Jax wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:09 am
1: If Paul is writing in the 1st century BCE and referring to people of the cult that he is promoting, what cult might that be?
2: When one discards Acts as the political and theological fiction that it obviously is why then do we suppose that Paul was involved with groups in Greece and Macedonia? His letters seem to indicate that he is from Damascus and yet he is for some reason in Asia Minor and Greece as far as Illyricum? And why does he call it Illyricum BTW when it was called Dalmatia and Pannonia in the mid 1st century since 10 CE (a fact that whoever wrote 2 Timothy corrected)?
Jax wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 10:09 am
That's enough for now. Please feel free to pick apart everything that I have posted on this, I will not be offended. Even though I probably seem like some fringe nutter, the truth is that I am just investigating this possibility and am not actually emotionally or academically married to it.
Actually I welcome the challenge of trying to justify my observations.
I'm not sure I especially want to pick it apart. It all seems.....(relatively) uncontroversial.
As to your question 1, my guess is that it's a new or newish (ie 1st C CE) and small/fringe Jewish cult based around Jerusalem, one whose (Jewish) leader was recently crucified. They appear to think he cheated death. Which is of course arguably the oddest feature of the whole shebang, that they should think this about a dead leader. But hey, maybe somebody stole and disposed of the body or something.
Because he was supposed to have been crucified (a Roman punishment), I have suspicions that he was not exactly a man of peace and goodwill, especially not to the Romans and possibly not towards the Jewish and Herodian establishment that either tolerated the Romans or worked with/for them. A bit of a radical, at least. Possibly nationalist. Possibly part of, or having some associations with, or at the very least being seen (by the Romans) as having some connection to, what Josephus called 'The Fourth Philosophy'.
Your question 2. Yes, Paul did seem to get about, apparently, according to the writings. My best guess for why he wouldn't have operated in Jerusalem was because his preachings would not have been in line with the original group. They may in fact have been badly out of line with them, more badly than either he or Acts would have the reader believe.
According to him, he was already 'mobile' before converting, Damascus not being in Judea. After that, the 'travels of Paul' seem mainly to be described on a northern mediterranean trajectory between Judea and Rome. The guy clearly was on a mission of some sort, away from the rest of the group, and it was, I think,
his mission, he was ploughing his own, independent furrow, for whatever reason (and I do not rule out that he had ulterior motives, including money). He may, possibly, have had Herodian connections and as such, either some connections to or some affinity with the Romans and/or Rome. If he was from Tarsus, then going north along the med would make more sense than going south or east (from Judea). Not that I assume he necessarily was from Tarsus.
Those are just my guesses. Not very radical by currently-fashionable internet forum standards, I know. Fairly radical, in parts at least, to most Christians and many (though not all) bible scholars, maybe.
You don't necessarily need to answer my questions if you are being non-controversial, by which I mean returning to suggesting a non-Judean origin or a spread of Christianity that was other than outward from Judea or that only reached Judea later. If you do that.....have a go at my questions.