In a post from a few years ago, Bart wrote:
“Either way, it is clear as crystal that he believed he did see Jesus. And that radically affected his thinking.”
By contrast, I just do not find it “as clear as crystal” that “[Paul] believed he did see Jesus”. There is a third possibility: he made the whole thing up.
Why would he do such a thing? Well, it is easy to grasp once you realize he was an enemy of the new faith. For there are at least two different ways for someone to express their enmity to a new faith. One way is to openly persecute it, which is what Paul did to the followers of Jesus to begin with; another way is to pretend to be a sincere convert, and then work to undermine the new faith from the inside. The latter path must have been pursued many times in history, since it is an obvious thing to try.
Why couldn’t it be that Paul was always a persecutor of the Christian faith, but simply changed his “game plan”? In other words, what is so strange about the idea that, rather than physically assaulting and arresting followers of Jesus, Paul decided to undermine their religion by spreading his own special version of it i.e. by posing as a “former-enemy-turned-miraculous-convert”?
Psychological studies on conversion show that it brings personal transformation and social transformation as well. Is Paul’s conversion also a sociological phenomenon? I would say that his behavior towards Mosaic Laws brings a cultural change in tune with a “true” conversion that leads to a social transformation. Was he a liar? Yup, but not on this.
I think Paul was suffering from epileptic or bipolar-schizophrenic conditions. The type that make you allover the map and go from one extreme to the other. One can get the sense of that from reading Paul’s letter in which he is jumps up and down allover the map and his flip-flopping Christology. He claims to turn from extreme anti-Jesus person to the most zealous in spreading his message concerning Jesus death and resurrection, Also, he claim that he continue to see visions of Jesus and receive revelation of him. There is an interesting article titled, “The Role of Psychotic Disorder in Religious History Considered”, in the Journal of the Neuropsychiatry about that subject:
** you do not have permission to see this link **
So, in my opinion, Paul believed that Jesus was resurrected and appeared to him. He equated his vision of Jesus (demonic or hallucination), with that of the other disciple. His teaching is no more than the product of his own psychology and twisted interpretation of the Mosaic text. Consequently, his teaching greatly influenced the gospels’ authors and greatly shaped the narrative of Jesus life, mission,death and resurrection.
It is impossible to re-run the past as a scientific experiment to check what actually happened so it is theoretically possible that Paul made up his conversion story but there are more probable explanations.
The usual one is that he had an intense hallucination and another is that he had a Grand Mal epileptic seizure but neither accounts for the experience of his companions or for reported blindness for several days, so are incomplete.
There is, however, a natural phenomenon which closely matches the description of Paul’s experience. It can be detected at distances greater than 10km and at less than 1km the effect can be frightening. At short distances, the result may be temporary blindness, deafness and paralysis and a direct encounter may be fatal. Although extremely rare at an individual level, several thousand people are killed worldwide annually due to this phenomenon. It is usually accompanied by heavy rain but in mountainous areas it often occurs in dry conditions without previous warning.
It was near midday and Paul was high up in the mountains south of Damascus when suddenly he was nearly struck by lightning. He was terrified, thunderstruck by the sound and blinded by the flash, which in those days were believed to come directly from heaven. Paul had been thinking about this Jesus whose followers he was persecuting and imagined that he was caught up into paradise where Jesus spoke to him. His companions saw the flash and heard the sound but did not connect them with Jesus.
Besides explaining why Paul did believe that he had seen Jesus, such a traumatic event explains his sudden change of mind, his belief that Jesus was divine and why he considered that his experience superseded that of the disciples.
Did Paul believe he had seen Jesus? Yes, Paul believed that the Jesus revealed “in” him was the same Jesus who called Peter to be an apostle, and the same Jesus who was the brother of James! In support of my answer, I offer a text.
The Text (Gal. 1:15-19)
But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles, only James, the Lord’s brother.
Interpretation
Paul’s claim is that he did in fact–three years after Jesus was “revealed” in him–go to Jerusalem where he spoke with Cephas (aka Peter) who was an apostle before him. And he also spoke with James. James could plausibly be counted as an apostle too. But regardless of that, Paul’s claim is that he met with James in his status as “brother of the Lord”. So, not only did Paul believe that God’s son revealed in him was the historical Jesus, he took the opportunity to discuss this claim with the best possible people to evaluate that claim–Peter, an apostle of historical Jesus, and James, a biological brother of Jesus.
Does it not suggest that Paul believed he had seen Jesus?
william doster said
Is it possible that Paul was trying to prevent the upcoming war between the Jews and Rome by showing Jesus not to be a militaristic leader, but nonthreatening to Rome?
In reference to what, Galatians, written between the late 40s and early 50s? Wikipedia is also saying some date the original composition to c. 50-60.
I would say Paul would not try to prevent the upcoming war between the Jews and Rome until year 64. The revolt did not start until the third quarter of year 66.
None of the seven authentic letters of Paul date later than c. 57. So, no, Paul was not trying to prevent the upcoming war between the Jews and Rome. Besides, once General Vespasian meets Jesus in Galilee, and Jesus steals his horses, there is nothing that can be done to sway Rome from thinking Jesus was a militaristic leader. That Jesus lost the Battle of Galilee to Rome.
A Jesus from the late 20s / early 30s does not trump the historical Jesus of Galilee in the late 60s, with respect to Rome.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)