Okay Nojc,

First of all I am going to assume that you have read all of what you posted and that you understand it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

am also going to start only with the first article you posted and I will try to keep it simple - because I think it is simple. If I'm missing the point at anytime please tell me.

The article implies a few things about Paul:

1. That he invented Christianity as we have it in the west today.
2. That he invented or marketed the idea of Jesus as divine as the church views it today.
3. He invented the doctrine of Jesus' blood as the Church views it today.
4. He had negative views of :
a. Sex
b. Women
c. The human body
5. He did all this to make "Jesus" acceptable to the gentiles.

Lets take #s 1-3
they are all about the same point:
The Christian Church today hold that Jesus is divine and that His blood atones for the sins of believers.

I am again assuming that we are not arguing about what order the Gospels were written in, but only the order of events they tell about.

#2
With that said, I will grant you that it is probably true (I know it is) that the disciples did not know or expect that Jesus was divine or God, or the literal  "son of God",  while he was living on the earth as a man. I believe the Bible proves this, if one understands anything about the people who wrote it. But, what seems to get lost on secular scholars and some Christian scholars, is that this changed with the resurrection. It is easy to prove that Jesus claimed to be God. We can get to that debate later, if we need to. Paul was absolutely not the first to claim the divinity of Jesus. The first disciple to call Jesus "God"  was Thomas, after he touched Jesus' wounds in John 20:28.  John writing his Gospel after the resurrection also calls Jesus "God".


#3
John was the first to call Jesus the Lamb of God. Jesus also said that his blood was shed for many. We find Peter also saying in Acts that salvation is through the name of Jesus and to be baptized in His name for the remission of sins. The blood of Jesus is mentioned in I Peter. I John talks about the blood of Jesus cleansing us. Finally, the book of Revelations mentions the blood of Jesus redeeming believers. This theology is hardly the invention of Paul.


#4
As far as Paul's negative views of women, sex, and the human body. They may have been Paul's views and the Church may share them as do many religions. It is hardly, however, part of Christian theology.  And there are times when Paul prefaces what he says by saying that it is only his opinion. He then says he feels he has authority to give his opinion based on the fact that he has the Holy Spirit, as all believers do.

I happen to believe that Jesus would have corrected Paul on a few things as he did Peter and his other disciples at times. However, that would not have been on key issues such as the divinity of Jesus or on the atoning power of Jesus' sacrifice.

On women and sex Paul was a product of his environment. And Paul did state that theses were his opinions. Some he based on what he thought nature taught. I can see that Christians might have a problem if Paul had stated these things as laws coming from the direction of the Holy Spirit or if he had tried to put them into the mouth of Jesus. But he did not. Paul wrote letters to fellow believers and among those letters he sometimes gave his opinion. No big deal.

Jesus on the other hand was very different from the leaders of his day. There has been no one kinder to the female gender than Jesus. I also think that the Church shares negative views of women and sex with Judaism and Islam. Haven't you heard of the whole in the sheet thing from the orthodox? Negative views of sex and the human body come for ignorance, not from God... but all religions seem plagued by them. I don't think it would be wise to turn this into a debate about how each of the big three felt or feel about women, sex and the human body.  The main point is that Paul did seem to have views that Jesus probably did not. But Paul did not invent them - he got them from Judaism of his day. And these views did not effect the key points of Christianity. Further more Paul is recorded as saying that certain things are only his opinion.
So I see no problem here at all.


#5
Paul invented or recreated the religion to make it marketable to the Gentiles.

HOGWASH!!
The Gentiles certainly did not have a negative view of women, sex, or the human body!!!
Hello, ever heard of the Greeks! They obviously saw the human body for the beautiful work of art that it is!  Nor did they shy away from sex. Nor were they known for oppressing women. The Romans didn't differ much from the Greeks. Future more, a quick look into the Celtic past of the west will prove that they certainly did not hold any of the above mentioned things in a negative light. In fact the negative views seem to have stemmed from Judaism, which Paul was a product of,  not from Paul's desire to make his faith likable to the Gentiles. If anything here, it seems we have an attempt from Paul to steer Christianity towards Judaism as oppose to towards the Gentiles/Paganism.

As far as the Divinity of Jesus and the atoning power of his sacrifice being invented to please the Gentiles - Again Hogwash!
Have you ever studied the Greek or Roman Gods. Virgins they certainly were not!  Paul presented to the Gentiles a monotheistic faith which was completely foreign to them. With ideas of eastern purity, which was certainly foreign to them. It is only by the grace of God that the gentiles ever accepted such a radical change! Had Paul wanted to please the Gentiles he would have allowed them to simply add Jesus to the list of gods they already served. This was customary. He would never have dared mention God's grace because pagans had always taught that divine favor was earned. I have LOVED Greek mythology since I was old enough to read it  - Christianity it is not.  Not even close! Paul added nothing to his letters that made Christianity pleasing to the Gentiles.  It is silly to think otherwise.  Nothing you can ever say will change the fact the Christianity, as Paul taught it, was and is radically different from anything practiced in Greece or Rome. Even later, in the Holy Roman Empire, Christianity was a hard sell to the pagan Goths, Gaels and other Pagans. This was not because it was similar to what they had known. This was because the opposite is true.  It was, and is radically different, life changing, and world altering!


cook

nojc,
You said:

So it's permissible to ignore those views. Fine. I reserve the right to ignore those and any or all of his other opinions - including that jesus ever lived, or that he was the sacrifice for sins, or that he was resurrected, or that Paul was visited by the image of jesus as he walked along a road to or from anywhere, or that he was under the influence of the h. s.

You are missing my point here. If Paul says it is only his opinion then yes -Christians can choose to ignore it. Paul gave license to do so by saying that the Lord gave him no such command but his (Paul's) opinion was such and such. Other places such liberty is not given and he (Paul) states things as facts. In those cases a Christian may not ignore him.

He had negative views of :
c. The human body

Where is that? I seem to have missed it.

Use edit find to find it - it is in your first post.

Those views may appear in those passages, but, they could have been added

The same could be said about any biblical text. That is not what we are talking about. The article claimed that Paul was responsible for the doctrine. I simply showed where the doctrine was present in writings other than, and before, Paul's.

Like men, in Judaism women can own property and businesses.

What does this have to do with anything? They can in Christianity also.

He invented the doctrine of Jesus' blood as the Church views it today.

Nope. Borrowed that from paganism, too.

Prove it! Site an exact parallel which predates Christianity. Mithra killed a bull and spilled it's blood - not his own. He sprung up from a rock in a cave not from a  virgin!  And never was it claimed of him that God fathered him through his spirit and a virgin mother.  You can site the ritual dinner that mithra shared with his followers and compare it to communion but that doesn't make it Christianity.  

cook

The great god of the Greeks, Zeus, was a prolific author of virgin births, of which I cite only the well-known and highly accredited instances of his copulation in the form of a swan with Leda, the miraculous product of which was the twins Castor and Pollux  , and his intrigue with Io, which resulted in a son  Epaphus .

The Roman war-god Mars likewise kept amorous tryst with the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia, from which the twins Romulus and Remus resulted. The great hero Achilles was also the product of the amours of, this time, a human father and the immortal sea-goddess Thetis. Divine hybrids in human form resulted. Alexander the Great was reputed son of his mother Olympias and Jupiter Ammon, as that god himself declared. The Egyptian Pharaohs and the Roman emperors were gods, the former by birth, the latter by apotheosis, just as are saints by canonization. The son of the Holy Ghost and Mary could not have been altogether "Very God," but was half human, and so only a demigod. Either virgin births by gods were very frequent actualities in the good old pagan times, or priestly assurance and popular credulity passed them as miraculous events worthy of faith. It is all the same, so far as they may serve as precedents for faith in the virgin birth of the reputed Son of G-d.

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It is all the same, so far as they may serve as precedents for faith in the virgin birth of the reputed Son of G-d.

No they are not all the same. In every story you have mentioned - there was an act of sex which lead to the birth of a son. Meaning the birth was not a virgin conception.  In the Greek myths there is much made of the male god's lust and chase of the female. The main goal of the story is to portray how the god tricked or captured the virgin he sought and how he was finally able to copulate with her. This is not present in the story of Jesus' birth.  

Actually, sexual mores became considerably looser during the early empire, but they were fairly chaste in the earlier republic.  The virgin birth motif was fairly common, and Augustus himself was said to have been spawned of a virgin birth.  Since we don't find mention of the virgin birth in Mark, but we do find it in Matthew, some think that Matthew introduced the concept for reasons of his own.  Christ's divinity was by no means a universal assumption among early Christians, and the Nicene orthodox tradition had to put down a theological rebellion by those who disagreed with the policy.

You are more than welcome to site one that is an exact parallel.

I think that your cavil has to do with that allegation that the Christian God was finicky about having sex, but the mothers of pagan divine humans were still technically virgins in the eyes of believers.  The use of divine parentage to exalt living humans had been quite common in that area of the world for centuries before Jesus, and emperors after Augustus were often said to be the progeny of divine unions.  It would have been quite natural for devotees of Jesus to develop that fantastic notion, even if Yahwe was a rather chaste male god.  He still had to get the divine seed into Mary somehow, even if just by magic.  And he still had to be a male god.  Just the same, the messiah still had to be descended from David, and that was allegedly through Joseph.  Go figure.  

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and Augustus himself was said to have been spawned of a virgin birth.

Sorry that isn't quite true. Nice try.  Augustus was said to have been the son of Atia who copulated with Apollo in Apollo's Temple.  Again sex was involved.

Check your facts.  Whether or not they copulated with gods, the women were still alleged to have given birth as technical virgins.  Perhaps the gods had special powers that miraculously left the hymen intact.  Do such stories really have to make sense?

That is really irrelevant. All the Gospel are inspired scripture to a Christian. Some add details others do not. So what. Some can "think" what they will, but where is the proof that Matthew  added anything.

There is not proof, but there is the question of why Mark would have omitted such an incredible detail.  Did Paul make reference to the virgin birth? Did John?  Only Matthew and Luke did.  Besides, such claimss are no worse that Christian speculations about the virgin birth being a literal truth.  If you are going to demand proof, you should first demand it of those who have the greater burden of proof--backers of the positive claim.

...The facts are undeniable that his 11 disciples believed he was God after the resurrection. And it is fact that he himself taught it, prior to the resurrection. What each individual chooses to believe does not change those facts. His disciples taught it and died for it, as did a lot of other early Christians.

And what is the evidence to back up these assertions?

Heretics exist in any generation. It too, is irrelevant. So some did not accept his divinity. I never believed the facts to have been otherwise. Not once does Christianity make the claim that everyone knew and believed that Jesus was God. Through out the gospels themselves you find mention of people who wanted to follow Jesus but then could not accept certain things and turned away.  So your point doesn't make much sense to me.

Earlier, you said that the facts were undeniable, yet you admit that many early Christians did not believe in Christ's divinity.   Many centuries after the opinion of those people had been suppressed, and their works and records put to the torch, you now claim irrefutable proof of Christ's divinity.  You have nothing to back up your claim other than your utter certainty, which is no better than the utter certainty of those who disagree with you.

Cook,

You insist that jesus was born of a virgin, whereas the other pagan gods that have been mentioned here were not. I'm quite willing to accept the claim that those other pagan gods and god/men were not born of virgins. I'm just feeling reasonable all of a sudden. After all, being born of a virgin must necessarily be a rare occurance, so the odds seem to be on the side of disbelief in virgin birth.
But, in order to accept your claim that jesus was born of a virgin (whether the other claims are true or not), I'll be asking you to supply some sort of evidence. Citing the new testament would be useless, since it's an obvious collection of nonsense... er, I mean, you need to provide an eye-witness account: from Mary or her ob/gyn doctor or midwife, for example. Joseph is no use as a witness because we already have his testimony, and he denied he was the baby's father, and understood that Mary had not been faithful to him, which is evidenced by his desire to divorce Mary "quietly." He didn't see her conceive, so he can't testify as to whether she did it with the local paperboy or Jupiter, or whoever else might have had enough dinars to convince her to spread her knees out of his way. We simply know it was not her husband who fathered the baby, which is all that is required to show adultry.
Mark is no witness, since he wasn't there, either. Neither was John, nor Matthew, nor Luke, nor Paul, nor Peter, nor, nor, nor...
Give us an eye-witness, or admit you're repeating lies.

Cook said:

So nice of you! However, we were not arguing over whether or not the pagans were born of virgins. We were arguing over whether or not the pagan claims were the same as the Christian claim.
And I put forth the opinion that the claims are not the same.

How, specifically, do they differ?

Pagan myths often site legends about the God chasing a human female only to catch her in the end and copulate with her, producing some child who was sometimes a nice guy/girl and sometimes an evil guy/girl. Never do the pagan myths put forth the same claim as that found in Christianity.

The christian myth is exactly the same as what you just described. Where is the difference?

The claim of Christianity is that God himself was born of virgin in the form of Jesus with the sole purpose of redeeming mankind.

A) God is not a man.
B) God is unchanging.
C) there is no need for God (or anyone esle) to "redeem" mankind.
D) the christian's claim of a virgin giving birth is not supported by Scripture, nor is it proveable that Mary was a virgin.
So there goes that particular dogma.

I don't mind taking this challenge in its proper thread. This thread is about whether or not Paul invented the divinity of Jesus to please pagans. Let's stay on task.

The most sensible thing from you I've read in days.

njc,
beginning with God killing the animal to clothe Adam and Eve and then telling them that Gen 3:15 "And enmity am I setting between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall hurt your head and you shall hurt his heel."

And from that time on a geneology was kept to await the promised one, the Messiah. The whole sacrificial system points to the suffering Messiah.

Funny that you might thing an animal can be sacrificed to cover the sins of Israel but the Messiah cannot.


Cook, "God sent His Son into the world to save sinners." He did not send Himself.
Even Jesus taught the disciples to pray saying "Our Father which art (where???) which art in heaven." Jesus was on the earth when He said the Father is in heaven.  He told the disciples that He was not their God nor their Father. How so? He told them He is ascending to THEIR GOD and THEIR Father (John 20:17). Their God and their Father was in heaven to where Jesus was going. I realize this is not part of this discussion but if you are going to reach njc you need to know he is a Monotheist as far as I can tell.