There are no criteria that could determine the authenticity of the letters and Paul himself (as the author) based on textual analyses.
Regardless of the consensus, both conflicting solutions are equally possible. I don’t have to convince anyone of this. It’s just the way it is. The result of the biblical scholars’ vote does not change this. It’s just a vote based on intuition and experience. Nothing else.
So we must leave the text alone and address other complementary problems in the hope that these results will provide one answer.
There isn’t much to explore. Actually, there is only one.
How was Pauline Corpus created?
Let’s assume that the epistles were found individually in different places as part of a heritage rescue mission. This in itself seems unrealistic due to the vast expanse of the Empire, but this is not the main problem. It turns out that the Christian community started by Paul is dominated by redacted copies, amalgams and fakes. As if the main goal of all these copyists was to endlessly correct the Apostle from various theological perspectives. Our brave seeker finds nothing authentic almost everywhere. Complete absurdity.
Let’s take another scenario. Our searcher found some set of Paul’s original letters. Then he has to make all the editing changes and gluing various texts together and creating new ones. Otherwise, they will not be included in one collection. Therefore, all these changes in all the original letters written from different theological perspectives are the work of one center. Equally pointless.
Pauline Corpus is a content product. As well as fake letters added to the supposedly real ones. It is obvious.
Unfortunately, real letters are also a product. There were no homogeneous original texts, because their original circulation is theoretically possible but very unlikely.
So. Story of Apostle was created for greater good and later developed. Nothing more.
Since Paul was created, his author decided that he could not combine him with other fictional characters and stories. For safety reasons. If these stories are deemed to be made-up fairy tales, the story about Paul will remain safe and unverifiable. Presenting 40 years old invented past the letters are secured.
Therefore, the Gospel of Paul is not connected with the Gospels about Jesus.
Gospel of Paul:
– Jesus was a man and on the cross he became Christ,
– Jesus rised from the dead
– Jesus revealed himself to Paul and that is why you should listen to Paul
– teaching of Paul.
Did Paul’s creators know the gospels about Jesus? I don’t know. Even if they knew them, they effectively avoided them.
If you want to be hyper-skeptical about the Pauline writings, fine. But please be consistent. There is no difference in the historical/critical approach to the Pauline writings as there is with most every other ancient writing that survived. Please avoid selective skepticism.
You’ve never demonstrated your basis for measuring these supposedly equal probabilities.
These are the rules of logic. If you ask a question with two possible answers, the probability of each answer being correct is 50%. If 4 different answers are possible, the probability drops to 25%. I hope I don’t have to convince anyone of this.
Falsifiability is based on facts and their confirmation. We cannot prove that the epistles are true or that they are false because we have no evidence, only arguments on both sides in favor of one or the other solution. Arguments do not change probabilities.
It doesn’t matter what camp I’m in. My choice doesn’t change anything.
I just don’t want to choose.
As for training, I remember that Detering, Pierson, Loman and van Manem were Paulinists.
Your view of the Pauline texts is like plaid in the judgement of critical scholars, who know how to recognize a coherent development of a single theological and linguistic perspective. No critical scholars of the New Testament or history accept your view. You merely don’t want to recognize the weight and importance of scholarly judgment, preferring instead to claim that there’s a 50% chance that you are right and everyone else is wrong.
Biblical scholars can attribute texts to author A, author B, author C… and are prepared to do so.
Biblical scholars assume that A is Paul based on the text and the belief that there must be a true origin story.
Well, they are unable to prove this because it is not an issue covered by the methods of biblical studies. The original story can be invented just as it can be true
Content development does not depend on whether something is true or not. It depends on whether something is exciting, funny, touching, moving. Nobody cares about the truth, only the public’s desire is important.
We have no evidence that Captain Kirk and time travel won’t exist in the 23rd century, therefore there’s a 50% chance that he wrote the letters of Paul and travelled back in time to place them in the archives of 2nd- and 3rd-century libraries.
Speaking of the physics of time travel and elementary particles… The theoretical physics community is experiencing a collective trauma. Their favorite and widely developed theory, which was supposed to be confirmed by experiments at the LHC near Geneva, turned out to be false. The opinion of a very small minority turned out to be correct. On average, everyone who developed the theory of supersymmetry lost about 15 years. His works have the value of waste paper.
You either are or are not my Polish friend Jarek that I met in Würzburg in 1990 while we were studying German together. 50% chance that you are. Or maybe you are our mutual friend Darek, also Polish, and only pretending to be Jarek. 33% chance.
You’re asking the question wrong. 50% chance whether I am a real person or an imaginary entity. The chance that I am your friend, this particular person, is significantly smaller. The same applies to whether you are who you say you are or someone completely different.
But you have prophetic abilities, as I have just discovered. You will soon find out for yourself.
BTW
I do not believe in the existence of Paul, Mary, or the 12 disciples. I do not believe in the authenticity of the entire NT.
I have concluded that Christianity began as an unexpected result of Josephus’ literary achievements.
Well, I finally believed that there was a historical Jesus killed by Pilate’s judgment. That he had some unknown companions and supporters.
Even though there is a 50% chance, I say – Jesus did exist.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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