I have pointed out that the information provided us by Paul shows that he, at least, understood Jesus to have been a real flesh-and-blood human being (even while acknowledging that he was also a divine being).  He really was born, was a Jew, had brothers, and so on.   The reason all this matters is that many Mythicists claim that Paul thought no such thing, that for him Christ was a cosmic being, not a human being, and that he had been crucified in outer space by demonic powers.   I don’t think a careful reading of Paul could lead to those conclusions.

There are two things in particular that Paul says that make it virtually impossible for me to ascribe to a Mythicist view.  The first (I’ll deal with the second in later posts) is the fact that Paul actually knew at least a couple of Jesus’ earthly disciples, Peter and John the son of Zebedee, and even more impressive, his brother James.

There can be no doubt about that.  Paul himself describes two meeting he had with these companions of Jesus in Jerusalem.  His discussion of these meetings is not designed to demonstrate that these people existed.  He is assuming that everyone knows they existed.  And it is not in order to argue a point that “I really, really, truly DID MEET with these people.”  He is actually trying to make a completely other point and he reluctantly concedes, when making the point, that he did meet with them, twice.

Here’s the situation.  In his letter to the Galatians Paul…

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