Abe's Case for the Historical Jesus (Part 1: Patterns of Cults)

[aa5874]

[quote=""ApostateAbe""]My suspicion is that Paul was relatively silent about the specific teachings of Jesus because (1) the teachings of Jesus often conflicted with Paul's teachings[/quote]
[quote=""jgreen44""]
Then Paul was in conflict with what he considered to be absolute authority.[/quote]

ApostateAbe is speculating. His suspicion is not evidence of anything. The constant reliance on the corrupted Pauline letters to corroborate itself is completely unacceptable.

In the Canon itself, the Pauline claims are without corroboration and are contradicted by the author of Acts.

How in the world can known manipulated sources be relied on without external corroboration?

[quote=""ApostateAbe""] and (2) Paul was a competitor with the apostles who knew the teachings of Jesus firsthand. Any time Paul discusses the specific teachings of Jesus would invite the rebuke, "I heard the words of our Lord, and here is what he REALLY said..."[/quote]

If Paul's teachings were, as you said, in conflict with the teachings of Jesus then the disciples should have been saying this. But they dd not. Which leads me to suspect there were few if any teachings of Jesus to contradict when Paul was alive.

In Acts, it is claimed Peter preached Christ crucified and thousands were converted before Paul so I don't know how it could be claimed that there were no teachings about Christ when Paul admitted he persecuted the Churches of Christ.

Are you not aware that the Pauline writers claimed they persecuted the FAITH that they now preached.

The chronology of Paul is AFTER Jesus was resurrected, After the day of Pentecost and after the disciples and Peter preached Christ crucified.

Why are you trying to change the story of the Jesus cult when you are NOT going to have any evidence?

The story of Jesus predated Paul and he admitted he PERSECUTED those who believed it.

If the Pauline Corpus and Acts are fiction then there is no evidence for any other story.

[outhouse]

[quote=""jgreen44""]

Earthly or not is actually irrelevant to the argument at hand. One way or the other, Paul regarded Jesus as an absolute authority.

Jesus' earthliness is not really what I was getting at. What I was getting at was the fact that Paul attributes so few teachings to this man. Jesus.

If I considered someone to be an absolute authority, I would be constantly referring to his teachings. And I would be constantly stating that the teachings I was referring to were the teachings of this absolute authority.

Paul only does this three times.[/QUOTE]


Paul wanted to be a apostle is such a bad way, he wanted that recognition and since he didn't know Jesus, he could not talk about earthly Jesus

And no one could prove him wrong with what a heavenly Jesus was telling him. Paul knew how to sling it!

[outhouse]

[quote=""jgreen44""]If Paul's teachings were, as you said, in conflict with the teachings of Jesus then the disciples should have been saying this. But they dd not. Which leads me to suspect there were few if any teachings of Jesus to contradict when Paul was alive.[/quote]

Paul hunted down the leaders early and murdered them, but the real one's were not the one's Paul killed. Paul hunted down the Hellenistic leaders, not the Galilean Jews.

After Jesus death, the real peasant apostles which the bible really only deals with 3 in detail, John, James, and Peter, would have fled with fear back to Galilee to be with their own people and families they left to go on the road with Jesus.

There may have been writings to contradict Paul we only have a fraction of what once existed that was lost to war, natural disaster and to purposeful burning as certain material was deemed heretical.

The Jerusalem church in my own opinion was a Hellenistic sect who had more Jewish values similar to how one could perceive the author of Gmatthew. If the leaders name could have been filled in by Pauls imagination if they existed at all.


Paul was a murderer to these people, they would run from him, they would have despised him. Not sat down to a dinner and chatted about theology and how Paul perverted the original message.

[aa5874]

[quote=""ApostateAbe""]
(1) That's right. Cult leaders lie, and I think we should be in agreement on that point. To explain further, what Paul professed to believe is relevant for determining the meaning of his words, and what Paul secretly believed is relevant for speculating why he said them. For cult leaders, what they profess to believe and what they secretly believe are often in conflict, and we shouldn't be taken by surprise at such a conflict.[/quote]

Again, you only expose that the Pauline Corpus is not credible once you admit Paul told untruths.

It is completely unacceptable to use corrupted sources with known lies as history.

The Pauline Corpus has little or no historical value without corroboration.

(2) None of the disciples could either write or afford to hire a writer, being poor. Both Paul and the gospels are antagonistic toward the disciples, indicating the disciples' disagreement with the existence of the gentile Christians (that is Paul's beef with the disciples per the Epistle to the Galatians).

Your claim was invented from imagination. There is no supporting evidence for actual disciples in the 1st century and you very well know that it has been deduced that there more than one writers using the name Paul.

It is virtually impossible for you to tell when Paul really lived.

[jgreen44]

[quote=""ApostateAbe""]None of the disciples could either write or afford to hire a writer, being poor. Both Paul and the gospels are antagonistic toward the disciples, indicating the disciples' disagreement with the existence of the gentile Christians (that is Paul's beef with the disciples per the Epistle to the Galatians).[/quote]That ploy would work for Paul and his followers only until the first literate Palestinian converted to Christianity. So we should see some opposition to Paul's writings very early on. And couldn't the gospel authors read?

[jgreen44]

[quote=""aa5874""]How in the world can known manipulated sources be relied on without external corroboration?[/quote]You're right. Neither the Pauline corpus nor Acts can be relied upon as an accurate accounting of history.

[quote=""aa5874""] Acts, it is claimed Peter preached Christ crucified and thousands were converted before Paul so I don't know how it could be claimed that there were no teachings about Christ when Paul admitted he persecuted the Churches of Christ.[/quote]Christ getting killed is not a teaching of Christ. It is a teaching about Christ. The Beatitudes are teachings of Christ. Parables are teachings of Christ, etc.

[quote=""aa5874""]Are you not aware that the Pauline writers claimed they persecuted the FAITH that they now preached.[/quote]Yes. Why does this mean that Acts was written before the Pauline epistles?

[quote=""aa5874""]The chronology of Paul is AFTER Jesus was resurrected,
[/quote]As is the chronology of Acts.

[quote=""aa5874""]After the day of Pentecost and after the disciples and Peter preached Christ crucified.[/quote]Agreed.

Perhaps Cor 15:6 is a reference to Pentecost?

6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

IOW, Paul counted flaming tongues appearing on heads as a risen-Jesus appearance. And why not? He counted a talking light on the highway as a risen-Jesus appearance.

[quote=""aa5874""]
Why are you trying to change the story of the Jesus cult when you are NOT going to have any evidence?[/quote]I'm not changing the story of the Jesus cult. We cannot be sure what that story is in reality. I am simply challenging a component of your theory of the story of the Jesus cult.


[quote=""aa5874""]If the Pauline Corpus and Acts are fiction then there is no evidence for any other story.[/quote]Acts certainly contains a great deal of fiction and the Pauline writings contain interpolations. The whole thing is a mess. We will never know what happened.

[ApostateAbe]

[quote=""jgreen44""]

None of the disciples could either write or afford to hire a writer, being poor. Both Paul and the gospels are antagonistic toward the disciples, indicating the disciples' disagreement with the existence of the gentile Christians (that is Paul's beef with the disciples per the Epistle to the Galatians).

That ploy would work for Paul and his followers only until the first literate Palestinian converted to Christianity. So we should see some opposition to Paul's writings very early on. And couldn't the gospel authors read?[/QUOTE]
I don't know what you are presuming to lead to those expectations. Are you presuming any literate person could probably write? Or probably afford to hire a writer? Writing was neither common nor cheep.

[aa5874]

It appears to me that you have no idea what deductive reasonning is or is pretending not to understand.

You should be aware that people can logically deduce what will happen in the future or what events did or did not happen or reconstuct the past by examining written statements or data.

Logical deductions are employed throughout the world at every level in the resolution of any matter where there is NO direct evidence.

We have an abundance of written statements, a vast amount of data, about Paul and the Pauline Corpus in the Canon and in multiple Apologetic sources and we can use the written statements and data to reconstruct the past by applying deductive reasonning.

In the Canon we have Acts of the Apostles, 2 Peter and 13 Epistles.

Outside the Canon we have writings attributed to Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome and many more.

It can easily be deduced that the author of Acts did NOT know of the Pauline Corpus and most likely wrote Acts before the Pauline letters were composed.

1. Acts of the Apostles does not directly mention any passages from the Pauline Corpus.

2. Acts of the Apostles does not state that Paul wrote the Pastorals and letters to Seven Churches.

3. The author of Acts exclusively dedicated almost 14 chapters of Acts for the activities of Paul--from the supposed time as a persecutor to his travel to Rome for trial c 59-63 CE

4. The author of Acts claimed he traveled with Paul to major cities "all over" the Roman Empire and described the activities of Paul while traveling with him.

5. The author of Acts mentioned Saul/Paul over 140 times.

From Acts it would appear that the author is extremely acquainted with Saul/Paul--only in Acts is Paul called by the name of Saul.

Now we will see that ONLY the author of Acts did not mention any letters of Paul after mentioning him over 140 times.

All the writers who acknowledged Paul even ONCE claimed he wrote letters.

1. The author of 2nd Peter mentioned Paul ONCE and immediately claimed he wrote to the brethren.

2. Clement of Rome to the Corinthians mentioned Paul Twice and immediately claimed Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians and made DIRECT references to passages in Corinthians, Romans and Ephesians.

3. Ignatius' Ephesians mentioned Paul ONCE and also immediately claimed Paul wrote Epistles and made DIRECT references to passages in Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians and Timothy.

4. Polycarp's Philippians mentioned Paul ONLY 4 times but made DIRECT references to passages in Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Thessalonians, Philippians and Timothy.

5. Writings attributed to Irenaeus mentioned Paul over 100 TIMES and and made DIRECT references to many passages from ALL the Pauline Corpus except Philemon.

6. Writings attributed to Tertullian mentioned Paul over 100 times and made DIRECT references to many passages from the Pauline Corpus.

7. Writings attributed to Origen mentioned Paul over 100 times and made DIRECT references to many passages from the Pauline Corpus.

8. Writings attributed to Clement of Alexandria mention Paul over 10 times and made DIRECT references to many passages from the Pauline Corpus.

9. Writings attributed to Eusebius mentioned Paul over 50 times and made DIRECT references to many passages of the Pauline Corpus.

10. Writings attributed to Jerome mentioned Paul over 50 times and made DIRECT references to many passages from the Pauline Corpus.

We have an extremely clear pattern--ALL writers who mentioned Paul even ONCE claimed he wrote letters to the brethren or Churches EXCEPT the author of Acts.

Writers who mentioned Paul even ONCE imply that the Pauline Corpus was a significant part of the teachings of the Jesus cult EXCEPT the author of Acts.

It can be easily and reasonably deduced that the Pauline Corpus was not composed and unknown to author of Acts when he wrote about Saul/Paul as a Persecuotor and then a Convert who preached Christ Crucified from Jerusalem to Rome up to c 59-63 CE.

[quote=""jgreen44""]

How in the world can known manipulated sources be relied on without external corroboration?

You're right. Neither the Pauline corpus nor Acts can be relied upon as an accurate accounting of history.

[quote=""aa5874""] Acts, it is claimed Peter preached Christ crucified and thousands were converted before Paul so I don't know how it could be claimed that there were no teachings about Christ when Paul admitted he persecuted the Churches of Christ.[/quote]Christ getting killed is not a teaching of Christ. It is a teaching about Christ. The Beatitudes are teachings of Christ. Parables are teachings of Christ, etc.

[quote=""aa5874""]Are you not aware that the Pauline writers claimed they persecuted the FAITH that they now preached.[/quote]Yes. Why does this mean that Acts was written before the Pauline epistles?

[quote=""aa5874""]The chronology of Paul is AFTER Jesus was resurrected,
[/quote]As is the chronology of Acts.

[quote=""aa5874""]After the day of Pentecost and after the disciples and Peter preached Christ crucified.[/quote]Agreed.

Perhaps Cor 15:6 is a reference to Pentecost?

6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

IOW, Paul counted flaming tongues appearing on heads as a risen-Jesus appearance. And why not? He counted a talking light on the highway as a risen-Jesus appearance.

[quote=""aa5874""]
Why are you trying to change the story of the Jesus cult when you are NOT going to have any evidence?[/quote]I'm not changing the story of the Jesus cult. We cannot be sure what that story is in reality. I am simply challenging a component of your theory of the story of the Jesus cult.


[quote=""aa5874""]If the Pauline Corpus and Acts are fiction then there is no evidence for any other story.[/quote]Acts certainly contains a great deal of fiction and the Pauline writings contain interpolations. The whole thing is a mess. We will never know what happened.[/QUOTE]