The parallels that I quoted from Ellis above, were related to the biographical details of Paul and Josephus's respective life stories. Are you saying you don't find them convincing?
For what it's worth, I agree that the style of the Pauline letters seems very different from Josephus's histories. It seems to me that Ellis's list of parallels should be taken typologically rather than literally.
The parallels are interesting, but can simply be explained as due to two separate Hebrew men having had similar privileged backgrounds, being born with Roman citizenship, exposure to cosmopolitan cultures, advanced educations and being multilingual. The anachronisms of their birth and death dates alone are fatal to the suggestion that Paul could be Josephus. And this is just the first of countless details which could be used to distinguish them.
Biblical Paul may be a fictional character. If in fact Jesus Christ was a fictional character invented after 70 AD, then obviously there was no evangelist preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ around the Mediterranean starting around 35 AD. Roman Piso thinks that the Pauline Epistles were written by Pliny the Younger. Robert M. Price thinks they should be dated even later, written by Marcion or his school, possibly based on originals by Simon Magus. Such speculations are all in good fun, but I have no idea how to settle the question.
I'm not familiar with Piso, and I seriously doubt that Pliny would have had the Hebrew education to make him so familiar with that religion as to be capable of authoring the Pauline epistles. However Pliny did write a complimentary letter to Emperor Trajan, describing the wholesome lifestyle of the Christians, who believed in Jesus as God.
But I have read all the Early Church Fathers and many of the later writers. The Apologists from the first 2 centuries or so are very orthodox, expounding the Hebrew faith, the gospels and the epistles, and also quoting the apostles themselves, or those who were acquainted with them, or who succeeded them in their ministries.
But as time progressed, heretics abounded increasingly, among whom were reckoned the Magians and Marcionites. Nothing good was said of them and their predicted fate.
As for Jesus being a fictional character created after 70 AD - well then in that case, many people from various nations and eras must have colluded to create a wealth of documentary evidence suggesting that he was one of the most well-attested men ever to have lived.
It is said that there is more literary evidence for the existence of Jesus than for any other character in ancient history. He was written of by friend and foe.
The JewishTalmud abounds with references to him, albeit not of a complimentary nature, however, the miraculous nature of his existence is recorded.
Thallus (52AD) was quoted by Julius Africanus (221 AD) about the darkness which occurred at the crucifixion, which was experienced by observers far from Jerusalem.
Phlegon (80-140 AD) also wrote about this darkness, again quoted by Julius Africanus:
"Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the 6th hour to the 9th hour."
Of course they knew that a regular solar eclipse cannot possibly occur at full moon, and nor can it last for 3 hours. This event was so extraordinary and inexplicable that it was remarked upon and dated.
Origen wrote:
"With regard to the eclipse in the time of Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign Jesus appears to have been crucified, and the earthquakes which then took place ..."
Cornelius Tacitus (56 - 120 AD) wrote,
"... Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."
The Nativity was fixed by several Early Church Fathers as having occurred in the 28th (solo) or 41st (joint) year of the reign of Augustus. This tallies with 5 BC, shortly before Herod's death.This was recorded by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement, Julius Africanus and Eusebius. It was even stated that the official records of Jesus's birth were still extant in the City of Rome, for the perusal of anybody who wished to check the facts for himself, until the fire of Rome destroyed these records. This was possible due to the census which was taken by Augustus, see Luke 2:1-7. Joseph and Mary were obliged to travel to Bethlehem to register in this Roman census, and Jesus was born while they were there.
Ralph Ellis does think that Paul and Josephus were one and the same person, who was the author of both the epistles and the histories. I don't know of anyone else who agrees.
The Gospels, Paul and Josephus all share a strongly pro-Roman slant. They all support the concept that Titus was the Messiah -- either overtly, or using veiled parabolic language.
Hmmm, I never heard of anyone agreeing either.
I agree that Josephus wrote very respectfully of the Romans, or at least very tactfully. His first allegiance was to his Hebrew heritage, but he had no desire to alienate the Romans who spared his life and allowed him to write the chronicles of his religion.
The gospels do for instance, quote Jesus's words to a would-be rebel, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's", and probably describing conscription by the Roman military, "If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles". But the New Testament is a strongly Hebrew book, particularly the gospels. The Romans were the enemy, a divine judgement on Israel. Within 40 years of the crucifixion, Israel's autonomy in its own land was utterly destroyed by the Romans.
The Christians had all fled Jerusalem a few years earlier in response to Jesus's prophecies about the coming calamities, and this faith was dispersed among all nations, using the lingua franca of that time, Greek. Early Christianity was much more Greek than Roman.The Greek Orthodox church existed long before the Roman Catholic church, which was not established until about the 4th century. It only retrospectively claimed apostolic lineage from Peter, revered as the first "pope". That Jesus forbade his disciples from calling any man "father", and that Peter was married with at least one son, and that Paul directed that any church elder must be the husband of one wife, all repudiate the theory of Roman Catholicism being the original Christian faith. It is the gaudy counterfeit of the original. Hence, "Antichristian," in the sense of the Greek "anti" meaning not just "against," but "standing in the place of".
As for the idea of the NT or Josephus confusing the Messiah with Titus - this is unthinkable! The concept and title "Ha Mashiach" is very explicitly and exclusively Hebrew. It means, "The Anointed". The typology of the coming Messiah runs through the Hebrew scriptures from Genesis to Malachi. The Messiah is from the tribe of Judah, of the royal house of David, and therefore must have appeared prior to 70 AD, as all genealogical records were destroyed with the Temple. Jesus could prove his ancestry through the temple records as he was born prior to 70 AD, but nobody who came after 70 AD, could.
Just so, the coming Antichrist cannot be any ethnicity but Hebrew. It is prophesied that he will deceive the majority of the Jews when he appears, and no Jew would ever accept a Messiah, true or false, who was not a Jew.