The Empty Tomb

[TimCallahan]

Although someone could have forged the Pauline letters in order to fool people back then and take advantage of the credulous.

This would definitely be the case with respect to the deutero-Pauline letters. the Wikipedia article on deutero-Pauline epistles is fairly comprehensive. The most disputed of those letters are the pastoral epistles, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. Colossians, Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians are also disputed, based on stylistic differences, historic references etc.

The core of epistles generally accepted as genuinely from the hand of Paul are: Galatians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon and Romans.

 

[pakeha]

^
Very true, Tim.
I marvel the academic community calls those particular texts by any other name than scams.

 

[TimCallahan]

^
Very true, Tim.
I marvel the academic community calls those particular texts by any other name than scams.

I suspect that Christian apologists would probably argue that the letters were written in the name of Paul by his secretaries, or that later followers wrote in his name and that it was understood that they weren't from the hand of Paul, but expressed his viewpoint. Hence, they remain canonical.

 

[eight bits]

I suspect that Christian apologists would probably argue that the letters were written in the name of Paul by his secretaries, or that later followers wrote in his name and that it was understood that they weren't from the hand of Paul, but expressed his viewpoint. Hence, they remain canonical.

That argument works better for Colossians, Ephesians and 2 Thessalonians than for the Pastorals. The first three may actually be "From the office of" business correspondence. The Pastorals? They appear to be later. Maybe they didn't fool anybody when they were first written, but Paul appears to be innocent of the views expressed therein.

 

[Belz...]

Of course.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

That's "plus ça change, plus c'est pareil."

 

[tsig]

Although someone could have forged the Pauline letters in order to fool people back then and take advantage of the credulous.

Someone did forge some of them.

Several of the letters are thought by most modern scholars to be pseudepigraphic, that is, not actually written by Paul of Tarsus even if attributed to him within the letters themselves, or, arguably, even forgeries intended to justify certain later beliefs. Details of the arguments regarding this issue are addressed more specifically in the articles about each epistle.

These are the 7 letters (with consensus dates)[3] considered genuine by most scholars (see main article Authorship of the Pauline epistles: section The undisputed epistles):

First Thessalonians (ca. 51 AD)
Philippians (ca. 52-54 AD)
Philemon (ca. 52-54 AD)
First Corinthians (ca. 53-54 AD)
Galatians (ca. 55 AD)
Second Corinthians (ca. 55-56 AD)
Romans (ca. 55-58 AD)

The letters thought to be pseudepigraphic by the majority of modern scholars include:[4]

Pastoral epistles
First Timothy
Second Timothy
Titus

The letters on which modern scholars are about evenly divided are:[4]

Ephesians
Colossians
Second Thessalonians

An anonymous text that nearly all modern scholars agree was probably not written by Paul[citation needed] is:

Hebrews

ETA: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...=33j1CEx7ISfuRSWMm0EmPA&bvm=bv.47534661,d.aWM

How authenticity is determined:

Five methods are listed I found this one interesting:

Historical setting

An independently written narrative of Paul's life and ministry, found in the Acts of the Apostles, is used to determine the date, and possible authorship, of Pauline letters by locating their origin within the context of his life. For example, Paul mentions that he is a prisoner in his Epistle to Philemon 1:7; based on this statement, J. A. T. Robinson argued that this captivity was Paul's imprisonment in Caesarea,[5] while W. M. Ramsay identified this as Paul’s captivity in Rome,[6] while others have placed the captivity in Ephesus. One difficulty with this position is the limited data available on Paul's historical setting, and this is especially true with the conclusion of the narrative of Acts prior to Paul's death. It also assumes that the book of Acts was written by an actual traveling companion of Paul's. However, as A.N. Sherwin-White has noted, in travel romance literature of this period, it was a normal literary convention to use the first-person plural while characters were on a shipboard voyage, and "we" passages in Acts coincide with such voyages

Seems like using the bible to prove the bible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Pauline_epistles


In light of what we've been told about the unanimity of scholars:

The "undisputed" epistles
A 19th century picture of Paul of Tarsus

The name "undisputed" epistles represents the traditional scholarly consensus asserting that Paul authored each letter.[1][2] However, even the least disputed of letters, such as Galatians, have found critics.[12] Moreover, the unity of the letters is questioned by some scholars. First and Second Corinthians have garnered particular suspicion, with some scholars, among them Edgar Goodspeed and Norman Perrin, supposing one or both texts as we have them today are actually amalgamations of multiple individual letters. There remains considerable discussion as to the presence of possible significant interpolations. However, such textual corruption is difficult to detect and even more so to verify, leaving little agreement as to the extent of the epistles' integrity. See also Radical Criticism, which maintains that the external evidence for attributing any of the letters to Paul is so weak, that it should be considered that all the letters appearing in the Marcion canon were written in Paul's name by members of the Marcionite Church and were afterwards edited and adopted by the Catholic Church.

 

[ddt]

In the same way Nicolas Flamel and Paracelsus are featured in the Chocolate Frog cards?

I mean the same way any fiction writer (except for Dan B.) makes sure the historical background of his story is fairly accurate. Gallio is roughly 15 years after Pilate, which leaves enough time for Paul to first persecute Christians, then have his epiphany and then go to preach Christianity.

I'm not saying it is all pulled out of the hat, but a modestly competent writer who did his research could plug in the right name. And that would certainly be within the reach of The Greatest Historian according to William Ramsay (and DOC).