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To do that, St. Paul would need to make all the other 12 apostles buy into the story and start spreading it. Then do the same with the extended 70 apostles and their disciples. And, of course, change the gospels.
In addition, the "concept of Jesus" is something that's woven throughout the Old Testament. St. Paul would have to go back in time and change the Torah and books of prophets like Daniel and Isaiah.
As I understand it, a number of people claimed to be the Messiah in Jesus' lifetime (and before, or since for that matter, including today). I don't think Old Testament references to the Messiah are all that meaningful as such for this particular discussion. Whether Jesus is or isn't the Messiah is of course a matter of faith.
Yes, they imitated and used the "concept of Jesus". That's why I think St. Paul did not invent it.
I'm not sure that follows.
What works do you believe that we have from these 12 people - and how would you evaluate the relative credibility of them and Paul / Saul?
As I understand it, Paul conceded he got all his information <sic> about Jesus from revelation, and there's a compelling argument to be made that his works all describe a different entity (a supernatural one) than the human-like character described elsewhere, and much later, in the NT.
I mean, that's not at all true. You’d have to ignore the same research that tells us that they were written later in the first place to say we have no information with which to reject that they have a common authorship with the Pauline corpus.
What is interesting about this project is that it cleanly splits off the real and verifiable components from the fantastic bits.
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>Second Journey Verses (Acts16:1-5):
>Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. 2 The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.
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I guess you need to have rules if you're gonna let people play the disciple game. Rule #1 - Get circumsized. This rule may be most effective at limiting disciple group size since any uncommitted wannabees would take a hard pass. I'm left wondering whether this could be the origin of "just the tip", or tipping culture?
Luckily for Timothy, Paul was a tent-maker or leather-worker, depending on which translation you favor, so he likely had some really sharp tools and would be able to make short work of this little project. Timothy probably didn't find much delight in pitching tents for a while though. Pretty funny trying to imagine walking around preaching for converts after this operation and wondering whether they had a cone or something like your cat gets at the vet to shield the parts from scratchy robes while walking. Probably lots of talking to God on those journeys.
Funny you mention that. Because those Jews (not all of them, mind you) that did not accept the Messiah did try to change the book of Isaiah. The mental gymnastics about the "Almah" translation continue to this day.
https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/isaiah-714-a-v...
It was on one of this prosecution trips that he experienced a medical condition that lead to temporary blindness, which he interpreted as a divine intervention, resulting him to join the sect.
As far as I know, academic consensus is that there was probably a real person behind the Jesus movement, just as with Buddhism, Islam and other religious movements. Of course, that says nothing about the supernatural claims made by the Bible, or how closely the canon written centuries after the fact actually hews to that person's teachings.