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  1. Allen Hazen Allen Hazen

    What the report says is that “carbon dating” (radiocarbon?) tests were performed and showed the bones to date from the first or second century A.D., with the Pope (a trained philosopher, though perhaps not a specialist on inductive logic) commenting “This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul…”

    On which I can only say that it is weak confirmation: better than the white shoe confirming “All ravens are black,” but– given the number of people other than St. Paul who were buried in and around Rome in those centuries– weak.

    Perhaps they could do DNA testing to see if St. Paul was related to Cleopatra?

  2. First they have to prove that Paul was an actual individual. For starters.

    • John John

      As opposed to a collective?

  3. That’s one option. At least, it is known that Paul didn’t write a fair number of the Pauline epistles.

    • I’ve done a bit of research (as in reading books, for interest) into what Christian scholars have to say about Biblical letters for which authorship is disputed. Of the letters to Timothy and Titus (the so-called Pastoral letters), said scholars suggest that they could have been written by someone who owned fragments of letters that were genuinely written by Paul, and sort of copied and pasted some of those fragments into a letter of their own. This would mean the letters are sort of attributable to Paul, but not really. A rationale is provided, but this comment is too small to contain it.

      For all I know, the hypothesis could be right.

      • Danny Danny

        I don’t know if that theory works, given that the themes and ideas in the Pastoral Epistles were mostly relating to the 2nd century, decades after Paul’s own life. Paul’s theology, from his “genuine” epistles are also different from the Pastorals, and some textual critics point out that the words phrases are non-Pauline. So I think it’s highly doubtful that the Pastorals had anything originally written by Paul.

        The idea itself is not improbable. There is some agreement that Paul’s 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians as we currently have it, is a composite of two or more letters of Paul, redacted into one work.

        As for the original post, yes I agree that Christianity as it is practiced today was founded by Paul.

      • A summary of some of the issues:

        Specific reasons why Pastorals could not have come directly from Paul: (a) the church in Paul’s day wouldn’t have had such a hierarchical structure, with bishops, deacons, etc. (b) the word faith in Paul’s day meant faith in a person but in the Pastorals it means faith in a creed. (c) the choice of words and phrases is characteristically different.

        (There’s a fourth objection if you assume that Paul was executed in Rome, namely that he couldn’t possibly have found the time to visit some of the places the Pastorals say he did. But you can get around this by assuming he was released. Luke never did publish the third book in his trilogy, the sequel to Acts.)

        Indeed it was customary to write in the name of an established authority, but the problem with that as a solution (so I’m told) is that when people did so, they invariably cast said authority in the best possible light. It was Not Done, for example, for me to write in the name of John Wilkins and put in his mouth the words, “Sometimes I can be really stupid”.

        Danny mentions Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 5:9, Paul says, “I wrote you a letter”. This letter is very likely contained in 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1. In 2 Corinthians 7:8, Paul refers to another letter he had written. This letter is almost certainly contained in chapters 10-13 of that book.

        [Note: I got all this information from books by a Christian author, namely the Biblical commentaries of William Barclay.]

  4. It’s a few years since I was reading discussions and books on the topic, but yes, I have run into that one. But there are more than Timothy and Titus that are suspect.

    Among the ideas put forward are that later writers took, as was customary, the name of a recognized authority, and wrote in his name; that there was no such person as Paul, but that Marcion wrote what is attributed to him; that, no, Marcion edited Paul’s letters, and they were later re-edited and published again under Paul’s name; and so on. Each hypothesis comes with its rationale, some more plausible than others.

    For all we know, those bones (from the first and second century) were bones of each of the varied writers who had a finger in that pie.
    🙂

  5. Oh, yee of little faith!

  6. Wes Wes

    Benedict said scientists had conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus and confirmed that they date from the first or second century.

    “This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul,” Benedict said, announcing the findings at a service in the basilica to mark the end of the Vatican’s Paoline year, in honor of the apostle.

    What a crock of shit. For one thing, it is barely a confirmation at all. For another, “unanimous and uncontested”? Among whom? Catholics who believe it on blind faith?

  7. Badger3k Badger3k

    Damn – Wes beat me to the lines that stood out to me. I guess Paul could have lived to 150+, we are talking Bible-ages here. At least I can make the comment that “St Paul”, he of the “”precious” piece of purple linen with gold sequins and a blue fabric with linen filaments” must have been Fabulous!

    Paul was the Liberace of the Christian set!

  8. Susan Silberstein Susan Silberstein

    Hey, these are the same guys who collect and display magic bones. Why would anyone expect rationality concerning these remains?

  9. My understanding from NT scholar EP Sanders is that Paul wrote his key letters between 50 and 60AD (if I recall correctly). Given that these epistles refer frequently to the many already existing Christian communities, I’ve never understood the notion that he ‘invented’ Christianity.

    • Danny Danny

      I haven’t read EP Sanders so I don’t know what he thinks about Paul. To call them “Christian communities” is anachronistic. They were Jesus movements (see Burton Mack’s Who Wrote the New Testament) with different understanding of who Jesus was and what he taught (see Bart Ehrman’s works). If you read Paul’s epistles, you’d see that he would correct the other Jesus communities for “errors” and to teach them what The Christ revealed to Paul. Paul’s theology is different from James and the other apostles, and he had furious debates with them. In the end, Paul’s view won and Christianity as we knew it (more or less) has arrived.

      • John John

        This is actually documented in the NT itself: Paul fought against the “Judaisers” (Acts 15:1, 21:20-25, Galatians chapter 3), and won out – from being Jewish sects, the “churches” (ekklesia) ended up “Christian” after he managed to in effect wrestle Peter to the ground, doctrinally.

  10. Yes. The argument being primarily over whether gentiles should be subject to all the Jewish customs. And I understand it’s quite likely had Paul not wrestled with Peter, the history of the movement would have been quite different. I’ve read enough of Ehrman not to take him seriously as a NT scholar. He’s more a literary critic, and not a very good one. Ben Witherington, for one example, is an NT scholar and thoroughly eviscerated both of his books. (Colbert had some fun picking him apart as well.) I appreciate the story of his losing his faith, but it’s only typical of anyone who starts out as a fundie.

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