This is my first post on this blog. I’m a new member to this forum. Recently, after 30 years, I have left the Christian faith based on a variety of reasons. Prof. Ehrman is somewhat responsible for this (thanks…a lot!). One of the thoughts that started my unraveling, before I even looked up Prof. Ehrman and read counter-arguments to Christianity, was the trouble I had with Christianity’s focus on the Apostle Paul and his writings.
As I understand it, at the time the New Testament was being formed, Paul was unique in that he experienced a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus which was the cause of his conversion. My questions are these:
1. If Paul had not experienced this vision of Jesus and had this miraculous conversion from Judaism, would he still have had as much influence as he did on early Christianity? Would Western civilization turn out the way it has, had Paul’s writings not been included in the New Testament?
2. What makes Paul’s proclaimed vision any more significant than the countless other individuals who claim to have been visited by Jesus Christ since the time the New Testament canon was closed?
When I was a Christian and attended seminary, the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints were quickly dismissed and Joseph Smith branded a “con-artist” and “wacko” because he claimed to have received his revelation for writing the Doctrine and Covenants from a visit from Jesus himself. It seems hypocritical to label Joseph Smith this now when a overwhelmingly vast majority of evangelical Christians put so much faith in the writings of the Apostle Paul.
Furthermore, if someone in today’s day ever claimed to have been given a revelation directly from Jesus Christ, they would be immediately branded a “loon” and someone needing a psychiatric evaluation.
Please note, I’m speaking specifically about a vision of Jesus Christ and not someone receiving a revelation from another historical figure, angel, or someone who “felt” Jesus speaking to them through prayer and meditation. These are common in Christian circles and those experiencing them are seen as fortunate believers.
katnip79 said
Paul . . .experienced a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus which was the cause of his conversion.1. If Paul had not experienced this vision of Jesus and had this miraculous conversion from Judaism, would he still have had as much influence as he did on early Christianity? Would Western civilization turn out the way it has, had Paul’s writings not been included in the New Testament?
2. What makes Paul’s proclaimed vision any more significant than the countless other individuals who claim to have been visited by Jesus Christ since the time the New Testament canon was closed?
When I was a Christian . . . claimed to have received his revelation . . . It seems hypocritical to label [so and so] . . when a overwhelmingly vast majority of evangelical Christians put so much faith [some one else].
Furthermore, if someone in today’s day ever claimed to have been given a revelation directly from Jesus Christ, they would be immediately branded a “loon” and someone needing a psychiatric evaluation.
question 1 is pretty hypothetical, but i guess things would be different
question 2 it appears to me pretty hypocritical to say Paul could have some experience with God or Jesus but no one (Mohammed, J,. Smith, V. Ryden) afterward couldn’t, Even Paul’s letters (I Corinthians) says Christians will/should prophesy ( not sure that implies seeing Jesus, but Paul does not exclude that)
Here’s an interesting somewhat recent interview of an famous persons encounter with Jesus who doesn’t seem like a loon to me.
1. If Paul had not experienced this vision of Jesus and had this miraculous conversion from Judaism, would he still have had as much influence as he did on early Christianity? Would Western civilization turn out the way it has, had Paul’s writings not been included in the New Testament?
Then it’s likely that the Jesus movement would have remained a small Jewish sect and would have eventually died out after they were expelled from the synagogues. Jesus might now be an obscure name known only to specialists.
2. What makes Paul’s proclaimed vision any more significant than the countless other individuals who claim to have been visited by Jesus Christ since the time the New Testament canon was closed?
Paul’s experience got the ball rolling. He was the mediator between an obscure Jewish sect and a gentile movement that became a major world religion. He provided most of the template for what came after. When I read his letters I don’t see someone trying to deceive. Paul strikes me as a honest fanatic.
***
“Reverend” Moon? Jeepers, really?
Hi Katnip79,
I think you are right to distrust Paul. Joseph Smith lied about finding golden plates from heaven, and there is no reason to think Paul was honest either.
Regarding Paul’s conversion story, Dr. Barrie Wilson, Author of “How Jesus Became Christian,” argues “Paul’s story is clearly made up, to give himself credibility. What people don’t realize is that, if true, it would undermine the whole point of Jesus’ mission. If all it took was a vision, why waste time with a 3-yr mentoring process?”
And the narrative of the conversion in Acts is hardly history. Dr. Price comments:
As the great Tübingen critics already saw, the story of Paul’s visionary encounter with the risen Jesus not only has no real basis in the Pauline epistles but has been derived by Luke more or less directly from 2 Maccabees 3’s story of Heliodorus. In it one Benjaminite named Simon (3:4) tells Apollonius of Tarsus, governor of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia (3:5), that the Jerusalem Temple houses unimaginable wealth that the Seleucid king might want to appropriate for himself. Once the king learns of this, he sends his agent Heliodorus to confiscate the loot. The prospect of such a violation of the Temple causes universal wailing and praying among the Jews. But Heliodorus is miraculously turned back when a shining warrior angel appears on horseback. The stallion’s hooves knock Heliodorus to the ground, where two more angels lash him with whips (25-26). He is blinded and is unable to help himself, carried to safety on a stretcher. Pious Jews pray for his recovery, lest the people be held responsible for his condition. The angels reappear to Heliodorus, in answer to these prayers, and they announce God’s grace to him: Heliodorus will live and must henceforth proclaim the majesty of the true God. Heliodorus offers sacrifice to his Saviour (3:35) and departs again for Syria, where he reports all this to the king. In Acts the plunder of the Temple has become the persecution of the church by Saul (also called Paulus, an abbreviated form of Apollonius), a Benjaminite from Tarsus. Heliodorus’ appointed journey to Jerusalem from Syria has become Saul’s journey from Jerusalem to Syria. Saul is stopped in his tracks by a heavenly visitant, goes blind and must be taken into the city, where the prayers of his former enemies avail to raise him up. Just as Heliodorus offers sacrifice, Saul undergoes baptism. Then he is told henceforth to proclaim the risen Christ, which he does.
Luke has again added details from Euripides. In The Bacchae, in a sequence Luke has elsewhere rewritten into the story of Paul in Philippi (Portefaix, pp. 170), Dionysus has appeared in Thebes as an apparently mortal missionary for his own sect. He runs afoul of his cousin, King Pentheus who wants the licentious cult (as he views it) to be driven out of the country. He arrests and threatens Dionysus, only to find him freed from prison by an earthquake. Dionysus determines revenge against the proud and foolish king by magically compelling Pentheus to undergo conversion to faith in him (“Though hostile formerly, he now declares a truce and goes with us. You see what you could not when you were blind,” 922-924) and sending Pentheus, in woman’s guise, to spy upon the Maenads, his female revelers. He does so, is discovered, and is torn limb from limb by the women, led by his own mother. As the hapless Pentheus leaves, unwittingly, to meet his doom, Dionysus comments, “Punish this man. But first distract his wits; bewilder him with madness… After those threats with which he was so fierce, I want him made the laughingstock of Thebes” (850-851, 854-855). “He shall come to know Dionysus, son of Zeus, consummate god, most terrible, and yet most gentle, to mankind” (859-861). Pentheus must be made an example, as must poor Saul, despite himself. His conversion is a punishment, meting out to the persecutor his own medicine. Do we not detect a hint of ironic malice in Christ’s words to Ananias about Saul? “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16).
If you are interested in the argument that the members of the original Jesus movement were liars, I did a couple of blog posts and reader comments on it here: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Happy Spelunking!
john76, congratulations, you’ve rediscovered the wheel! Scholars have known for two hundred years that in the details that we can compare between Acts and Paul’s authentic correspondence there are discrepancies. This only goes to show that the writer of Luke/Acts was not a companion of Paul and didn’t really understand his theology. He knew about Paul but didn’t know Paul or his writings. He was repeating stories he had heard.
Any theory based on ascribing motives to these ancient writers is a non-starter. For the simple reason that we don’t have any access to their motives.
john76 said
Then, if we follow this line of thinking, there is no reason to think Paul had honest motives.
No we have no access to his motives at all. We are forced to take these writings at face value which is what you did in responding to my post as I did yours. If you don’t then no communication is possible. Unless you can read minds.
Stephen said
No we have no access to his motives at all. We are forced to take these writings at face value which is what you did in responding to my post as I did yours. If you don’t then no communication is possible. Unless you can read minds.
So we should trust Matthew’s presentation that the events of Jesus’ infancy actually did mirror the story of Moses?
john76 said
So we should trust Matthew’s presentation that the events of Jesus’ infancy actually did mirror the story of Moses?
I guess I’m not making my point clear. All we can reasonably say is that Matthew fashioned his account so as to present Jesus as a new Moses. What we can’t say is if the author thought he was relaying real history or if he was doing theology only or some combination of the two. We can investigate and interpret the result but what we can’t do is access the intention. Actually it’s somewhat easier with Paul because he was an individual expressing a point of view in a specific situation but with the gospels we have no idea who wrote them or where or to whom.
I think it’s just as plausible as not that Paul was a liar.
Paul’s conversion experience and vision reports are very suspicious to me. What could do a better job of attesting to the “truth” of a new religion than having one of its chief persecutors switching sides and start having tons of confirming visions from God? Too good to be true? Regarding Paul’s conversion story, Dr. Barrie Wilson, Author of “How Jesus Became Christian,” argues “Paul’s story is clearly made up, to give himself credibility. What people don’t realize is that, if true, it would undermine the whole point of Jesus’ mission. If all it took was a vision, why waste time with a 3-yr mentoring process?” Dr. Wilson points out that another example of a highly dubious vision is Peter’s setting aside the Kosher laws.
Paul would have been aware of the power of telling a story about himself of God intervening and changing the mind of someone doing bad things to God’s chosen people, such we also find in 2 Maccabees 3’s story of Heliodorus, which, as the great Tübingen critics already saw, is the model for Luke’s description of Paul’s conversion story in Acts. Dr. James Tabor has also pointed out in a blog post that Paul’s reported ascension to heaven experience was a common reported phenomenon at the time: see ** you do not have permission to see this link ** .It’s very suspicious that Paul’s visions were types of ones that were common at the time, and hence would have had supreme persuasive and didactic value. There are too many coincidences here with Paul.
I don’t know if it is as helpful as most people think to turn to the writings of Paul to learn about Jesus.
Paul was quite clear that he was “something like” an accomplished liar, or at least a good chameleon, modifying his message about Jesus to cast Jesus in the most “sellable” light possible, depending on whether Paul was presenting the message to Jews, or to Gentiles (1 Cor 9:20-21). Since Paul was modifying the message depending on whether it was going to Jews or Gentiles, and he was trying to present the most tempting Christ possible to win the most converts, who knows what he thought about the actual historical Jesus? And Paul boasts that he was able to deceive: “Be that as it may, I was not a burden to you; but crafty as I am, I caught you by trickery (2 Cor 12:16).”
And there is possible reason to suspect that Paul was lying, since he was constantly protesting that he wasn’t lying (a possible sign of guilt). Paul wrote:
- “I assure you before God that what I am writing to you is no lie (Galatians 1:20)”
- “I speak the truth in Christ; I am not lying, as confirmed by my conscience in the Holy Spirit (Romans 9:1).”
- “I call God as my witness that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth (2 Corinthians 1:23).”
- ” The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is forever worthy of praise, knows that I am not lying (2 Corinthians 11:31).”
As Shakespeare wrote, methinks Paul “doth protest too much.” Paul seems to present himself as a liar who is worrying about getting caught. Paul also seemingly “lies” to support his arguments. For instance, Paul claims the risen Christ appeared to “500 of the brothers AT ONCE (1 Corinthians 15:6).” That’s ridiculous! Paul is perhaps making stuff up to persuade his readers that Christ really rose, unless he was just uncritically accepting second hand information to bolster his argument.
john76 said
And recall Paul said: “But be it so, I did not myself burden you; but, being crafty, I caught you with trickery.” (2 Corinthians 12:16)
But I thought Paul was lying? So if he claims to be telling the truth you think he’s lying and if he says he’s lying you think he’s telling the truth. Surely you see the problem.
Another example of Paul being deceptive is his claim of encountering a man who had made a heavenly ascension, when the truth was this was either Paul’s mystical journey, or an account of one that never happened. This report would be an effective tool at bringing people to Christ, because the alleged journey would be understood in the light of similar journeys in the Hebrew Scriptures:
There are five figures in the Bible who, according to standard Jewish and Christian interpretation, are reported to have ascended to heaven: Enoch (Gen 5:24); Elijah (2 Kgs 2:1-12); Jesus (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9); Paul (2 Cor 12:2-4); and John (Rev 4:1). There are also four related accounts in which individuals behold the throne, or heavenly court, of Yahweh: Moses, Aaron, and the elders of Israel (Exod 24:9-11); Micaiah (1 Kgs 22:19-23); Isaiah (Isa 6:1-13); and Ezekiel (Ezk 1, 10). Finally, there is the scene in which an otherwise unidentified “son of man” comes before the throne of God in an apocalyptic vision of Daniel (Dan 7:11-14).
Is there any reason to think Paul was being any less deceptive than Joseph Smith and his claim of finding golden plates from heaven?
Stephen said
But I thought Paul was lying? So if he claims to be telling the truth you think he’s lying and if he says he’s lying you think he’s telling the truth. Surely you see the problem.
There’s no problem. In antiquity, sometimes one ability to be a successful liar was a sign of intelligence and cunning, and so was worth bragging about (e.g., Odysseus). And justified lying was definitely a part of the Judeo Christian tradition. For instance,
1. God rewarded the Egyptian midwives for lying to the Pharaoh.
And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men-children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
2. Rahab was “justified” when she lied about Joshua’s spies.
And the woman [Rahab] took the two men and hid them and said thus: There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were; and it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark that the men went out; whither the men went I wot not; pursue after them quickly, for ye shall overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house and hid them with the stalks of flax. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
3. David lied to Ahimelech when he said he was on the king’s business. (He was King Saul’s enemy at the time.) We know that God approved of this lie, since ** you do not have permission to see this link ** says that God approved of everything David did, with the single exception of the matter of Uriah.
David said unto Ahimelech the priest, The king hath commanded me a business…. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
4. Elisha told King Benhadad that he would recover, even though God told Elisha that the king would die.
Benhadad the king of Syria was sick … And the king said unto Hazael … go, meet the man of God, and enquire of the LORD by him, saying, Shall I recover of this disease? Elisha said unto him, go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath showed me that he shall surely die. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
5. In the Deuterocanonical book of Tobit, the angel Raphael lied to Tobias, saying “I am Azarias.”
Tobias said to him: I pray thee, tell me, of what family, or what tribe art thou? And Raphael the angel answered … I am Azarias. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
6. Jesus lied when he told his family that he wasn’t going to the feast, but later went “in secret.”
[Jesus said] Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast. … But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
7. Even God lies by putting lying spirits in the mouths of his prophets.
And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him … I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him and prevail also; go forth and do so. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
katnip79 said
1. If Paul had not experienced this vision of Jesus and had this miraculous conversion from Judaism, would he still have had as much influence as he did on early Christianity? Would Western civilization turn out the way it has, had Paul’s writings not been included in the New Testament?
2. What makes Paul’s proclaimed vision any more significant than the countless other individuals who claim to have been visited by Jesus Christ since the time the New Testament canon was closed?
My Answer to Your Question #1:
On one level, I think, yes. He was open to the integral message of Christianity and his life was abundant with commentary on it–look at Romans. The egg of Romans would have gotten impregnated somehow.
My Answer to Your Question #2:
Continuing, he had a great literary work in his reason for being incarnated/reincarnated.
Stephen said
Paul’s experience got the ball rolling. He was the mediator between an obscure Jewish sect and a gentile movement that became a major world religion. He provided most of the template for what came after. When I read his letters I don’t see someone trying to deceive. Paul strikes me as a honest fanatic.
When one reads his letters, one would not see someone trying to deceive.
When one reads the works of Josephus (including the autobiography) and the biography of Julius Caesar, one certainly sees someone not telling the truth–Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Jesus.
When one reads the works of Josephus (including the autobiography) and the biography of Julius Caesar, one certainly sees someone not telling the truth–Paul, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Jesus.
I don’t agree at all. A person can be honestly mistaken rather than be a liar. If I repeat a false statement thinking that it’s true I’m not telling a lie. Telling lies requires intent to deceive, which is exactly the one factor we don’t have with these ancient writers. Knowledge of their intent.
Steefen, both you and John76 have pet theories about these writers which you seem determined to defend no matter what. We have no access to the motivations of these writers and until we do the simplest course of action is to assume they meant what they said and said what they meant.
“A person can be honestly mistaken rather than be a liar. If I repeat a false statement thinking that it’s true I’m not telling a lie. Telling lies requires intent to deceive, which is exactly the one factor we don’t have with these ancient writers. Knowledge of their intent.”
A discussion in which the goal is to nail down the intent of an ancient writer seems to me the kind of winter talk over a samovar that one might encounter in a novel by Gogol – diverting, but ultimately to no purpose other than to pass the time.
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