# Did Paul hijack Christianity?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 25, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342 "2010-02-25T01:48:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 11
### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/201 "2010-03-13T05:50:04Z")
**I urgently need to fix a poorly thought-out reply to Dio.** I was too tired and I hadn’t considered all the issues and implications. In response to:
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> One point that should be raised with regard to the HJ vs. MJ question is what are the minimum requirements for a historical person to be fairly considered “THE Jesus.” If he said all of the things attributed to him, and was crucified, but did not perform miracles or rise from the dead, is he still Jesus? what if he only said _some_ of things attributed to him? What if his name wasn’t Jesus? What if the chracter of the Gospels is a composite of more than one historical personage?
I should have written:
I hold that the minimum requirements for a historical person to be fairly considered “THE Jesus” is that there must be solid, compelling (or at least no good arguments against) **historical** evidence of a single itinerant preacher who said a good fraction (say, offhand, 15%) of the things attributed to Jesus roughly in the time frame attributed to Jesus in the part of the world attributed to Jesus who was known to Josephus and/or Seneca.
Attributing the story associated with Jesus to composite sources – sans being known to Josephus and Seneca – doesn’t count since I already believe the sources of Q and the other sayings and the Righteous Teacher are all composite sources of “Jesus”. Since we already believe that, we would not accept that last because it magically converts all us mythicists into historicists by verbal fiat! Surely that’s not reasonable or fair.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/202 "2010-03-13T05:54:15Z")
(For some reason, the earlier posting of this seems not to have “taken”, even after refreshing my cache and so forth. I hope this won’t end up a double post!)
Never mind.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/203 "2010-03-13T06:13:31Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > I can’t agree. _ **If** _ they had heard claims of a historical Jesus who had allegedly lived in areas where they or family members of other trustworthy sources had dwelled at the appropriate times, some would have tried to check it out (although they would have accepted those source’s possibly untrustworthy or second-hand word on this, so it wouldn’t be good quality evidence, but they wouldn’t understand that as well as we do now). Either way, we’d almost certainly have heard about it.
>
> The audience for the Gospels would have been mostly Gentiles, living outside of Palestine, after the Jewish-Roman Wars and the destruction of Jerusalem, a minimum of 40 years after the alleged crucifixion for Mark, and 70 years later for John. They would be unlikely to even be Jews, much less Palestinian Jews. They would not be at all likely to have family members or acquaintances with any living memory of the events in question, and no way to research or verify them in any case.
There are exceptions to that notion. The authors of Matthew and Luke were certainly the most important audience for Mark’s Gospel. The author(s) of Matthew were clearly Jewish, and whether the author(s) of Luke were or not, one thing is clear: “Luke” admired Paul and so defended him in his Gospel and “Matthew” hated Paul and so blasted him to pieces in his. Since Paul and his gospel goes back to well before the fall and also that Paul clearly states the Pillars were preaching one or more gospels before his own, we can have confidence there was an audience of at least oral versions going back before the sacking of Jerusalem. (Versions of _what_, we cannot say, but perhaps the Qumranian Righteous Teacher notion with an early layer of Q).
But if your point is just that no one would have been able to know if Jesus had lived or not, then we’re in agreement – except for Josephus and Seneca.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/204 "2010-03-13T06:56:06Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> MfM: “Again, I’d like an example of a mythical human who ostensibly lived within 20 years of the original account.”
It’s a pointless request, but I’ll answer it even though it doesn’t come anywhere _close_ to what my argument is!
Gershom Scholem’s 1973 examination of the life of Sabbatai Sevi (1626-1675), another “Messiah”, shows that myths of miracles and sayings and deeds **even while he was still alive!** There were “100% certain! I saw it with my own eyes!” myths of standing in fires without his hair or clothing being burned and angelic pronouncements from the sky **all while he was still alive!** You historicists – rejecting genuine, complex human nature and complex human psychology to your final breaths – all argue that should have been impossible. And then there’s Simon Kimbangu, who fought and fought during his lifetime against his believer’s anointing him “Christ of the Blacks”, and yet all the myths of his childhood sagacity, miracle working, and prophetic visions were being passed around not long after his death, from whence he could no longer fight against the myth-making. Then there’s William Marion Branham, who, like in _Life of Brian_, only made his worshipers think he was even _more_ a miracle worker by denying it!
And then there’s that New Messiah Charles Manson, of whom myths of miracle working had long ago been created, such as miraculously floating a bus over a creek, like Yoda, **all while he IS still alive!**
Get over it already!
I just want to make this clear again: You’re still assuming what is to be proved! You are manifestly question-begging: By writing “mythical human who ostensibly lived within 20 years of the original account”, you’re implicitly assuming that the “original account” came only 20 years of some historical figure’s death! My thesis and argument is that there was no such historical person and that the first stories about the mythical Jesus began circa 100-40 BCE, **plenty** of time for total myths about him to be created and plenty of chronological distance to let followers have blind faith that this mythical figure probably lived recently.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/205 "2010-03-13T07:05:07Z")
> [@Latro](#):
>
> **Ambushed** is not here so I’ll back him up.
>
> He claims he made a typo and left out “the”.
>
> The sentence should read:
>
> \*Second, there were many more than just \*\*_the \*\*\* four canonical Gospels, with three of them being synoptic._
Quite so. Thanks!
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/206 "2010-03-13T07:06:58Z")
> [@appleciders](#):
>
> **Skammer** ’s not here, so I’ll back him up.
> “Canonical gospels” refers to the four Gospels present in Christian bibles for about the last 1700 years or so. That’s what “canonical gospels” means- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. You’re right that other gospels existed, and you’re right to not assume that these other gospels like Thomas, Judas, Hebrews, Peter, etc, are not less historically accurate because they weren’t included in the canon by the early church fathers. (They probably are less accurate, with the possible exception of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas, but the fact that they’re non-canonical isn’t the reason.) The phrase “canonical gospels” specifically refers to those four and no others. **Skammer** is nitpicking, but he’s absolutely correct, and you’re way off-base here.
>
> From the second sentence of the Wikipedia entry on [“Gospel”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel):
> From the [Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/canonical?o=100074) listing for “Canonical”:
Sheesh.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/207 "2010-03-13T07:20:12Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> I said, 'I believe," because I wasn’t positive, but it appears I might have mixed Doherty up with Price:
> [Apocryphal Apparitions:
> 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 as a Post-Pauline Interpolation](http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/rp1cor15.html).
I’m not persuaded by Prices’s arguments there. For what it’s worth, Doherty’s thesis (and mine) pretty much requires that 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 be genuinely Pauline rather than an interpolation. It’s an important bit of evidence for our mythicist positions.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/208 "2010-03-13T07:33:43Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
> >
> > The audience for the Gospels would have been mostly Gentiles, living outside of Palestine, after the Jewish-Roman Wars and the destruction of Jerusalem, a minimum of 40 years after the alleged crucifixion for Mark, and 70 years later for John. They would be unlikely to even be Jews, much less Palestinian Jews.
>
> Ok, but there would have to have been a few members of the Jewish diaspora who were familiar with the Jesus cult. I find it likely that the author of the Book of Mark would keep things consistent with what they knew. Heck, Mark is full of digs on the sect associated with Saint Peter: am I wrong to assume that the Saint Peter crowd would have some jewish membership?
Assuming what is to be proved again. There’s no evidence for any historical “what ‘they’ knew” that the Markan author(s) would seek to maintain from deviation. The author(s) of Mark was/were basing his/their pious novel on older myths, some oral and possibly some written **along with their own faith stories and clubs against their theological or political opponents!** Probably the Markan author(s) would make whatever meager efforts they could to keep their novel on top, but historical examples show us that any such efforts on _ **anyone’s** _ part would be short-lived for its utter futility.
There are plenty of historical examples of people who tried to keep their versions of things canonical 😉 (so to speak), but they almost always fail. The effort would be worse than herding cats, it would be like stringing cats through the eye of a needle. You shout back for a while, then give up when more urgent things press.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/209 "2010-03-13T07:46:10Z")
> [@Latro](#):
>
> Are there correlations between Mark and the Qumran scrolls?
> I’ve always heard the significance of the scrolls played down.
> I find this idea of an evolution from Essenes to Jesus movement quite an interresting avenue, so could you lead me to a comparison between the two?
I’ve forgotten more than a little of this tangled mess, but if memory serves, the Qumranian scrolls and the Qumran community I’m referring to were not related much, if at all, nor was the original Qumran community I’m referring to an Essene one (they came later; it was a desirable bit of real estate for such communities). I’d have to research all that again to get it straight, and since I don’t think it’s an essential point, I probably won’t be eager to get back to all that.
Bottom line, I’m somewhat confident that the scrolls found in those caves were not the writings of the original Qumran community I’ve been referencing with their Righteous Teacher, but were placed in the caves far later. Sorry that’s so unhelpful and possibly wrong!
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/210 "2010-03-13T07:53:42Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> If the main portion of your argument contains a major logical flaw then the rest falls apart. A chain of arguments is only as strong as it’s weakest link.
>
> You are actually supporting my argument rather than your own.
> You argued that it was impossible that Paul would argue with or consider himself equal to, those who had actually walked with the flesh and blood Jesus. This is another not quite so logical conclusion. Paul’s authority as well as all the apostles authority, came from communion with God and Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself established this
> He promised them the Holy Spirit would come and lead them into all truth. Since all spiritual knowledge and authority came from the Holy Spirit, Paul’s experience on the road, and the presence of the HS afterwards does give him equal status with those who may have actually walked with Jesus the man. That’s the thrust of the passage you quoted. What you seem to be extrapolating from it simply isn’t there.
Blah, blah. I see you’re going in for blatant Christian apologetics rather than rational argument. Like I said, the fact that you folks just have _ **faith** _ makes **ALL debate moot!**
You can bring out solid, compelling historical evidence or witness to your heart’s content. I’ve no time to waste on the latter…
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/211 "2010-03-13T08:12:00Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> Paul was not interested in the historical Jesus. He saw things in terms of salvation and personal redemption-because of this, he would not have wasted his time in visiting the sites of Jesus’ life.
> Whatever your criticisms of Paul, the fact is, he was honest about his convictions:
> “if Christ be not risen, our faith is in vain”
> Obviously, Paul had a very strong faith.
From something I just wrote to a blind witnesser: “Paul was a genius who had gone far out of his way to learn everything he could out of longing for wisdom and knowledge of cosmopolitan learning and teachers and all sorts of facts, history, stories, theologies, teachings, allegories, fables, legends and myths of all sorts. No one acquires that kind of vast knowledge without being driven by curiosity. To assert just to defend [a] silly historicist thesis – as is very obviously the case – that “Paul just wasn’t into all that Jesus stuff” is simply mind-boggling! It’s one of the most blatant cases of special pleading I’ve ever seen.”
Also, Paul never indicated or wrote of any historical Jesus or historical resurrection on earth. The death and resurrection Paul was speaking of took place in a spiritual realm, though it takes an exceedingly careful reading and the taking off of Gospel-colored glasses first. Every word Paul writes of Jesus Christ or The Lord is of the spiritual Christ of his own personal revelatory visions. The _Risen_ Christ for him refers to his belief that the spiritual Christ rose from the middle sphere of then-common parlance to the topmost heaven (but I again acknowledge that takes some close reading and knowledge of that multi-realm supernatural mythology).
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/212 "2010-03-13T13:22:37Z")
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> I don’t know how much time I can spend here tonight, but I doubt very much I’ll be able to respond to everyone in the queue. I’ll try to come back tomorrow…
> It wasn’t sarcasm, it was astonishment! Paul was a genius who had gone far out of his way to learn everything he could out of longing for wisdom and knowledge of cosmopolitan learning and teachers and all sorts of facts, history, stories, theologies, teachings, allegories, fables, legends and myths of all sorts. No one acquires that kind of vast knowledge without being driven by curiosity.
He was more driven by what he saw as his divinely inspired mission and the knowledge he valued most was the divine revelation you mentioned. It’s the kind of thing the mythicists would eagerly ridicule in a modern day Christian.
> [@](#):
>
> To assert just to defend your silly historicist thesis – as is very obviously the case – that “Paul just wasn’t into all that Jesus stuff” is simply mind-boggling! It’s one of the most blatant cases of special pleading I’ve ever seen.
Referring to my “historicist thesis” appears to be an intentional misrepresentation of what I’ve actually said. If something silly is going on it’s your use of this transparent and ineffective technique. Also “Paul just wasn’t into all that Jesus stuff” is an inaccurate oversimplification of my point. I’m speaking of Paul’s priorities that are clearly represented in his writing. Of course Paul was into Jesus as the Christ and what he saw as his holy mission directed by revelation through the Holy Spirit. Spreading the gospel.
Your argument makes the assumption that of course he would have wanted to visit the historical spots that Jesus walked etc. The problem is it’s all an assumption without one passage to support it. I’m saying that in reading Paul and having some experience and understanding about people thinking they are guided and driven by the spirit, it becomes easy to dismiss such an assumption that is not backed by any evidence. His priority and main driving force was preaching the gospel and following the directive’s of what he saw as divine guidance. That being the case it’s very possible that the geographic locations that Jesus walked, the tomb, whatever, just didn’t matter in light of his mission.
So, unless you have any passage to support your assumption the argument built upon it crumbles.
That same principle applies to other assumptions your argument is built upon.
Your claims are since logic dictates that X {your assumption} is true then Y and Z must follow. The problem is logic does not dictate that X is true so you must support X with some evidence rather than just assertion. If you have some please present it. If not stop wasting time and bandwidth with high school debate techniques.
> [@](#):
>
> There really isn’t anything else in that post of yours to respond. Skepticism of my skepticism doesn’t amount to an actual argument.
True. When your argument has more going for it than baseless assumptions I’ll have something to respond to.
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/213 "2010-03-13T13:25:42Z")
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> I should have written:
>
> I hold that the minimum requirements for a historical person to be fairly considered “THE Jesus” is that there must be solid, compelling (or at least no good arguments against) **historical** evidence of a single itinerant preacher who said a good fraction (say, offhand, 15%) of the things attributed to Jesus roughly in the time frame attributed to Jesus in the part of the world attributed to Jesus who was known to Josephus and/or Seneca.
Thank for this clear explanation. It’s roughly what I was thinking you meant but it helps to have it spelled out so clearly.
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/214 "2010-03-13T13:33:04Z")
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> I’m not persuaded by Prices’s arguments there. For what it’s worth, Doherty’s thesis (and mine) pretty much requires that 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 be genuinely Pauline rather than an interpolation. It’s an important bit of evidence for our mythicist positions.
>
> -
> -
> [@](#):
>
> 3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter,and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
>
> 9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed
I don’t see how.
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/215 "2010-03-13T13:59:38Z")
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> Blah, blah. I see you’re going in for blatant Christian apologetics rather than rational argument. Like I said, the fact that you folks just have _ **faith** _ makes **ALL debate moot!**
Sigh , at least here’s a concrete example of your assumptions being wrong. I am not a Christian. Paul clearly was, so it’s helpful to understand and include the mindset of a believer when making guesses and assumptions about what he thought and valued.
Much of your argument is based on what you claim **must logically be** Paul’s mindset and priorities. Unless you understand and consider the mindset of someone who firmly believes they are divinely inspired and directed your assumptions are a waste of time. That’s what I’ve tried to do here, not because I’m a Christian apologist, since I’m neither, but because I have some understanding of the mindset that you apparently lack. Perhaps your personal preference for these arguments has blinded you to other rather obvious possibilities. Either way, an argument built on unfounded assumptions isn’t much of an argument.
> [@](#):
>
> You can bring out solid, compelling historical evidence or witness to your heart’s content. I’ve no time to waste on the latter…
Considering the content of your argument you seem to have plenty of time to waste. I **am not** arguing for an actual historical Jesus as described in your post to Dio. I’ve said several times that we have no way of really knowing. I am saying that the arguments you’ve presented in this thread are based on unfounded assumptions that you have presented as “the most obviously logical conclusion” They are not because you seem to have no understanding of the “divinely inspired” mindset which Paul must have had. Unless you have any passages to support those assumptions your argument is built on a flimsy foundation and deserves to be treated as such.
I have in a recent post to **begbert** listed several passages that seem to indicate Paul believed in a living individual Jesus. Care to comment on those?
It seems likely to me that Paul believed in a living man who was Jesus but preached a spiritual resurrection rather than a physical one. If you have anything other than unfounded assumptions to indicate otherwise I’d be happy to consider it. So far, that’s not the case.
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### Author:  [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/216 "2010-03-13T14:09:55Z")
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> From something I just wrote to a blind witnesser:
"
I’d just like to point out once again that this is an incredibly incorrect conclusion and a great example of your thought process leading you to those.
> [@](#):
>
> Also, Paul never indicated or wrote of any historical Jesus or historical resurrection on earth. The death and resurrection Paul was speaking of took place in a spiritual realm, though it takes an exceedingly careful reading and the taking off of Gospel-colored glasses first. Every word Paul writes of Jesus Christ or The Lord is of the spiritual Christ of his own personal revelatory visions. The _Risen_ Christ for him refers to his belief that the spiritual Christ rose from the middle sphere of then-common parlance to the topmost heaven (but I again acknowledge that takes some close reading and knowledge of that multi-realm supernatural mythology).
>
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> -
If this is true you have yet to support it. Serious question ;Where in Paul’s writing can we find a fairly clear reference to this multi realm mythology?
Sincerely, I’m willing to examine and consider this but I’d need something more than what you’ve offered here. It seems to me, so far, that it’s just as likely that Paul was referencing a living person who’s resurrection was a spiritual one rather than a physical one.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/217 "2010-03-13T20:33:02Z")
The obvious evasions, double-talk, empty rhetoric, fallacious argument, infantile nyah nyahs, and general hilarity of this mind-bogglingly silly post deserves another pass…
First, what this particular **cosmosdan** post is responding to must be brought back for some context ( **cosmosdan** evaded most of it even when he typed in empty words to substitute for a “response”):
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> > [@ambushed](#):
> >
> > > [@cosmosdan](#):
> > >
> > > I find this incredibly unconvincing for two reasons.
> > > 1 It’s a mistake to assume Paul as an individual would make those things a priority and then draw any conclusion from that.
> > > 2 we can be fairly sure we only have a portion of Paul’s writings selected by other men for their own agenda.
> >
> > You would have us believe that Paul – a writer almost as verbose as myself – wouldn’t write down even a single sentence about personally visiting **God’s** place of death? **God’s** place of resurrection? Nothing about Gethsamane, where **God** struggled with his fate? Not a single sentence about Calvary, center of earthquakes and a three-hour eclipse when **God** died? Nothing at all about visiting the **Tomb of God** or the **Mother of God**?
> >
> > _This_ is your rebuttal?
> >
> > Seriously?
> >
> > Even though Paul wastes all sorts of paper and ink on such things as petty internal squabbles and lengthy erudition about why Christians shouldn’t insist on clipping foreskins?
> >
> > Seriously?
> >
> > If you read all of the genuine Pauline epistles, you have to come away with the overriding desperation of Paul to assert his authority in his vehement theological struggles with the Jerusalem “Pillars” as well as the membership of his own churches, desperation that would be completely vanquished and resolved by even **one** reference to the historical Jesus. Yet Paul **never** even _hints_ that he _can_ do so, let alone actually does it! It would have solved pretty much all of his problems if he could have done so, yet he never does.
> >
> > The alternative – that Paul didn’t _know_ of any historical Jesus and so didn’t even _know_ to try to visit **God’s** place of resurrection – makes several million times more logical sense.
> > As for your point (2), I’ve never, ever read _anything_ suggesting that we do not have every one of Paul’s writings. Where does your belief come from? What evidence is brought forth of currently non-existing writings of Paul? I’d like to read more.
> >
> > The reality in all other cases is quite the reverse: Anything that even _hinted_ at a possible historical reference to Jesus was retained and often exaggerated endlessly by the Church! Look how desperately the Church sought to retain the obvious Christian interpolation (i.e., pious fakery) in Josephus, and look how desperately orthodoxy and the Church sought to convert Tacitus’ and other Gentile historicans’ obvious regurgitation of Christian beliefs into an ostensible “historical” reference. The notion that some historical reference was destroyed or censored is completely beyond belief!
>
> That’s okay, since it’s not a rebuttal and I’m not trying to convince you of anything. And yes, that’s all, because you don’t get extra points for using a greater number of words when the crux of your argument, expressed in few words, fails to begin with.
This, gentle readers, is the classic “Nyah, nyah” argument. Notice the total lack of substance, just vacuous blather.
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> You’ve made a huge unfounded assumption about Paul and then drawn some conclusion from that. It fails miserably and fairly obviously.
Stupid ol’ me with my crazy assumptions! What was I _thinking_! _ **Of course** _ Paul wouldn’t give a shit about his **God’s** life and biography! What a foolish assumption on my part! Who would give a damn about their **God’s** presence on earth? How boring! How dull! No, what _really_ got Paul’s audience goin’ was trivial little internal squabbles with churches other than their own and talk of foreskins! Why bore them with all this **God walking on Earth** trivia?
**cosmosdan** ’s “counter-“argument”” – that Paul just didn’t care about all that Jesus stuff and didn’t even want to use that information to win his desperate arguments with just about everyone – is probably the stupidest response I’ve ever encountered on any issue ever. It is to laugh!
So **cosmosdan** then swings for the fences: “Maybe he DID write about the historical Jesus but it got lost in the mail! Whatcha say to that!” To wit:
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> Why would we assume we have all of his writings? We have what we have, but is there any suggestion that we have them all? None I’ve ever seen. There is however suggestions we don’t.
See the sophomoric sophist ploy there? The fallacy? Talk about an argument from ignorance! “Since **ambushed** can’t prove we have every single one of Paul’s writings, there **must** be one or more missing in which Paul wrote of Jesus historical existence and biological references!”
You see, that some missing non-biographical ones are referenced doesn’t work for his pseudo-argument. Unless he can argue that there is **definitely** one missing that probably contained what Paul wrote of Jesus’ life and biography in them his “nyah, nyah” can’t work!
Fallacy alert! Hilarious.
Here’s what I wrote in response:
> [@ambushed](#):
>
> The reality in all other cases is quite the reverse: Anything that even _hinted_ at a possible historical reference to Jesus was retained and often exaggerated endlessly by the Church! Look how desperately the Church sought to retain the obvious Christian interpolation (i.e., pious fakery) in Josephus, and look how desperately orthodoxy and the Church sought to convert Tacitus’ and other Gentile historicans’ obvious regurgitation of Christian beliefs into an ostensible “historical” reference. The notion that some historical reference was destroyed or censored is completely beyond belief!
So since **cosmosdan** either knows he can’t and is just trying to evade and obfuscate -or- he really doesn’t understand much of anything relating to this issue, he comes up with irrelevant crap about 1 Corinthians’ “previous” letter about “immoral sex” (no Jesus biographical reference there, else the Corinthians would have asked to hear more), Ephesians (which Paul never wrote), and Colossians (not written by Paul either). Nada.
No and again no. What **cosmosdan** has to do is show us a reference to something Paul himself wrote that got lost **and that also contained Paul’s record of Jesus as a historical human being** who suffered, died, and was buried in Jerusalem. _Then_ he has to explain why Paul made **zero** other references to a historical Jesus in everything else that we _do_ have. _Then_ he has to explain how it might have plausibly happened that the **ONLY** reference to a historical, biological Jesus was destroyed or censored and why we should believe that must have happened! Otherwise, he is simply committing the fallacy of the argument from ignorance.
And doesn’t care!
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/218 "2010-03-13T20:39:25Z")
I haven’t seen this addressed yet either (though I haven’t reached the end of the queue yet):
Galatians 1:11-12:
For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me **is not according to man.**
For I **neither received it from man, nor was I taught it** , but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
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-
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/219 "2010-03-13T20:53:10Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> Since it’s been a while I decided to read some of Paul’s writings with this discussion in mind.
> To clarify, I thought the argument was Jesus did not exist historically as a single individual.
> We could easily agree that much of the NT is myth, miracles and a physical resurrection from the dead etc. but the discussion here is was that Jesus Christ of the NT based on an actual living human being or not. Isn’t that them discussion?
> Regarding that, I started reading in 1st Corinthians…
Here is a **brief, online summary** of a noted mythicist’s take on 1 Corinthians, which only fools think matches the naive current Gospel-colored modern English rendering and understanding of those texts!
[THE SOUND OF SILENCE: 200 Missing References to the Gospel Jesus in the New Testament Epistles](http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/sil12cor.htm)
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> Is it possible there was no historical individual that JC was based on ? Yep
> Is it possible that Paul didn’t believe in a living individual JC? also yep, but in light of these passages I’d say there’s a fairly strong indication he may have believed in a living individual person that was Jesus the Christ.
Funny stuff!
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2010, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-paul-hijack-christianity/530342/220 "2010-03-13T21:09:39Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> I haven’t done any detailed study of this but from my reading there is a question as to whether he did overlook Jesus.
Sure, from already-believing apologists! **Of course there is!** Josephus own total lack of references to a historical Jesus **must** be swept under the rug somehow!
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> This is the type of argument that strikes me as illogical. Can we safely say the canonical gospels at the very least contain a lot of hype and myth. Who said any of Jesus original followers believed in a physical resurrection and a literal empty grave? Why do you assume those who walked with a real human Jesus would insist on that? It’s that kind of assumption that leaves me unimpressed by the arguments.
What is **so ridiculously wrong** with your thinking! We’re not assuming _anything!_ We look at the facts without assumptions and they simply do not come anywhere _close_ to adding up to a historical Jesus. There’s no _there_ there! We’re not merely _assuming_ it doesn’t add up, **it simply doesn’t add up!**
As such, the full burden of proof falls on **you** to point to solid, compelling evidence of a historical Jesus. **WE CANNOT AND ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO PROVE AN EXISTENTIAL NEGATIVE!** _You_ have to prove an existential _positive!_
You can’t just stupidly say “there could well be or have been a biological Santa Claus living at the North Pole, some say yes and some say no. answer; nobody really knows. Pick which side suits you.” – **you have to bring us evidence of his biological existence!**
> [@cosmosdan](#):
>
> Was the mythical Jesus of the NT based on a single real life individual? answer; nobody really knows. Pick which side suits you.
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