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Originally Posted by Actor
`One of the most ridiculous, but not infrequently used defenses for an historical Jesus, is the apostle Paul, otherwise known as Paul of Tarsus, or Saint Paul. The argument goes something like: “Well, would Paul have suffered so much? Would he have traipsed thousands of miles preaching and establishing churches, and writing his famous letters, if he knew Jesus was an invented character?”
`Now at first glance, this argument appears to make some sense, although we have many of the same problems with Paul as we do with the twelve disciples. Because, what do we really know about Saint Paul? It is a fact that, despite the claims made in the Acts of the Apostles that Paul had encounters with high priests, kings, and Roman administrators, Paul is completely unknown in secular history. With Paul, unlike with Jesus, there are no questionable paragraphs and passing references in the works of Jewish and Roman historians. With Paul, we draw a complete blank. Despite his purported Herculean efforts throughout the eastern Mediterranean, no one outside Christian scripture noticed a thing. Now that should signal the first alert in our mind. Paul was purportedly a zealous Jew and religious policeman, and yet Jewish records record nothing of a notorious renegade who rejected Judaism, and set up a rival heresy.
`Paul purportedly converted the Roman governor of the island of Cyprus on his very first missionary journey, but no Roman historian noticed this novel event. In fact, if you visit the ruins of the governor's palace at Pathos, you'll see the exuberant Roman art, full of the familiar Roman gods; no evidence of Christianity then.
`Our sole source for information about Paul is the New Testament. Now usefully, there are, in fact, two distinct sources within that: the colorful and fantastic story in the book of Acts of the conversion and evangelizing of Paul, and the letters supposedly written by him. Now the letters, in fact, are almost a third of the whole New Testament, and the salesmen of Jesus quote them quite often. The first thing that strikes anyone who compares the two sources for Paul, is how very different they are. Now that in itself wouldn't be a problem were it not for the fact that the differences are often stark contradictions. The Paul of the book of Acts is a team player, very much on side with the rest of the brothers, often taking a subordinate role. His “conversion” on the road to Damascus is so important that it is repeated three times. But the Paul we find in the epistles is a bombastic maverick, who has received his own revelation and no direction from anyone else. He makes no reference himself to the road to Damascus, and he makes no reference to any mission to Cyprus. He makes no reference to delivering any edict from James on food prohibitions and fornication. In fact Paul, from his own letters, is clearly his own man, and he tells us specifically he owes nothing to any man.
`So what are we to make of this? Should we be guided by Paul's own words? After all, someone wrote those letters, and we have copies, even if our earliest copies date to the 3rd century. But the problem we have with the letters of Paul is that many of them are regarded, very widely, by New Testament scholars, as fake, or as they more delicately put that, “inauthentic.” In other words, written by a believing Christian, writing what he thought Paul would have said. Now that should set a second alert in our mind. We can't rely upon the letters of Paul as being genuine. And in fact, scholars know that new letters were written in the name of Paul to meet the ongoing concerns of the church during the course of the 2nd century.
`Now what should we make of the great claims made for Paul that he established churches as he meandered about? Well let me point out one simple fact. The three largest cities of the Roman Empire which had early Christian communities were Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. Now not one of these cities owes anything to Paul. In his letter to the Romans, Paul looks forward to meeting the brethren there for the first time. The churches in that city owe nothing to Paul, and in fact church historians have no certain idea when or how those churches were established. With Alexandria, Paul had no connection at all with that city, and in the case of Antioch, it was the church there, according to the Acts of the Apostles, that recruited Paul and sent him on his first mission. Therefore, Paul was not the founder of any important churches.
`A fourth city we might mention is Ephesus, where supposedly Paul spent over two years, and to which he sent one of his trademark letters. Did Paul even found the church of Ephesus? Now Acts tells us that Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to enter Roman Asia on his second missionary journey. When Paul finally reaches that city, missionaries are already active there. And the tradition of the Ephesian church is that Saint John was the founder. So Paul is not the great founder of churches at all. In fact, almost everywhere he goes, he meets and is helped on his way by existing unknown brethren.
`So there are doubts about the genuineness of Paul's letters, and doubts about the truth of Paul's foundation of churches. And when we add to that doubts about the very existence of this superstar of early Christianity, there are real problems! In fact, we can see that Paul is an idealized Christian founder: at once a tireless missionary, a bold preacher, a theologian, a church organizer, and most importantly, an heroic martyr.
`It isn't true. It isn't history. It's more astounding rubbish from the New Testament!' -- Ken Humphreys
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