Sure, you can say that, but you'd be wrong. The proof I'm right is in Galatians 1: 11-12 which I have already cited.
Sheesh, for a guy who dodged all my questions you ask me a lot of questions. So I'll just leave all these questions of yours unanswered.
Dodged ALL of your questions? Does that mean that I didn't agree with you or something? I thought at least I was often being relevant (e.g. talking about Carrier, 1 Corinthians 15, etc).
I guess a dodge can make me feel frustrated but so can the person not attempting to respond at all... stating that you aren't going to answer the questions kind of feels good because I could think that you could have poor counter-arguments.
It depends whether the gospels seemed to be based on Paul or not. If they weren't based on Paul then the similarities that Paul mentions means his revelations agreed with the other Jesus and I think that could be a result of coincidence or a genuine relevation from a supernatural source. I'd understand your point of view with this better if you had responded to my simple questions. about the gospel, etc. Of course this thread seems to be saying that the gospels were based on Paul's creation of Jesus....
I'd say that a dodge is at least responding in some way. And the dodge involves me responding in a shorter way to something I disagree with rather than spelling that out so explicitly. (I'm basing this on your statement that I'm always dodging your questions)
I'm not going to answer your questions.
That's what it's like!
Whoa! An answer! That must be a miracle from a supernatural source.
No. Dodging a question is to refuse to answer the question. I hate to be treated that way. It's rude.
Fine. I think half the point of this is to explore the issues.
So then I answered your question about how it feels?
So you answered my question about what the revelation concerns (whether it is just about the gospel message or the whole of Jesus)! That is what I had asked you! Well if that is what you believe then that means that Paul invented Jesus and the gospels got their initial information from Paul... (including the tradition of the 12 apostles)
Well you were rude too then by doing the same thing (I guess you realized that).
I thought my example of the 6000 is an excellent example showing that the 500+ could have been based on a real event... while you just keep insisting that it probably was based on nothing at all....
Ok I'll try and address this from post #9. Honestly the reason why I avoided trying to answer is that I didn't have a strong argument that I could easily think of. Also my questions are ignored fairly regularly too. I wasn't interested in an argument that I felt I had no real chance with. You already seemed to have major problems with the arguments I thought were strong so I didn't want to pursue arguments that I thought were weak. I guess I should have said that explicitly. I apologize for that.
What's compelling for me from Paul on this issue is Paul says he received the idea that Jesus was killed, buried and raised from people who were Christians before him (1 Cor 15:3-7 - "For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received"), and that Paul had relatives such as Junia who were Christians before he was: "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kin who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. (Rom 16:7)." So, I think the evidence is compelling that Paul did not invent Jesus or the core of the gospel.
Ehrman tends to make assertions he cannot know to be true. For example, here Ehrman claims that Paul prior to his conversion had been persecuting Christians for their belief in the resurrection. How does he know that? Yes, it says so in the Acts of the Apostles, but how is that a historical fact? Ehrman seems to assume without good reason that at least some of what he reads in the New Testament is history.
I also think that at least some of what's in the New Testament is history.
Sure. There were Jews living in Judea, and Jerusalem was located there too.
No I don't, Tom. You may have missed the words I posted that I formatted in bold above. I'm not criticizing Ehrman for believing that some New-Testament claims are historical. Rather, I'm criticizing him for assuming without good reason that some of the New Testament is historical. Like I pointed out earlier, Ehrman asserts that Paul persecuted Christians because they had faith that Jesus was raised from the dead. I see no good reason to conclude that Paul actually persecuted Christians. Ehrman should know better than to say Paul did so.
I don't think Ehrman is being dogmatic about it. He says in this case we are drawing a conclusion based on the evidence, though we don't have direct evidence so we can't know for sure. He writes:
I don't see any good reason in there to believe what Ehrman asserts. Like most Bible scholars Ehrman just naively believes what's written in the New Testament--or at least some of it.
It's not clear whether you are skeptical about whether Paul persecuted Christians or whether those Christians believed in the resurrection....
Obviously Christians have always believed in the resurrection, so I don't doubt that the Christians of Paul's day believed in the resurrection. What I do doubt is that Paul was persecuting them if that persecution involved armed violence. The Romans were not known to stand around while the people they had conquered ran around with weapons.
Paul said a lot of things I doubt. A dishonest, possibly mentally ill person is not what I would call a credible source of information.
Again, no.
That's what we're told, but Paul never explains why he would persecute anybody because they believed a man was resurrected. There's no Jewish law against it as far as I know.
I don't see that as obvious.
