Origins Of Christianity

[Elixir]

Despite all the moral faures of the RCC through today any public acknowledgement without equivocation of failures destroys the RCC claim of absolute moral truth and authority handed down by god.

Nah, it confirms the flawed nature of man, as asserted by the RCC. The Church has done its penance in private as demanded by the Bible, and purified its function as god’s conduit, to the greatest extent humanly possible.
The fact that The Church is capable of such introspection merely lends further authority to the utter bullshit they have successfully peddled to billions of individuals over centuries.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

That would seem to refute your claim as to the absolute authority of Paul based in divine inspiration.

There is no such claim.

 

[steve_bank]

That would seem to refute your claim as to the absolute authority of Paul based in divine inspiration.

There is no such claim.

As has been elaborated at length Paul's claim to be of god's inspiration not human is an assertion of divine authority. The basis of all Christian variation and the internecine Christian conflict going back to the 1st century. Diffe3nces in interpretation, leading to the Council Of Nicaea. Christian violence in the empire wsa out of control and Constantine needed to end it,

That the bible is the inspired word of god is fundamental to Christianity.

I was taught that in Catholic high school religion class.

The general work around for Christians to pick and chose what to cite forom the OT and NT. I call it the Chinese menu Chrtianity.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

That would seem to refute your claim as to the absolute authority of Paul based in divine inspiration.

There is no such claim.

As has been elaborated at length Paul's claim to be of god's inspiration not human is an assertion of divine authority. The basis of all Christian variation and the internecine Christian conflict going back to the 1st century. Diffe3nces in interpretation, leading to the Council Of Nicaea. Christian violence in the empire wsa out of control and Constantine needed to end it,

That the bible is the inspired word of god is fundamental to Christianity.

I was taught that in Catholic high school religion class.

The general work around for Christians to pick and chose what to cite forom the OT and NT. I call it the Chinese menu Chrtianity.

All irrelevant.

You said "your claim as to the absolute authority" which as a reference means you attribute that claim to me, and there is no such claim.

You are wrong. Adding more words does not make you less wrong. Adding more words is merely a distraction from what is/was the issue.

 

[steve_bank]

Mr Pearl

You are avoiding direct answers hiding behind wordy logical arguments. Obfuscation, I know some big word too but I don't use them unless there is a real need.

I prefer direct plain language.

Going back to your fist posts on Paul you argued that Paul ws not influenced by Greek philosophy and was inspired by god. Paul said he was not interspersed by men.

The problem with lengthy convoluted arguments is one can loose sight of the issue, it becomes a debate over meaning and logic rater than the original thesis.

Done intentionally in politics especially and debate in general it can be called pivoting. Moving attention away from and having to answer a more continuous and difficult question.

The fundamental question for Christians is the existence of there god. It is never really addressed, all theology is based on an a-priori assumption that god exists.

You say Paul was inspired by god, you speak as if god exists without having to rprove it.

That is why to me theology is all had waving, smoke and mirror. All invention by human imagination, not a god.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Going back to your fist posts on Paul you argued that Paul ws not influenced by Greek philosophy and was inspired by god.

Prove it.

 

[steve_bank]

Intellectual honesty is important atheist or theist That is between you, your god, and your ethics. Unless you are nit really Christian, which would be a dishonesty, not saying what you actually believe.

In a few sentences what exactly is the point you are tying to make over all those pots of your, do you even have a point? I don;t think yu do.

Your debate with NHC is more appropriate for philosophy forum. Debate for te sake of debatel.

Yiu said wht I said is irrelevant. Please say exactly relevant to what? If you can.

If you can not I'd say you do not know what you are doing.

I leaned defending a point partly in political science and philosophy classes, and mostly in the corporate tech world. I can detect bullshitters and phonies. To be sureI'd have to hear your speak and see your facial expressions.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Intellectual honesty is important atheist or theist

So, it is for the sake of intellectual honesty that you attribute a position to me without caring to justify your attribution or, in the alternative, without caring to acknowledge an error on your part?

 

[steve_bank]

Intellectual honesty is important atheist or theist

So, it is for the sake of intellectual honesty that you attribute a position to me without caring to justify your attribution or, in the alternative, without caring to acknowledge an error on your part?

QED - Pearl makes a pivot.

Simple question. What point are you making in all your recent lengthy posts? I

It is dishonest to be arguing religion and not tstating what it is you believe.

I started the thread with a post someone made on another thread. If you have nothing to say about the origins of Christianity and want to derail into pointless philosophical debate start anterior thread.

 

[Learner]

Mr Pearl

You are avoiding direct answers hiding behind wordy logical arguments. Obfuscation, I know some big word too but I don't use them unless there is a real need.

I prefer direct plain language.

Going back to your fist posts on Paul you argued that Paul ws not influenced by Greek philosophy and was inspired by god. Paul said he was not interspersed by men.

The problem with lengthy convoluted arguments is one can loose sight of the issue, it becomes a debate over meaning and logic rater than the original thesis.

So... if Paul was influenced with Greek philosophy, are you (plural) then claiming other authors who wrote the Gospels were following the same narrative structure"adopted" from Greek philosophy ?

In plain language we see highlighted,what should be most obvious when we simply read the commonalities of Paul and the Four Gospel! "Perhaps the gospels too are Greek philosophy" by your analysis..

Example: Paul's letters share some key historical and theological elements with the four Gospels. An external confirmation and not a Greek philosophy narrative, unless that's what you are also claiming.

Paul agrees that Jesus was the Creator of the universe, a point also emphasized in the Gospel of John, and he explicitly states in Colossians that all things were created through Christ and for Him.

Paul confirms the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, a detail.. written in all four Gospels.

Paul's writings confirm the resurrection of Jesus on the third day after His death, a core tenet of the Gospel accounts!!

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

QED - Pearl makes a pivot.

Huh? I did not pivot. I pointed out that, when you attribute a position to me without even being bothered with any need for justification, you are not being intellectually honest. I pointed out that, when you realize that you have erroneously attributed a position to me but are unwilling to acknowledge such an error, you are not being intellectually honest.

What point are you making in all your recent lengthy posts?

I have made many points, and you have not engaged with any of them. It is one thing to not understand what I have said, but failure to understand does not justify erroneously attributing positions to me without engaging for the purpose of clarification or improved understanding.

It is dishonest to be arguing religion and not tstating what it is you believe.

That is plainly false. Playing devil's advocate is a legitimate way of questioning thoughts and expressions. In order to understand the devil's advocate point, it is necessary to have an understanding about logic which, evidently, is currently beyond you. That said, I have not been playing devil's advocate.

I started the thread with a post someone made on another thread. If you have nothing to say about the origins of Christianity and want to derail into pointless philosophical debate start anterior thread.

You started this thread with a plagiarism claim posited by DBT. That was addressed. NHC denied there was a plagiarism claim and then had to admit that there was, in fact, just such a claim which NHC had to admit was a flawed claim.

The logical distinction between what can be established as possible and what can be established as actual is not "pointless". That distinction has wide-spread ramifications - and not just in philosophy.

 

[NoHolyCows]

You acknowledge that there are actual emotive factors.

You acknowledge that actual emotive factors can significantly affect actual expression.

You do not factor in actual emotive factors, because (you erroneously assume that) they are insulated from "intersubjectively checkable evidence."

You then say that you put forth the actual meaning of expression by ignoring - and because you ignore - actual emotive factors.

You claim to present what is actual by ignoring relevant actual factors.

That is blatant illogic. Your "argument" is a hoax.

Erroneous logic can be fixed. If your "argument" were merely logically erroneous, your "argument" could be fixed and transformed into an argument.

But there is a problem with your "argument" which is far worse than being logically erroneous. Your "argument" is an illusion. The only remedy for that problem is that your "argument" be abandoned.

You acknowledge that there is an actual emotive aspect to the actual author.

You acknowledge that actual emotive factors can affect expression put forth by the actual author.

You ignore the actual emotive factors which are aspects of the actual author and his expression.

You say that you present the actual author when you put forth that author without the actual emotive factors which are aspects of the actual author and his expression.

You say that from the actual author's manner of expression which has been stripped of the actual emotive factors you mine and present the actual meaning of the actual author.

But all you have actually done is fabricate a non-actual author and then substitute the non-actual for the actual.

That's the brilliance of flimflam. Congratulations! What you present is the product of a flimflam artist.

Nothing in my method “ignores” emotion. Emotion is itself publicly checkable when it leaves marks in a text: vocatives (“O foolish Galatians”), heightened register, denunciations, urgency. I register those features explicitly. What I do not do is replace observable operations with speculation about private states. The distinction is simple: classifying what the text does (names rivals, refutes them, directs the audience, invokes a non-human source to trump human rivals) is intersubjectively checkable; attributing hidden motives is not required to classify those acts. You keep insisting that because emotion is present, function cannot be classified as actual. That is a modal mistake. Concurrency is routine: a document can be both emotive and polemical. The emotional tone does not cancel the polemical operation any more than an angry cease-and-desist letter stops being a legal threat because the lawyer was annoyed when writing it.

Now stop dodging the email analogy you’ve repeatedly avoided. A vice-president emails the whole company: “This policy is not from HR; it comes directly from the Board. Anyone pushing a contrary policy will be removed.” The email is blunt and obviously emotional. Two things are still true in public space. First, the clause “comes directly from the Board” is a source-of-origin warrant deployed against a rival source (“HR”). Second, the presence of emotion does not erase that function. If the sender cannot provide public discriminators—minutes, signatures, Board resolution—the origin warrant carries zero evidential weight; the rest of the reasons, if any, can be weighed on their own. That is exactly the Galatians structure: “not from man … through revelation” is used to trump “man-taught” emissaries; the letter also contains arguments. Both can be true at once. One requires evidential support; the other can be assessed independently.

You have three commitments to answer, plainly and without the usual detours. One: in the email case, does “comes directly from the Board” function as a public warrant that requires public support to have standing? Two: does the writer’s obvious anger stop us from classifying that warrant as actually present in the email? Three: if the Board-warrant is unsupported, do we give it zero evidential weight while still evaluating any independent reasons? If you answer yes to those, you have conceded the point that an origin-warrant used polemically enters public space and must clear a public bar, emotion notwithstanding. If you answer no to any of them, you are asking the audience to accept that an explicit “from the Board” clause isn’t an authority move in an authority dispute, or that anger magically suspends ordinary classification. Neither position is defensible.

Your long paragraph claims I “fabricate a non-actual author” by “stripping” emotion. That is false. I record the emotive register where the text exhibits it; I refuse to let it veto the identification of other exhibited operations; and I refuse to treat an unfalsifiable psychology as evidence. Public method disciplines claims; it does not erase authors. The author can be angry, pleading, sarcastic, or calm; the observable act “invokes higher authority against rivals” remains what it is and, as a public warrant, either earns evidence or gets zero weight. That is the same rule that governs the email, the courtroom, the lab report, and Galatians. You can keep calling that a “flimflam,” but until you answer the email questions directly, the audience can see what you are avoiding.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Emotion is itself publicly checkable when it leaves marks in a text

Yet another ambiguous statement on your part. If you understood the relationships between possibility, actuality, understanding, and expression, and if you used awareness of those relationships when expressing yourself, you would not so often resort to ambiguity - except on purpose, when ambiguity would serve your purpose of not acknowledging alternative perspectives and understandings.

What you mean is that emotion is "publicly checkable ONLY when it leaves marks in a text AND AS TEXT".

That is a false claim, but it is what you are claiming in effect. It might be your preference, but it is still false.

And what that means is that you ignore and refuse to take into account the scope of the emotive.

Nothing in my method “ignores” emotion.

I have once again shown that you do indeed ignore the emotive when you refuse to address and take account of its scope.

Now stop dodging the email analogy you’ve repeatedly avoided.

Dodging?!?!?!?! That would be funny were it not so very sad and sadly desperate.

I do not bother responding directly to every bit of ridiculousness you post, but that is not dodging; it is just letting immaterial ridiculousness go by without being addressed for being ridiculous.

I never bothered with your analogy, because it was terrible.

It was terrible because it is delusive to posit a business email as if it were a love letter. If you want a more proper analogy, see if you can make up a tale about a love email, because you are missing a lot by not recognizing that Paul's letter to the Galatians was a love letter.

Of course, I see no reason why you need to make up a tale about a love email when you can just as well present Paul's letter as a love letter which is instructive as well as emotive.

Regardless, your polemic - even if the polemic is actual - remains of no significance to anything beyond itself.

 

[NoHolyCows]

Emotion is itself publicly checkable when it leaves marks in a text

Yet another ambiguous statement on your part. If you understood the relationships between possibility, actuality, understanding, and expression, and if you used awareness of those relationships when expressing yourself, you would not so often resort to ambiguity - except on purpose, when ambiguity would serve your purpose of not acknowledging alternative perspectives and understandings.

What you mean is that emotion is "publicly checkable ONLY when it leaves marks in a text AND AS TEXT".

That is a false claim, but it is what you are claiming in effect. It might be your preference, but it is still false.

And what that means is that you ignore and refuse to take into account the scope of the emotive.

Nothing in my method “ignores” emotion.

I have once again shown that you do indeed ignore the emotive when you refuse to address and take account of its scope.

Now stop dodging the email analogy you’ve repeatedly avoided.

Dodging?!?!?!?! That would be funny were it not so very sad and sadly desperate.

I do not bother responding directly to every bit of ridiculousness you post, but that is not dodging; it is just letting immaterial ridiculousness go by without being addressed for being ridiculous.

I never bothered with your analogy, because it was terrible.

It was terrible because it is delusive to posit a business email as if it were a love letter. If you want a more proper analogy, see if you can make up a tale about a love email, because you are missing a lot by not recognizing that Paul's letter to the Galatians was a love letter.

Of course, I see no reason why you need to make up a tale about a love email when you can just as well present Paul's letter as a love letter which is instructive as well as emotive.

Regardless, your polemic - even if the polemic is actual - remains of no significance to anything beyond itself.

Calling the analogy “ridiculous” isn’t an argument; it’s a dodge. Genre labels don’t defeat observable functions. A document can be a “love letter” and still perform public, polemical work. What fixes function are the operations the text actually carries out. Galatians names rival emissaries, confronts them, directs the audience against their message, and—crucially—deploys a source-of-authority claim (“not from man … through revelation”) to overrule “man-taught” rivals and anathematizes alternative gospels. Those are public, classifiable acts, regardless of tone.

Your “love letter” move concedes emotion but changes nothing about the classification problem. To tie you to the concrete case you keep skirting, I’ll rewrite the analogy exactly as you want it: a VP sends a heartfelt, even affectionate, company-wide “love email” about caring for employees, but inside it says, “This policy is not from HR; it comes directly from the Board. Anyone pushing a contrary policy will be removed.” The tenderness doesn’t erase the source-of-authority clause or the directive against rivals. Two questions follow that you have to answer on the record:

Does “comes directly from the Board” function as a warrant in that dispute that either needs public support (minutes, signatures, resolution) or else has zero evidential standing? If your answer is yes, you’ve admitted the point: origin claims used to trump rivals enter public space and must clear a public bar. If your answer is no, you’re asking us to pretend explicit authority language isn’t an authority move—an untenable position.

Does the writer’s obvious affection make us treat the warrant as “not really there”? If your answer is yes, then you’re claiming emotion can erase explicit operations—which is false in every public method. If your answer is no, you’ve conceded that concurrent emotion doesn’t block polemical actuality.

You keep repeating that “even if polemic is actual, it’s insignificant.” That is flatly wrong on its face. In Galatians the origin claim is used to curse rival messages and to displace Jerusalem-based human authority; that is an attempt to set the burden of proof and to claim standing over competitors. In any public forum—corporate, legal, historical—that kind of warrant either presents discriminating support or is assigned zero weight. Independent reasons, if present, can still be assessed. But the unsupported warrant itself does not get a free pass because the letter is warm, urgent, or loving.

You say I “ignore the author” because I refuse to treat private psychology as evidence. No. I note the emotive register where the text shows it; I simply refuse to let a hypothesized inner state veto the classification of overt operations. That’s the only way to keep public adjudication public.

So stop calling the analogy terrible and answer it. In your “love email” version, is “from the Board” a public warrant that requires public support? Does emotion erase that warrant’s presence? Those are yes/no questions. Anything else is more circling.

NHC

 

[pood]

Just started reading this thread. I wonder if I’m going to regret it?

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Calling the analogy “ridiculous” isn’t an argument; it’s a dodge.

In fact, I called it terrible. But I also indicated how you can recognize a deficiency which you had not noticed previously. Hence, it was no dodge.

I admit that I did not need to describe your analogy as terrible. I admit that I could simply have said: "Your analogy is delusive for positing a business email as if it were a love letter", and I could have gone on from there, and my points would be the same.

I’ll rewrite the analogy exactly as you want it

Well, you will recall that I recommended approaching "Paul's letter as a love letter". That is better than any analogy. Analogies introduce differences, variables which are unnecessary and wholly avoidable if you stick with the fuller context in which Paul's letter was written.

Anyone pushing a contrary policy will be removed.

For instance, with regards to my response above, instead of saying "removed", it seems to me that you avoid introduction of an unneeded variable by simply saying anathema: "Anyone pushing a contrary policy will be anathema." Of course, you could otherwise say: "Anyone pushing a contrary policy is anathema."

Regardless, a bigger problem for your unneeded resort to analogy is that you fail to capture the fuller context - Paul's previous and very personal engagement with the Galatians. Your analogy does not capture the same sense of love which relates to the letter to the Galatians.

a VP sends a heartfelt, even affectionate, company-wide “love email”

You do not need the "affectionate". That "affectionate" really does not capture the sense of love which relates to the letter to the Galatians; in fact, that "affectionate" tends to distract from the sense of love which relates to the letter to the Galatians. That love clearly goes beyond affection.

Your "heartfelt" is better than the "affectionate", but you use it as a content-free label, because you leave the Galatians aspect out of "heartfelt". Better than "heartfelt" would be something like "heart-shared" or something along the lines of a "shared heart and mind". It would be the spirit which had previously come to be shared that would give a sense to "man-taught" which you have not considered.

Does “comes directly from the Board” function as a warrant in that dispute that either needs public support

And this is a point where your analogy diverges too much to work. Your “comes directly from the Board” is utterly distinct from how Paul refers to the supposedly divine inspiration experience after which his understanding came to be developed by Paul himself. Your “comes directly from the Board” is presented as an imposition, but Paul's relationship with the Galatians was not an imposed one. Rather, its development culminated in a shared spirit, an alike heart and mind, a shared heart and mind. That indicates how Paul's letter was a love letter and how it is that your email is not a similar love email.

Righteousness is not imposed and is not a matter of imposition. Likewise, love is never imposed.

Be all that as it is, polemic actuality in the letter to the Galatians is not at all significant for the reasons I have previously explicated.

That is why I can say that sure, there was polemic in the letter, but it does not matter because Paul was not imposing - as is made obvious by the fact of the reasoning he also provides, reasoning which was consonant with what he said about righteousness and love, both of which actually occur only without imposition. There is simply nothing about the polemic that is in any way important. The polemic is functionally inert.

 

[NoHolyCows]

Calling the analogy “terrible” is not an answer; it just avoids the test. You say to treat Galatians as a “love letter.” Fine. Make the analogy exactly that and watch that nothing changes. A founder writes the team she loves and says, “This policy is not from HR; it comes directly from the Board. If anyone teaches otherwise, let them be cut off.” The warmth of the letter does not erase the two public operations that matter: a source-of-authority claim and a sanction against rivals. Galatians does those same things in plain language: “I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ” and “if we or an angel from heaven should preach a different gospel, let him be anathema.” Emotion explains why he writes urgently; it does not convert those sentences into something other than an authority move and a boundary sentence.

Your attempt to escape by saying “shared heart and mind” concedes feeling but dodges function. A claim used to trump other claimants is a warrant in the argument, no matter how loving the tone. In any public method, that kind of warrant either carries publicly checkable support or it carries none. Independent reasoning—Paul’s arguments from Scripture and principle—can be weighed on their own; no dispute there. But the origin premise he also deploys does not get a free pass because the letter is loving. You keep acting as if “love letter” is a genre that suspends standards. It isn’t. A love letter can still declare authority, name rivals, and pronounce sanctions. Galatians does all three, and pretending otherwise just to avoid the evidential question is special pleading.

You also insist the polemic is “functionally inert” because Paul has reasons. That is false on the face of the text. The anathema is grounded by the origin claim and is aimed at community boundaries—who counts as preaching the gospel at all. That is not inertia; it is policing membership claims. If you believe it is inert, then answer the corporate version you tried to dodge: in the “love email,” does “from the Board” require public evidence if it’s being used to overrule “from HR”? If yes, you’ve admitted my point; if no, you’re saying explicit appeals to higher authority don’t function as authority, which is incoherent.

You say “righteousness and love are not imposed.” No one is arguing that feelings are imposed; we are arguing that a public warrant and an anathema are normative impositions by definition. “Stand firm… do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” is an imperative; “let him be accursed” is a sanction. Those are institutional moves regardless of emotional tone. Love may motivate, but it does not neutralize the public meaning of those sentences.

So here is the fork you can’t step around any longer. Either you accept that Paul’s “not from man… through revelation” functions as a warrant in his public dispute—in which case it must carry public discriminators or it has zero evidential standing—or you deny that it functions as a warrant at all, in which case you are contradicting the way the letter actually operates. Pick one and say it plainly. Your “love letter” re-label doesn’t dissolve the operations on the page, and your refusal to engage the warrant question is the tell that you can’t defend it without abandoning public standards.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Micheal,

Here is the exact, unavoidable version of the analogy you keep sidestepping. Imagine a heartfelt company-wide email from a founder to a team she loves: “This directive is not from HR but from the Board; anyone who teaches the contrary policy is removed.” The tone is affectionate and urgent, but the sentence performs two public actions—an appeal to a higher source and a boundary against rivals. In any real organization that claim must be checkable against shared records—board minutes, signatures, or an attestation by the chair. If the check fails, the “from the Board” premise cannot function as warrant and the expulsion that rests on it is illegitimate. If the check succeeds, it can function as warrant. Love does not cancel the need for the check; it is orthogonal to it. Galatians does the same two things with “not from man … through revelation” and “let him be accursed.” So here is the single question you need to answer without detour: in the love-email scenario, does “from the Board” require public verification if it is used to overrule “from HR”? Answer “yes” or “no.” If yes, you concede that a publicly used origin claim needs discriminators before it can serve as warrant, and your “inert polemic” line collapses. If no, you’re saying unsupported authority may overrule publicly accountable authority, which is irrational in any public method and exactly the move I’ve been exposing. There isn’t a third option. Pick one.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Calling the analogy “terrible” is not an answer; it just avoids the test.

Uh, you missed something. I said, "I admit that I did not need to describe your analogy as terrible. I admit that I could simply have said: "Your analogy is delusive for positing a business email as if it were a love letter", and I could have gone on from there, and my points would be the same."

The point of using "terrible" in the first place was to express emotion. Okay, it was faux emotion, but it was to make a point. The emotive can be removed, and the point - or message - remains the same.

I have been making the same point about the polemic. If it was emotive and not polemic, the point remains the same, because Paul's message remains the same: righteousness, love, and the absence of imposition. If the polemic was actual and not emotive, the point remains the same, because Paul's message remains the same: righteousness, love, and the absence of imposition. If it was emotive and polemic, the point remains the same, because Paul's message remains the same: righteousness, love, and the absence of imposition.

Your attempt to escape by saying “shared heart and mind” concedes feeling but dodges function.

Or “shared heart and mind” regards a relevant context aspect which you failed to consider with regards to an emotive which could be interpreted as polemic but which was only emotive regardless of how it seemed. It doesn't really matter, because, whether emotive and not polemic, whether polemic and not emotive, whether emotive and polemic, Paul's message remains the same: righteousness, love, and the absence of imposition.

You also insist the polemic is “functionally inert” because Paul has reasons. That is false on the face of the text.

Your "face of the text" has been shown to be insufficient in itself to establish actuality even if the polemic is actual. Your "face of the text" fails to consider the context which is relevant and beyond the text. The polemic as "functionally inert" follows from Paul's message remaining the same whether the polemic is possible, whether the polemic is actual, whether the polemic is demonstrably non-actual.

You say “righteousness and love are not imposed.” No one is arguing that feelings are imposed

It is a shame that your first inclination is to regard righteousness and love as (mere) feelings. But that is not important. The fact that Paul teaches about righteousness and love as incompatible with imposition is sufficient reason for you to have considered the polemic as other than assuredly actual. Not that it ultimately matters, because Paul's message remains the same even if the polemic is actual. Paul's message is unaffected even if the polemic is actual.

So here is the fork you can’t step around any longer. Either you accept that Paul’s “not from man… through revelation” functions as a warrant in his public dispute—in which case it must carry public discriminators or it has zero evidential standing

I have never stepped around the issue. Your "must" is erroneous for multiple reasons, but this reason is itself sufficient to put the lie to your "must": Paul's message remains the same even if the polemic is actual, and that is because Paul does not use the polemic as warrant; rather, warrant is provided by his reasoning - exactly as would be expected were you to consider enough context: Paul often stressed the importance of the development of understanding, and that is also a matter which is apart from imposition.

 

[pood]

I had hoped not to get sucked into this thread because skimming it showed so much … acrimony, but then I started reading it, and so …

However, I’ve only read the first four pages. This current discussion on Galatians strikes me as different from, though related, to the OP. I’d like to to suggest that with respect to the OP, @Politesse gave the most reasonable — the only? — answer, here,