And Peter said that he, Peter, had been assigned to the Gentiles. (Acts 15:7) Paul happened to be present when Peter said that and kept his mouth shut. Why? Because he was a self-claimed apostle who never proved his claim by going to the Gentiles.
The problem with Acts is that it was written long after the fact, by an individual who contradicts our primary source (Paul), and tries to smooth out any problems with the various groups within the Christian movement. That is exactly what is happening here. The question about circumcision has arisen, and the writer is trying to smooth it out. We know from Paul that the issue of circumcision was hotly debated.
It should also be noted that Peter is only talking about the early days of the movement. That is before Paul was even involved. Paul came at a later date. That, and we don't see Peter ever witnessing to Gentiles. When it comes to Gentiles, we see Paul, not Peter.
So taken as a whole, there is little reason to think that Peter really witnessed to Gentiles, or even that the situation in Acts 15 ever happened. Paul never speaks about it, and from Paul (and Acts agrees), the Jerusalem sect did accept him, and that he was told to witness to Gentiles (such as in Acts 22:21)
Paul never set up a church with Gentiles from scratch. He acted like the cuckoo birds that would overturn the nests of other smaller birds and to lay their eggs into their nests; thus Paul used to do; he overturned the synagogues of the Nazarenes and turned them into Christian churches.
That is nothing more than a guess. The Nazarenes are hardly mentioned, and we know virtually nothing about them. To claim that Paul was overturning those synagogues is not something that you can support with any evidence.
Instead, we do have letters from Paul, and Acts, which both state that he established churches.
I know. The book of Acts was written by Luke a daily companion of Paul's, as well as his medical Doctor. Now, I am not aware that the book of Acts "often" disagreed with Pauline letters. It even reports about Paul to have preached about Jesus as son of God. (Acts 9:20)
That is a later tradition that can't be supported. The author of Luke seems to be unfamiliar with much of what Paul did, or said. The author of Acts also tells us that instead, he was commissioned to write a work, and that he used a variety of sources to put that work together. There is no reason to think that it was actually "Luke" who wrote it, or that he knew Paul in anyway.
I am glad to read this from you because it strengthens my view that Paul was the one who fabricated the idea that Jesus was the Messiah. (II Timothy 2:8)
II Timothy wasn't written by Paul. It was written in the name of Paul by someone wanting to use the authority of Paul. Scholars largely acknowledge that it isn't Pauline language, for a variety of reasons, including that the vocabulary doesn't really match.
If you read the reports about the genealogy of Jesus according to Matthew and Luke, Joseph is reported as being from the Tribe of Judah.
But the two genealogies contradict each other, so really, they are nearly useless.
But the same gospel that reports about Joseph being from the Tribe of Judah, says that he was born of God with Mary. (Mat. 1:18) That's the reason for the paradox according to this thread.
Paul was unaware of those Gospels though. They weren't written until after he was dead. And looking at what Paul has to say about the birth, there is no suggestion of a virgin birth. Instead, Paul simply states that Jesus was a descendant of King David. No paradox there.
Isaiah 9:6 has every thing to do with the welcome the Assyrian pagans of the Galilee rendered to the Jews returning from exile in Babylon.
And nothing to do with Jesus.
What Josephus is claimed to have spoken about Jesus was a pious forgery interpolated into the text by the Fathers of the Church in the 4th Century. In fact, some Jewish Theologians claim that this happened in 312 ACE when the Canon of the NT was organized.
Not really. Most scholars, as in nearly every single one, accepts that the shorter passage in Josephus is authentic, and the larger passage, which you talk about, has an authentic core, but later included interpolations from a later writer. That writer probably was not Eusebius, as you suggest, but someone else, as the interpolations don't coincide with his writings.
There was no such a Jewish understanding in the First Century about bodily resurrection. The idea of resurrection was fabricated by Paul. (II Timothy 2:8) The Jewish thought about bodily resurrection was according to II Samuel 12:23; Psalm 49:12,20; Isaiah 26:14; Job 7:9; etc.
First, Paul didn't write II Timothy. Second, the OT writers you mention are not first century. We can look at later Jewish writers, such as in 2 Maccabees, and the Mishnah. For instance, the Mishnah 10.1 states, “All Israelites have a share in the world to come; … and these are they that have no share in the world to come: he that says that there is no resurrection of the dead prescribed in the Law.”
