attributed to paul (and the historic person paul is believed to have written alot more) but they didn't make it into magic book as we have it and so don't tend to be represented in the possibly historical person of paul even if they were his letters (or a copy, or whatever).

If you wanted a single and parsimonious answer for all of this it's not that there was a historic person named paul. It's that a historic church had historic needs and the historic character of paul serviced them. That's the explanation for every detail of any paul that survived to present day and become a part of magic book, and the ones that didn't, and the ones we custom made to purpose. It's that, more than anything, which makes the search for any historical basis for pretty much any of the biblical characters so difficult.

[GrandizerII]

That's all I got? Are you not reading my posts properly?

I claimed consensus, yes. Do YOU know what that consists of? Hint: It's not only going to involve a handful of scholars that may be to your liking. Again, you're rigging the game so that no matter what I say, you will not be satisfied.

Also, why don't you present your positive case for the mythicist Paul? Bring it to the table, so we can analyze it.

You claimed consensus. 
I'm simply asking who that consists of, and who in it consists of those not economically obligated. 
It's YOUR claim. Sopport it or STFU.

This is getting tiring. I already gave examples of a few scholars (with references) who accept a historical Paul. I can add more: Dominic Crossan, James McGrath, perhaps everyone who was a member of the Jesus Seminar? I don't have a whole list right in front of me, just as I don't have a whole list of biologists who accept that evolution is true. On the other hand, you have Robert Price on your side and?

Now STFU about this silly consensus list demand when I have gone beyond that already and made a case for the historical Paul from parsimony and addressed your other points. Work on enriching the discussion instead of dwelling way too much on something that's not that big a deal considering all the other stuff said.

What is your positive case for a mythicist Paul? What is the story that you believe about this character? Let's then compare accounts, and consider which appears to be more parsimounious, taking into account factors such as dates when the epistles were written, temporal/geometric proximity to events/occurrences mentioned in the epistles, whether the wider implication is more parsimonious, and so on.

If you don't want to do any of that, then don't waste my time.

[The Grand Nudger]

The best case for the mythicist paul is that we already know that the character of paul is a composite one. When we set out to confirm or deny any given detail the list is populated by the attributes of a known composite character - from the word go. Hastily, lazily, we think "well, that just means cut out the supernatural shit, right?" No. There are completely mundane things that the characters do for reasons that we know are purely literary and theological.

The mythicist position is -not- that no one ever lived who ever did or said anything that seems similar if you look at it sideways in the right light on the proper phase of the moon. We know for a fact that someone said all of this shit. Every jot and tittle. At least one person......

It's that any factual details are grafts onto the important theological and mythological (or legendary, if we want to be super pedantic) details which predated any real boys. The way that the consensus uses terms is basically art and unfamiliar to an intelligent person who otherwise doesn't know the lingo. With paul, and with jesus, the consensus view is that both were historical and we know absolutely nothing about them from magic book, because magic book isn't about those real people. It is not, in any way shape or form, a history book - and never was.

If you think about it, as a prophetic book and a messianic religion, the deck was always stacked in favor of the mythicist position. Even the real boys, whoever they were if they ever were, had to check some boxes...to get the rest of them filled in by later authors. By design, there was a story before the heroes were born.

[Silver]

As someone already mentioned, Paul's existence is of no importance to the bible or the faith. What is important to the theist is the story regarding the transformative power of conversion. If a reprehensible man like Paul can find christ, then so can anyone.

[The Grand Nudger]

Pretty much. Just to be thorough, the best criticism of the mythicist position is not that it's wrong or inaccurate, but that it's non novel even if true. Guys like carrier aren't saying anything that biblical criticism hadn't already worked out - they're just using a set of terms different than the carefully curated bits that send nutbars here talking about pauls authentic letters as though they have a copy of the mans diary. The fact is, the most historically accurate and historically important detail about paul in all of the works that have ever been attributed to him by anyone might be the placement of a large mole somewhere specific on his body - but unless that mole did fucking miracles, it wasn't included.

[Bucky Ball]

You claimed consensus. 
I'm simply asking who that consists of, and who in it consists of those not economically obligated. 
It's YOUR claim. Sopport it or STFU.

This is getting tiring. I already gave examples of a few scholars (with references) who accept a historical Paul. I can add more: Dominic Crossan, James McGrath, perhaps everyone who was a member of the Jesus Seminar? I don't have a whole list right in front of me, just as I don't have a whole list of biologists who accept that evolution is true. On the other hand, you have Robert Price on your side and?

Now STFU about this silly consensus list demand when I have gone beyond that already and made a case for the historical Paul from parsimony and addressed your other points. Work on enriching the discussion instead of dwelling way too much on something that's not that big a deal considering all the other stuff said.

What is your positive case for a mythicist Paul? What is the story that you believe about this character? Let's then compare accounts, and consider which appears to be more parsimounious, taking into account factors such as dates when the epistles were written, temporal/geometric proximity to events/occurrences mentioned in the epistles, whether the wider implication is more parsimonious, and so on.

If you don't want to do any of that, then don't waste my time.

Nope. 
I asked you who in your consensus claim is not economically obligated. You gave a few names. I want ALL the names in your fake consensus, and PROOF of your claim.
I have no positive case. I simply asked a question concerning YOUR consensus claim. I see I'm never going to get it.
I see the time being wasted here is mine. You have no support for your claim.

ta ta

[LinuxGal]

Paul did not preach (if there was one) "Christianity". He preached his own gospel, which he admitted/claimed he got "by personal revelation", (and "from no man").

Then he didn't get it from Jesus, because he said Jesus was a man.

Romans 5:15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

[LinuxGal]

I asked you who in your consensus claim is not economically obligated. You gave a few names. I want ALL the names in your fake consensus, and PROOF of your claim.

GrandizerII:

1. Dominic Crossan
2. James McGrath
3. Richard Carrier
4. James Tabor
5: Bart Ehrman

You:

1. Robert Price

Halftime at Circvs Maximvs and the Lions lead the Mythicists 5 to 1

[GrandizerII]

This is getting tiring. I already gave examples of a few scholars (with references) who accept a historical Paul. I can add more: Dominic Crossan, James McGrath, perhaps everyone who was a member of the Jesus Seminar? I don't have a whole list right in front of me, just as I don't have a whole list of biologists who accept that evolution is true. On the other hand, you have Robert Price on your side and?

Now STFU about this silly consensus list demand when I have gone beyond that already and made a case for the historical Paul from parsimony and addressed your other points. Work on enriching the discussion instead of dwelling way too much on something that's not that big a deal considering all the other stuff said.

What is your positive case for a mythicist Paul? What is the story that you believe about this character? Let's then compare accounts, and consider which appears to be more parsimounious, taking into account factors such as dates when the epistles were written, temporal/geometric proximity to events/occurrences mentioned in the epistles, whether the wider implication is more parsimonious, and so on.

If you don't want to do any of that, then don't waste my time.

Nope. 
I asked you who in your consensus claim is not economically obligated. You gave a few names. I want ALL the names in your fake consensus, and PROOF of your claim.
I have no positive case. I simply asked a question concerning YOUR consensus claim. I see I'm never going to get it.
I see the time being wasted here is mine. You have no support for your claim.

ta ta

You knew you weren't going to get exactly what you asked for because your demand wasn't made in good faith. There was no way I was going to list every single name for you, that'd be completely unreasonable. You also sneak in an extra demand which was not in line with what I claimed.

I gave you some names, and you weren't happy, but you were not going to be happy unless I gave you exactly what you wanted.

Here's the thing, Bucky. One need not know every single scholar/expert holding to a consensus to be certain that there is such a consensus. Consensus, in fact, very often isn't something that is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, but is nevertheless something that is noted in academic works or credible encyclopedias/wikis. It is implied also through observing a lack of relevant experts opposing the consensus.

I didn't waste your time, you did that to yourself.

And I don't believe for a second that you don't hold to a positive case for Paul mythicism. Though I do accept you don't have a strong argument to make for it.