Historical Jesus

[HansMustermann]

NT Paul was fabricated by some anonymous writers to appear as a witness to the resurrected Jesus, the disciples and believers because there was no-one and no historical record to corroborate the NT Jesus stories.

NT Paul and the Epistles were fabricated after Jesus stories and cult were already known.

It's not very clear why would they invent something like Paul, though, since he's a non-witness. Not only Paul himself only talked to Jesus's ghost in his hallucinations, but basically he insists that there was no other resurrected Jesus than as a ghost. So basically he tells you that nobody else saw a Jesus resurrected properly like in Matthew, Luke or John.

It seems to me like if they wanted a witness, there were already better forgeries around. Like there are epistles around (forgeries, of course) purporting to be from actual disciples of Jesus. Even one pretending to be written together by ALL the disciples. Or from the ones pretending to be from just one actual disciple, apocryphal epistles from Peter seem to be especially numerous.

As Ehrman will happily telly you, if maybe not in those exact words, the early christians were basically a bunch of liars. If you thought some other church got Jesus wrong -- and pretty much everyone did, about everyone else -- you'd write them a letter to set them straight. But if you sent them something like the epistle of Larry, they'd just ask who the heck is Larry and why should they listen. So you signed it as Peter.

So, anyway, it's not clear to me why would anyone invent a non-witness like Paul, when they had forgeries around that claimed to be from actual witnesses. Or, really, if someone goes to the trouble of writing 7 epistles from Paul (which are written by the same person, whether that one was actually called Paul or not) why not make them epistles from Peter? Or hell, if a wide eyed witness to the resurrected Jesus is what's needed, why not make them epistles of Thomas?

I mean, think of it this way: if I wanted to convince you that Elvis lives, and forged a letter as evidence, which would work better?
A) a letter from someone saying that they actually met Elvis after his funeral, were skeptical, but he proved he's really Elvis (like would be the case for Thomas), OR
B) a letter from someone saying that they talked to a vision of Elvis while they were having a seizure
Essentially Paul's letter are case B.

Not that I mind the idea of them being forgeries either, mind you, because it's irrelevant for the question of whether a HJ existed. And just for that reason: it's non-evidence either way. If they're authentic, it's just a schizophrenic talking to the voices in his head, which is not evidence. And if they're forgeries, well, they went through all that trouble to forge some non-evidence.

 

[HansMustermann]

I don't know why you assumed Paul was true and the pied piper of Christianity.

If you read the fables called the NT you will notice that the character called Saul/Paul was supposedly converted after he persecuted believers in the resurrected Jesus.

In the NT, Jesus, the disciples and thousands of believers predate Saul/Paul.

Christian writers also claimed that NT Jesus, disciples and believers were before Paul.

There is no story anywhere in antiquity[fiction or not] where Saul/Paul was said to be the first to tell people about Jesus.

The disciples [not Paul] were commissioned by the resurrected Jesus to preach the Gospels to the world.

That's not the claim that they made, though. The claim was never that Paul was the first to preach Jesus to the world, but that he was the first to make the Jesus For Dummies... err... For Gentiles version that we now call Christianity.

The story is basically that the other disciples still thought they're Jews. They did think that their messiah had already come, and that the end is therefore nigh, but otherwise they still thought they're Jews. And if you want to convert to their religion, then basically you better really convert. You know, get circumcised, give up bacon, keep the Sabbath, and all that.

The claim about Paul isn't that he was the first missionary per se, but the first to basically the first missionary to the gentiles. The first who basically went, screw that crap, the Law no longer matters if you get saved by Jesus anyway. You can keep your foreskin and your bacon for all Jesus cares. (Though presumably not in the same place)

THAT is really the claim made about Paul.

 

[Tassman]

That is the general impression most people have but it doesn’t actually stand up to scrutiny.

When we look at the claimed foundations of a religion we know how it was established (I’ll use Scientology as an example in this post) that is not what happens.

What happens is that someone makes up the foundations of the new religion, for example Dianetics and the presentation of “Sonya Bianca”. (Whether the creator actually believes in those foundations is a different question). They then start to embellish the claims, so we end up with Scientology, and that will then outlast the originator of the foundations of the religion. But the foundations were never true

I’m sure you are correct about Scientology, it was invented out of whole-cloth by a charlatan; the same applies to Mormonism and similar. But is this necessarily true of all religions in just this way? I would suggest that the pagan religions originated by way of explanation, like prescience, as to why puzzling things happened in nature, e.g. lightening - obviously the result of a god losing his temper and hurling thunderbolts. Or the sun traversing the sky in Helios’ chariot and etc.

With Christianity the foundational elements are the character Jesus, so if we go by how we know religions (can) are created we wouldn’t expect that such a person ever existed, they are the foundations that are made up. Christianity would have to be the exception to the rule. The more likely creator of Christianity would be if it follows the usual path of religions be a Hubbard character, an obvious candidate for Christianity would be “Paul” (Yes I do understand that Paul as a real historical person also has it problems.)

Then of course you have 2000 years of accumulated stories and claims.

Perhaps with Christianity we had a bunch of disconsolate uneducated fishermen having their grandiose best friend going a step too far and getting himself crucified for causing trouble. And from there it probably would have just died out EXCEPT that we had Paul. He had the bad luck to have a frontal-lobe seizure on the way to Damascus featuring his obsession of the moment, namely the Jesus rabble infesting Jerusalem. And, the rest is history. Once it got going it developed a momentum of its own.

So no there isn’t given how we know religions are founded to think there was ever a need for a real Jesus to hang everything off.

Certainly, no need, but was possibly the case in this instance that the Jesus religion was hung off a real individual and a few of his friends.

 

[HansMustermann]

Perhaps. But then also perhaps Paul just heard some discussion about whether the messiah had already come (which was an actual debate topic for pharisees in the 1st century), and then his hallucination made it real. There's no real way to know.

As I was saying, Paul shows SERIOUS signs of schizophrenic delusions, not just some one off epilepsy. He actually talks to Jesus and gets answers, e.g., about whatever ailment that 'thorn in his flesh' was. Hell, he hallucinates the whole Last Supper. (Though he may or may not have heard that story before.) He makes pretty point blank claims that boil down to textbook Cotard delusion at least 3 times just off the top of my head. He BASES arguments on textbook delusions of reference in at least a dozen places. He actually claims that he performs miracles, which really, either he's lying or is that delusional. Etc.

Not to mention that he has the abnormal and persistent mode of thinking of both

A) being OBSSESSED with Jesus, to the point that he dedicates his life to bringing the news about Jesus and writing 20 page letters about it. (Which, at the time, the paper alone would have cost the equivalent of a couple grand these days. So you have to be pretty frikken hard about Jesus to spend that much to tell someone about him.)

BUT at the same time

B) not only showing NO interest in learning or sharing more about his idol, but taking it as a point of pride that he refuses learning anything about him from anyone who might know more. Hell, he thinks he's qualified to tell Peter what Jesus would have thought, instead of the other way around.

It's a profoundly abnormal way of thinking that, basically, you don't really find in normal people. I mean, it's quite literally like being an obsessive Vader fanboy while refusing to see any Star Wars movies or hear about them from anyone, and insisting that what you fantasized about Vader is the real thing. That kind of 'my imagination is reality' is pretty much THE defining factor of paranoid schizophrenia.

Anyway, I dunno, expecting him to need something real to base his delusions on is IMHO not very warranted. Mind you it COULD be based on some real story he heard and then distorted. But it could just as well be all in his head, since he's already in the mode where his imagination trumps reality.

 

[dejudge]

It's not very clear why would they invent something like Paul, though, since he's a non-witness. Not only Paul himself only talked to Jesus's ghost in his hallucinations, but basically he insists that there was no other resurrected Jesus than as a ghost. So basically he tells you that nobody else saw a Jesus resurrected properly like in Matthew, Luke or John.

You seem not to understand that in the NT it is claimed Jesus physically died and bodily resurrected. In fact, it is stated that NT Jesus predicted that he would be killed and be raised from the dead on third day.


Mark 9:31

For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.

Mark 16:6

And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.

The NT Pauline Epistles are not hallucinations but deliberate constructed false information in an attempt to historicise the non-historical resurrection.

Examine 1 Corinthians 15 and other Epistles.


1 Cor. 15

3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

5 And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:

6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

7 After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.

8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.......................15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

Romans 6:9

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.

Galatians 1:1

Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead...

1 Thessalonians 1:10

And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

The Epistles are clearly not hallucinations about a resurrection.

But, what is most interesting is that the claims about the resurrection and other events in the Pauline Epistles are evidence of the time period or chronology for when they were composed.

The claims about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians mean that it was most likely composed after all the NT Gospels.

None of the NT Gospels writers claimed over 500 people were seen at once by the resurrected Jesus.

 

[Darat]

You seem not to understand that in the NT it is claimed Jesus physically died and bodily resurrected. In fact, it is stated that NT Jesus predicted that he would be killed and be raised from the dead on third day.


Mark 9:31

Mark 16:6

The NT Pauline Epistles are not hallucinations but deliberate constructed false information in an attempt to historicise the non-historical resurrection.

Examine 1 Corinthians 15 and other Epistles.


1 Cor. 15

Romans 6:9

Galatians 1:1

1 Thessalonians 1:10

The Epistles are clearly not hallucinations about a resurrection.

But, what is most interesting is that the claims about the resurrection and other events in the Pauline Epistles are evidence of the time period or chronology for when they were composed.

The claims about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians mean that it was most likely composed after all the NT Gospels.

None of the NT Gospels writers claimed over 500 people were seen at once by the resurrected Jesus.

All of which has nothing to do with Hans’ post. Please try rereading it.

 

[acbytesla]

Millions of people, perhaps even billions, believe their Jesus, [ God's son and Creator] did create the vast universe and they accept the plan for salvation as written in the NT.

So? Millions of people just accept the story without applying any critical thought to the question. From my view, almost nothing about the story can hold up to basic logic.

I don't know why you assumed Paul was true and the pied piper of Christianity.

If you read the fables called the NT you will notice that the character called Saul/Paul was supposedly converted after he persecuted believers in the resurrected Jesus.

In the NT, Jesus, the disciples and thousands of believers predate Saul/Paul.

Christian writers also claimed that NT Jesus, disciples and believers were before Paul.

There is no story anywhere in antiquity[fiction or not] where Saul/Paul was said to be the first to tell people about Jesus.

The disciples [not Paul] were commissioned by the resurrected Jesus to preach the Gospels to the world.

You don't? Seriously? Maybe because this has been basic Christian teaching for the last 1700 years? And while all of what you argue is true and known to me, the fact is that Paul and not Peter and the other disciples has been credited for spreading the Christian religion. That this is not likely true is news to me.
.

But, there is a problem - the entire NT Jesus stories in the so-called Gospels are total fiction.

NT Jesus, the disciples and believers did not exist at all.

Now, you can easily see that NT Paul was a fabricated character.
NT Paul claimed he saw the resurrected Jesus,he met his brother James, stayed with Peter for 15 days and that the same Jesus revealed certain details to him.

Galatians 1

The Pauline writers have been trapped in their lies.

The resurrected Jesus did not exist.
Peter did not exist.
Jesus had no brother named James.

NT Paul was fabricated by some anonymous writers to appear as a witness to the resurrected Jesus, the disciples and believers because there was no-one and no historical record to corroborate the NT Jesus stories.

NT Paul and the Epistles were fabricated after Jesus stories and cult were already known.

I'm not sure I can. I do see that you make a good argument for that claim.
.
As I said earlier, I believed the Jesus story was a fabrication. Somebody, made it up. Who made it up would always be a mystery. It doesn't surprise me that Paul would also be a made up character although given there was nothing supernatural about Paul, there seems to be less of a reason to make up Paul.

My question to you is who do you think made up the Saul/Paul character and why? It's not evident to me. Even when I was a Christian, I never considered the Epistles to be authoritative. Why should I care about the ideas of someone who never even met Jesus?

 

[slyjoe]

Nitpickery. The Immaculate Conception is RCC dogma which states that the Virgin Mary had not had sex at the time of her conception, i.e. she was a virgin when God banged her up, and unless she put herself about sometime in the next nine month, she was was still a virgin at sonny boy's birth, so a difference with little distinction, and certainly irrelevant to the point I was making - a person who could turn water into wine, who was sacrificed by being crucified in the branches of a tree and who was resurrected three days later, fathered by the Top God.

This is wrong. Mary was born without original sin.

ETA:

The Immaculate Conception is a doctrine of the Roman Catholic church which states that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception.

 

[acbytesla]

This is wrong. Mary was born without original sin.

ETA:

And how was that possible? This idea presents a contradiction. It was claimed by Athanasius that the sacrifice of Jesus was required for man to be absolved of original sin. Considering Jesus had yet to be sacrificed, how is possible that Mary is without sin?

 

[slyjoe]

And how was that possible? This idea presents a contradiction. It was claimed by Athanasius that the sacrifice of Jesus was required for man to be absolved of original sin. Considering Jesus had yet to be sacrificed, how is possible that Mary is without sin?

Who is this Athansius guy anyway, and what authority does he have? Goddit, of
course.

 

[HansMustermann]

You seem not to understand that in the NT it is claimed Jesus physically died and bodily resurrected.

No, he point blank berates people who thought there's such a thing as being bodily resurrected in 1 Corinthians 15 from verse 35 to 55. It's a whole half a page where he goes on and on about how you get a heavenly body when you get resurrected, how the buried earthly body is a seed and what comes out is a heavenly body, and explicitly how flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heavens. (Not that it stopped RCC from even making the assumption of Mary an infallible proclamation, mind you)

And on the topic of Jesus specifically, 1 Cor 15:45: "So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit." So yeah, Jesus became a spirit.

So, yeah, if you quote only the first paragraph of 1 Cor 15, you might not have the full picture there.

In fact, it is stated that NT Jesus predicted that he would be killed and be raised from the dead on third day.

"The NT" is a very vague term. There are 27 different books on the NT. Their views on Jesus can vary DRASTICALLY from one another.

E.g., even among the gospels, Mark's Jesus is CT ninja Jesus: you never heard of him, because he asks people to not tell anyone about what he did, and of course they all keep the secret. By the time of John, he might as well be wearing an "I'm the messiah, biatch!" t-shirt, because that's all he talks about. His whole character has by then turned around a full 180 degree.

And so it is between Paul and the gospels too. There are things that Jesus already ruled upon, but which Paul apparently never heard about, because he spends pages (which again, also meant a lot of money) doing his own rationalizations instead of going "because Jesus said so." Hell, apparently he's never heard of all the miracles Jesus did, because on the first page of 1 Corinthians he says the Jews don't convert because they expect miracles.

Now that's not necessarily saying that Han... err... Paul shot first, but it does mean that you can't just assume that Paul says the same things as any of the gospels.

The Epistles are clearly not hallucinations about a resurrection.

Paul quite explicitly states that he never met Jesus in person or anything. So either it was in a hallucination, or it would have to be a genuine miracle. I'll go with the former, personally.

But, what is most interesting is that the claims about the resurrection and other events in the Pauline Epistles are evidence of the time period or chronology for when they were composed.

The claims about the resurrection in 1 Corinthians mean that it was most likely composed after all the NT Gospels.

None of the NT Gospels writers claimed over 500 people were seen at once by the resurrected Jesus.

That's like saying that the Perrault version of Little Red Riding Hood must come after the Disney movie because it features the additional element of LRRH ditching her clothes and hopping in bed with the wolf

That said, there are two issues there:

1. You're partially right, but not in the way you seem to think. That testimony at the start of 1 Cor 15, is considered by many scholars to be indeed a later forgery. Among others, since he seems to be the darling here, by Bart Ehrman in his "Forgery and Counter-forgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics". (See pages 430 to 431.)

There are, in fact, bigger red flags there than the 500 witnesses, or the fact that he contradicts the whole heavenly body thing on the rest of the page.

Probably the biggest red flag in ANY such epistle is just out of nowhere reassuring the reader that it's genuine. As Ehrman will tell you over and over again, a lot of ancient forgers thought they'd dispel the suspicions by anything between insisting that no, this is the real deal, and warning you to not trust forgeries that others might show you. And Paul suddenly springs up just such a reminder in 1 Cor 15:3, for no obvious reason.

But an easier to overlook red flag is that Paul suddenly contradicts the Paul we know from everywhere else in the 7 epistles that were written by the same person. Here he's passing on what he received from someone else. Never mind that everywhere else he's adamant that he got it from no man, here suddenly he just passes on such information, AND cites the other apostles as witnesses. It's a HUGE red flag.

2. Even then the Greek original doesn't really say he was SEEN (as in, visually) by any of those people. That verb is mostly used to mean, basically, mentally discerned or such. Or a more accurate translation (in that it doesn't introduce any extra clarification) would be that Jesus revealed himself to all those persons.

Because, NB, Paul doesn't say he met Jesus in person, and it would be a complete nonsense to claim that he personally witnessed a miraculous resurrection, but went on to persecute the others who witnessed it. Plus, from WHOM did he receive the information he's passing on -- including that Jesus was seen risen -- if he had seen him himself? So how did Paul 'see' the risen Jesus in 1 Cor 15? Right. It was somehow revealed to him.

 

[acbytesla]

Who is this Athansius guy anyway, and what authority does he have? Goddit, of
course.

Are any of them actual authorities?

My question about the Jesus crucifixion has always been why? If God made the rules, then he has the authority to forgive, why does he require a sacrifice of an unsinful human?

Athanasius of Alexandria came up with an explanation for this and Christian apologists have been using Athanasius's argument ever since.

 

[HansMustermann]

My question to you is who do you think made up the Saul/Paul character and why? It's not evident to me. Even when I was a Christian, I never considered the Epistles to be authoritative. Why should I care about the ideas of someone who never even met Jesus?

Well, to play that side of the court too: because half of everyone else was appealing to Paul's authority too. E.g., Marcion also claimed his gnostic stuff to be from Paul and apparently had his own epistles to show for it. The Catholics called them forgeries, but still, be that as it may, there were obviously people out there for whom "Paul said so" carried a lot of weight.

In fact so much so that it was worth forging the testimony at the beginning of 1 Cor 15 to counter them. A counter-forgery, if you will.

Now whether the Catholic ones are forgeries too, and whether Paul was invented by Marcion, or whatever, may well still be debated, if one really wants to. But basically that's why it was important for everyone that they too have some letter from Paul that totally supported their position. Because everyone else did. You just weren't someone important enough unless you too had a letter from Paul

So I guess he was like a classic version of Joe The Plumber. Everyone just had to go, "no, _I_ am the one totally on the side of Joe... err... Paul!"

 

[pgwenthold]

And how was that possible? This idea presents a contradiction. It was claimed by Athanasius that the sacrifice of Jesus was required for man to be absolved of original sin. Considering Jesus had yet to be sacrificed, how is possible that Mary is without sin?

It's God, he can do anything.

I mean, he could even have us all be born without original sin. It buggers all question of why he doesn't, but that is neither here nor there.

He's omnipotent. He can do whatever the heck he wants.

 

[acbytesla]

Well, to play that side of the court too: because half of everyone else was appealing to Paul's authority too. E.g., Marcion also claimed his gnostic stuff to be from Paul and apparently had his own epistles to show for it. The Catholics called them forgeries, but still, be that as it may, there were obviously people out there for whom "Paul said so" carried a lot of weight.

In fact so much so that it was worth forging the testimony at the beginning of 1 Cor 15 to counter them. A counter-forgery, if you will.

Now whether the Catholic ones are forgeries too, and whether Paul was invented by Marcion, or whatever, may well still be debated, if one really wants to. But basically that's why it was important for everyone that they too have some letter from Paul that totally supported their position. Because everyone else did. You just weren't someone important enough unless you too had a letter from Paul

So I guess he was like a classic version of Joe The Plumber. Everyone just had to go, "no, _I_ am the one totally on the side of Joe... err... Paul!"

This whole thing about the Epistles seems doesn't make any sense to me. At some point in the development of the Christian cult, the character Paul became very important.

Dejudge's argument that Paul is totally a fictional character flies in the face of pretty much every Wikipedia entry about the Epistles. There are arguments about forgeries and interpolations but pretty much none about Paul's historicity. But considering how Wikipedia operates, that may mean that Dejudge is wrong or nothing.

 

[acbytesla]

It's God, he can do anything.

I mean, he could even have us all be born without original sin. It buggers all question of why he doesn't, but that is neither here nor there.

He's omnipotent. He can do whatever the heck he wants.

It's pretty much here. Sure, if he's omnipotent, he can do anything. Then he could have also simply forgiven man. Right?

If a human being without sin was required to be sacrificed for God to forgive man and each of us is born with original sin that we inherited from our parents then it is impossible for Mary and Jesus to be without sin because neither benefitted from such a sacrifice.

 

[pgwenthold]

It's pretty much here. Sure, if he's omnipotent, he can do anything. Then he could have also simply forgiven man. Right?

Of course.

Never fall for the "God has to ...." or "....is required." Any God worth its omnipotence can do anything it wants, and can have it any way. Everything that God "requires" is because God CHOOSES to have it that way. Why God chooses it to be that way is a different queston.

If a human being without sin was required to be sacrificed for God to forgive man and each of us is born with original sin that we inherited from our parents then it is impossible for Mary and Jesus to be without sin because neither benefitted from such a sacrifice.

Nah, God just waived the requirement for them. That's his prerogative, he's God, he doesn't have to make sense or be fair.

 

[acbytesla]

Of course.

Never fall for the "God has to ...." or "....is required." Any God worth its omnipotence can do anything it wants, and can have it any way. Everything that God "requires" is because God CHOOSES to have it that way. Why God chooses it to be that way is a different queston.

Nah, God just waived the requirement for them. That's his prerogative, he's God, he doesn't have to make sense.

Apparently not.

 

[dejudge]

....... And while all of what you argue is true and known to me, the fact is that Paul and not Peter and the other disciples has been credited for spreading the Christian religion. That this is not likely true is news to me.

It is news to you because you are not familiar with Christian writings of antiquity.

Christian writers did state that it was the disciples who preached the Gospel to the whole world.

Examine Aristides' Apology written during the reign of Trajan 117-138 CE.

Aristides' "Apology"

This Jesus, then, was born of the race of the Hebrews; and he had twelve disciples in order that the purpose of his incarnation might in time be accomplished.

But he himself was pierced by the Jews, and he died and was buried; and they say that after three days he rose and ascended to heaven.

Thereupon these twelve disciples went forth throughout the known parts of the world, and kept showing his greatness with all modesty and uprightness. And hence also those of the present day who believe that preaching are called Christians, and they are become famous.

Examine Justin's First Apology.

First Apology XXXIX

.....For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God

.

First Apology XLIX

But the Gentiles, who had never heard anything about Christ, until the apostles set out from Jerusalem and preached concerning Him, and gave them the prophecies, were filled with joy and faith, and cast away their idols, and dedicated themselves to the Unbegotten God through Christ.

It is clear that there were Christians writers in the 2nd century who knew nothing at all of Paul, nothing at all of Paul as an evangelist, and nothing at all of his Epistles.

And to confirm that Paul was unknown up to the late 2nd century the writing called "Against Celsus" attributed to Origen is of great significance.

According to Origen, Celsus in a writing called "True Discourse" wrote against the Christians and their teachings.

Celsus wrote nothing at all about Paul, the teachings of Paul or his supposed Epistles to Churches but he wrote about the Jesus stories found in the Gospels.

Examine Origen's "Against Celsus"

Against Celsus

1And I do not know how Celsus should have forgotten or not have thought of saying something about Paul, the founder, after Jesus, of the Churches that are in Christ.

Now, if the Pauline post-resurrection story that over 500 people saw Jesus after he was raised from dead was already known and circulated in Christian writings for at least 120 years then why would Celsus say only one person did so??

The answer is obvious, the Pauline Jesus post-resurrection story was unknown up to c 175-177 CE.

So, Aristides, Justin Martyr and Celsus, Christian and non-Christian writers, all from the 2nd century knew nothing at all from Paul, his Epistles and Churches.

Paul and the Epistles must have been fabricated after c 175-177 CE or after Celsus' True Discourse.

As I said earlier, I believed the Jesus story was a fabrication. Somebody, made it up. Who made it up would always be a mystery. It doesn't surprise me that Paul would also be a made up character although given there was nothing supernatural about Paul, there seems to be less of a reason to make up Paul.

I think you keep forgetting that once Jesus did not exist then he had no disciples.

Jesus did not exist- Paul could not have heard his voice.

Paul's conversion was fabricated in Acts. There was no Christian at all named Paul.

The disciple/apostle Peter did not exist. He was not in Jerusalem
James the brother of the Lord did not exist. He was not in Jerusalem.

In the Epistles, Paul claimed he stayed with Peter for 15 days and also met James in Jerusalem.

The stories in the Epistles about Paul with Peter and James are utter fiction.

The Pauline character was fabricated. The Epistles were falsely attributed to a fiction character..

My question to you is who do you think made up the Saul/Paul character and why? It's not evident to me. Even when I was a Christian, I never considered the Epistles to be authoritative. Why should I care about the ideas of someone who never even met Jesus?

I don't who fabricated Paul but whoever manufactured the character wanted the teachings in the Epistles to be authoritative since his Paul was supposedly in direct contact with the resurrected Jesus.

 

[HansMustermann]

Bear in mind, though, that Paul never says that his Peter had actually ever known a living Jesus, much less been a direct disciple. In fact, Paul's Peter is by and large just a ridiculous strawman sockpuppet, that you're supposed to disagree with, so he's not even given any special qualifications or reasons to agree with him. (Other than in that "counter-forgery" in 1 Cor 15, but even that one only says that Jesus was revealed post-mortem to Peter, not that Peter had any special relationship with Jesus.)

In fact, Paul's "Peter" was so unimpressive a shmuck even to the Catholics, that they didn't even think it was the same guy as their apostle Peter, who they claimed founded the Roman church. Or rather let me explain it more accurately. The guy in Paul's writing was called "Cephas", which "Peter" is the translation of. But they didn't think until much later that it was the same guy. They actually thought Paul's "Cephas" and their "Peter" were totally different people.

Among other things, because the "Cephas" character seemed to be totally for keeping proper Judaism even if you accept Jesus, while their church founded by "Peter" had always been meaning that no, you don't.

And James is called "the brother of the Lord", but in early Xianity and generally in all the syncretic hellenistic cults, everyone was a brother. Paul repeatedly addresses his congregation as brothers, for example.

People retrofit the extra meaning that it's the same people from the Gospels and with the same roles, but that's not what Paul actually SAYS. Basically it's like assuming that Bruce Banner (Hulk) and Bruce Wayne (Batman) are the same character because they're both called Bruce and they're both superheroes.

Going strictly by what Paul actually says, it's just that some people called Peter and James were some kind of early Christian/Jews that he was disagreeing with. He doesn't give either of them any more authority than that, presumably BECAUSE he's disagreeing with them. So he's not gonna tell you, "but this guy is more qualified than me."

So basically, going strictly by Paul actually says, we're kinda back to it not even being that important whether Paul is authentic or not. Even if he is, there's no real reason to think they've even seen Jesus ever, much less be witnesses to a miracle. And if he isn't, well, even less reason to care about those.