(16 votes, average: 4.88 out of 5)
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.
In considering this option, it is not adequate to claim that it can’t be right because
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Maybe:
1. We have lost gospels where he did tell more stories.
2. He liked to tell the stories in person.
3. He found that the resurrection and second coming was all people wanted to hear.
4. He knew others were telling this personal information at an adequate rate.
5. He did not want it to appear that his vision consisted of chit chat.
Perhaps there’s also an option 4. Paul did know lots of what Jesus said and he did reference his teachings, but he just didn’t explicitly credit them to Jesus in his letters. Maybe because they were well known teachings of Jesus that he assumed readers would know go back to him. Or perhaps he just didn’t care to credit him. For example the ethical teachings in Romans 13 and Romans 14.
Maybe also a 5th option, that he knew but just failed to reference them cause he failed to recall certain sayings. While Paul is clearly very fluent with the Torah, that was a written text that he had studied deeply. Probably nothing of Jesus sayings had been written down at the time Paul was writing though. So he would’ve just heard bits and pieces but oral sayings can be easy to forget.
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What about option three, but for different reasons. What if he did know and share everything there was to be known at the time. It seems he had opportunity to gain all information available from primary sources. He also seems to be the first literate christian of note. It seems likely that if there had been a grand gospel like that of mark to be received from Peter, Paul would have wrote it down. To have spent any amount of time with the Peter as he is portrayed in the gospels and not have gotten a lengthy tradition of Christ’s life seems almost rediculous. I think it seems more likely that the story of the gospels grew as the church did and any stories that grew and passed around that Paul had not heard directly from the apostles he did not consider truth and proclaim himself, but also would not have condemned if it was theologically compatable because it was furthering the spread of the gospel.
“To have spent any amount of time with the Peter as he is portrayed in the gospels and not have gotten a lengthy tradition of Christ’s life seems almost rediculous. ”
Made this point myself under the previous post. Truly bizarre lack of curiosity
“That is to say, what Jesus said and did prior to his death was of little relevance;”
To me, the problem with this is that without the backstory on Jesus, how could Paul convince so many people that “he died on the cross and that this brought about a right standing before God (as evidenced in his resurrection)”? After all, Jesus wasn’t a household name. So Paul shows up in a community, preaches about some dude named Jesus who was crucified and resurrected, and people go, like, “Whoa, I gotta get on this bandwagon!”
I just can’t make sense of Paul *not* knowing of and preaching the backstory, because he got such fabulous results from his traveling ministry.
Dr. Ehrman. It seems to me that the conversation between Pilate and Jesus in the Gospel of John was a Christological twist, and critique, of the Jews’ perception of the Lord as their own God.
Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance (…) the people of Israel belong to the LORD; Jacob is his special possession”
Therefore Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
Jesus answered, “Have others said that to you?”
Well, Jethro was told so.
Exodus 18: 1 “Now Jethro (…) heard of everything God had done for Moses and for his people Israel.”
The Christian twist was that Jesus was not only the King of the Jews, but He was the King of all believers. His kingdom was not on earth, as the Jews believed, but in heaven.
The Torah of the Jews did not describe a literal truth, but a spiritual truth, hidden in shadows and types. This was the truth Jesus was to reveal. In fact, Jesus was the truth itself.
Just to clarify what I’m saying.
Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 claims that the Lord’s property was only an earthly kingdom, and that Israel was His special possession.
This is the very core of Christianity’s critique of Judaism. The Lord’s possession was not an earthly kingdom, but rather a heavenly kingdom. Israel had forsaken the Lord – they wanted to return to Egypt. In this way it could be said that Christ was born under the law; i.e. in the Torah.
Therefore the Gentile Pilate asked: Are you the King of the Jews?
Jesus answered, “Have others told you that?”
Jethro recognizes that the Lord was not only the God of the Jews, but God the Most High.
Exodus 18:11 “Now I know that the Lord is great above all gods.”
A picture of the resurrection then takes place on the third day in Exodus 19, when heaven and earth met on Mount Sinai and the Lord descended.
The Israelites rejected the Lord when they left Egypt, just as they had previously rejected Joseph in Genesis. And just as Joseph rose as a new king over both the Jews and the Gentiles, so the Lord rose as God the Most High on Mount Sinai. A God not only for the Jews, but for all believers.
Yahweh, formerly the God of the Israelites, became a God for all who would believe.
Just as Joseph was recognized, but at the same time also condemned, by the Gentile Potiphera, so this story repeated itself before the Gentile Jethro.
In a form of Pesher, the stories were united and Jesus was thus a man of flesh and blood while he was true God at the same time.
Add to this all the prophecies that were quoted, and Jesus from the New Testament appears in shadows and types.
John 5: 46-47 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
Yes, it’s a twist but I’d say it didn’t start with the Christians. Second Isaiah (40-55) stresses that the salvation sent from the God of Israel will extent to all the nations, who will come to worship in Zion; Paul, for example, picked up on this theme and appears to have though that he himself was the “light to the nations” predicted to proclaim salvation to the non-Jews.
It seems to me that there is a missing option: that Paul did know details of Jesus’ ministry and death and did relate them to congregations in his letters, but that this information has been redacted. It seems unlikely that Paul only wrote seven letters of this kind, and some of the letters are thought to be mash-ups of two or more original letters, indicating editorial involvement.
So if details of Jesus’ life and sayings were removed from the Pauline letters that were copied and circulated, why would that be done? Perhaps the information about Jesus that Paul related did not align with orthodoxy?
That’s possible of course, but as with all theories there would need to be evidence, and I can’t think of any. There aren’t places that are unnecessarily abrupt, for example, tha tsuggest something was taken out.
From his authentic letters, we know quite a bit about Paul’s “inner person,” much more I think than we know about any early follower of Jesus? Can this knowledge give us any significant insight into the inner person of the historical Jesus? I’m thinking of things like them both being first century apocalyptic Jews? What effects, for example, did that have on their inner persons?
I”m afraid that we have no access to inner persons generally, and especially to inner persons living 2000 years ago for whom we have only minimal informatioun, and much of it not reliable. Psychoanalysis is difficult even with people we know well! When it comes to Jesus, we simply don’t have much if anythinng to go on, given how hard it is even to know what he actually said and did….
I’ve read all of your books for general audiences. I know you discuss a lot about Paul’s teachings. Do any of those books give a substantial portrait of Paul’s personality, his “inner person,” a psychological profile? I would guess we have much more raw material for Paul than for any other early follower of Jesus.
Has anyone else attempted to this in a reputable, scholarly way, even if it involves some speculation?
It would be all speculation, I’m afraid. But anyone who claims that he was an egomaniac, or insincere, or sexually oriented one way or the other, and so on would be engaged in that kind of speculation.
Related question: To your knowledge are there any references in either the writings of church fathers or other extracanonical books to alleged writings of Paul that we do not currently posses?
The letter to the Laodiceans and the letter to the Alexandrians are not extant; these were allegely Marcionite forgeries. We *do* have a letter ot the Laodiceans, but it’s not the Marcionite one. (I talk about it in my book Forgery and Counterforgery if you’re interesetd)
Is it possible that quite of few of Paul’s writings have not survived and if we had them they would reveal that Paul knew far more about Jesus than his surviving letters suggest? Furthermore, Luke wrote Acts and may have known Paul. He clearly knew a lot about Jesus and could have provided Paul with much of this information.
I think tons of his writings didn’t survive. And I don’t think the author of Luke-Acts did know Paul, though he certainly claims to. I discuss that in several of my books, e.g., Forged and, at greater length, Forgery and Counterforgery. If he really was Paul’s companion, as he implicitly claims in the “we” passaes of Acts, it’s odd that virtually every time he says something about Paul that Paul also talks about there are significant differences.
Assuming for argument’s sake that “Luke” really was Luke, companion of Paul, I would find it very strange if their accounts were identical. Luke would have been recounting events from decades prior, while Paul stood closer in time to them, and different parts of these stories would have stood out differently to the two men, bending memory around them. It really doesn’t strike me as at all “odd.”
I agree with that. I wouldn’t expect them to be exactly alike either. (But that’s not my argument!)
Perhaps related or relevant is what Paul says in Galatians 1, which I find very strange. Paul does not just say that he did not go to Jerusalem to meet the apostles (after he got his revelation). He insists and swears that he did not go to Jerusalem. Which is weird: would there have been anything wrong in going to meet the apostles at that time? Why does he assure the readers that even three years later he only met Cephas and James, what is the point?
Right! Why swear to it? The reason usually given is that Paul’s opponents in Galatia were saying that right after his alleged vision he made a beeline to Jerusalem, got his gospel from the original followers of Jesus, and then altered it according to his own wild views. He’s arguing, LOOK! I did NOT go to Jerusalem to meet with them, and when I did go it was to convince them of what Jesus told me directly, not to find out their own views.
Do you think “Render unto Caesar…” goes back to Jesus or was a later tradition?
I suspect it goes back to Jesus.
When scholars say that a quote or saying goes back to Jesus is the assertion that the exact quote in question contains the literal words of Jesus, or a more general “he probably taught his followers to pay taxes”, or perhaps a mix of both? Is there any scholarly process that can give insight into the literal words of Jesus or is the thought that at best we can only construct the general ideas he taught?
It completely depends. Sometimes they mean “word for word” and sometimes the mean “something pretty much like that,” etc. One big problem, of course, is that none of the words actually goes bcak to Jesus because you’re reading an English rendering of the Greek, whereas Jesus spoke in Aramaic. So he used Aramaic words.
Did many early Christian epistle writers spend much time on the sayings and deeds of Jesus?
When I think of Polycarp, Ignatius, Clement of Rome, and the epistles attributed to Peter, John, Jude, James, etc – what is striking is that we find very few quotations of Jesus, and next to nothing on his deeds.
Just off the top of my head, I think they are comparable in number to the instances where Paul cites Jesus’ sayings and deeds in his epistles.
Could this be a question of genre? In that, epistle writers generally avoided spending much time on Jesus’ sayings and deeds, as they left that to the Gospel writers and commentators?
Yup, I think it probably is! Few people even broach that issue though…. But it’s a good point.
The relevant parts of Jesus’ life were his teachings, his miracles and his death and resurrection. Obviously Paul saw the death and resurrection as of paramount importance. As for his teachings, Paul may have thought they were simply what you would expect from a divine teacher: live a moral life that is pleasing to God. Nothing really new there. As for the miracles (if those stories had developed in his time), Paul may have been wise enough to see the problem with accepting miracle stories that couldn’t be verified, so he stayed with the only miracle he thought he could personally attest to, and that was the only important miracle anyway: Jesus’ resurrection. So, regardless of how much he heard about Jesus from others, I think Paul may have discarded most of it in favor of what was essential for his mission. Kind of like listening to a long lecture and then you perk up when the professor says, “Now this will be on the final exam…”
Perhaps the apostles did tell him stories, but he disagreed with them. He seems to have had issues with them and their interpretations.
Another option: Paul knew a lot about what others said about Jesus’ like and sayings but did not fully trust these sources and therefore reported only those few things he though for some reason were utterly reliable.
He saw the others as possibly true but not necessary to report because he understood and communicated the important facts as he saw them.
Why distrust these sources? Well, because Jesus had needed to add him to the team of apostles, the others clearly being, therefore, inadequate in carrying out the tasks Jesus had set them.
Would not an easier explanation be that Paul simply didn’t *need* to write a lot of the background down? The Pauline epistles are obviously sent to various churches after they had already been well established – as such they seem to demonstrate finer theological points, or clarifications where Paul feels that the congregations were being led down the wrong path (by external or internal factors), and thus only points to specific issues as the need arises.
We “know” Paul spent time with various apostles (wether during his time in Jerusalem or on the road), so I feel pretty confident he would have had plenty of first hand understanding of various teachings. Or perhaps, simpler yet, Paul is simply the “first scribe” – writing down his own interpretation of the teachings (even if not word for word) that fit what he believed should be the theological point that is taken away.
A fourth option should be: some unknown combination of options 1-3. Seems to me all three have some merit. And in combination, that’s probably sufficient to explain why he doesn’t say more.
If Paul was the earliest Christian writer known to us and If he doesn’t relate the stories that later writers relate, the simplest explanation is that those stories hadn’t been made up yet.
I suppose the other issue is that he wasn’t writing a Gospel and so we might not expect him to be writing stories.
You’re right. Paul was more to the point.
I think Paul had to be familiar with a lot of Jesus’ sayings. He seems to teach a lot of them indirectly throughout his epistles.
1. Jesus will come as a “thief in the night”
2. Love is the greatest commandment
3. Apocalyptic teachings on the imminence of the end of the age
4. Judgment for our works at the end of the age
5. Kingdom of God
IMO, Paul didn’t cite Jesus directly most of the time, because he wanted to project himself as an apostle having a new and direct revelation from God. He may have avoided re-hashing what he heard from other disciples because he was simply insecure. His message was proprietary. He had direct access to God. He didn’t learn things from other disciples. He didn’t need their teachings. He had his own direct mission and access to Jesus. If this were true, Paul may have had an insecurity-ego issue going on.
Wow this resonates a lot. If you cite them then you show dependence on them and this can project a lack of confidence-also accidentally speaking wrong about Jesus might have exposed his ignorance
My sense is he didn’t know a lot of the teachings and history but he knew some. How could he not absorb some? Perhaps is it evidence that the historic Jesus was more so the Jewish Messiah who taught Jewish things to Jewish people and did not say a lot about Gentiles if anything. Therefore Paul being the Apostle to the Gentiles wouldn’t have a lot of material relevant to them except where it reinforced his salvation philosophy (Christ’s death and resurrection) or an occasion (such as Corinthian problems with the Eucharist meal) in his church communities where he could weave in the little he did know? He also may have held back some things he did know over concerns of Judaizing elements in his churches and to avoid misunderstanding of Gentiles having to keep the Torah? How’s that?
Possible! One has to consider all the options!
I suspect that Paul didn’t say much about the life, deeds, and words of Jesus because he thought that right was best reserved for the Apostles who witnessed these things during Christ’s ministry. He could hardly credibly represent himself as an expert on those matters since he didn’t witness them. But he could represent the significance and meaning of Christ’s death and alleged resurrection because he had the Old Testament background which he believed foreshadowed Jesus. What he did do and didn’t do hinged on establishing his credibility with his listeners.
If Paul never wrote lost letters in which he shares more about the life and teachings of Jesus, there are two other options:
Option Four: Since Paul is under the influence of a powerful mystical experience, his confirmation biais will lead him to only mention the teachings of Jesus that confirm his new worldview and ignore the teachings that contradict it;
Option Five: If the historical Jesus was not born of a virgin and did not perform supernatural miracles, his unembellished real life story was probably not that interesting. Beyond some possible acts of faith-healing, Jesus was just an apocalyptic preacher going around making end-is-nigh sermons that appealed to the marginalized and enraged the powers that be. What was there to talk about really? Probably not much.
Off-topic question: In the gospels, Jesus is often portrayed as being misunderstood by everybody including his closest disciples and his own family. Is it possible that these misunderstandings are fictions invented by the writers of the canonical gospels who are aware of and trying to discredit the stories told by Jewish Christians who knew the disciples and family of Jesus and therefore claimed to have been given a different yet more accurate understanding of Jesus?
Good question. The misunderstanding motif is only found in Mark, and it is widely thought that it is in fact a fiction, made up by Mark or his community. I’ve talked about it on the blog before — do a word search for Messianic Secret and you’ll see the posts.
Thank you. I finally finished reading some of your enlightening and entertaining posts about the Messianic Secret from 2019.
In the last one, you wrote: “For Wrede the early Christians in Mark’s community were trying to explain why they themselves thought Jesus was the messiah if there were no stories about Jesus during his life advertising the fact. Why wasn’t he known as the messiah while he was alive, if we think (if we know!) he is the messiah now? The secrecy motif explains it. It is a fictionalized aspect of the Jesus story. No one in Jesus’ own time knew that he was a messiah – Mark’s community explained – because he hushed it up. The hush up then becomes a central part of Mark’s own Gospel. It’s a non-historical idea. Didn’t really happen that way.”
Fascinating. Question: Do you think the Markan Christian community also felt compelled to create the myth of the Messianic Secret because their belief that Jesus was the Messiah rested solely on the unprovable and contestable claim that Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven, a claim highly contested by skeptical Jews and pagans?
Good question. But I don’t think the early Christians thought Jesus’ resurrection was unprovable. They had completely different standars of “proof” than we have, but to their satisfaction, the fact that he was seen by others was more than enough proof.
Option 2 sure sounds like modern day American Christianity.
I’m going to lean toward the options expressed above that Paul, writing in 50-60 CE, didn’t use Jesus-stories that appeared in the canonical gospels (70-90 CE) because they didn’t exist yet, or were in the early stage of creation in small communities that he didn’t connect with. That probably doesn’t explain the entire problem, but could well account for much of it.
Paul was not acquainted with Jesus before his death. There is no clear evidence that shows Paul and the disciples had talked a lot about Jesus’ words and deeds. Saying Paul knew a lot about Jesus’ words and deeds would be a pure guess. If he had access to such source as the Q, he must have thought that such source is not reliable. Otherwise, he surely would have written at least a dozen books, IMHO.
So Paul didn’t mention more about Jesus’ words and deeds because he was a person that would not carelessly take hearsay and use it to guide his converts .
In understanding the historical Paul, his letters may not represent his views. In the rare instance that I write a letter today, it is a very direct message to align the recipient’s understanding to my own. I use analogies that will sway the reader. Same for Paul. The author of the book(s) that follow the historical Paul (Acts for example) may have been witness to Paul’s use of Jesus’ ministry in his oratory but it was redundant with other books.
As Paul was moving quickly with the apocalypse clearly imminent, the death and resurrection was well enough to promulgate apocalyptic preaching. Much of Jesus’ words & deeds intertwined with mosaic law; gentiles wanted salvation, not to be enlightened Jews.
Paul’s credibility was based on his having seen the risen Jesus. Perhaps he refrained from more frequent references to Jesus’ teachings because to do so suggested that others (the disciples, others who heard Jesus in his lifetime) possessed a knowledge of God’s purpose that Paul could not claim for himself. Paul may have used those teachings that strengthened a point he was already making, but otherwise did not mention Jesus before the crucifixion because of the potential threat to his authority.
An alternate hypothesis further to option 3:-
The disciples believed that Jesus was Israel’s Messiah. His resurrection indicated that the apocalypse was imminent.
From his conversion experience, Paul believed that Jesus had revealed a secret to him: He was not just the Messiah but was actually the Son of God who had fulfilled ancient prophesies by sacrificing his life to atone for human sin. Only those who believed this, whether Jew or gentile, would be saved at the apocalypse. Paul’s task was to inform everyone else of this secret.
Disciples like James considered it ridiculous, even blasphemous, to suggest that their own brother was the Son of God and asked Paul to leave when he visited them. They thought that all of Paul’s converts should be circumcised.
Paul disdained the disciples and thought that his knowledge superseded theirs. They had not even realized Jesus’ true identity so their knowledge was incomplete. Paul was with them for a few weeks altogether so was ignorant of details about Jesus’ life, which in any case the disciples were reluctant to share with him. What Jesus had done during his temporary stay on earth was not crucial to Paul’s mission. His epistles are limited by his ignorance.
I would believe the same but as Ehrman points out
1) Paul quotes earlier hymns from Aramaic declaring Jesus to be the son of God, hymns that were clearly in circulation before he converted and made in Aramaic the original language not Greek. Paul clearly didn’t invent Jesus as divine son of God
2) It would be expected that Cephas and James would immediately start disagreeing with him about Jesus being the son of God before they fight over circumcision…the latter is a relatively small commandment to the first commandment!
I am not entirely sure myseld how 2 illiterate Aramaic jews could absorb the hellenized Jewish views of deification and so it is hard for me to really take in that Peter and James, knowing Christ in the flesh could have recognized him as a god. Not impossible of course as nothing is impossible.
1. It is not clear that the hymns quoted by Paul were in circulation before he converted.
None of Paul’s epistles date from less than 10 years after he converted which leaves plenty of time for one of Paul’s followers to have composed these passages. In particular, Philippians 2: 5-11, which is often cited as evidence, was not written until the late 50’s so at least 20 years after Paul’s conversion.
2. From Paul’s account in Galatians 1: 18-22 of his first meeting with the disciples:
Why did he only stay for 15 days? Only meet Peter and James? Go straight back to Syria instead of visiting churches in Judea?
It does not sound as if he was welcomed enthusiastically.
A more detailed account of his reception, which paints an altogether more antagonistic picture and
explains what is missing from Paul’s version is given in Acts 9: 26-30.
Only Peter and James were willing to meet him.
He made himself so unwelcome that the disciples put him on a boat to get rid of him.
explains what
Here, Dr. Ehrman is pointing out an inconsistency between Paul’s focus, and the focus on the oral tradition of Jesus’s sayings exhibited in Matt and Luke, or on what Jesus did (as in Mark). I think option 3 is correct. Consider Galatians 1. Paul is essentially boasting here that he didn’t need to be “taught” the gospel by anyone; in fact, he didn’t even go meet up with the apostles until after he had been preaching for 3 years. He says this is because he had been taught it by revelation, without anyone else needing to teach him.
Well, I bet if something is learned by “revelation”, it’s a bit different than something learned by first-hand experience. Check out 1 Corinthians 1:12, also 1 Corinthians 3. Here, it’s stated that people were breaking into factions on the basis of whose teachings they espoused. So, the question becomes, how much of what Paul said actually reflects something Peter or the other apostles would’ve said or thought? Like all you have to do is believe Jesus was resurrected, and you’ll be saved (Romans 10:12)? I bet he was the odd cat in the apostolic litter. Anyway, that’s my two cents. Any thoughts?
I’d LOVE to know how much they actually agreed and disagreed, and wish there was some more solid information!
Maybe it is useful in challenging traditional views, & shake up the squares. I can see it in a college course. But is it REALLY THAT strange? More than a “You know, he never mentions any Miracle stuff. Huh.” Does anyone seriously doubt that Jesus was known as a miracle man in/after his lifetime and Paul knew that?
And you gentle reader say “Well, he doesn’t say that.” And from that we extrapolate that Paul didn’t know/care? OR is it that he cared that the Corinthians were screwing each other silly in Church and he had no reason to sidetalk about Jesus healing a deaf man in the Decapolis?
Weren’t his letters meant to be about specific issues in the Churches he founded or, in the case of Romans, that he was coming to, and written to address specific issues? He wasn’t writing history. He wasn’t writing his full theology or preaching – we can glean clues as to what he taught from the Letters, but we know there was more.
Paul doesn’t talk about where he comes from, his parents, occupation, sister or the Emperor. Would we make the case that he didn’t know them/didn’t care about them?
The issue, I suppose, is whether he had any reason to discuss, say, the life of his sister. And any reason to discuss the life of Jesus. If the answer is No, or Yes, in both cases, that wold probably be significant to know.
In Pauline theology, “Christ / anointed” is none other than the dead (in our case, God-given) Son. This idea seems to be confirmed when Paul says that “Christ is become a curse,” for “cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” By this, Paul is referring to Deuteronomy 21: 22-23.
The “cross of Christ,” the scandal of the cross, was not that the “anointed / Christ / messiah” died, (the image of the dying messiah was an existing idea among the Jewish intelligentsia, it would not have been scandalous), but that the “anointed / Christ” became cursed, enduring the curse of the law. Paul is the “cross of Christ” because it is not the place of death but of the curse.
I think we definitely need to give up the view that Paul is talking about crucifixion. He talks about hanging a dead body (the dead boy, or the anointed boy), nailing it to a tree.
Option (4) Paul had a chip on his shoulder when it came to the “super-apostles”. They had met Jesus in person but he had revelations from the risen christ. In order to talk about the lessons from Jesus’s earthly life Paul would need to rely on the teaching of these super-apostles which he didnt like to do, it lessened his own authority. They could teach the new converts about the earthly Jesus and he would teach them from his own received gospel.
I’m inclined towards option 1 from the last post, that his followers already knew and he wasn’t going to waste good parchment and time repeating the lessons, with a bit of option 2 thrown in—specifically, that the reason he missed opportunities to specifically quote Jesus at certain points was that he found Jesus actual words from Q less important than his own teachings. But who knows.
Options 2 and 3 both require that Paul was taking Christianity in a somewhat different direction. But he received instruction from those that went before him and he met the pillars of the Jerusalem church. We know there were differences around circumcision etc., but what if we assume Paul’s teaching was largely representative of the wider movement. What if they were all focused on the (apparent) resurrection as this was the central fact and there wasn’t much more to say? Could it be that the stories of Jesus’ life and teaching were largely invented after Paul’s mission. After all, we know this happened to a larger or lesser extent e.g. miracle and childhood stories. What do you reckon Bart? Has anyone developed this idea?
Yup, that’s possible. But the issue has to be that someone was telling a lot of stores about Jesus — in fact a lot of someones were — and since some of the stories do appear to be historical, it must have been his own followers who started them.
Is it possible Paul thinks he’s carving out a special place for himself as THE GUY who knows was the “resurrection to God” is all about? Its a huge horror for Christ to have been crucified-dont worry guys, I Paul the specially chosen apostle have the perfect explanation-its all part of the plan!
In this way he stands apart. Peter(or “Cephas” and James) may be the big experts on Jesus while alive sure. Got no competition there
But they have nothing on me when it comes to his death. I got the big kahuna-revelation from our Lord Jesus the son of God AFTER he conquered sin and death! Me the least of apostles, but AHEM, clearly the most important. They tell you what he said and did and I tell you how you are saved.
Paul is marking the most important part of the gospel out for himself. Man has the ego of a mountain.
We theorize as to why Paul seems to skip over the lessons taught about Jesus life in the Gospels but we must look at Paul’s personal ministry objectives and the timeline of his letters. Unlike the writer of Luke/Acts, Paul does not set out to give a “more accurate” account of what other writers of the gospels had written.
True, at the time of Paul’s seemingly miraculous conversion, the stories of the Jewish Messiah were in circulation but they would have been oral, especially at this early date. Paul would have certainly been aware of many of these stories of the signs and miracles of Jesus. In his great vision on the road he would certainly have known who asked him the question, “why do you persecute me”.
When writing to the Colossians, a group of believers he had never met in person, he is quick to acknowledge their acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus. Knowing they were already aware of the “good news”, he did not set about to teach them about Christ but instead wrote to encourage this group for their good deeds. He simply had no cause to rehash what he was aware they already knew about Jesus.
Then there’s the time frame of New Testament writings. Mark’s gospel would not come about until around AD 70, long after Paul’s time. This of course would be true of the other Synoptics and then John’s writing even much later. So, as far as we are aware, the words and miracles of Jesus would have come down through oral tradition, something not uncommon to a population that had a very small number of those who could read or write.
In Acts, when Paul returns to Jerusalem he is met with great skepticism. The leaders demonstrate that Jewish laws and customs are still strong in the Christian church at Jerusalem. He must present himself to the Temple Priest and be made ceremonial clean before he can give his account before the Christians in Jerusalem.
This says something about our understanding of Paul and his plight with what was then orthodox Christianity. The idea of a fully Jewish messiah may not have been popular with his Gentile audience the same as his problem before the Christian church made up of Jews in Jerusalem. Maybe the less said about a Jewish Jesus was more profitable to his Greek speaking followers. Just a thought…
Thanks. For me as a historian, I’m always interested in the evidence for a view — e.g., that Paul’s audiences already knew a lot about Jesus. It sure seems to make sense to us, but I like to see if there’s any evidence that would make us think so, apart from it seeming sensible….
My believe is that most ppl back then wanted to please their gods (as still today) Even if they didn’t feel condemned, they still had the need to, it was rooted in their culture. They needed to keep their gods happy, otherwise they would receive their wrath. With many offerings to their gods they felt like never satisfying them. And when Paul showed up taking about Jesus and that there was no more need for that and just accept Jesus in your heart (as today’s gospel) every one felt relief and accepted this new god and teaching. Idk. Just a stupid thought!
I often wonder if Paul co-opted Christian religion out of a personal need for importance. As a result the life of Jesus was not important to him.
It’s worth thinking about. One counter-argument is that his religious “invention” in this case made his life miserable in most ways, as he was everywhere rejected, usually hungry, beaten up, flogged, stoned, and so on. So maybe he was a masochist, but I’m not sure there’s much to suggest that. It’s impossible to get inside someone’s head from antiqutiy, of course; it’s almost impossible to do it with peole we actually know….
Maybe he was not hungry, beaten up, flogged, stoned, and so on and he just said those things to make people see “how committed to his message he was.”
Sure, it’s easy to doubt everything! Think: Descartes! My view is that it’s worth trying to doubt everything but then also worth seeing when and why there is a reason to do so.
In 2 Cor 11:16-33, Paul makes it so easy to doubt. If someone talked like this today, we would say, “Yeah, right!” Paul’s bragging is to the point of being unbelievable. He is exaggerating to build himself up to his readers. They must have expressed some doubt in him. In regards to saying he was stoned, isn’t the purpose of stoning death? How many times do groups stone someone but stop before the person is dead?
Why would the king and governor of Damascus want to seize Paul? Would they think that preaching about a crucified messiah to be offensive? Or is this another doubtful bragging point?
And then there is 2 Cor 12! How many Corinthians believed this one? How convenient for Paul that “…and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.” He wasn’t permitted to talk about the experience! I am guessing that Paul had many doubters in his day.
In economics, the primary explanatory driver is the idea of the economic man making choices that maximize his interests subject to real world constraints. Adam Smith, in his book The Wealth of Nations, devoted a chapter applying this model to missionaries in Africa, interpreting the hardships that the missionaries wrote about in their letters to their congregations back in England as natural exaggerations to encourage more donations. Similar deductions could be made applying this model to Paul’s letters. It’s not really a question about whether the model is “true”, but whether it fits the data and has explanatory power. A good model for the emergence of a religion should fit what we know about multiple religions, not just one.
Paul’s letters show that he was a highly articulate writer and a deep thinker, which means he must have been a very smart person, one of the gifted of Antiquity. Given this persona, Paul must have known a lot more about Jesus than what is revealed in his known letters.
Once Paul converted, he must have sought out other Christians and talked to them, including Christians who had known Jesus directly, because this would be the normal thing to do under the circumstances. It is hard to imagine any such conversations not including an inquiry from Paul about what Jesus was like and what Jesus did. This is also a normal response from someone who suddenly realizes that he has been seriously wrong in the past to persecute Christians, to try to understand where he went wrong.
However, Paul may have encountered a problem that may have already started and that would grow over time: conflicting stories. This may have troubled him and caused him to focus his writings more on theology than biography. He may have thought why bother with clearing up inconsistencies in biographical details when Jesus would be coming back soon to make everything right anyway.
Further to my earlier comment, I have to say that the Mythicists’ argument, i.e. that Paul made it all up and others added further fictitious details later, probably makes the most sense, given the evidence we have. It at least has the advantage of simplicity. Our case either has to rely on missing letters (and we don’t know what they said) or convoluted arguments about why Paul didn’t know more about Jesus or why he didn’t say more. I’m afraid to say that I envy the Mythicists on this one even though I don’t agree with them.
I”m not sure why that’s the simplest argument? Is there any evidence, for example, to suggest Paul wsa making it up? Anythinng else that we could show that he makes up?
I suppose the argument can be classed as simple if one doesn’t go beyond thinking that Paul made it all up (it’s not entirely implausible; according to some historians Joseph Smith and others may have ‘created’ the Book of Mormon’. In the ancient world, Xenophon very likely exaggerated his own importance in the Anabasis). However, when one asks why should Paul have made it up, then the argument loses its simplicity, which is why I prefer your thesis.
One point appears certain to me. At the time he wrote his letters he had travelled widely and had meetings with hundreds of Christians and had heard all the stories that later surfaced in the canonical gospels, or their foundations.
So, the question is why he did not use it very much. My question to Dr. Ehrman is then: May be that would have made him a mouthpiece of the original disciples and apostles, and thus diminished his apostolic autority? What if he got a follow-up question that only let’s say Peter could answer.
Sticking to his intellectual theology he remained a superior master?
I guess the problem is that he is not spending his time with established Christian churches but on the mission field in places there were no Christians. Since he says that all he was interested in, e.g., in converting teh Corinthians was “Christ and him crucified” (not his miracles and teachings), I’d say it’s more likely that it just wasn’t his concern.
I think tcdc’s post gets to the heart of things.
In general ancient literature shows that there was a hunger/market for stories about spiritual figures and leaders. Lots of them, we acknowledge, were invented (e.g. stories about philosophers), but they were invented to satisfy the desires of a “market.” If Paul was going around preaching about a real guy, why is there little or no evidence in his letters that reflects/answers to a desire of his listeners to learn about this holy man in whom they are to put their faith?
On the other hand, if Jesus was presented by Paul as a god figure who came down from heaven, then Paul’s Jesus would need little or no backstory bio. We don’t have records of detailed biographies of Dionysos or Mithras or other god figures because they were presented from the beginning, as far as we know, as gods.
I would be a “mythicist” except for “born of woman, born under the law” and “died for our sins and was buried.” As it is, I become increasingly uncomfortable with attempts to shore up a historical Jesus. So at this point I have no clue.
There is another option: Paul knew Jesus’ core message and wanted to hide it. He did that in two ways, 1) by not quoting Jesus, and 2) by inventing his own faith-based religion.
THE EVIDENCE: In Acts 9:1-2, we learn that Paul persecuted people on Jesus’ “Way.” Paul was threatened by this “Way;” so he had to know what Jesus said about it and how people practiced it.
In my book, The Gospel of Thomas: The Original 21-Chapter Poetic Arrangement, I present 20 arguments that Jesus composed Thomas and in it explained the nature of his “Way.”
His “Way” was this: Make dogma less important than revealing your own answers through third-ear “listening” and third-eye seeing. In Thomas, Jesus repeats a saying 7 times: “He who has his ear to listen, let him listen.” He never uses the words “faith,” “belief,” or “believe.”
Paul knew that this “kingdom” “Way” of living would replace faith-based religion and indoctrinating leaders. As a controlling cleric, he may have thought that liberated people would do evil things. So, he invented his own dogma-based “gospel,” claimed that he got it from the Lord, and set about hiding Jesus’ revolutionary message.
Regardless of how much he new about the life of Jesus, 1Galatians gives a good indication of why he didn’t write about it. Paul relates that the Gospel he preaches came to him directly from the risen Jesus. He could preach authoritatively only upon this, and he evidently thought that’s all he needed, since he didn’t go to Jerusalem for 14 years.
I am thinking that the nature of his letters may play a part in this. They are not general treatises on Jesus. They are Paul’s responses to specific church problems and questions. So if Paul included something about Jesus it would be applicable to one of those problems/questions. To the extent that there are Jesus sayings/deeds that are applicable to the letters, maybe the sayings/deeds were invented after the writing of the letters or not known to Paul, i.e. it is not like he had Google where he could look Jesus quotes/deeds when needed to make a point in his letters. He only used the Jesus sayings/deeds that we was aware of and were applicable to his letters.
My option is :
The revolutionary anti roman historical palestinian Jesus was too dangerous to preach in the fully integrated-into-the-roman-empire provinces of Macedonia,Acahaia and Asia.
Just an example, Paul is cryptical about why Jesus was crucified and the gospel version of the disturbances in the temple is clearly a cover up .
Paul’s silence is partly ignorance and partly convenience.
Simply put, Paul did not meet the historical Jesus, he had a vision of Jesus. Yogananda, who wrote The Autobiography of A Yogi, did not meet the historical Krishna, he had a vision of Him.
The fourth-century Saint Anthony said, simply: “I have seen him!”
The bond between a master and disciple is different than ordinary relationships. Here the emphasis is teaching the disciple the effort to hasten spiritual advancement. Paul said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:” 2 Ti 4:7.
Paul also said, “I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.” 1Co 15:31. Paul experienced breathlessness.
The spiritual yoga tradition teaches how to achieve to the “Christ Consciousness” like Jesus. To attain this one must attain samadhi – become breathless. St. Paul’s statement above points to the fact he experienced samadhi daily. To people who see one in samadhi, it appears that the yogi has died because they are not breathing. Swami Rama demonstrated many yogic abilities, “miracles”, at the Menninger Foundation. Swami Rama: Voluntary Control Over Involuntary States htps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv_D3ATDvVE
Maybe the reason for Paul not telling more about the life and deeds of Jesus as recorded on the Gospels was that the gospels were actually written later than Paul’s letters. Paul’s letters seem to be the earliest written documents from the times of early Christianity. Am I right?
The gospels were composed later than Pauls Letters from various oral and probably differing written stories of what had happened and what was said by Jesus several decades earlier. Even the Acts was written after Paul had written his letters.
The gospels would be an answer to the great need of converted christians asking what did Jesus actually say, what did he do. After all, the first Chrisians were not converted by the text of the gospel.
So, maybe the stories recorded in the gospels did not actually exist in their current form when Paul was converting pagans to believe in crucified Messiah and imminent coming of the Son of God.
Is there any research of the possible influence of Paul’s teaching on the content of the Gospels? Anyway the Gospel of Luke and Acts must have been influenced by Paul’s letters.
Yes, it’s ture that Paul couldn’t quote the Gospels, since they didn’t exist yet. But the question is why he doesn’t show any evidence of knowing much about the life of JEsus. (The Gospel writers are repeating stories they’ve heard; had Paul heard of them?)
So Paul does say in I Cor 2:
2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (NRSV)
At first blush made me think that Paul didn’t care much about Jesus life except his crucifixion.
Another option? (Or a variation?)
Paul goes out of his way on occasion to declare that he learned directly from Christ, NOT from other apostles.
I take this to mean that whatever his world-view-changing experience was, it led him to study Scripture in its light and develop/expound his theology.
So stories from other apostles (or anyone else) about the historical experiences of the earthly Jesus are unimportant because they are not this special, Pauline “direct channel” to knowledge of Christ.
He seems to honor Peter and James for their own direct channels (presumably earthly experience with Jesus), but he has no desire to rely on a derivation of their reportage when his own is so important for him to distinguish as “direct”.
I think some of the teaching that is common between Paul and the gospels come from Paul. Mark uses Paul as one of his primary sources and the others use Mark. They automatically assume that Jesus said or did since it came from Paul and this it is ascribed to Jesus. So, it is not necessarily the teaching of Jesus, but it is rather a teaching found in the Jewish scripture for the most part and passed on by Paul.
I think there are too many differences between Paul and mark to assume this
Parts of Galatians and 2 Corinthians leads me to believe there were significant conflicts between the “gospel” of Paul and the “gospel” of some of those who had known Jesus in person. One can only imagine that Paul’s opponents would have said something like “I knew Jesus, and this is what he taught”, against which Paul could only claim that his own knowledge of Jesus (through visions) was equal to or superior to his opponents’ knowledge (through person-to-person contact). I’d expect that Paul would naturally want to downplay the importance of knowing what Jesus said and did on Earth, not just because they were irrelevant, but because in that arena he would have seemed inferior to his opponents. When the topic of the earthly words and deed of Jesus came up, Paul might want to mention it as briefly as possible so as to get to the important bits — those bits he could be seen as an expert in.
Could this be why Paul says so little about Jesus’s career before the Resurrection?
Yup, I”d say that’s an option.
Hey Dr. Ehrman, while discussing Jesus Apocalyptic Prophet, we were talking about the possibility that the idea of the Kingdom of God coming within Jesus’ lifetime does not emanate from him. The logic being that in the earliest Christian writings(Paul), people don’t think this because of anything Jesus said, rather because they thought Jesus’ resurrection signaled the start of the resurrection. So sayings of Jesus also preaching this could have developed as stories about him circulated.
Also, when speaking on the topic, Paul never refers back to Jesus teaching such a concept. His congregants are also clearly unaware of such sayings of Jesus. Perhaps this is another instance of him not knowing/caring about what Jesus said, but the point remains that Christians came to believe this independent of Jesus.
You’d pointed to Mark 8:34-38 and Mark 9:1 to show an example where it’s hard to argue against Jesus teaching this. However, these appear to be independent quotes. Mark 9:1 isn’t connected with Mark 8:34. Mark 9:1 begins with “And he said”, implying that it’s another saying Mark knows of. M9:1 sounds exactly like something believers would’ve put on Jesus’ lips when passing around stories about him. What do you think?
I’m not following the reason for some of this? Paul doesn’t say that Jesus said any such thing because, as you know, he doesn’t say what Jesus himself said about most anything. I don’t think that’s evidence Jesus didn’t talk about the coming kingdom to appear in his lifetime. One has to evaluate the sayings based on historical criteria, rather than on whether others later attributed the sayings to him. And I”m not sure what the logic is that would suggest that Mark 9:1 doesn’t belong with what preceded it? But in any even, 8:34 most almost certainly be a saying put later on JEsus’ lips, since it presupposed he will be crucified Mark 8:38-9:1 are very different in character.
To clarify, I’m not saying that Paul lacking mention of Jesus saying the kingdom will appear within his lifetime means that Jesus didn’t teach this. I’m saying that in our earliest text, the reasoning for the imminent end derives from Jesus’ resurrection. To put it another way, since Jesus didn’t preach that him being raised from the dead would signal the end of the age, the idea of an imminent end was formulated independently of what Jesus did or didn’t say on the matter. So I think it follows that we can expect these same early Christians to start circulating stories where Jesus is also preaching of the imminent end.
As for Mark 9:1, I’m saying that 9:1 appears as an independent quote. It isn’t intermixed within him speaking of the son of man in the preceding passage. If Mark 8:38 said something like “Those who are ashamed of me, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of when he comes before we taste death”, then they can’t be separated. As it appears though, 9:1 *could* just be an addition based on Christian belief that the end was imminent (which they believed due to his resurrection).
Yes, Paul living and writing after Jesus was convinced that the resurrection showed the end is near. As a Pharisee, he probably thought it was coming near before he came to believe in the resurrection. That’s what Jesus himself thought, as did John the Baptist before him, and the Essenes, and Jesus’ own disciples apparently, and so on. (The methodological point is that just because Paul is writing before the Gospels, so that his texts are necessarily the earliest, that doesn’t mean that the logic he uses is the originating logic).
I don’t think there would be any reason to suspect that 8:38 and 9:1 were not spoken in the same breath if Bible translators had not put a chapter division between them. They flow well together.
Yes, all of these groups/individuals believed the end was fast approaching, but thinking it will happen within his[Jesus] own lifetime is what I’m questioning. Since we don’t have John’s or Jesus’ writings, we can only attempt to know what they said using developed criteria(multiplicity/dissimilarity/context), but it seems like the first two don’t necessarily apply.
I’m questioning the case of dissimilarity because Christians already believed the end would happen within their generation for reasons unrelated to what Jesus said prior to Mark being written. Lacking writings Jesus’ disciples, it’s unknown what they thought. So why would these sayings be dissimilar to what Christians were already saying? Multiple attestation also appears to be missing because in Q&L, Jesus has a sense of urgency but the time is “unknown”, not “this generation”.
With Mark 9:1, I’m saying that the passage from Mark 8:38 to Mark 9:1 isn’t as you have quoted it in your book. It seems significant that 9:1 begins with a breaking note from Mark. Mark writes “And he[Jesus] said ‘…'”. So, at least to me, it’s like Mark is saying here’s *another* thing Jesus said.
Sorry to pester you, it’s just a bit fascinating to think about.
I don’t see the break. Sorry! But I really think if you didn’t see a chpater break, you wouldn’t see it either!
Dr. Ehrman-
This is a pretty broad and unrelated question. Do you have any recommendations for commentaries on the individual gospels that deal primarily with the historic questions? I.e discussion of authorship, the historicity of stories or sayings, these gospels relationships to their original churches not more modern interpretation.
It depends how scholarly you want them to be. For me, the go-to’s (to pick a single one for each) are W.D. Davies and Dale Allison for Matthew; Joel Marcus (on the blog!) for Mark; Fitzmyer for Luke; and Raymond Brown for John.
I’m trying to see this from Paul’s point of view: I’m a (believing) jew. I believe the end is near and I have been tasked with saving as many gentiles as possible in a likely very short period of time. How do the details / teachings / sayings of Jesus help me do that? Seems to me the biggest challenge for me is to convince people that the “story” of the Jews is true, that the death and resurrection of Jesus kicked off the end game and believing in him is the only way to “escape the wrath to come”. If that is the case the details about Jesus are really not that important, other than his death / resurrection, I have bigger fish to fry … thoughts?
I think it’s a plausible positoin, one of the strongeest optoins.
I have an option that may sound a bit cynical but I think the clues are there to support it albeit speculitivly
Paul seems to have an independent streak that drove him to be the primary voice and authority among his church plants. He had his own franchise if you will. He didnt build on anyone elses foundation. He explicitly set his ministry and message apart from the other Apostles. He didnt get his gospel from the 12 “so called apostles” you know, that might have put him under thier authority. He got his gospel directly from Jesus himself. When it comes to the words of Christ, Paul was quite happy hearing directly from Christ on a daily basis. He beleived most of what he wrote was coming from Jesus to the churches through him.
Let’s say Paul was lacking first hand knowledge of Jesus words and deeds. Why wouldnt a man so in love with Jesus not sit at the feet of the Apostles and spend some significant time learning all he could?
Further, Why would Jesus spend 3 years training 12 witnesses who go to the utter most parts of the earth, only to be supplanted by Paul?
What was meant by “(but see Box 4 in Chapter 19)”? It’s not linked or referenced.
Ah, sorry — that was a note in my book chapter, a cross reference to another part of the book; I meant to take it out.
Dr. Ehrman,
I was reading a commentary and found this, do you agree with this position?
“To reveal his Son in me” (Gal. 1:16) is variously understood by the commentators, but it is clear that the general tenor of the passage involves getting the message in order to transmit it. The Son must be revealed in the innermost being so the Son may be revealed through the apostle to the Gentiles.”
Yup.
L. Ron Hubbard is quoted as saying, “the only way to make a million dollars was to form your own religion.” I’m not saying the gospels are sci-fi writing, I’m questioning motivation. If the focus of discussions when Paul and the other disciples got together were not focused on Jesus, would there have been a worldly benefit to focus on starting churches and establishing a religion about Jesus instead of writing down as accurately as possible the religion Jesus taught you and practiced alongside you? Were all the disciples fit to be evangelist? Was Paul a good disciples? Or just the most successful evangelist?
It’s on odd thing to say. So far as we can tell from the historical record, they all died in penury. We don’t know which if any of them were “successful” (which, unlike for Hubbard, did not mean making money but making converts). Paul was, but of course he wasn’t one of the original disciples.
I was raised in a strict fundamentalist sect wherein the theology is pretty much in line with Option 2. They deemphasize the birth and life of Jesus and even the miracles he performed. They closely follow Paul’s writings and have no Christmas or special Easter celebrations, considering them too “worldly.” The focus is almost entirely on the death and resurrection and the need for sinful mankind to personally embrace this concept for salvation. Whether or not all this actually reflects Paul’s thought process is another matter of course.
Which sect?
The Gospel Hall. Wikipedia has a description of it which is pretty much spot on based on my experience. It originated in the U.K. and Ireland in the mid-19th century and eventually spread to the U.S. and Canada and elsewhere to a lesser extent. There are a number of them scattered throughout the U.S.
I apologize. It was a midnight thought that I should have slept on before submitting. Rereading it, I see just how odd it is. I didn’t mean to derail the conversation. I’m sorry.
I have made an in-depth reply to this article and the related one preceding it:
Paul’s “Neglect” of the Life of Jesus
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2022/03/ehrman-errors-4-pauls-neglect-of-the-life-of-jesus.html
Excerpts:
There were certainly very strong oral traditions out and about, by this time, some twenty or more years after the crucifixion. All are agreed on that. Paul assumes that his readers already have this knowledge (Ephesians 4:20-21 [RSV], Colossians 1:4-5, 1 Thessalonians 5:2 [Lk 12:39] )
He demonstrates almost exact familiarity with either a Gospel or a tradition that was behind the story of the Gospels:
Acts 13:24-25 [Mt 3:11; Mk 1:7; Jn 1:15, 30] (cf. Acts 19:4)
Romans 2:1 [Mt 7:1-2; Lk 6:37]
Romans 12:14 [Mt 5:44]
Romans 13:7 [Mt 22:21; Mk 12:17; Lk 20:25]
1 Corinthians 11:23-25 [Lk 22:19-20]
1 Corinthians 15:36 [Jn 12:24]
Ephesians 5:8 [Jn 12:35-36] (cf. Lk 16:8; 1 Thess 5:4-5)
1 Thessalonians 1:7 [Mt 25:31] (cf. 1 Thess 4:16-17)
He cites a tradition about Jesus that is not in the Gospels (but arguably is, by logical extension, in thought):
Acts 20:35. He cites something else that isn’t found in the Bible (1 Corinthians 9:10)
Moreover, Luke was Paul’s companion and doctor (Col 4:14; 2 Tim 4:11; Phlm 1:24). And he was writing a partial account of Paul’s own life (Acts 1:1-5; cf. Lk 1:1-4).
Dr Ehrman,
Do you think that Paul really studied with Gamaliel? If so, why do you think that there is not mention in Gamaliel writings about the historical Jesus that did miracles in Jerusalem? No mention about the apostles nor the appearances or even the Pentecost day and the speech of peter. Would that be because those things did not really happen or if they did, they did only among a few people and were not as wide-spread as described?
No, I don’t. I think the author of Acts is elevating his status and standing. Paul shows no evidence of studying in Jerusalem, of knowing any high level Jewish teachers, or even knowing Aramaic.
So, do you think his first language was Greek? Also, do think that when he days that he was educated by Gamaliel in Jerusalem is a later addition or that he was really had contact with Gamaliel?
Yes, Paul was almost certainly a native Greek speaker. And he doesn’t say anything about being educated in Jerusalem by Gamaliel. That is Luke’s claim in the book of Acts.