They are not Christians!

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Where is the evidence to support your contention that :

it is generally held that several of the epistles found in the NT and which pious tradition attribute to Paul are what are known as deutero-Pauline

Various Bible dictionaries and commentaries discuss the deutero-Pauline epistles, including: The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, the Harper Collins Bible Commentary, and Peake's Commentary on the Bible. You could also find texts that specifically discuss the Pauline letters.

Or you could do what you are so good at and Google the topic.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Once again you dishonestly exclude where these are directly addressed in order to be a duplicitous troll pretending that they weren't addressed.

Then explain the anomaly between what we are told in Acts chapter 9 concerning Paul hearing a voice but seeing no one, Ananias' reference to an appearance [contradicted by those previous verses] the textual silence in that chapter on any divine commission being passed to Paul, and how, according to that chapter Paul received what he later apparently preached [verse 20] and that which he writes of in Galatians chapter one.

Preferably do so without resorting to your usual flights of fancy about what people may/must have discussed or known, or what might have happened, but for which the texts provide not a scintilla of evidence.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

The letters themselves. Chapter 1 verse 1 in both cases.
Romans was penned by Tertius, not by Paul.

Romans is not a disputed Pauline epistle. I asked you for evidence in support of your comment

My take:

Colossians and 2Thessalonians have co-authors. Scepticism about their purported inauthenticity is warranted.
The pastoral epistles - probably pseudonymous.
Ephesians, line ball.

So on what evidence are you contending that Paul was a co-author for Colossians and II Thessalonians, given that you seem to consider "their purported inauthenticity is warranted"?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Petulant or not, your history shows that his charge is valid.

My history merely challenges preconceived beliefs that are so often presented by various individuals as incontestable historical facts.

That seems to be what irks some of you.

Nor has anyone yet offered to explain the anomalies found in Acts chapter nine and the deemed authentic writings of Paul.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Well said.
The Gospel of Mark never supported any part of the resurrection, that needed a bit of addition later on.

Shorter Mark does have the alleged resurrection.

The point is that these four gospel texts were written at different periods and for different Christian communities and were never intended to be brought together in one canon. Their sole purpose was to "preach and teach" the beliefs of their respective communities.

My own view on Christianity as it has come down to us, is that it was a new cult being promulgated by Paul that was primarily based on his own mystical/psychological experiences and idiosyncratic ideas about this figure of Jesus Christ/Christ Jesus.

It is assumed that Paul heard of this resurrection from various individuals who had known the flesh and blood Galilean Jew. However, that remains an unverifiable assumption.

It is possible some sort of spiritual resurrection was believed to have occurred, or that the Almighty had miraculously brought this figure back to continue his Jewish Messianic mission but we have no attested historical texts written by any of those early followers confirming either their beliefs or their experiences. We only have Paul [and the later writings]

Given the importance of the resurrection to Paul's soteriology i.e. there could be no salvation without the resurrection, and given that Paul is our earliest textual source to refer to this resurrection, I consider that there remain questions about the origin of that belief and certainly that belief as Paul understood it.

[tabibito]

My history merely challenges preconceived beliefs that are so often presented by various individuals as incontestable historical facts.

That seems to be what irks some of you.

Nor has anyone yet offered to explain the anomalies found in Acts chapter nine and the deemed authentic writings of Paul.

Acts 9:3 it happened that he [(Paul)] was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him
9:4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,
6 but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.”
7 The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.

All of which is a very short recap of the events, and to provide an even shorter recap:
v3 presumably Paul's companions saw the light.
v4 Paul heard a voice
v5 Paul responded to the voice
v6 Paul was informed that he would be told what he must do
v7 Paul's companions also heard the voice

Subsequently, Ananias is sent to Paul, tells Paul that God had sent him, restores Paul's sight.

But an even longer recap is provided in Acts 22:6-22 , record of Paul's own account of what had happened. Extra detail is provided in that account, such as that Paul's companions hadn't actually understood the voice. Acts 9 could otherwise reasonably be interpreted as saying they had, but it says no more than they heard the voice. Acts 22:17-18 also shows that Paul saw Christ in a vision, subsequent to the events on the road to Damascus. There is no reason to believe that either Acts 9 or Acts 22 is intended as an exhaustive account of the event.

Be so kind as to detail this anomaly that you speak of.

[rogue06]

The letters themselves. Chapter 1 verse 1 in both cases.
Romans was penned by Tertius, not by Paul.

Scripture Verse: Romans 16:22

I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord

© Copyright Original Source

And yet even though he used an amanuensis in composing the letter, it is used to help some scholars help determine which letters Paul "actually" wrote.

[tabibito]

Scripture Verse: Romans 16:22

I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord

© Copyright Original Source

And yet even though he used an amanuensis in composing the letter, it is used to help some scholars help determine which letters Paul "actually" wrote.

Do you begin to see the reasons for my less than enthusiastic reception of Bible commentators' pronouncements?

[tabibito]

Romans is not a disputed Pauline epistle. I asked you for evidence in support of your comment



So on what evidence are you contending that Paul was a co-author for Colossians and II Thessalonians, given that you seem to consider "their purported inauthenticity is warranted"?

Scepticism about their purported inauthenticity is warranted.

Your inability to understand the Biblical text seems to extend to other writings as well.

And - yet again -

The evidence that the letters had coauthors is in the letters themselves: Chapter 1, verse 1 of each identifies the authors.

[Mountain Man]

So even you accept that the gospels contradict each...... that's something.

Of course I neither said nor even implied that. Allow me to repeat something I said in an earlier post:

For the sake of argument, let's toss out every point where you believe the gospels disagree, and keep all points on which they are in total agreement. Based on what's left, are you willing to accept that Jesus really did rise from the dead, since the gospels are in complete agreement on that point?

[rogue06]

Duh...... Tiberias was as strange to the peasants of Galilee as any palace. Its high class visitors wouldn't have given a thought for the locals, let alone a word.

Where do you keep coming up with this stuff?

Do you imagine invisible barriers that somehow keep "the peasants of Galilee" from ever entering cities?

Do you realize that they regularly went into them for things like festivals?

Tiberias had been constructed in Jesus' lifetime. Typically this requires a lot of local labor. Your peasants of Galilee. Particularly those with skills in carpentry and masonry. They would be cheek to jowl with the mostly Greek-speaking inhabitants as the later started moving in.

But naturally not a single Galilean laborer would have not picked up even a single word in Greek.

Can you name the ten cities? I doubt it.

Immediately off hand without looking them up? Lessee. Hippos. Philadelphia, Pella, Damascus, Gadara, Gerasa, Canatha, Dion...

Looks like 8 from memory (although Dion is generally rendered Dium).

What was your point? Both in the Decapolis cities and Tiberias you would have found Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew and Latin being regularly spoken.

[rogue06]

So my 100-110 was about right.

How do you get that from between 70 and 100?

Taking math lessons from H_A?

[rogue06]

I just think.....

ECREE!

[tabibito]

Immediately off hand without looking them up? Lessee. Hippos. Philadelphia, Pella, Damascus, Gadara, Gerasa, Canatha, Dion...

Looks like 8 from memory (although Dion is generally rendered Dium).

What was your point? Both in the Decapolis cities and Tiberias you would have found Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew and Latin being regularly spoken.

That seems to be the list supplied by Josephus (as under, courtesy Wikipedia), but there were a total of 19 cities IIRC, depending on the exact time-frame, that were identified as the ten cities. Also IIRC - Damascus was a late addition.

Aramean can be added to the language mix of the region

Philadelphia	Capital of modern Jordan	Amman, Jordan
Gerasa		Jerash, Jordan
Gadara		Umm Qais, Jordan
Pella	West of Irbid	Tabaqat Fahl, Jordan
Dium, later Capitolias	Sometimes identified with Aydoun	Jordan
Raphana	Usually identified with Abila	Jordan
Scythopolis	Only city west of the Jordan River	Beit She'an, Israel
Hippos		Kibbutz Ein Gev, Israel
Canatha		Qanawat, Syria
Damascus	Capital of modern Syria[3]

[rogue06]

So why in I Corinthians does Paul not mention his own apparent experience?

That was directly explained to you but as is your won't you dishonestly "snip for relevance" those parts so you can disingenuously ask questions like this.

How do you know? You and others are very eager to offer your glib explanations concerning apparent situations for which there is no textual evidence.

That was Paul's trump card. His conversion was what he used to testify to the truth that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God.

But in H_A-land he would have kept that a tight-lipped secret during his time in Corinth as he tried to convert people.

Have you ever stopped to think before spouting off your dribble or does it just ooze out and you have no control?

Yet Paul was hardly backward in coming forward when it concerned "puffing" himself up.

At other times and in different circumstances he was not beyond tooting his own horn, but this clearly was not such a case. Instead we get

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Of course someone who feels it necessary to pretend to be what they are obviously not probably cannot even conceive of such an attitude.



So... have you finally started to read the text that you've been criticizing for decades? I figure this will be ignored but I'll keep asking any way.