The Pauline Gospel was a Late Invention

[Peter Kirby]

Well, so far no one has ever provided actual evidence of a "set" different that the canonical one, either in terms of the epistles or gospels or excluding Acts.
Thus there is no reason not to believe that the texts were intended to complement or inform one another. Plain and simple.

You present a very convincing argument against doing "research by forum post." Just because you say that everyone so far has been too lazy to provide the counterexamples you need to disprove your hypothesis to your satisfaction... doesn't mean squat.

There's very little reward in doing your work for you, and there's also very little hope that you yourself will be convinced of the true nature of the evidence, given the evident manner in which you already adore your hypothesis.

[Taws]

Dewitness,

I think, I hope, I have my head wrapped around what you are saying.

Your contention is that Paul based his writings on gMark (crap now ya'll have me putting a g in front of the names); so he had to write after Mark. I hope I have this right; or it's going to be a really long thread; and, I'm going to take a thrashing.

From what I have read in the new testament; Paul did not read anyone's gospel; he only contended with James and the Jerusalem assembly. He developed an opposing group/church; and an opposing doctrine in order to destroy the original apostles message; and therefore their movement. Paul does not make reference to Mark. He only makes reference to the apostles teachings (not yet written down). His enemy is the Jerusalem assembly; not the gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and/or John.

Stating that Paul's doctrine was a later writing than Mark, because he used and/or opposed the gospel of Mark does not make sense to me. His writings had nothing to do with what the Mark gospel contained; but, had everything to do with opposing and defeating the Jerusalem assembly led by James.

Taws

[Peter Kirby]

We have statements in a contemporary source (Hegesippus) about 'brethren of the lord' and bishops/apostles 'of the circumcision' in the period 70-135 AD, and that provides just as suitable a sitz-im-Leben for the dispute over the authority of the Jerusalem/James/Peter/Law/Judaizing/circumcision group as the imagined history of the first years of the Way as presented in Acts does. (Acts is being written at a much further remove, perhaps more than a century, than the distance between Hegesippus ca. 170 AD and the first third of the 2nd century, which explains the reliance of Acts on sources such as Josephus, writing in 93 AD.) In particular there is a Simon said to have been bishop of Jerusalem in the reign of Trajan (up to 115-117 AD, i.e., the Kitos War) as the successor to James.

Let me just elaborate this a little. If James was nicknamed 'the Just,' this Simon may have been known either as 'the Zealot' or simply 'the Rock,' to quote a couple nicknames for a Simon in the New Testament (one, Peter=the rock, which is not a real name prior to Christianity, matches the name Cephas in the Pauline epistles). The legend of Peter and Paul suffering martyrdom together in Rome and the legend of Peter being a disciple of Jesus would necessitate the biographical split between Simon Peter and Simon the bishop of Jerusalem. The reality of this pre-50 AD Simon, however, hangs on the fragile thread of the fabulous tales told in the Gospels, which are hardly sober history. (You will notice, however, an absurd attempt to harmonize the two biographies in the detail we are told about Simon living to 120 years at his martyrdom as an ancient cousin of Jesus.)

In short, I propose as the alternative, to weigh against the conventional hypothesis, that the first recension of the Pauline epistles were written in the early second century during the reign of Trajan (possibly even later, in the mid second century, as championing against Jewish Christianity that had been made less popular after the Bar Kokhba revolt). We have plenty of evidence that the concerns live in these letters were live in the first half of the second century, as the circumcision remained a hot item of contention in other second century writings such as the Epistle of Barnabas and Justin Martyr, while the rejection of the Law was fundamental to the ideas of the man from Pontus (Marcion), which could hardly create such stir if they were known to originate at the very birth of the Christian religion.

Similarly explained is why the only non-Christian evidence for persecutions under Domitian actually concerns persecution of the Jews: in the first century, the Christians were nothing more than a school within Judaism, who first start to appear as people who reject Judaism for their own novel superstition in the very late first century and early second century in the accounts of Suetonius, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger. As soon as Christianity no longer fell under the recognized religion of Judaism, they are the subject of accusations and feel the need to write apologies in defense, the oldest of which belong to the early second century. The letters of Paul reflect the spirit of a group that had broken away from Judaism, rejected the Law, and rejected circumcision, all of which come to the fore of the debate among Christians in the first half of the second century. Paul, the recipient of a revelation direct from God and not from man, is the necessary hero for the Christians who wish to reject Judaism, as neither Simon Peter nor James the Just nor John nor any of the brothers of the Lord / the Twelve / apostles before him were available for that cause, as they all were claimed by the existing Jewish movement involving Jesus Christ.

[dewitness]

In the NT, it is claimed Jesus of Nazareth preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

In the Gospels, Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God BEFORE Paul the persecutor preached Christ crucified, died for our sins and resurrected on the third day.

In gMark, the Gospel of Jesus is repeated multiple times.

1. Mark 1:14-15 KJV

Now after that John was put in prison , Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
And saying , The time is fulfilled , and the kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye , and believe the gospel

2. Mark 9:1 KJV

And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.

3. Mark 9:47 KJV

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out : it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire..

4. Mark 10:23 KJV

And Jesus looked round about , and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

5. Mark 13KJV

10 And the gospel must first be published among all nations.

6. Mark 14:25 KJV

Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.

7. Mark 14:62 KJV

And Jesus said , I am : and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

8. Mark 15:43 KJV

Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came , and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.

In the NT Jesus himself preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God BEFORE Paul.

The crucifixion and resurrection had nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus.

The Pauline Gospel was a LATER INVENTION.

Romans 10

9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

[dewitness]

.... Paul, the recipient of a revelation direct from God and not from man, is the necessary hero for the Christians who wish to reject Judaism, as neither Simon Peter nor James the Just nor John nor any of the brothers of the Lord / the Twelve / apostles before him were available for that cause, as they all were claimed by the existing Jewish movement involving Jesus Christ.

It is most unlikely that Paul was a recipient of a revelation direct from God.

There is no known God who reveals historical accounts to human beings.

It is most remarkable that you believe the least likely scenario.

It is far more likely that the Pauline writer either read or was told what he claimed to have been revealed.

It is clear that the Pauline writers knew the story of Jesus so much so that they also claimed to have met fictitious characters found ONLY in the Gospels.

In Galatians 1.18-19, a Pauline writer claimed he met the Apostles Peter and James.

Apostle Peter and James were fiction characters in the stories of Jesus.

[Peter Kirby]

Agreed, agreed, misunderstanding, something like that, agreed, agreed, agreed.

[stephan happy huller]

Simon may have been known either as 'the Zealot' or simply 'the Rock,'

kepha doesn't mean 'rock.' It means 'stone' no bigger than you could hold in your hand. I think Peter means interpreter in Aramaic.

http://aramaicdesigns.blogspot.com/2010 ... peter.html

[stephan happy huller]

Simon may have been known either as 'the Zealot' or simply 'the Rock,'

kepha doesn't mean 'rock.' It means 'stone' no bigger than you could hold in your hand. I think Peter means interpreter in Aramaic.

http://aramaicdesigns.blogspot.com/2010 ... peter.html

[Peter Kirby]

There is a roughly homophonic Aramaic word, apparently, for the Greek 'petros'. I can't vouch for its relevance at all, especially when we are given both forms (Aramaic and Greek) in our sources already. I will concede that you may want to translate 'kepha' as 'stone' instead of 'rock.'

[Bernard Muller]

We have statements in a contemporary source (Hegesippus) about 'brethren of the lord' and bishops/apostles 'of the circumcision' in the period 70-135 AD,

I do not know where you got "bishops/apostles 'of the circumcision' in the period 70-135 AD" as appearing in Hegesippus' known writings (mostly through Eusebius' HofC). Hegesippus only has Symeon as bishop of the Church (during Trajan's reign), without telling where that Church was based. Hegesippus did not say anything about what went on in Judea after Symeon's death, more so about other bishops.
Contemporary source? Hegesippus wrote around 170 and Trajan's reign ended in 117. Chance are that Hegesippus was not born yet during Trajan's rule.

Cordially, Bernard