It has been claimed by numerous critical (i.e., not fundamentalist) scholars that Paul knew very little of the Jesus tradition.  The argument is based on silence: he mentions almost nothing from the life of Jesus. the conclusion is that he knew nothing from the life of Jesus.

This is very, very bizarre.  The conclusion is made by a confusion between silence and conspicuous silence.  Silence is, well, silence.  Something is not mentioned.  Aesop’s fables mention nothing about Greek history; are we to conclude that Aesop was oblivious to his history?  No.  He is silent on Greek history, true.  But his silence is due to his chosen literary context, not ignorance.  It would be inappropriate, distracting, a non-sequitur to interpose between two squirrels discussing the best way to acquire nuts on some recent political scandal.

 But let’s move away from fables and speak of Paul and studies on Paul’s familiarity with the Jesus tradition.

First, let us acknowledge that Paul was aware of at least one kernel of Jesus tradition: Jesus’ verdict on divorce, recorded in the synoptics and cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians.  Thus critical scholars acknowledge that Paul was aware of at least one tradition going back to the historical Jesus.  And, it seems, that he acquired this knowledge from one of the original disciples, probably Peter, during his two weeks stay in Jerusalem.  So then, Paul probably learned of Jesus’ opinion on divorce during that time.  What else did they speak about?  As Dunn (I believe) famously put it, “they hardly talked about the weather”….so what did they discuss?

Now, there is one very, very interesting discrepancy between Paul and the Jesus tradition contained in the gospels.  In the gospels, we are told that Judas, one of the twelve, betrayed Jesus and thereby removed himself as a member of the 12 (perhaps by suicide).  That leaves eleven disciples.  Which means that it was eleven disciples to whom the resurrected Jesus appeared.  Eleven.

Yet in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul reminds the Corinthians of the tradition he himself received and then delivered to them, Paul states that the resurrected Jesus “was seen by the twelve”.

Critical scholars from this conclude that Paul did not know about the treachery of Judas.  There are two problems with this:

1) are we really to imagine that Paul had no interest in the events that led up to Jesus’ crucifixion? Or that Peter failed to mention it to him?  It strains the historical imagination.

2) Paul is delivering a tradition he received.  That means “then he appeared to the twelve” was already part of the tradition, composed post-Judas’ death, when there were only eleven.  The tradition itself “rounded up” as it were.

How to resolve this discrepancy?

I propose that the phrase “the twelve” had already during Jesus’ ministry acquired a fixed state, a kind of title of a club, where numbers mattered less than the name itself.  Put another way, the phrase did not merely convey how many were in the club but was the name of the club itself and the name became so fixed that it did not always matter who or how many were in it.  Note that in Mark’s gospel when the twelve are chosen the greek reads literally, “and he made (epoiesen) twelve.”  It does not say, “he selected twelve individuals.” 

Note that elsewhere the group is referred to as the twelve.

Modern analogy: three brothers open up a bar called “The three brothers”; one, unfortunately, dies; but the surviving two continue to call the bar by the original number, despite that the arithmetic is anachronistic.

In conclusion: the earliest creed contained in 1 Corinthians 15 reflects a fixed nomenclature; later Evangelists like Matthew and Luke, seeing the discrepancy between the label and the reality, make their edits, so that it is eleven disciples who see the Lord.  Paul was well aware of the fact Judas betrayed Jesus and was not privy to the subsequent appearances.  But Paul received and is reiterating a tradition that retains the old club-like meaning of “the twelve”.