adamryan

Would you agree that once it has been shown that an ancient document has been tampered with, that someone using a portion of that document has the burden of proving that the portion is reliable? Almost all Ancient documents have been tampered with.

What is your evidence that the gospels were written before the 4th century? None of them are carbon dated before the 10th century. The handwriting style on a fragment of papyrus that contains text that matches one of the gospels, and could be a forgery, is not sufficient.

What is your evidence that the gospels are not fictional? After all there were at lest 28 other gospels that the Church claimed were fiction.

what is your evidence that Paul was writing about Jesus of Nazareth? He never mentions anything about Jesus of Nazareth just the title Jesus Christ which could refer to someone else. He may have been writing about Simon Magus and every Jesus is an interpolation.

What is your evidence that Jesus was not just an urbane legend that was written down as gospels in the 3rd century?

What is your evidence that all the extent epistles of Paul are not 4th century forgeries - after all, bible scholars agree that there is good evidence that most of Paul's epistles are forgeries?

What is your evidence that whoever wrote the gospels knew what Jesus had said and did not just make up his sayings or adopt popular saying of the time. We have written testimony of ancient historians that claim that even the best historians invented the dialogue in their histories?

Do you have any evidence that the sayings of Jesus were not so extensively revised prior to the 4th century so that we do not know what he said?

Your evidence that Christianity existed before the 4th century is Pliny, Tacitus, and Josephus. They could all be forgeries. If the Testimonium Flavium was only interpolated it was probably about a different Jesus e.g. Bar Damnius. The Christians in Pliny might not be followers of Jesus of Nazareth. The Christians in Tacitus might be worshipers of a different anointed person, who was crucified, such as the high priest Jesus Bar Damnius. Do you agree that its possible that Christianity is a 4th century invention?

Give me facts and reasonable arguments. Do not give me opinions of bible scholars - its a discredited field - most of them are quacks especially the Christians.

Gosh, I thought I was the only one who thought so.

  (emphasis added)

My point is not that virgin births happen naturally. I agree with you, they don't naturally happen. But there is a giant difference between things that don't happen naturally and things that can't happen. The claim that Mary gave birth as a virgin to Jesus is impossible naturally, I agree, but it is not impossible supernaturally. And this is the very point I'm making.

I can not "prove" a one-time historical event (like a claim to a virgin birth) anymore than I can "prove" Caesar crossed the Rubicon. All I can base my decision on is accepting whether or not said event happened, and whether or not the testimonies associated can be found persuasive enough on historical grounds. With the case of Caesar's crossing the Rubicon we have not only Caesar's own writings but also his enemies. With the claims of Mary's virgin birth, we have Matthew's gospel.

{Update:  In looking into this subject further I've come across some interesting material. Apparently the OT that Matthew was quoting Isaiah 7:14 from (the Greek Septuagint) contained a mistranslation of the original Hebrew wording, which may have lead him to cite the passage as a prophecy when in reality it wasn't. I'm going to keep studying this and post more about it later. Very compelling stuff so far, though, I must admit.}




I like to consider myself somewhat educated on the subject. Which is why I'm scratching my head when you're referring to this (almost mythical?) body of scholarly work which is incongruous to the arguments I am advancing here.

Please, cite the works you're working from.



Dictionary.com defines it as:

Su-per-nat-u-ral

   /supər-næt-ərəl, -nætrəl/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [soo-per-nach-er-uhl, -nach-ruhl]
–adjective
1.     of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
2.     of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or attributed to God or a deity.
3.     of a superlative degree; preternatural: a missile of supernatural speed.
4.     of, pertaining to, or attributed to ghosts, goblins, or other unearthly beings; eerie; occult.
–noun
5.     a being, place, object, occurrence, etc., considered as supernatural or of supernatural origin; that which is supernatural, or outside the natural order.
6.     behavior supposedly caused by the intervention of supernatural beings.
7.     direct influence or action of a deity on earthly affairs.
8.     the supernatural,
a.     supernatural beings, behavior, and occurrences collectively.
b.     supernatural forces and the supernatural plane of existence: a deep fear of the supernatural.
Origin:
1520–30; < ML supernātūrālis. See super-, natural

 

 

Thank you? I can't tell if you're being sarcastic here, or not.




Dictionary.com has a few specific ones for you (which I will italicize/bolden for emphasis):

1.     of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
5.     a being, place, object, occurrence, etc., considered as supernatural or of supernatural origin; that which is supernatural, or outside the natural order.

7.     direct influence or action of a deity on earthly affairs.
 

As for me "pointing to the supernatural" so you can make money off of it, sorry to say, I can't do that. Believe it or not, I actually haven't any control over the natural order of things. =]

I don't exactly see how I've insulted you, but if your point was that you've read what I've written in an insulting manner then I apologize. That wasn't my intention. My statement,

"Why is it that a child can see this but someone as allegedly intelligent as you can not?"

isn't to be read as me belittling your intelligence [far from it! you seem to be a quite intelligent person, given our current discussion], though I can admittedly understand now that what I wrote can be read this way. My point was that a child (one who is unfamiliar with all the details and is as unread as could be, the exact opposite of you!), when told the story of Jesus' resurrection- for example- can spot that Jesus' resurrection isn't something that occurs naturally due to some biological processes, but rather is an act of God. It is a miracle. The claim isn't that Jesus resurrected naturally because He was special, but rather that God raised Jesus from the dead.¹ It is something that happens which defies the natural order of things, and an event which defies the natural order of things isn't impossible unless one is already under the presumption that an omnipotent doesn't God exist. Miracles aren't impossible unless one believes that natural law cannot be suspended/interfered with, and to date I have not come upon a probable reason why, if God is the creator of this universe, he should not be able to perform miracles, like resurrect someone from death, or bring about a virgin birth.




You're mixing "possible" with "probable". The miracles contained in the Gospels and the Bible itself are not "impossible", they are what historians deem "improbable". A man walking on water, healing sick people, curing blindness and resurrecting from the dead are all examples of things which are highly improbable; improbable, but not impossible. There is a distinct difference. Something can only be impossible if it is logically contradictory, i.e. drawing a spherical square.  

The occurrence of what we call "a miracle" (defined as a violation or suspension of natural law) is not impossible, it is only highly improbable. By using a principle of analogy, it is obvious that we have more instances (in daily life) of miracles not happening rather than them coming about, but to thereby conclude that they cannot happen simply on the basis that they do not happen as often as we'd like is an unfounded conclusion. People all over the world report modern miracles, and to dismiss every miracle claim as erred, deceitful or mistaken reveals an a priori prejudice against the very issue at heart.²

Again, you're mixing expectations from science with claims of non-repeatable events of history here.



-adamryan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. "But here, I think, he’s confused. What, after all, is the resurrection hypothesis? It’s the hypothesis that Jesus rose supernaturally from the dead. It is not the hypothesis that Jesus rose naturally from the dead. That Jesus rose naturally from the dead is fantastically improbable. But I see no reason whatsoever to think that it is improbable that God raised Jesus from the dead. In order to show that that hypothesis is improbable, you’d have to show that God’s existence is improbable. But Dr. Ehrman says that the historian cannot say anything about God. Therefore, he cannot say that God’s existence is improbable. But if he can’t say that, neither can he say that the resurrection of Jesus is improbable. So Dr. Ehrman’s position is literally self-refuting." -  Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?, A Debate between William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, March 28, 2006

 

2. Though my point here isn't to accept all miracle claims as legitimate, but rather to take them with a grain of salt, each on its own merit.

I agree. However it should acknowledged that you're creating a false dilemma here. You're wording this as if scholars are then left to discredit the entire text because, for its historicity, it is wholly irretrievable. This certainly is not the case.¹



1) My evidence is that (with the exception of 11 verses) the entirety of the NT is quoted by early church fathers prior to the 4th century. Early church fathers like Irenaeus, Ignatius, Barnabas, Hermas, Tatian, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr etc all lived prior to the 4th century, and all cite the NT.

2) Your statement "None of them are carbon dated before the 10th century" is a non-issue for dating the texts; they carbon date to the 10th century because some of them likely are 10th century copies. We know their content are earlier than the 10th century, however, via citations from other early sources.²

The statement that they’re not written prior to the 10th century is really, to be honest, quite an embarrassing mistake to make, Pat.


A few quick examples:

a) the Chester Beatty papyri (most of the NT) is dated to 200 AD.

b) Magdalen Papyrus              (dated 'before 66 AD')

c) Dead Sea Scroll MSS 7Q5  (dated before 66 AD, 'could be as early as 50 AD')

d) Dead Sea Scroll MSS 7Q4  (before 68 AD)

e) Barcelona Papyrus             (before 66 AD)

f)  Paris Papyrus                    (around 66 AD)

g) Paul's Epistles                    (around 85)

h) Bodmer Papyrus II from the Johannine Codex (125 AD)

i)  John Rylands Greek 457      (between 100-125 AD)

j)  Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2683 (150 AD)

k) P. Oxyrhynchus 2               (100 AD)

l)  P. Oxyrhynchus 3523          (125- 150 AD?)

 

Why is it not sufficient? If you're going to say that it isn't sufficient you'll have to explain why the entire science of textual criticism is wrong-headed.
 

The apocryphal gospels you're referring to are 2nd, 3rd and 4th century forgeries.
They are not based on eyewitness testimonies or reliably early source material (like the Synoptics are), which is why virtually no serious scholar considers them to be anything other than fictive rewritings of the original gospels, which often served to satisfy religious dogmas by other sects during those times (Gnostics, Essenes, etc)

A few things can be said about this.

1) The statement “He never mentions anything about Jesus of Nazareth” isn’t necessarily true. In Acts 26:9 Paul mentions which “Jesus” it was that he was preaching against originally (note that it is this same Jesus who also gives the “forgiveness of sins”, in Acts 26:18) by declaring the name Jesus of Nazareth specifically.³   

"I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.“

-Acts 26:9-11
 
2) Now if you’re referring to within his own writings, then you’re right: Paul doesn’t cite “Jesus of Nazareth” throughout, but instead “Jesus Christ” (or Christ Jesus). This, however, is a non-issue, since the Jesus he alludes to throughout his writings clearly is Jesus of Nazareth, as written about in the gospels. He writes about a Jesus who was born and raised a Jew (Galatians 4:4), was descended from the line of Abraham and David (Galatians 3:16; Romans 1:3), had a brother named James (Galatians 1:19) and maybe some other brothers as well (1 Corinthians 9:5), was betrayed (1 Corinthains 11:23) and executed by crucifixion (1 Corinthians 1:17-18; Galatians 5:11, 6:12; Philippians 2:8, 3:18 [with allusions also in Colossians 2:13-14]) by certain Judean Jews (1 Thessalonians 2:14-15), instituted a memorial meal the night before his death (1 Corinthians 11:23-25), and was buried and resurrected three days later (Romans 4:24-25; 1 Corinthians 15:4; Romans 6:4-9; 8:11, 34; 1 Corinithians 6:14; 2 Corinthians 4:14; Galatians 1:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:14).

To say that Paul is referring to anyone other Jesus of Nazareth seems quite absurd. While it is not impossible, it is very unlikely.

3)  Paul’s writings are not apologetic in nature, but exhortative. A lot of modern scholars miss this point (Borg, Crossan, Wells) and in turn advance the ludicrous Christ Myth theory because they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the type of writing Paul was doing.
 
Paul wasn’t writing to skeptics challenging the faith, but to churches/people that had already believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ. He therefore had no real reason to layout Jesus’ history in his writings, for they already knew of the story of Jesus from the Gospel traditions. To Paul, what the early church apparently needed was not a reiterating of gospel stories but rather stoic examples of discipline and clear doctrine. For us to read through his epistles expecting detailed history of Jesus is to completely misunderstand his reason for writing.

 

Aside from the fact that its patently absurd given the religious environment it arose from, goes against much of what we know prior to the 3rd century church's corpus of texts, requires that we ignore everything Paul wrote and seems like a desperate attempt on your part to try to cast doubt over the overall historicity of the NT?

Well, nothing I suppose. 



Bible scholars do not “agree that there is good evidence that most of Paul's epistles are forgeries”. I don’t know where you’ve read this, but it certainly hasn’t come from the most recent scholarship on the issue (within the past 50 years). The epistles in question that scholars criticize for authenticity are Paul’s Pastoral epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and also sometimes Philemon).⁴

The dialogue invention you're referring to isn't one that wildly out-of-control. It always remained within the frame of what the writer knew the original speaker & message intended to convey. 

Again, yes. The early citation of many early Christian church fathers proves solidly this point.

The fact that they could isn’t sufficient reason to suppose that they are.



It probably wasn’t.

You’re taking this from a poorly supported thesis which unconvincingly reasons to ignore/extract the phrase “who was called Christ” (regarding the brother of James) out of the Jamesian passage. You’d have to prove that Jesus Bar Damnius was “a teacher of many Jews and Greeks”, was crucified under Roman authority, etc (all of the traits Josephus discusses about Jesus) because these are the very things the Testimonium implies, and the Testimonium and Jamesian passage go hand in hand.⁵
 
Craig Evans notes, regarding the Jamesian passage, that there is “nothing Christian, or positive, in the reference to James or Jesus. The whole point seems to be to explain why Ananus was deposed as High Priest.”⁶

John Meier further adds that instead of finding some laudatory reference to James, we have Josephus making a “passing, almost blasé reference to someone called James.”⁷

Honestly Pat, you’re really starting to worry me with these non-problematic questions. You should know better than to be asking some of these, especially if you truly are keeping up with critical scholarship as your vague references to “bible scholars” imply you to be.



To my knowledge no serious scholar doubts the reference to Jesus in Pliny, simply because of the allusions which are found in the passage. It alludes to the communion meal (a chiefly Christian ceremony) and the singing of praise songs as worship on a specific day [sabbath] (which is another Christian/Jewish celebration). Even a cursory reading of the text shows that unless a similar character can fit the mold of being worshiped “antiphonally as if to a god”⁸, who taught against “crime” and to “abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, breach of faith, and embezzlement of property entrusted to them”, and in worship of this person had an already-established custom of his/her followers coming “together again to partake of a meal” which was “ordinary and innocent”, Jesus is likely the best candidate for pinpointing the man in the reference.
 

Interesting tidbit: Pliny writes, “They recited a hymn antiphonally to Christus as if to a god…”, which scholars agree implies Pliny viewed Jesus as an historical person. While not outright saying it, his use of “as if” (in Latin, "quasi" ) in mention to Jesus’ being worshipped shows that Pliny viewed the Christians as a sect who worshipped a man as if he were a god. A form of idolatry almost, Pliny distinguishes his Gentile view of Jesus as only a man, from the Christians’ view of their Christ being something far greater.

 


Jesus Ben Stada was crucified, not Jesus Bar Damnius.

No, because it clearly existed prior to the 4th century.



It must be quite enjoyable living the uncritical life you lead, Pat.
You don’t have to do tedious things like “read” or “reason” or “cross-examine”. Instead, all you do is make sweeping ad homs at learned minds and say embarrassingly ignorant things like “it’s a discredited field” (the field of Christian Apologetics clearly isnt discredited, by the way, and via your open allegation we all know how painfully unaware of this you are now. No wonder you never support your views with scholarship. You’re freestyling your skepticism and hoping I won’t catch the mistakes)



I never said the existence of the argument makes it valid. If that’s how you’ve read my statement then you’re either intentionally mocking it or cannot deduce simple points. I’ll hope you’re mocking me, for the sake of the discussion (if this entire discussion ends up being all in vain because you have not been able to reasonably follow the arguments, I admit I’ll be quite disappointed).

That the arguments remain undefeated, is the implication I was making.


 

1) Paul didn't invent the human Jesus.

2) Support this with more than just your opinion and I'll consider it.

 

 How does that make it more likely?

 


The cults themselves don’t but the texts with similarities do.
 
 


 None of them have historical expertise? Which apologists do you think I’m referring to here?
 
 

 

 

 

 

-adamryan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. A commonly agreed reconstruction of Josephus' Testimonium has been reached via textual criticism, by scholars like J. Klausner in his Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times and Teaching, trans H. Danby (New York: Macmillan, 1943), 55-56; Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:61

2. John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament; Carsten Peter Thiede, Eyewitness to Jesus; Bernard Orchard and Harold Riley, The Order of the Synoptics; B. Reicke, Synoptic Prophecies on the Destruction of Jerusalem, in Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren, 1972; Eta Linnemann’s: Historical Criticism of the Bible: Methodology or Ideology? and Is There a Synoptic Problem? Rethinking the Literary Dependence of the First Three Gospel; Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation

3. The only way to get around this would be to somehow make a fuss over the fact that it wasn't Paul's own hand that wrote Acts, but Luke's.

4. Thomas D. Lea, Pseudonymity and The New Testament in New Testament Criticism and Interpretation  by David Alan Black and David S. Dockery (Grand Rapids, Michigan:  Zondervan, 1991)

5.
a) The Jesus Legend: The Case for The Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition, by Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd  (Grand Rapids Michigan: Baker Academic, 2007).

b) "The reference to 'Jesus the one called Christ' [in the James passage... clearly implies a prior reference. In all probability the Testimonium is that prior reference." Craig Evans, Jesus in Non-Christian Sources, p.470

6. Jesus in Non-Christian Sources, p.469

7. John Meier, Marginal Jew 1:57

8. Book 10, letter 96. As cited in Jesus in Non-Christian Sources, p. 459 by Craig Evans.

If you take the written testimony to be true - why do you think they waited so long to write it? If this guy was real and so important to them, why not write down his exploits when they were fresh in their minds? Why wait 20-40 years?

You asked me why an earler dating lends itself more to collusion, if you pusj the gospels back earlier, you have to push Paul's stuff back further also - even Christian scholas hold to Paul's work coming first. That makes it more likely that the gospel writers were disciples of Paul (not saying this is any more than my conjecture for now) because Paul never met a physical Jesus.

As far as apologists having no historical expertise, perhaps some have studied it. On the other hand, would they be tweaking things to fit their desired conclusions instead of drawing conclusions from the evidence if they were experts in their field.

It's actually pretty easy to support a conclusion when you have it first.

It wasn't a literary-dependent culture that Christianity arose from, it was an orally dominant one. The demand to have it "down on paper", as all of us in the Western world are used to, would have likely been a foreign concept to them. This understandably seems odd to us since our worlds are so different, but we shouldn't let our differences interfere with our understanding of the culture in which the faith was born from. If you'd like, I can send you (via Scribd) a good chapter on this very subject, from Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd's, The Jesus Legend: A Case for this Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. It goes into more detail than I'd prefer to here.

...Alright, and again I'm asking you: Why does that lead to (or in some way infer) collusion? What are you basing this inherent deception on?
 

Kind of a brash statement to make about people you haven't even read, isn't it?

This assumption that they are "tweaking things to fit their desired conclusions" is not only rude and uninformed, but absurd. Read some of Habermas' work, or watch/listen to his debates. He covers plenty of historical arguments, and the man knows his stuff. It's like anything: if you publicly make a mistake, you're gonna get called out on it. He's made plenty of public debates (and has been published numerous times), if he were wrong and had stepped out of line he would have been called on it by now (especially when he debated Robert Price on air!)

But this all beside the point: They have no need to dishonestly tweak anything, because they're right. =]

 

Tell that to Carrier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-adamryan

 

The Synoptics and Paul all date prior to the close of the first century.

 

The Christian view doesn't glorify plagiarism. What you're referring to, commonly know as the "Synoptic Problem"¹, isn't an issue that questions the gospel author's originality but rather the specific sources used in each author's gospel. Did Matthew and Luke use Mark as source material? About 90% of his gospel is found in Matthew's and around 50% in Luke's. What do we make of the around 230+ verses that are only found in Matthew's gospel, and not Luke's? Did Matthew utilize source material that wasn't available to Luke? All of this is debated and discussed in what is called "source criticsm", as you probably already know.

None of this implies deceitful plagiarism, it only shows that when the Gospel authors found a reliable early souce of Gospel material, they used it. If Mark's account was found to be demonstrably early to Matthew and Luke, they were no doubt pressed to use it. This all makes sense, then, of Luke's introduction to his Gospel where he says that he considered sources for his account in order to give a reliably accurate picture of the things which had occured and which were written down in other places, but where at the time still needing "an orderly account for".

 

 

I know this because clearly only someone who was unfamiliar with their work would make such an erred statement as you did. And can you give me an example where they've been "ignoring/disregarding" facts? You've brought this up twice now, and you've still yet to show an example of this. Either cite and example or stop bringing up this faulty insult.

 

 

Cite me an instance where I've done this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-adamryan

 

 

 

1.  Source Criticism, by Scot McKnight p.139 in New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, edited by David Alan Black and David S. Dockery.  (Grand Rapids, Michigan Zondervan 1991)

2. Luke 1:1-4

I was correcting your mistake. You said, "All or nearly all of Paul's stuff was written in the first century as well as Mark."   That isn't true. Which is why I said that Paul and the Synoptics were written PRIOR TO THE CLOSE of the first century.

 

 

Can you give me an example of this "evidence to the contrary"?

 

You do realize that a lot of scholars who have studied this are either non-religious, non-Christian or atheists, right? Gerd Ludemann is a great example of this.

 

I don't wholly accept whatever some scholar writes. I'd hope you'd think of me as at least a little more critical than that. I'm not some mindless zealot who's shouting the end of the world is nigh, and cramming Jesus down your throat as fast I can. That's not who I am. I'm simply correcting common mistakes that I recognize, and am keeping up with the works to the best of my ability. You can think of me as Rook Hawkins' counterpart. =]

 

 

Yeah, no problem. He does it quite frequently. I've yet to read his book, Sense and Goodness Without God, so I can't say he's done it in formal materials but a quick common example would be from his blogs:

http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2009/01/wl-craig-debate.html

 

This is a blog of his covering the upcoming debate he's going to have with Dr. William Lane Craig.
Just read through it and get a feeling for how the guy works. Petty insults, question begging, you-name-it-he'll-do-it.

From what I've read, he also doesn't believe Jesus was an historical person. This isn't such an appalling claim to make, and on the face of it seems rather scholarly. However, what IS appalling to me is that a majority of the arguments he uses to support this thesis have long ago been confuted. Why cling to outdated scholarship to support a thesis? Does that not say something about one's methodology and a priori biases?

 

just curious.

 

-adamryan

 

 

p.s.
I plan on going to this debate to watch it in person. Hopefully I can pick up a signed copy of his book the day of the debate. I'll give it a read and if I notice anymore examples I'll definitely link them back to this thread.

 

 

 

First of all, I'm loving the Southern narrator. Sounds like Mr. Garrison, especially when he gets pissed.

The video is one thing.

BORING.

The Codex Sinaticus and the Codex Vaticanus are dated well before the 10th Century. The Sinaticus is dated to the fourth Century. Furthermore, P52 (fragment of the gospel of John) is dated from the early to mid 2nd Century CE.

Thats not exactly true. Paul does make other references about Jesus. For example, Galatians 4:4, Paul references that Jesus was born of a woman. Galatians 1:18, James is mentioned as the brother of Jesus. James is also attested as the brother of Jesus in Josephus. I don't know what you would conclude, but I don't think mythical figures are born and have human brothers.

Not most. Six of the 13 are seen as forgeries. The authentic letters are: 1 Thessalonians, Phillipians, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philemon, and Romans. Furthermore, St. Clement in the end of the 1st Century references Paul's letters. So I think that debunks the idea that Paul is a 4th Century forgery. 1 Clement 5:5 would be a good example.

 

I think I've already given you information that disproves the idea that Christianity is a fourth century invention. I'll quickly review: P52, the Codex Sinaticus was copied from manuscripts before the 4th Century, the writings of St. Clement of Rome. I can also throw out Papyus, Ignatius of Antioch or the Didache. So I have manuscripts dated well before the 4th Century, and the history of Chruch Fathers and their writings beginning at the end of the First Century CE. It's not possible that Christianity was a 4th CE invention.