Did Paul exist?

[Sexton Blake]

Probably not;

 

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/paul.htm

 

Certainly Saul did not exist. Historians writing about such times told us that Rome encompassed many religions and tolerated them all provided they obeyed the basic laws of Rome (as the bible tells us; Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's).

 

As Ehrman tells us, with proofs, the earliest christianity had to be satisfied with the people other religions did not want: Women, children, slaves, etc. Forget the tired old lies about christians fed to the lions around 60 AD.

 

Christianity took a long time to be established and to build up numbers. It is probably into the third century when christians began to be noticed so why would Rome care about a few nobodies in the middle of the first century AD?

 

Saul seeing a vision of Jesus is clearly an invention as he is not mentioned in the four gospels and with a visit from Jesus himself, suddenly whatever he says gains authority instead of just being fakes like 2Peter, Titus, 1 and 2Timothy and the like.

 

Of course if you saw a vision of Jesus, that would convert anyone of those times. So, why did Jesus not appear to so many others; rulers and influential people of those times, and convert millions?

 

Back to Paul. The only reason the bible books attributed to Paul are given such early dates is that it is believed that Paul really lived and so they were written in his life time. Without a real Paul, they could have been written much later, even in the second century AD. As Ehrman points out, we have no original books of the NT, not even copies of originals but books about twenty copies along, which have been mistakenly, or deliberately altered to fit the biases of the authors. This we find at the end of the bible:

 

Revelation 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

 

Revelation 22:19  And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

 

John of Patmos who wrote Revelation was well aware of people perverting the bible for their own reasons. Bart Ehrman gives many other NT examples, with proofs, in his books.

 

When the bible was put together in the fourth century AD, quite a number of books which had previously been considered infallibly true were dismissed as fakes and burned, with severe penalties for owning them because so many people had made up their own stories of Jesus and christianity.