Loading...In my last post I started giving the principal options, as I see them, for why Paul did not mention more about the historical Jesus. Below are two other leading options. As I’ve indicated, there are probably others, and if some occur to you, feel free to comment!
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Option Two: Paul knew more of the traditions of Jesus, but considered them irrelevant to his mission. This option relates closely to the one preceding, with a major difference. In this case, Paul did not himself teach his congregations many of the traditions about Jesus that he knew, nor did he refer to them extensively either in person or in writing — not because he had no occasion to (since he clearly did) but because he chose not to. Why would he choose not to? Perhaps because he considered the traditions about Jesus’ words and deeds to be irrelevant to his message of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Support for this view can come from a passage like 1 Cor 2:2, where Paul insists that the only thing that mattered to him during his entire stay among the Corinthians was “Christ, and him crucified” (cf. 1 Cor 15:3-5). That is to say, what Jesus said and did prior to his death was of little relevance; what mattered was that he died on the cross and that this brought about a right standing before God (as evidenced in his resurrection). If this in fact was Paul’s view, then he didn’t cite the words and deeds of Jesus simply because he didn’t think that they were important.
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Forgive my ignorance, but don’t Paul’s letters predate the Gospels? So at least some of the actions of Jesus, and his teachings, could be part of the folklore of Jesus, created by the authors of the Gospels. Therefore these stories and teachings didn’t actually exist until after Paul’s ministry.
Just a layman’s thought.
Regards,
-robert
Yes, Paul is before the Gospels; but stories of Jesus were obviously in circulation from the outset, years before Paul started writing. (and a couple of years before he even converted)
Forgive me also my ignorance, Bart, if need be; but doesn’t rsNvt make a point? If I may further that point by suggesting the stories of Jesus, that made it into our Gospels, may very well have been embellished – not so much by the writers of the Gospels, perhaps, but more likely the tellers of the stories in transmitting them orally, one to another, prior to any written account.
Absolutely they were embellished — by their oral tradents and the early writers and the Gospel writers themselves!!
How much to we really know about Paul’s total output in terms of letters and other writings? Is it not possible that Paul wrote volumes about Jesus in writings that were either lost or intentionally left out of the canon? Which also raises the question of how much we know about the editors who decided that these letters specifically were relevant enough to the faith to be included in the canon. As much as Paul liked to write, it seems that there could be a lot of material that was either lost or discarded. Paul might well have chosen or composed a different set of writings altogether if he had known that he was writing half of what was to become the New Testament.
Yes it’s possible. What we’re asking is why he doesn’t refer to Jesus’ life more in the writings of his that *do* survive, some of which are long and for which such information would have been relevant….
I know you’ve mentioned earlier scholars from whom you have borrowed a bit & do a fine job of refining. Have ever read Thomas Jefferson in regards to Paul? Real keen for what was available in his time to make those observations whatya say?
To dfrandray’s comment: By the time canon was established and those works collected we have tons of extant writings by later church fathers. If they knew of other writings by Paul that were “almost good enough” for canon surely someone would have mentioned them. I think by the 5th century though, a lot of spurious Pauline writings were known also. I’d think if true Pauline writings are lost to us (and surely there must be some) they were lost very early and not later.
I suspect the answeris a combination of all three options.
I believe it’s possible that Paul may have known a good deal more about Jesus’ life story and teachings than he indicates in his letters, but that, to a great extent, he considered both Jesus’ personal history and what he taught to his followers while he was alive to be “irrelevant.” He considered Jesus’ history and teachings to be “irrelevant because he believed there was so little time remaining before God would transform the world. Therefore, the only thing really important to the people who belonged to the “churches” at Corinth, Thessalonica, etc. was that they prepare themselves for this transformation. They did not need to know either Jesus’ personal history or his teaching in order to prepare.
Isn’t it more plausible that Paul had no regard for the Jerusalem apostles and their teaching? Paul’s preaching immediately put him in the crosshairs of these apostles. Perhaps he never elaborated on the life of Jesus because his source of this information came from people with whom he did not agree. In fact he variously condemns the Jerusalem apostles, does he not? Perhaps he was jealous of the knowledge they had and rejected it in favor of his own interpretation of Jesus is theology.
Or perhaps, he knew much more about the life of Jesus and spelled it out in writing as the do not survive. I’m thinking of the letter to the Leodecians.
He doesn’t condemn the Jerusalem apostles for their relationship to the historical Jesus, only for their views of Gentiles in the church.
It’s likely that whatever Paul did know about the life of Jesus, he learned through Peter and the other Jerusalem apostles. So whenever Paul cited anything Jesus said or did before the crucifixion, he could be regarded as effectively acknowledging his dependence on Peter and James. But clearly, he didn’t want to acknowledge that sort of dependence at all. I find it plausible that that’s the real reason he didn’t talk about the public ministry of Jesus more.
I imagine Paul would have heard stories about Jesus from lots of different sources.
Maybe Paul says little about Jesus because he knew little…If Paul’s writings are the earliest of the New Testament documents we have, and the Gospels were written later, some much later, one can see how the story of Jesus came to be expanded upon. As the stories were told, retold, and shared among different communities, details and traditions began to take shape, filling in the gaps in the story so to say…It seems to me that early Christianity was not the result of the writings which we have now, but rather, those writings, especially the Gospels, are a result of those early, developing, and expanded beliefs. Just a thought…
Paul and Jesus both preached an apocalyptic message that God was about to intervene in human history, however they were motivated by very different reasons. Jesus saw God intervening to once again restore Israel to its former glory i.e. to end the Roman rule and the quisling Jewish government and to establish God’s kingdom here on earth, where Jesus would be the new king of Israel supported by Peter as his viceroy and the twelve as judges over the various tribes of Israel. This miraculous intervention besides the slaughter all evil doers also included the restoration of the ten lost tribes.
Paul however, while expecting a divine intervention saw it as God establishing his kingdom in heaven in an afterlife. Jesus was somehow involved but primarily as the risen Christ now acting as the Son of Man prophesied by Daniel and coming in the clouds to welcome all those who were believers in his death and resurrection. Paul was happy enough with the Romans even admonishing his followers to bow to their rule. His belief was that rulers were established and maintained by God. Paul was not interested in a continuing earthly existence.
Why weren’t the patristic sources more concerned about this? They seem to share the “Option 2” view.
Probably like most modern readers — they never noticed!
If we accept Mark as priority gospel then this account is the only version we have access to which Paul could have had knowledge either oral or written. Paul’s encounter with Jesus is then needed to affirm the resurrection since the account of Mark ends with no one being told of it. Paul appears after several years in the desert to Peter and James with his affirmation of resurrection. He then preaches the word (some variant of Mark) and his affirmation for 14 years. He returns to Jerusalem and confirms his preachings as the proper word. The letters we believe were written by Paul are addressing those that had already received the variant of Mark and his affirmation. Paul had no reason in those letters to recount what his audience was already well aware of. He makes no mention of a virgin birth because the variant of Mark makes no mention of it. Paul himself provides proof of resurrection. Peter, James and their followers have no reason to dispute Paul since he offers a testimonial that Jesus lives. The perception that Paul is ignorant of many things is simply due to the purpose and the audience of the letters. Paul was ignorant of the other gospels because either he did not have access to them or they did not yet exist. It is possible that Paul’s account of his revelation contributed to the later resurrection stories. Marcion later attempts to consolidate those stories and gets shamed for using his eraser. Do you think an account like this is plausible?
Mark’s Gospel was almost certainly written after Paul.
Thank you,I should have used ‘Proto-Mark’ to describe what Paul had access to. Paul directs Luke to make a written account. The gospel of Luke then becomes the written account of Pauls preaching to the gentiles and proto Mark survives as the gospel of Mark preserved by the jewsish followers of Peter and James.
I wonder if perhaps Paul found that an emphasis on Jesus’ sayings and acts while he was alive might have tended to marginalize Paul somewhat, since there were still others around who had had direct access to these things. If the important issue is Jesus’ death and resurection–and what those things ought to mean to Christians–Paul is able to level the playing field and speak with as much authority as anyone else.
There is not much about Jesus tradition in any of the NT outside the gospels is there?
Nope, not much.
For some reason, as a young girl who was indoctrinated into the teachings of the Christian Church, I confess I always felt a certain intuitive resentment against Paul which I did not feel against any of the other Bible characters. I can only guess at the reasons…maybe his egotism or misogyny? I was also intimidated by him. I saw his genius but did not “feel the love.” Jennie
I was always intimidated by Paul’s temper. He seemed to get mad and wish a curse on people who didn’t get with the program.
Dr Ehrman,
I have kind of always thought to myself, “well what if Paul did in fact teach a lot about Jesus’ sayings, but we just only have the limited amount of his writings that we do. I mean, if you wrote seven letters to your university addressing the dean, info on the school, students and it’s main goal. And we only have a limited amount of your wright kings who would really say, “Dr. Ehrman never taught about his studies on early Christianity, really. He only talks about the school, dean and it’s students.” In other words, I think he did talk a lot about Jesus we just only have some of his letters. What do you think?
Yes, that’s my Option #1; but if we say that he said a lot more in other letters, we would need some reason to think so.
It looks to me as if option two is the best. Even if we assume that Paul wrote 3-4 times as many instructional letters, now lost, which is plausible, quoted Jesus traditions would still be a handful. But the source of these traditions would have to be earlier converts or the original audience. And if so, he would be a second-rate source of traditions, that would threaten his self-appointed status as an “apostle”. So he chose to excel in theology, a topic that was beyond the capacity of “the pillars”. His central dogma is not based on Jesus traditions, since it is a revision brought about after the execution of J., and consequently it is not backed up by sayings of Jesus.
As of option three , it is hard to believe that the real Jesus traditions, being spread by other competing missionaries in the same world as Paul’s, would not occasionally come to his knowledge in his no doubt many encounters with other converts and collaborators. If not, one would have to assume that the gospel traditions were kept secret until the 70’ties.
Could Option 2 be explained both by Paul’s belief that some details were less important, and that these details were simultaneously considered very important by his corespondents at the same time as differences in these details were hotly contested by them? It would seem natural for Paul to avoid what he thought might be controversial in the service of making what he considered to be most important more acceptable to more audiences. This might presuppose that Paul had a sense of his words reaching a broader audience (in time and geography) than his specific addressees, but then again, his intended recipients might be of multiple minds as to the best sources of information about JC.
Could be — but we would need some reason (or evidence) to think so.
I can see why you have struggled with this problem for decades. Surely, Paul would want to know as much about Jesus as possible and would teach about him as much as possible. Maybe some of that stuff got lost or was not written down or was destroyed for some reason (not orthodox enough) or other? If not, then Paul has based all of his teaching on some personal experiences with a spiritual, angelic Jesus and that I think would be problematic in many ways To start, how does one know such experiences are reliable?
I think that you have hit on the real reason that Paul writes very little about the historical Jesus. His whole message was based on his mythical Christ Jesus who was alive in Heaven. Those who claim that the whole Christian religion is based on a mythical Jesus have plenty of ammunition to support their belief in that most of the Christian theology is really based on Paul’s letters, which in turn is based on a mythical Christ Jesus. For Paul it seems that the only purpose for a historical Jesus was that he was killed and raised from the dead.
Thank for the helpful comments.
Professor, thank you for this series on Paul and the historical Jesus. I have read some of E. Pagels books and one of them addresses one of the Gnostic interpretation of Paul. My question to you is how would a Gnostic answer the question as to why Paul does not reference the life of Jesus?
I don’t think the question would occur to a Gnostic!
Although the origin of letters like 1 & 2 Peter, James, Jude, etc, are unknown and, no doubt, were written much later than the authentic letters of Paul, how much do they quote or reflect on the life and words of Jesus? Trusting my memory, which I shouldn’t, I would hazard a guess and say surprisingly little. If that’s true, what does that say about the writer’s agenda and the recipients’ attitude toward the historical Jesus?
Very little *explicit* reference in these letters either.
I’d go for option 3.
It seems to me that most of the NT involves the battle between Paul and his mission to the gentiles, and those who are the followers of the Jewish Jesus group in Jerusalem.
At this time I am reading the rough cut of a scholar’s new translation and commentary on the 1 John letter which is quite obviously a counter attack to Paul’s ideas regarding “works” and the Law.
I was asked to read it to give him my thoughts as a non scholar.
Any thoughts on that thesis?
I can send you a pdf of his document if you are interested.
1 John? You don’t mean James? I’d say 1 John is less obviously devoted to that topic.
Could it be that Paul actually did refer more to the words and deeds of Jesus in other writings that did not survive? So we are left with a sampling of Paul’s writings that may not be representative of the whole, or at least writings in which he chose not to repeat the words and deeds of Jesus that he wrote about elsewhere?
It’s possible. But there’s still the question why he didn’t say much in the rather long writings that do survive, especially since some of the Jesus traditions would have been highly relevant.
I am reminded of this scene from The Last Temptation of Christ:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaUuSJx-VDA
For Paul (at least in this film), what mattered was the resurrected Jesus, not the historical life and sayings of Jesus. When confronted by Jesus in the film, Paul says [about the people who are suffering], “Their only hope is the resurrected Jesus. I don’t care whether you’re Jesus or not. The resurrected Jesus will save the world and that’s all that matters.”
My vote goes for a slightly different option.
I believe that for Paul, the words and deeds, that others claimed, were spoken of and performed by Jesus, were not very relevant to him (Paul). Here’s why:
(I have no idea of how many of Jesus’s actual words and deeds Paul knew, so I’m not going to speculate on this, but I’m not sure it really matters.)
Paul was a “Pharisee” who persecuted Christians because he probably felt that, given his understanding of the Jewish faith, this what God wanted. Then Paul had some sort of personal vision / conversion experience, where God came to him and not only asked him to stop persecuting Christians, but in addition to this, also asked him to start preaching the message of his Son, Jesus, (see Galatians, Chapter 1). If you think about this for a moment, this must have been some incredibly powerful and overwhelming experience for Paul.
In Chapter 1 of Galatians, Paul mentions that his Gospel did not come from men, but rather came from a revelation from Christ. I believe that the message that Paul taught others, came from this revelation.
Now, while others made claims about what Jesus actually said and did during his life, Paul would have no way to determine who did and didn’t interpret Jesus’s messages and deeds correctly.
Thus, I believe that Paul probably felt that the message he received directly from Jesus had a much higher priority, than the words and deeds, that others claimed, were spoken of or performed by Jesus.
So yes, I do believe that Paul probably felt his personal revelation from Jesus was much more relevant than the words and deeds, others claimed, were spoken of or performed by Jesus.
John
Perhaps Paul has answered the question for us?
2 Corinthians, 5:16
Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. (KJV)
Great thread Bart. You’ve out done yourself once again with these recent posts.
Yes, it should be shocking to inerrancy buffs that in his long and prolific career of evangelism and letter writing Paul never mentions, even obliquely, what modern Christians believe are the most profoundly important facts of Jesus’ pre-crucifixion life, viz, His pre-existence, virgin birth and Bethlehem nativity. The author of 1st Timothy might give us a clue as to why. Right off the bat the reader is instructed to “…command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor [sic] to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.” Could “myths” refer to virgin birth stories and “endless genealogies” to Jesus genealogies then circulating as oral traditions? Is it possible that the author of 1st Tim rejected these old chestnuts and is telling us that Jesus DID NOT NEED to be virgin born and a Bethlehem native and that he had nothing but disdain and censure for those who wasted time and energy promulgating these stories?
Paul does have something definite to say about Jesus’ birth in Romans 1:3; it is similar to Peter’s teaching in Acts 2. According to both passages it was Jesus’ resurrection that made him (had him “declared”) the son of God. As to the circumstances of his birth, Paul seems to dismiss them as perfectly ordinary and Peter is dumb!
“…concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness
by his resurrection from the dead…” (Rom 1:3)
It should be noted that “descendant” is translated from the Greek sperma, which literally means “seed”, (i.e., David’s seed). According to Paul, Jesus was “born of woman” (Gal 4:4) “from David’s seed” “according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3). This is simply a genteel and sophisticated way of saying “A descendant of David had physical union with a woman and the result was Jesus. What purpose could Paul have in this passage except to contrast Jesus’ ordinary, fleshly, physical birth with the spiritual, powerful, holy and glorious nature of his ultimate office?
Much like the fundamentalists I debate in chat rooms, it seems that what Jesus taught and believed didn’t matter to Paul. Their brand of Christianity is based on what Paul taught. I go with option 2. Paul and Christianity trump what Jesus likely believed and taught. That just amazes me.
Just as something I’ve been wondering about. When Paul visited Jerusalem. Why not visit the tomb, or the site of the crucifixion, or Jesus Mother? You would think that would warrant a mention.
I think Paul was such an egotist that the version of Christianity he espoused was the only one that he was interested in teaching . He seemed obsessed with the death and resurrection of Jesus and seemed uninterested in the actual message Jesus taught about God’s Kingdom on earth.
Allow me to suggest yet another alternative: Paul was economizing — he didn’t have enough writing material to convey lengthy narratives; further, the writing process was time-consuming. Often medium shapes message.
For example, the only thing governing the length of this response is consideration for others — how long a message will Professor Ehrman read? Theoretically, I could write pages. When I was a reporter, writing for a fax news service called BioWorld, brevity was the law. Later, writing for a free newspaper, volume ruled — pictures were expensive, words were cheap!
I’m not suggesting that medium fully explains why Paul did not say more about Jesus, but it seems a consideration. Existing oral and/or written narratives may have sufficed.
Professor Ehrman may *read* a long message, but probably won’t *respond* to it. 🙂
If all Paul knew about Yeshua was to claim that he met him in a vision and that what theologically was important was the death and resurrection of said Yeshua, is that really enough meat to convince droves of followers to convert to this new religion? Yes, there is the promise of some kind of new eternal body, etc., but all in all it really seems to be very slim foundation for which to convince people of anything.
The advantageous of the gospels is they relate very compelling and often times very moving stories of Yeshua. It’s the kind of thing that is more understandable how people could be drawn to it.
Am saying all this in order to ponder – didn’t Paul have a meatier gospel message? – one that was perhaps related more during his oral evangelizing but not so much in the letters. If not, then it makes Paul’s success and eventual dominance all the more surprising.
Or else there was already a good bit of hearsay knowledge of Yeshua floating around and Paul just came along and crystalized it into a more specific theology for people.
You can get some dim sense out of what Paul actually preached in his later summaries, e.g., 1 Thes 1:9-10 and 1 Cor. 15:3-8.
I don’t think Paul (or others) knew or cared terribly much about the historical Jesus since he had met the risen Christ who was about to come again at the end of time. How could memories of Jesus’ historical ministry have competed with that? Even what he does recount of Jesus life often enough relates to this apocalyptic and eschatological reality, for example, the account of the last supper was oriented toward the coming of the Lord (remembrance of his death until he comes), the death was only important because of the resurrection to which they all looked forward, support for the apostolic ministry was oriented toward proclaiming the message to as many people as possible before the end, etc. Yet, the idea of the messianic Torah, the law of Christ (Gal 6,2) and hints of Jesus’ (and Hillel’s) teaching about the love of neighbor being the sum or chief commandment were very important to the ethics of Paul and his communities.
I’m duly chastised by adamsmark’s comment about long posts! So here’s the nutshell version:
Is it possible that Paul knew about oral traditions of:
1. a virgin birth in Bethlehem
2. an error-ridden Jesus genealogy with a mystical 14-14-14 numerology
and that he held these traditions to be poppycock?
Sure, it’s *possible*. But one has always to ask what *evidence* there is for it. I don’t know of any, in Paul’s case.
The evidence I adduce: The author of 1 Tim. denigrates “myths” and “genealogies” in the same sentence. What other genealogies could he be talking about? Oops! I forgot; Paul didn’t write 1 Tim so my point is moot. I’ll try to do better next time. Thank you for your reply, Bart.
Maybe proto-gnostic myths and geneaologies??
According to Paul his revelation did not come in one moment, but in revelations (unlike Acts). Yes, his teachings about the “mystery” or the revelation he asserts come from Jesus, but as for his information about Jesus that did come from someone (flesh). One theory would be that as Paul was persecuting the church over time he received information about Jesus. In order to persecute the church he would have had to know at a minimum that this group believed Jesus lived, that Jesus was put to death and that he was raised from the dead (Paul states that this information he received from the flesh). He would have also most likely known some things about Jesus like where he was from, where his followers were congregating, etc.. things that would help him persecute. One would assume that in “intensely persecuting” the church he would have also tried to elicit information that would have been helpful to him in his persecutions. Since Paul did not meet with the Pillars until three years after he decided to go to Arabia we have to assume that he received all of the information needed to devise HIS message prior to the time he left for Arabia – again maybe in meetings with Jesus’ followers. An important aspect he learned about was the entire message of the apocalyptic nature of Jesus’ ministry. This would again have come from the flesh. And it must have been something that Paul was already inclined to believe.
Complete conjecture but I’d say Paul heard of very few of the actual sayings of Jesus. By the time Paul formulates his Christianity (37 – 40, meaning up until the period where he first decides to meet Pillars) there is little doubt that the sayings of Jesus hadn’t been circulating – or at least not to Paul’s ears. One could make the argument that by the time of Paul’s first letter that survives (50 ish) that he would have heard of the sayings but how important would they have been to Paul by that time!? This is someone that claims his message is divine, above all others, and he had been preaching it for years before even hearing about one of jesus’ sayings. To now start incorporating Jesus’ saying so late in the game probably didn’t mean much to Paul.
Did Paul EVER offer a quote/story of Jesus, that doesn’t point back to something written in one of the Gospels? Something like an extra Gospel-era teaching by Jesus?
Not in his letters, no.
While this is pure speculation, it is also possible that there were so many stories of Jesus’s life floating around the Roman world of the 1st Century, that a non-eyewitness such as Paul, wouldn’t know how to vet the stories and wouldn’t have had the time to track down another Apostle to vet every story that he heard. It’s not like there was email, telephone, telegraph or a postal system. If Paul heard a story about Jesus, how could he verify it? He could try to seek out another Apostle, but if we believe Acts (I don’t find Acts historical), then Paul was on the move much of his ministry or incarcerated. He wasn’t the most accessible guy. We also have traditions that Peter, and other Apostles went on various missionary journeys, so they were probably not the easiest people to get an audience with. I suppose Paul could have sent letters to other Apostles, but that would take time. How long would it take a courier in the ancient world to deliver a letter from Ephesus to Jerusalem and get a response back to Paul? (Who might not even be in Ephesus when the return correspondence arrived). My personal belief, which carries no weight whatsoever, is that Paul and other early Apostles were probably only concerned with spreading the message of salvation to as many as possible before the end, which they all believed would be in their lifetimes.
Learning about Jesus’s life was probably far down the list of their priorities.
My guess is that Paul vetted the stories the way most Christians today do. If it sounded coherent with what he already thought and plausible, he believed it.
But wasn’t Paul persecuting early Jesus’ followers and would hence learn about Jesus’ teachings? It must have been his message they were passing on that he disagreed with?
Yes, that’s one of the options. But he may have been persecuting them for calling a crucified man the messiah, without ever asking them about what Jesus said and did during his life.
I assume Paul had an agenda and it did not include teaching people about all the things that Jesus said and did. Maybe Paul did NOT know these stories about Jesus, and so never refers to them. It is my contention that these stories were “brewing” as Paul took on the task of converting people to Jesus’ prophetic message–get on board or you will miss the train ( or ark or whatever). Paul’s agenda did not include relating stories of the life of Jesus because he, like Jesus, believed that the imminent end of the world was coming, and he had bigger fish to fry than worry about the words/deeds of Christ. What do you think?
Several options. See my other reply.
“Didn’t Jesus himself appear to Paul at his conversion? Yes, according to Paul, he did.”
Whatever Paul’s vision was, we know that it wasn’t really Jesus (or Christ) appearing to him or teaching him. It was an hallucination. So anything Paul thinks he learned during his vision would be information that he had heard from others, information that he makes up or a combination of the two. Since Paul’s message is about Christ’s death and resurrection, doesn’t it make sense that Paul would not talk about Jesus’ life or message? It wasn’t Paul’s concern. He had a mission of converting Gentiles before the end of time in his life time. Does’n’t seem that Paul more so wants the message to be from himself, not from “the Lord?”
He sees himself as the one whom the Lord has called to deliver the message; my sense is that as with *most* people who have visions/hallucinations, he believed what he saw was real, not in his head.
“From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.”
2 Corinthians 5:16 ESV
One thing to also keep in mind is that Paul’s only encounter with Jesus was “post-resurrection”; with the exalted Christ. Paul never knew Jesus ‘the man’. The belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus, for Paul, was what he preached because that’s what saved people.