Why did Paul have his visions?
What is the source of his Resurrection-of-Jesus claim?
But if not and he did none of those acts, then it's impossible to explain what caused this new Jesus "Messiah" cult to take hold, why the "Gospels" were written, why Jesus became "Savior" and "King of the Jews" etc.
Perhaps it's because Paul had visions, which confirmed what he read in the Jewish scriptures.
But why would Paul's subjective visions cause anyone to believe Jesus did miracles or resurrected after he was killed? How could Paul's visions be the beginning of the Resurrection belief? long after that Resurrection belief was already held by the earliest Christ followers? Paul's visions could not possibly be the beginning of the Resurrection idea, somehow causing it.
No, the "cause-and-effect" is in the reverse order: It's because Jesus resurrected that then Paul got his ideas about the risen Christ and had visions, and also why he then looked for ways to explain Jesus as fulfilling Jewish scripture. The fact of Jesus doing those things came first, and then in order to explain those facts, Paul and other believers looked for prophecies in Jewish scripture to explain the Jesus facts.
That's why he said things like:
“Am I not an apostle? Did I not see Jesus our Lord?” (Not in the flesh, he didn't.)
But he knew about the Resurrection already, before he had that vision. He had earlier persecuted Christians, knowing of their belief that Jesus resurrected, or knowing of this reported event, which he did not believe at first but later did believe. So his first knowledge of the Resurrection was not his vision, but what he had heard of this event, from those who had witnessed it, as he reports this in I Corinthians 15:3-7. So it's not his vision which caused the faith of those early Jesus believers, but rather their experience and reports of the Resurrection which caused Paul to become a believer and have the visions.
"The mystery about Christ, which in former generations was not revealed to men" (LIke the disciples?)
"The mystery about Christ...is now disclosed to dedicated apostles and prophets through the Spirit." (By divine revelation, not by swapping stories about a Jewish carpenter.)
OK, so Paul is making mystical claims about the risen Christ, which he is disclosing to someone. But this "mystery" is not the claim about the Resurrection event being now disclosed by Paul to someone who hadn't heard of it before. No, these listeners/readers already knew of this event and Paul is now disclosing something mystical about it, through the "Spirit" -- so he's claiming some special revelation. But that doesn't mean they didn't already know of the Resurrection event, which is the same event the earlier Christians already believed, before Paul's conversion, and before his vision.
It's true that Paul makes his special vision an argument for the Resurrection. But it's obvious that this event was already believed by many of them earlier, long before Paul's vision. He's probably mistaken to attach so much importance to his own personal vision, when he had that conversion experience. He says himself clearly that the ones he persecuted earlier were already believers, meaning believers in the Resurrection, long before he had that vision.
It explains why, when talking about Jesus, Paul never writes that he is "coming again" or "returning."
Maybe it's true that Paul de-emphasizes the Jesus who had already been present. Although there are very few verses which do use this "coming again" or "returning" language.
I'm not at this point doing the full research immediately on this "return" language. But I just looked up one famous "return" text, that of Acts 1:11:
10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,
11 and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven,
will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
But many translations say he
"will return" rather than "will come," and the correct wording is "will come" and not "will return" -- at least for this one text, which is the one which stands out in my mind as the most famous.
So perhaps the "return" language is never used in the NT (in reference to the 2nd Coming). Not only by Paul, but by any of the NT writers. If so, then there's nothing significant about Paul's use of only the "coming" language rather than the "returning" language.
He only refers to Jesus "coming" to Earth, or "will come", which is exactly the verbiage one would use if Christ never set foot on earth to begin with.
Yes, but it seems even the Gospels and Acts use only the "coming" language and not the "returning" language. In which case this wording does not mean the writer thought Jesus "never set foot on earth" in the first place. Obviously the Gospel writers present Jesus as having been in history, on earth, in the period of about 30 AD.
But I haven't checked all the "2nd Coming" passages to see if there's any "return" words used. Since the Acts 1:11 word is only "coming" or "will come," and this is maybe the most famous example of such a quote, maybe the demand for "return" language is incorrect, and Paul meant "return" just as much as any other NT writer.
To make sure of this, it requires going through every "2nd Coming" text to see if the "return" wording is ever used, to determine if this is a peculiar trait of Paul to avoid the "return" word. I'm guessing it's not, and so it's incorrect to take Paul's Jesus as someone who "never set foot on earth" -- that's probably incorrect.
But in the meantime it's very clear that Paul believed Jesus had set foot on earth, being a person in history, as is evident from many of his words, such as that of I Corinthians 15 and also in Galatians 1 and 2. It's clear he meant a real historical person, even though his teachings focus on the Cosmic Risen Christ, rather than the earthly biographical Jesus. These were the same, despite Paul's de-emphasis of the biographical Jesus.
It explains why Paul never repeats a single parable or teaching point that Jesus said, even when it would have bolstered his arguments.
Let's assume that's correct, though it may not be. Maybe he did repeat 1% of it, but let's just say "never repeats a single" teaching point is correct. What does that prove? It might indicate that most of the "sayings of Jesus" were not really spoken by him at all, but are words put into his mouth by the later writers, or those transmitting the oral reports of him.
So if Paul knew none of the Gospel quotes/sayings of Jesus, this might mean Jesus was not the preacher-rabbi we've always assumed. And if that's the case, then what was he? or, what did he really do if not preaching all those sayings attributed to him? It probably means he was the miracle healer we see described repeatedly in the Gospel accounts, and this is what made him important, rather than the famous preaching quotes. That would be the best conclusion to draw if Paul, the earliest witness we have, never knew any of the "sayings of Jesus" quotes.
It's why he never mentions the heroes and villains of the Gospels, even if it would have helped him put flesh and bones on his teachings.
He does make allusion to those heroes and villains. He assumes the readers/listeners already know the details of those and other characters. He mentions the earlier believers whom he had persecuted, and he mentions those who killed Jesus, and he mentions the "churches in Judea" and those who were "pillars" of the church. He also mentions Jesus being "handed over" to be condemned. All this assumes there were players -- good guys and bad guys -- who were people in history who had been involved with the human Jesus.
Just because Paul downplays the human-in-history Jesus does not mean he thought Jesus had no earthly existence in history. He took that historical Jesus as his starting point and then formulated his theology based on this starting point, to create his Cosmic Christ which emerges from that historical person.
For example, when people were upset that their loved ones were dying before Jesus came to restore his kingdom as promised, Paul reminds them that the dead in Christ would be resurrected, without thinking to mention Lazarus.
Paul totally ignores everything Jesus did prior to the night he was arrested. All the miracle acts, raising the dead, etc. This does not mean he knew nothing of these events. He probably knew some of it, but not all, and he had no interest in reporting any of these events because they happened prior to the night Jesus was arrested, which is Paul's starting point.
Maybe Paul should have said a little more about what had happened earlier, but we don't know for sure what his motive was. Not mentioning something doesn't mean that the something did not happen or that the one not mentioning it didn't know of it.
For me it's about probabilities. Either Paul, soaked in Messianic scriptures, had vision of a demigod sacrificed in the heavenly realms for our sake and who will one day restore this corrupt world. Or . . .
No, that makes no sense. In Galatians it's very clear that his Christ person had been someone on earth, involved with certain people, and being worshiped by the believers in Jerusalem even before Paul had any visions of his Christ. He says those earlier believers worshiped the same Christ he did later after he converted.
He says (Gal. 1:17-23):
nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus.
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days.
But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother.
(In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!)
Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cili'cia.
And I was still not known by sight to the churches of Christ in Judea;
they only heard it said, "He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy."
Here he's saying he went to "those who were apostles before me" -- meaning believers in Christ earlier, even before he converted. They believed not because of any of his visions, but because they had their own separate knowledge of the Resurrected Christ.
He thought James was "the Lord's brother" -- meaning a human who had a human brother.
He says the churches in Judea which he persecuted earlier were believers having the same faith as he himself had. So they were believers in the same risen Christ which Paul is later preaching. I.e., they believed the Resurrection earlier than Paul ever preached it, even before he had converted. Where did they get that faith? Not from Paul. Not his vision, but their own previous knowledge. Which came from where? How could it not have been the facts of the Resurrection, the earthly facts, which Paul reports in I Corinthians 15, or the appearances of Jesus to those humans he mentions there, such as James and Peter, etc.? How could this Christ seen by them have been from Paul's later "vision of a demigod sacrificed in the heavenly realms"? These appearances to them had occurred long before Paul had any such visions of any demigod somewhere in outer space.
Or an ordinary 1st-century man was actually the creator of the universe in the flesh, who said and did some remarkable things, was publicly put to death and privately came back to life, then disappeared, leaving his illiterate and quarrelsome followers to spread his message, and this was the only way that the Omniscient could think of to save humanity.
You're putting mostly your cosmic words into Paul's mouth, demanding an either-or which is nothing Paul was thinking. Maybe it's true that Paul's idea was confused, that much is unexplained, etc. But his Christ was an earthly person, in history, and Paul's narrative is to take that earthly person as special, having unusual superhuman power, because of facts Paul knew and which also those earlier believers knew. So Paul tries to explain this Christ power, i.e., explain it in some kind of Jewish terms, based on the earlier Jewish Scripture, and so making Christ a fulfiller of promises to be found in the earlier tradition.
Even if Paul did not succeed at this, still it was an earthly person that he made into his cosmic Christ, not a cosmic demigod unconnected to earth history.
And it was decades before anyone thought to write anything down.
No, there were probably earlier writings too, in addition to the later ones which were copied and preserved for the future.
It would be as if no one wrote any biographic tales of Audrey Hepburn or Thurgood Marshall until 2003.
2000 years ago it was very rare for anything biographical to be written down near the lifetime of the character being written about. Our "Lives" from Plutarch were written down centuries after the historical person had lived, for almost all the characters he wrote about. And Jesus was not at all famous in the 1st century, so it's remarkable that we have anything at all about him from any writers of that time.
People have visions all the time.
Not 2000 years ago and then written down by them for posterity. They didn't write down such visions about persons who did nothing noteworthy. For Paul to relate his visions about the risen Christ who had been an earthly historical figure, this person had to have done something very unusual. So, what clue do we have? of something unusual he did? Paul and 4 other 1st-century sources say this person resurrected back to life after having been killed. That seems to be the explanation, if no one can offer any other explanation. Which they have not done.
People tell stories all the time.
They do? Then where are the other stories about someone doing miracle acts, such as the Gospel accounts describe, and resurrecting back to life? If writers are telling such stories as a normal practice, why don't we see any other cases of it, instead of this one only? Why don't we have such stories about John the Baptizer or James the Just or many other famous teachers or rabbis or heroes, many of whom were more important than Jesus at that time?
Sometimes those stories take on a life of their own, and grow beyond what the original storyteller might have ever dreamed of (i.e., Saint Nicholas, . . .
The St. Nicholas miracle character required centuries to evolve and could not possibly have emerged in only a few decades. It requires at least 100 years, and probably much longer, for miracle legends to emerge. With the only exception in rare cases of a very powerful and famous hero, like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, etc., where it's possible for miracle claims to happen soon, even when the hero is still alive. But for a St. Nicholas or other normal human of no great power to emerge as a miracle-worker requires many generations and centuries, for the legend to grow over time.
Robin Hood, John Frum, . . .
But these are not miracle legends. Neither of these heroes are credited with miracle acts. But even in these cases it probably required several generations for the legend to become widely fixed into the culture.
King Arthur, Beowulf, . . .
These legends, which contain some miracle elements, also required centuries to emerge in the culture and would not be possible to develop in only a few decades. The writings about these, with the miracle claims, are dated at least 300-400 years later than the alleged events reportedly happened.
Not a miracle legend. This legend or myth could much more easily evolve in a short time, without having any miracle claims in it. It's possible for strange theories to emerge and become popular within one generation, as long as they don't require the followers to believe some miracle acts were performed by a recent miracle hero.
This is a recognized fictional legend. This means that most people in the culture, even followers of the hero legend, acknowledge that the hero is a fiction character. Or in other words, there are those in the culture who deny that the miracle events really happened. In the ancient world there were miracle claims and hoaxes which were denied by the educated writers, who accused the promoters as being charlatans.
Josephus reports some demagogues who led rebels out to the wilderness to fight against the Romans, and these are identified by him as charlatans who promised to do miracles but really did not perform the miracle acts they promised to do.
So, if there are some miracle claims made somewhere, in sources of the time, we have to ask if there are also sources which refute the miracle claims and denounce them as hoaxes. Where such negative evidence exists, it cancels out the miracle claims, so the total evidence becomes stronger
against the miracle claims being made.
So today there are some miracle claims on the Internet and other media, along with legends which are known to be fiction, like Superman. Also Elvis Resurrection claims are easily refuted by those denying that it was really Elvis, because it was really an Elvis impersonator and not the original Elvis who was sighted. And so on, with popular myths and legends and hoaxes we're familiar with. For all such claims we must consider both the evidence in favor and the evidence against the claim.
But there is no 1st-century source contradicting the 1st-century evidence we have in the writings reporting the Jesus miracle acts. All the evidence of the time attests to the Jesus miracle acts, with no 1st-century writings contradicting the claim that he did these acts, such as we have evidence contradicting some of the other miracle claims -- e.g. the charlatans mentioned by Josephus, and the charlatan Alexander Peregrinus denounced by Lucianus.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's where I've placed my bets.
Keep working on it.
