New Mythicist Author writes to J. P Meier

[hakeem]

If one of his converts had asked Paul about a human father of Jesus, we don’t know what Paul might have answered --- such information is not found in Paul’s letters. Paul may have elaborated, he may have evaded the question, or he may have said it wasn’t important.

The Pauline writings specifically states his Jesus was God's own Son made of a woman--the Last Adam--the Lord from heaven--God Creator, the firstborn of every creature.

Romans 8:3
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh

1 Corinthians 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:47
The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.


Galatians 1:1
Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)

Galatians 4:4
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law

Colossians 1:15-16
15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature 16. For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.

In Paul, focusing on this unanswerable question is missing the forest for the trees. What is more important, IMO, is that Paul does not clearly place his Jesus Christ in any specific period of time --- and certainly not in any clear fashion as a near contemporary of Paul. Rather, Paul’s Jesus appears to be a creature of the Jewish scriptures. Along with Paul’s fertile imagination (including concepts in the air at the time), the LXX appears to be Paul’s primary source text and proof-text by means of creative readings.

The Pauline Jesus is an invention--a product of falsehood and propaganda. Paul and the Pauline Jesus were invented no earlier than the late 2nd century. Jewish Scripture does not support the fiction character called Jesus of Nazareth.

In effect, there was no such thing as actual Paul's converts at anytime before c 70 CE.

[robert j]

The Pauline writings specifically states his Jesus was God's own Son ...

Sure.

.
"Paul's Jesus" is likely to be an embellishment of a Pauline Christ; an embellishment made at the time the Pauline texts were being aligned with the synoptic gospels and other texts as the NT was being developed.

Paul and the Pauline Jesus were invented no earlier than the late 2nd century ...

In effect, there was no such thing as actual Paul's converts at anytime before c 70 CE.

These are mere assertions. I have no doubt that some scholars might be cited, or some original arguments might be mounted in support. But for me --- not interested.

I have watched debates by very knowledgeable participants over the authenticity and relative reliability of Paul’s letters for many years, and often participated. I even went over to the dark side for a while. These debates have made little if any headway.

In my study of Paul’s letters, to my own surprise, I find a real Jewish evangelist working to eek-out a living among Gentle converts amid complex human interactions and dramas way too-well integrated to be the result of late invention or the result of --- or to have survived --- serial manipulation.

My interpretations of Paul’s letters are certainly only my opinions. I am constantly looking for fatal flaws in my general understanding of Paul --- but have yet to find them. I offer my observations about Paul for anyone to take or leave as they wish. But I have no interest at this time to revisit old and tired arguments over whether or not the letters are reasonably authentic --- at least until I might see some new and intriguing arguments.

[MrMacSon]

"Paul's Jesus" is likely to be an embellishment of a Pauline Christ; an embellishment made at the time the Pauline texts were being aligned with the synoptic gospels and other texts, as the NT was being developed.
.

These are mere assertions.

No They're not. They're a proposition followed by another couple of related proposition-premises, and reasonable ones at that.

They're not a full argument, but they're still a reasonable basis for one.

[MrMacSon]

In my study of Paul’s letters, to my own surprise, I find a real Jewish evangelist working to eek-out a living among Gentle converts amid complex human interactions and dramas ...
.

Sure, but When?

• How about the 2nd century?

[Jax]

I have watched debates by very knowledgeable participants over the authenticity and relative reliability of Paul’s letters for many years, and often participated. I even went over to the dark side for a while. These debates have made little if any headway.

I would like to follow these debates myself. Is there any way that you could direct me to some of them?

[hakeem]

Paul and the Pauline Jesus were invented no earlier than the late 2nd century ...

In effect, there was no such thing as actual Paul's converts at anytime before c 70 CE.

These are mere assertions. I have no doubt that some scholars might be cited, or some original arguments might be mounted in support. But for me --- not interested.

I have watched debates by very knowledgeable participants over the authenticity and relative reliability of Paul’s letters for many years, and often participated. I even went over to the dark side for a while. These debates have made little if any headway.

In my study of Paul’s letters, to my own surprise, I find a real Jewish evangelist working to eek-out a living among Gentle converts amid complex human interactions and dramas way too-well integrated to be the result of late invention or the result of --- or to have survived --- serial manipulation.

Your claims about Paul are mere assertions. You cannot and will never be able to present any corroborative historical evidence that a Jew named Paul was an evangelist preaching about worshipping a Jesus [ the resurrected Son of God--the Creator] to any person anywhere in the world before c 70 CE.

Paul the Jewish Christian evangelist and letters are unknown in all writings attributed to 1st century writers and is unknown by Christian and Non-Christian writings up to at least the 2nd century.

My interpretations of Paul’s letters are certainly only my opinions. I am constantly looking for fatal flaws in my general understanding of Paul --- but have yet to find them. I offer my observations about Paul for anyone to take or leave as they wish. But I have no interest at this time to revisit old and tired arguments over whether or not the letters are reasonably authentic --- at least until I might see some new and intriguing arguments.

Again, you make more useless assertions. Your opinion is of no significance since you never be able to provide historical evidence for your supposed "real Jewish evangelist".

In any event, the Pauline writings do state Jesus was God's own Son, the Lord from heaven, the firstborn of all creatures, the last Adam and God CreatOR who was raised from the dead on the third day.

It is clear that Paul's Jesus is a late invention--no such person ever lived.

We know that the Pauline writings must have been late because the teachings would be known lies if they were contemporary.

It is simply absurd that a Jew could have convinced Romans to worship a contemporary Jewish crucified criminal as God Creator.

If people in the Roman Empire knew Jesus did live and was crucified as a criminal then the Pauline claims about Jesus would be completely idiotic.

[robert j]

hekeem,

Life's too short. I have zero interest in interacting with you any further.

[hakeem]

hekeem,

Life's too short. I have zero interest in interacting with you any further.

Whether or not life's too short the Christian Bible does state that their Jesus was born of a Holy Ghost and a Virgin, was God Creator, the Lord from heaven, the firstborn of all creatures, the firstborn of the dead, the Logos, God's own son who was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven.

It is clear that the Jesus of the Christians is an invention.

Christians have documented their invention called Jesus in hundreds upon hundreds of manuscripts and Codices.

We know why the Jesus story was manufactured.

Christian writers have documented their own propaganda that their Jesus Christ must have already come because the Jewish Temple had fallen and Jerusalem was made desolate.

Answer to the Jews attributed to Tertullian

A second time, in fact, let us show that Christ is already come, (as foretold) through the prophets, and has suffered, and is already received back in the heavens, and thence is to come accordingly as the predictions prophesied. For, after His advent, we read, according to Daniel, that the city itself had to be exterminated; and we recognise that so it has befallen. For the Scripture says thus, that the city and the holy place are simultaneously exterminated together with the leader...

The Jesus Christ of the Christians was invented to explain the extermination of Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple.

People put out the propaganda that the Jews killed the Son of their own God--the Christ of their God.

Dialogue with Trypho attributed to Justin

......you alone may suffer that which you now justly suffer; and that your land may be desolate, and your cities burned with fire; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem.......... Accordingly, these things have happened to you in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One...

The chronology of the invention called Jesus Christ is inadvertently confirmed in Christian writings.

Jesus Christ was invented after the Fall of the Jewish Temple or after c 70 CE.

[DCHindley]

I have watched debates by very knowledgeable participants over the authenticity and relative reliability of Paul’s letters for many years, and often participated. I even went over to the dark side for a while. These debates have made little if any headway.

I would like to follow these debates myself. Is there any way that you could direct me to some of them?

The problem with following these debates are that most of them are on "Christian" websites, where the bias is clearly on the side of "If Paul says it, I believe it, and that settles it." The rest are on sites like this or Rational Skepticism, where the bias is on the side of "It's all lies, I tell you, lies!!" Then you will fall into the bottomless pit of "Marcion invented the whole thing and Christians just copied and modified what he did because they are unimaginative and jealous of Marcion's far more amazing mental reasoning and ethical plane!" So it forms a weird triangle.

In a nut shell, the options seem to be:

1) They are real letters originating in the mid 1st century CE, that are, despite their apparent contradictions, genuine letters, with some interpolations, and except where we wish to arbitrarily call some letters "genuine" and "spurious" based on circular reasoning.

2) They are all spurious, written by 2nd century CE Christians for reasons unknown, perhaps simply to justify their existence by providing some sort of historical grounding for an entirely mythical Christology. This is generally the position of the "Dutch Radicals."

3) They were published by Marcion, the most intelligent and imaginative shipping magnate of antiquity, to whom we must bow down in worship, either:
a) to de-mythologize (in good Bultmanian style) genuine epistles that spoke of his Jesus the son of the unknown Good God, which had been contaminated by Judean mythical ideas that originated from the Creator God ignorant of the Good God, by excision of the cancer, or
b) to preserve genuine letters of Paul who had preached about Jesus the son of the unknown Good God, which the orthodox then adopted and corrupted with Judaized crapola.

4) Then there is the true but entirely speculative and must-be-wrong hypothesis of yours truly, that Paul
a) wrote to the slaves and retainers of rich Judean (probably Herodian) households who knew nothing about Jesus, giving them advice about how to claim a part of the future kingdom of the Judean God that would one day be realized, via resurrection from the dead for most, without having to convert to Judaism via circumcision or Law observance. Abram's simple faith in God's promise that his "seed" will inherit it was all these gentile slaves and retainers had to have to realize it as well, becoming Abram's "spiritual" seed by the same faith he had.
b) the Christ theology was added to these letters later by followers of a semi-divine savior figure Jesus. This theology had developed from the actual original Jesus movement, followers of a thwarted royal claimant to the kingdom of the Judeans, but as practiced by gentiles who had converted, but had later become disillusioned by the Judean war and the ethnic cleansing and generally bad behavior by all parties involved. In good rationalizing manner, they synthesized what they believed was *really* the case, that Jesus was a divine savior who performed a bizarre ritual vicarious sacrifice for mankind, but only if individual men/women believe all this crazy stuff about him and repudiate Judaism in all its forms.

If this all seems weird, it is, all 4 options. The question is which seems the *least* weird (hint, if you consider which is most likely to be historically probable, it is mine, naturally ).

DCH

[Giuseppe]

There is a sort of circular reasoning about Paul, an I see it especially in the Mythicists who are based on the Paul's evidence of the absence of evidence for a HJ:

1) the origins of a religion are hallucinations

2) the hallucinations are in Paul, not in a Gospel

3) therefore Paul has to be before the Earliest Gospel

4) so Jesus was invented by hallucinations like these of Paul, not by the writer of a Gospel.

5) but the hallucinations seem to be more a genuine Gnostic matter than a Jewish matter.

6) The Gnostics seem to be in post-Gospels time.

7) Therefore Paul has to be Gnostic.

8) Therefore Paul has to be after the Gospels.

9) 8 is in contradiction with 3.