Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Peter wrote to Richard: I’m sure you would agree that we can divide the subject into two questions: (1) the historicity of an apostle Paul and (2) the authenticity of the letters attributed to Paul. I would disagree. If the 'historicus Paulus' wrote nothing and even was not named 'Paul', then very p...

Why Paul was a Benjamite? "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder." (Genesis 49:27) strictly linked with his being a persecutor then converted. And I'm assuming that at least the story of Paul persecutor is a legend, pace Carr...

from The Apocalypse of Peter For they shall come out of them - and my forgiveness of their transgressions, into which they fell through their adversaries, whose ransom I got from the slavery in which they were, to give them freedom that they may create an imitation remnant in the name of a dead man,...

You are pointing to obvious. The anomaly is not the name ''Paul''. But the improbable coincidence ('too improbable to be a coincidence, therefore it's not a coincidence') that a guy named Paul will be punctually ''called the least in the kingdom of heaven'' by Matthew.

I want only follow the advice of Richard attempting to raise the prior to doubt on Paul. If you dont' like the title of thread, you are free to change it. I dont' know what say, excuse me.

In my intentions, I would discuss the possibility of Paul's invention for the simple reason that his simbolic name is too suspect to be a real name (see the example of 'Ebion') for someone that punctually ''will be called least in the kingdom of heaven''. And the name ''Saul'' is discarded a priori ...

Peter, I begin this thread with this premise: I don't like seem dogmatic, therefore I excuse me in advance if not use the conditional in following, and I apologize for my bad English therefore it's clear that I'm incurring in the fallacy of possibiliter. But my doubts on Paul are not removed by repl...

Precisely. I'm saying that IF Matthew, to react to Mcn , had not introduced for the first time the anti-marcionite metaphor smallness/greatness (at way from you described), THEN the Marcionites in turn would not created 'Paulus' against the readers of Matthew. The order of texts would be this: Mcn M...

I here disagree strongly with Richard Carrier: No motive existed then to invent that name. Nor would such an invention at that point in history matter, since the exact name of this apostle is irrelevant to any argument one might construct about this man’s and these letters’ role in the history of Ch...

We need a prior favoring non-historicity. Or a state of evidence favoring it. Or both. For Paul, we have neither. For Jesus, we have both. http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/7643 Scholars think that Ebion didn't exist because means ''Poor'' and it's very much improbable the coincidence th...