Paul (Real or Not?)

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2005-10-27 06:51pm

Is there any proof independent of the Bible that Paul / Saul of Tarsis actually existed?

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2005-10-27 08:29pm

About the only proof of any New Testament figures existing outside the Bible, setting aside artwork (catacomb murals; most are a good hundred, two hundred years past the events in question anyway and so shouldn't be regarded as more than speculative likenesses), are known historicial figures such as Herod, his sons, and the Roman governors of Palestine. Pontius Pilate was a real enough figure, as were Quirinius and Felix. We know about these mainly through Roman records, though in Pilate's case it's through a carving retrived from the remains of the Herodic Temple.

There's also an ossuary-- a box containing the remains of cremated bones-- with the inscription, 'James the son of Joseph brother of Jesus'-- and naturally fundies went nuts over that.

As for the rest? Precisely dick.

As for me, I have no doubt that *some* of the people mentioned in the Bible existed. Whether they did what they're said to have done is another story.

Draw your own conclusions from that... though I will admit outright I'm not a very good authority...

Zadius · Post by **Zadius** » 2005-10-27 08:33pm

There's also an ossuary-- a box containing the remains of cremated bones-- with the inscription, 'James the son of Joseph brother of Jesus'-- and naturally fundies went nuts over that.

Wasn't that deemed to be a forgery?

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2005-10-27 08:42pm

Zadius wrote:
There's also an ossuary-- a box containing the remains of cremated bones-- with the inscription, 'James the son of Joseph brother of Jesus'-- and naturally fundies went nuts over that.
Wasn't that deemed to be a forgery?

If it was, I haven't heard about it...

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2005-10-27 08:43pm

Zadius wrote:
There's also an ossuary-- a box containing the remains of cremated bones-- with the inscription, 'James the son of Joseph brother of Jesus'-- and naturally fundies went nuts over that.
Wasn't that deemed to be a forgery?

Indeed it was.

Kitsune · Post by **Kitsune** » 2005-10-27 08:48pm

Well, I was stating elsewhere about me feeling of how Saul guided the early church and was thinking "Was Paul actually real?"

I know some of the Babylonian figures in the Old Testiment were real (and in at least one case, the King and Queen listed together were from different periods)

Kettch · Post by **Kettch** » 2005-10-27 10:03pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:
Zadius wrote:
There's also an ossuary-- a box containing the remains of cremated bones-- with the inscription, 'James the son of Joseph brother of Jesus'-- and naturally fundies went nuts over that.
Wasn't that deemed to be a forgery?
Indeed it was.

The situation is a lot more complicated.

The Box is definately genuine. The inscription may be real, make be faked, may be partially faked. It may have been a relic, in other words, the inscription may have been amended some time after James was interned in the box. The question then is, did they get the right one? (Note that James was a very beloved & respected member of the Jerusalem community so he would definately have been interned properly, but decades later someone could have added "brother of Jesus" for clarifcation.) Some od the conclusions of the testing are in dispute.

Authenticity would not be doubt if this came from a proper dig, rather than tomb raided & sold on the black market.

Israelli Antiquities Authority arrested several invoved in a "forgery ring" in relation to this ossuary & several other artifacts, but BAR is denouncing them as a Witch hunt.

(Note about BAS, they are a real, scholary organization, but they also broke the story in Biblical Archaeolgical Review, & have long standing greivences w/ the IAA, so both sides have axes to grind.)

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-10-27 11:14pm

Also, it should be noted in the last time I read about said box, neither Joesph, James, or Jeshua are by any means uncommon names for the time. There were bound to be plenty of James' whose father was named Joesph.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2005-10-28 01:17am

Gil Hamilton wrote:Also, it should be noted in the last time I read about said box, neither Joesph, James, or Jeshua are by any means uncommon names for the time. There were bound to be plenty of James' whose father was named Joesph.

Indeed. I saw a special about that, they said the odds of a jewish man in that day being named James and having a father named Joseph was something like 1 in 1000. It gets even better if you can't localize the age by a few hundred years.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-10-28 11:29pm

Well, we have letters, presumably from the same author, whether we call him Paul, Saul or Xenu McJones. There's no real reason to doubt his story within reason, though obviously, it is substancially more difficult to accept the guy existed if you automatically disregard his own writings.

Zero · Post by **Zero** » 2005-10-28 11:34pm

Rye wrote:Well, we have letters, presumably from the same author, whether we call him Paul, Saul or Xenu McJones. There's no real reason to doubt his story within reason, though obviously, it is substancially more difficult to accept the guy existed if you automatically disregard his own writings.

I think that Paul could have actually been real. He was probably just an epileptic who had quite an experience during a seizure on the road to Demascus, and altered his life because of it, instead of disreguarding it. All in all, it isn't THAT unbelievable, and it would make a quite compelling story back in the day, before people understood things like epilepsy.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2005-10-28 11:53pm

Or he fell off his horse and damaged his brain.

Zero · Post by **Zero** » 2005-10-28 11:54pm

http://www.epilepsiemuseum.de/alt/paulusen.html

In old Ireland, epilepsy was known as 'Saint Paul's disease'. The name points to the centuries-old assumption that the apostle suffered from epilepsy.

To support this view, people usually point to Saint Paul's experience on the road to Damascus, reported in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament (Acts 9, 3-9), in which Paul, or Saul as he was known before his conversion to Christianity, is reported to have a fit similar to an epileptic seizure: '...suddenly a light from the sky flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him: ''Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?''...Saul got up from the ground and opened his eyes, but he could not see a thing... For three days he was not able to see, and during that time he did not eat or drink anything.'

Saul's sudden fall, the fact that he first lay motionless on the ground but was then able to get up unaided, led people very early on to suspect that this dramatic incident might have been caused by a grand mal seizure. In more recent times, this opinion has found support from the fact that sight impediment-including temporary blindness lasting from several hours to several days-has been observed as being a symptom or result of an epileptic seizure and has been mentioned in many case reports.

In his letters St Paul occasionally gives discreet hints about his 'physical ailment', by which he perhaps means a chronic illness. In the second letter to the Corinthians, for instance, he states: 'But to keep me from being puffed up with pride... I was given a painful physical ailment, which acts as Satan's messenger to beat me and keep me from being proud.' (2 Corinthians, 12,7). In his letter to the Galatians, Paul again describes his physical weakness: 'You remember why I preached the gospel to you the first time; it was because I was ill. But even though my physical condition was a great trial to you, you did not despise or reject me.' (Galatians 4, 13-14) In ancient times people used to spit at 'epileptics', either out of disgust or in order to ward off what they thought to be the 'contagious matter' (epilepsy as 'morbus insputatus': the illness at which one spits).