To mount an argument against the validity of Paul…

To mount an argument against the validity of Paul is not merely to engage in bad history; it is to execute a total collapse of rational inquiry. The narrative proposing Paul as a fraudulent pretender or an ahistorical invention relies on a superstructure of demonstrably fabricated premises—an exercise in conspiratorial hyper-skepticism so methodologically bankrupt that it demands an absolute detachment from historical reality.
To take this myth seriously, one must swallow an extraordinary series of impossibilities:
* The Logistics of an Impossible Heist: You must believe that a single operator in the 1st-century Mediterranean world successfully fabricated a vast network of churches, forged extensive theological correspondence, and invented public feuds with living eyewitnesses like Peter and James—all without a single contemporary calling out the illusion.
* The Myth of Universal Gullibility: You must project an absurd, cartoonish naivety onto the early Christian communities, assuming thousands of people willingly suffered ostracization and brutal execution for an entirely unvetted, newly minted fiction.
* The Rejection of Consensus: You must discard the overwhelming consensus of secular, critical, and religious historians alike, swapping centuries of rigorous textual cross-examination for unevidenced, internet-grade speculation.
This is not a legitimate historical debate; it is a hermeneutic of paranoia. The argument does not merely distort facts—it invents a reality where evidence is irrelevant and fan-fiction takes precedence over record. Expecting a rational mind to accept a theory that requires such sweeping logistical miracles and total historical amnesia is not a request for open-mindedness; it is an assault on basic human intelligence.