Why are Paul's writings in the Bible?

[The Grand Nudger]

We watch no such thing, and not even the consensus of scholars thinks so. We read stories from people we think (wish, dream, hope) might've watched some paul do something.

The "undisputed letters" do not refer to the journal of the historic person of paul. That's fundy crankbait, but also easily misunderstood as the common linguistic implication of the use of such terms of art. Same reason they like to say "psuedonymous" instead of "forgery". It's not that historicists are mythicists, but that historicists and mythicists agree with these issues being present. The mythicists think that's because it's exactly what it looks like, and the historicists think there was somebody at the bottom of it even so. In exactly those words, often enough.

I think that it doesn't matter whether there was someone underneath it because magic book isn't about that person even if there were. Magic book is exactly what it looks like. Myth and legend about a god and the powers and privileges that follow worshipping this god. The communities that produced these texts are the explanation for their existence and details. Not some guy. On some level, I feel for the poor fucks who make it their lifes work to try to find the historic paul or the historic jesus - they never will. The deck was stacked against them by cultists who gained control of a state through courting wealthy families before summoning the mob against each other to settle the remaining disputes.

[Bucky Ball]

They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, "can you see anything?" And the man looked up and said "I can see people, but they look like trees walking." Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Mark 8:22-25  

At Alexandria a commoner, whose eyes were well known to have wasted away, on the advice of Serapis (whom this superstitious people worship as their chief god) fell at Vespasian's feet demanding with sobs a cure for his blindness, and imploring that the emperor would deign to moisten his eyes and eyeballs with the spittle from his mouth. Another man with a maimed hand, also inspired by Serapis, besought Vespasian to imprint his footmark on it. Josephus Histories, 4.81

Tacitus, "Those who were present still attest both miracles today, when there is nothing to be gained by lying."

Josephus thought Vespasian was the messiah, or at least as someone in Rome he got money to try to establish Vespasian was the messiah. He would not have said Jesus was a "christ" in the very same book he wrote to establish Vespasian was the messiah. Also in War 6.5.4, he claims that prophecies about the Messiah's universal rule were actually predicting Vespasian's emperorship.

The "star shall come out of Jacob" prophesy, ... This image refers to Balaam's prophecy of the star in Numbers 24:17: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh: a star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab, and break down all the sons of Sheth” (Numbers 24:17). Vespasian, was (before he was emperor) a general in the Levant. There were a number of writers who claimed this "prophesy" referred to Vespasian, as he was in "Jacob", for a while before he was emperor.

[The Grand Nudger]

Suetonius mentions it as well, only the second guy has a maimed leg that vespassian touches and heals. Also ought to be familiar to nt readers.

Any rate, the story above might have us question whether the historical jesus candidate that was a traveling con man, something like todays spiritual surgery, was a thing or not. Perhaps that jesus is propaganda (or counterpropaganda), and not biography.

[GrandizerII]

Paul, in his undisputed letters, says he met this same fellow's brother.  And the existence of that brother is supported by Josephus.  Then later the proto-orthodox tradition that became pre-eminent in the Jesus movement developed a tradition that Mary was ever-virgin, so they attempted, Stalin-like, to erase James from history.  But today mythicists tell us the same adherents of the proto-orthodox view added interpolations mentioning "James the brother of the Lord" to every extant copy of Galatians and Antiquities of the Jews.  That takes us into grand conspiracy territory, and the same impulse that led to my atheism makes me critical of mythicism.

If you want to know what mythicists tell us about TF2 it is that Paul did mention James brother of the Lord, but that seemed to be a title as he ascribes to other characters to be the brother of the Lord as well. Josephus did mention James brother of Jesus, but in the continuation says it is "Jesus, the son of  Damneus." The fragment “who was called Christ” was inserted into the text very clumsily since it is different Jesus, and a jew, Josephus, would not call someone messiah (Christ).

Ok, I'll comment only on what Paul said here, leaving Josephus for another time:

This is good, FM, because this is specific enough for us to analyse and see where we can go with this. Now, as I've stated more than once before, I'm all about parsimony here (and also about what scholars themselves say, but we can put that aside). For me, parsimony isn't just simply simplicity perse. It's about what is the "cleanest" account here, given what we can observe in the texts.

If we look at where Paul talks about the brothers of the Lord (in 1 Corinthians), he makes a distinction between them on one hand and Peter, Barnabas, and himself (and also Apostles in general) on the other hand. If "brothers of the Lord" is meant to be a title referring to a specific subgroup of Christ-believers, rather than literal siblings of Jesus, then what passage/document can we refer to to support this interpretation? Without that support, we probably don't have any good grounds to reject the literal interpretation that coheres with a passage in another early and plausibly independent source (independent from Paul) that lists James as one of Jesus' brothers (i.e., Mark). And there is something about the special status of a subgroup of Christ-believers that demands some support for it. And even if there was some remote/obscure support for the idea that there was indeed a special subgroup of Christ-believers called "brothers of the Lord" that had nothing to do with a flesh-and-blood relationship with the Lord, then does it lead to a "cleaner" account? Or is it rather "ad-hocy" relative to this historicist Jesus account?

[Bucky Ball]

If you want to know what mythicists tell us about TF2 it is that Paul did mention James brother of the Lord, but that seemed to be a title as he ascribes to other characters to be the brother of the Lord as well. Josephus did mention James brother of Jesus, but in the continuation says it is "Jesus, the son of  Damneus." The fragment “who was called Christ” was inserted into the text very clumsily since it is different Jesus, and a jew, Josephus, would not call someone messiah (Christ).

Ok, I'll comment only on what Paul said here, leaving Josephus for another time:

This is good, FM, because this is specific enough for us to analyse and see where we can go with this. Now, as I've stated more than once before, I'm all about parsimony here (and also about what scholars themselves say, but we can put that aside). For me, parsimony isn't just simply simplicity perse. It's about what is the "cleanest" account here, given what we can observe in the texts.

If we look at where Paul talks about the brothers of the Lord (in 1 Corinthians), he makes a distinction between them on one hand and Peter, Barnabas, and himself (and also Apostles in general) on the other hand. If "brothers of the Lord" is meant to be a title referring to a specific subgroup of Christ-believers, rather than literal siblings of Jesus, then what passage/document can we refer to to support this interpretation? Without that support, we probably don't have any good grounds to reject the literal interpretation that coheres with a passage in another early and plausibly independent source (independent from Paul) that lists James as one of Jesus' brothers (i.e., Mark). And there is something about the special status of a subgroup of Christ-believers that demands some support for it. And even if there was some remote/obscure support for the idea that there was indeed a special subgroup of Christ-believers called "brothers of the Lord" that had nothing to do with a flesh-and-blood relationship with the Lord, then does it lead to a "cleaner" account? Or is it rather "ad-hocy" relative to this historicist Jesus account?

I find no reason to buy anything that any of them said about anything to be credible. 
These are people that bought into someone saying 500 people rose with Jesus, and walked around Jerusalem, on Easter Sunday. Yet no Roman or Jewish source said one thing about the split rocks, and all the open graves.

There's also another interesting observation. If you read the Jewish rabbis from the late First Century, the things they were discussing (regarding how to remain "faithful" after the temple destruction), ... they are suspiciously similar to the content of the gospels. "Love god and love your neighbor". They were attempting to simplify the Jewish "law" for the diaspora.
If that's when they were making up Jesus, it's pretty suspicious. (I also don't buy that ... not a mythicist). There is a reason that the "Way sect" in Judaism, rapidly expanded in the mid first century, and we don't know what that was.

[The Grand Nudger]

You're a godsend! I was looking for a quote from years back and couldn't find it - but it was in a discussion about exactly this subject.

Scholars are divided on the existence of many of the great figures of Israel. I myself don’t believe there was a historical Abraham, Moses, or Joshua, for example (or if they *did* exist they were basically nothing like the figures described in the Hebrew Bible).

-raging mythicist bart ehrman

https://ehrmanblog.org/brothers-jesus-my...s-members/

[The Grand Nudger]

...and here's fire breathing historicist richard carrier, this year

I often use the analogy of the “Roswell saucer crash”:

What Really Happened: In 1947 a guy found some sticks and tinfoil in the desert.
What Was Immediately Said to Have Happened: That this was debris from an alien spacecraft.
What Was Said to Have Happened within just Thirty Years: An entire flying saucer was recovered, complete with alien bodies that were autopsied by the government.
Here we have the analog sequence of events: the believers maintain the evolved myth (“an entire flying saucer was recovered, complete with alien bodies that were autopsied by the government”), without any doubt, and just repeat it as a given; but the myth started with something else—a real thing, but not the same thing.

https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/23920

He does much the same with cargo cults and ned lud as examples.

[Bucky Ball]

Ehrman was an evangelical Christian. 

Apparently he still thinks that because someone claims someone said something, that's all you need to agree that they said it.  

LOL

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm sure we could criticize them both for weird moments - but I'm not worried too much about that in posting those. More in dispelling a common misperception of the nature of the debate between historicists and mythicists. Both men, even when considering things they each think are mythical (and separate things) are willing to consider that some real and historical thing or person happened or existed and was the impetus for or made composite in later stories which we now have but which show no resemblance to those factual details.

That we just flat out make people up for these stories even when there were people to describe.

[LinuxGal]

Paul, in his undisputed letters, says he met this same fellow's brother.  And the existence of that brother is supported by Josephus.  Then later the proto-orthodox tradition that became pre-eminent in the Jesus movement developed a tradition that Mary was ever-virgin, so they attempted, Stalin-like, to erase James from history.  But today mythicists tell us the same adherents of the proto-orthodox view added interpolations mentioning "James the brother of the Lord" to every extant copy of Galatians and Antiquities of the Jews.  That takes us into grand conspiracy territory, and the same impulse that led to my atheism makes me critical of mythicism.

If you want to know what mythicists tell us about TF2 it is that Paul did mention James brother of the Lord, but that seemed to be a title as he ascribes to other characters to be the brother of the Lord as well. Josephus did mention James brother of Jesus, but in the continuation says it is "Jesus, the son of  Damneus." The fragment “who was called Christ” was inserted into the text very clumsily since it is different Jesus, and a jew, Josephus, would not call someone messiah (Christ).

Jesus and James were both very common names and Josephus was typically meticulous about identifying who he was talking about. When he said "Jesus, who was called Christ" this did not pinpoint what his own personal beliefs about the matter might be.   And Richard Carrier put forth the "son of  Damneus" theory but it doesn't comport with Josephus' writing style. Nowhere does he introduce a man simply by his name, as in just Jesus, minus the "called Christ" part, and then later refer to the same man with more specificity, as in Jesus, son of Damneus.  It's always the other way around.