In my last post I began to enumerate the things that Paul said about Jesus.  *Most* of what he says about Jesus has to do with the significance of his death and resurrection.  But what if we wanted to know about the *life* of Jesus – the things that Jesus said, did, and experienced between his birth and his death?  Paul doesn’t tell us a ton, as has frequently been noted.  But he does tell us some.  In addition to what I laid out in the previous post, there are the following bits of information, again taken from my fuller analysis in Did Jesus Exist?

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Paul knows that Jesus was a teacher, because he quotes several of his sayings.  I will deal with these later [in my next post].  For now it is worth noting that two of the sayings of Jesus that Paul quotes were delivered, he tells us, at the Last Supper on the very night that Jesus was handed over to the authorities to face his fate.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was handed over took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it and said, “This is my body that is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  Likewise also the cup after supper, saying “this cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Do this, whenever you drink, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:22-24)

When Paul says that he “received” this tradition “from the Lord,” he appears to mean that

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