The other problem in testing the historicity of these reports is that Paul appears to be preaching for the resurrected rather than for the pre‑resurrected Jesus. I have also analysed in the first Chapter that the resurrected Jesus was unknown in the earliest texts of Matthew and Mark, and the question remains as to when exactly the first resurrection stories were published. There is no textual evidence that the first such stories appeared before the Great Revolt, unless one accepts that the Acts and some of the Epistles were written before and not after the Revolt. At this point I would like to return again to the first Chapter, to the work of those scholars who claim that the Acts and ʺPaulʺ are products of the second rather than the first century. If not, and they do report about a historical Paul who was active before the Great Revolt, then one should question what exactly this historical rabbi Paul was trying to do when Galilee and other parts of Israel were fighting in the revolts? Was he on the side of the Holy Warriors or against them? Is it possible that a historical rabbi Paul sided with the revolutionaries, and travelled abroad in order to find Diaspora Jewish and possibly Gentile support for the Messianic movement against Rome? Could this explain why a number of Jews in the Diaspora synagogues did not want to listen to Paul and his Messianic message, fearing the consequences? At this point I believe that one should pay some attention to the Romans, chapter 11, where ʺPaulʺ begins with the declaration that he is a proper Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin and talks about violence and disasters in Israel, which profited the Gentiles of the world. Then Paul explained to the Gentiles that he became an Apostle to save/accept some of them, because their inclusion/acceptance would bring ʺlife from the dead.ʺ My question here is whether this ʺacceptanceʺ of the new blood of the Gentiles would bring hope to Israel (meaning allies against Rome), or whether this was written at a much later stage, after the repeated depopulation Israel suffered in the second century. At that later time was there any need to re‑create the flock with new sheep, or else face extinction? One should also question why exactly ʺPaulʺ comes back to his fellow Israelites to whom he previously stated that he was a genuine Jew, to explain to them that without a sufficient number of Gentiles joining Israel, Israel could not be saved? In light of these observations, I believe that Paulʹs mission to the Greeks deserves to be re‑examined within the historical context of the Galilean Messianic revolts. In the course of time this mission might have been altered and interpreted as spiritual, but its historical beginnings could have been very different and closely related to the political struggle for the survival of Israel.
These words of Georgios Sidirountios have been written in 2016, but it is incredible how Joseph Turmel was arrived to that same conclusion about Paul in the first years of 1900.
I see the imprint of genius in Turmel.