The alternative I’d suggest is reading Paul’s undisputed letters in light of the hypothesis that he was a con, who was deliberately pretending to have had revelations from the risen Christ in order to get money, and then seeing if that sort of reading works or whether there are things in the letters that just don’t fit that hypothesis.

Half of my question is whether scholars have already done that and found that it doesn’t work: are there passages in the undisputed letters that just don’t make any sense on the hypothesis that he was a con, and which have led NT scholars to the conclusion that Paul needs to be taken as sincere? 

And for the record, I’m not trying to discredit Paul. I’m trying to figure out what to make of him and his testimony. The possibility that he was a con seems–prima facie–to be a possibility that merits serious consideration.

If I simply summarized for someone the general tenor of what Paul wrote about himself, his ministry, and his authority, but without naming the individual in question as Paul, I think most people would be deeply suspicious of the person making those claims–I think they would consider fraud a very real possibility. I am trying to figure out whether there is a reason we don’t entertain those suspicions in the case of Paul. 

I’m not making an assertion. I’m simply suggesting an hypothesis and asking whether there is a reason to dismiss it.

We have data. Those data might or might not fit with various hypotheses. We don’t usually just dismiss hypotheses for no reason; so is there good reason to dismiss the hypothesis that Paul was a con-man? 

I don’t think historians generally take autobiographies at face value: E.g., no one takes the Gallic Wars without a grain of salt–we realize that Caesar had an very great interest in portraying things a certain way; the work was propaganda. 

On edit: As to motive, that is certainly a fair question, and the obvious motive seems to me money (and possibly ancillaries like status in a community). A bunch of Paul’s uncontested letters treat the issue of raising money. 

We can quite reasonably surmise from the Didache that there was a problem in early Christianity of itinerant, grifting, false apostles and false prophets–they were evidently motivated by the material benefits they would reasonably expect from the communities they visited. Why couldn’t Paul have had similar motives? 

Aside from the collection which he often writes of, he tells us himself how he was financially supported by the individual Christian communities, 2 Cor 11:8-9; and he seems to be directly answering suspicions that he was some sort of con-man, taking advantage of the churches (e.g., in 2 Cor 12:16-17).

JAS said
Begging money from a small, struggling starter movement with no clear direction and one that was actively being persecuted at the time does not seem to me like a very likely prospect. If one is going to go the con man route, there were certainly far more viable options at the time.

First, it only take one or two big fish to make a con worthwhile. Paul seems to have accumulated several wealthy benefactors (Phoebe, Rom 16:1-2), Gaius and Erastus (Rom 16:23), Lydia–if Acts is to be trusted.

Second, we know that he received material support from his Christian communities: He tells the Corinthians that he was supported by the Macedonian churches while he was with the Corinthians, and he praises the Philippians (Phil. 4:14-19) for supporting his work. We also know that he thought he could raise a substantial sum from his churches in his collection for the saints in Jerusalem. 

Finally, as to persecution it is a fair question: would the benefit have outweighed the risks? But my impression is that the persecutions during the life of Paul were sporadic and local. 

We also don’t usually propose hypotheses (which are in essence assertions) without good reason. And historians do use autobiographies all the time, if they can get them. Do they assume that they contain a certain amount of unreliable information and bragging? Of course, but secondary sources are also often unreliable. Doing history is a challenge; and ancient history even more so.

  

The difference I mean to draw in calling it an hypothesis rather than an assertion is that an assertion is something one asserts as a fact, while an hypothesis is something one suggests as a possibility–open to refutation or substantiation. I don’t assert that Paul was a con as a fact. I do think it merits being investigated as a possibility. 

The reason I think it merits consideration as a possibility is this:

We can presume that at the time Paul started his preaching, rumors about Jesus of Nazareth had spread: he was said to be a miracle worker, he was thought by some to be some sort of Messiah savior figure. He was believed, by his followers, to have risen from the dead after being crucified. 

Then enters Paul saying that though he had never met Jesus, and though he had had little to no connection to his followers, still the risen Jesus had appeared to him (privately), and disclosed a message to him which he was now spreading to the gentiles. 

And based on his thus being an apostle of the risen Jesus, he asks for and received money from his gentile converts. 

Further we know that his apostolic credentials were contested (E.g., by the mysterious super-apostles and Judaizers he rails against, and later by the Nazarenes and Ebionites), and some of his own converts themselves suggested he was taking advantage of them. 

All this seems to me to justify investigating the possibility that he was a charlatan. 

JAS said
And how will you investigate it? We do not get a lot of competing or verifying accounts in ancient history, especially for someone who really would not have been considered very important outside of a movement that was itself not very important at the time. It is likely to be personal responses to the little information we have, which is mostly the NT itself. And you are really primarily trying to assess internal motivations. That seems to me an insurmountable problem in making a case.

  

I’d investigate it by looking at the undisputed letters of Paul in light of what we know about his context. 

Yes, the result probably wouldn’t be conclusive one way or the other; I’m okay saying we can’t know.

But that is consistent with my original question: have scholars entertained this possibility or have they found a good reason to set it aside? It seems to me that most scholars take it as granted that Paul was sincere, so is there actually an historical reason for that presumption of sincerity or should we be holding open the possibility (possibility, not fact) that he was just making stuff up to con his churches?

Should we, in short, just say we really don’t know how reliable Paul is as a narrator of his own life (did he actually see or believe he saw the risen Christ? did he really think he was taken up to the third heaven? did he really suffer the persecutions and shipwrecks he claimed? Was he really an outstanding student of the Jewish law? Was he actually a Pharisee? Did he actually persecute the first Christians? Does he acurately portray his relationship with the leaders of the Jerusalem church?)

We might not be able to be sure, but I’d rather know that we don’t know than construct a whole field of study based on what might be self-serving misrepresentations. 

Adnantell said
The obvious answer is that people just do accept his authority probably with most people for non existent reasons and even for the “scholarly types” I’m sure the arguments aren’t very great either. 

  

That is what I was afraid of. Saying Paul was a con would be too controversial for anyone serious to want to go there. I really hope that isn’t the case, just for the sake of the academy and its integrity.

JAS said
Lot of people have questioned pretty much everything about the Bible, including the idea that Jesus was a con man, or a madman, or even never existed. None of this is a new idea.

  

I know that there are people who have suggested that Paul was a fraud, but those that I’m aware of tend to fall not in the category of serious scholars of note but more into the case of unhinged nutter amateur. 

What I’d like to know–assuming I’m right about the state of the field–is whether there is a reason high-profile scholars don’t question this and everyone of note seems to agree that Paul is sincere.

That looks to me like a massive and unjustified assumption, and I hope that there is actually some reason that justifies it, beyond just, We’re talking about St. Paul, how could you even dare suggest he is insincere?