mikem

I don't think you mean precludes do you? It generally just means exlude - in which case you are agreeing with me.
But assuming you meant to disagree with me - My conclusion would not follow from my premise only if my argument was of the form "If Christ has been raised, then he appeared to Paul, he has been raised, therefore he appeared to Paul." The argument was not about that, it was about the content of the revelation that Paul believed he had had.

I could have simply said that Paul beleived that he had had a revelation concerning the risen Christ - perhaps that would have been better.

mikem

I hope you don't assume that I am trying to defend the veracity of Paul's revelation. Whether Paul really had a revelation, or only believed he did, is not at issue as far as I am concerned. I am concerned with what Paul believed to be the case, and how that impacts on the issue of whether Jesus was a historical figure or not.

To answer your question. I think Paul believed that Jesus (in heaven), appeared to him, Paul, (on earth), in the form of what could be called a veridical vision. He heard something, he saw something.

mikem

Perhaps because "adelpos" just is the word for brother? It doesn't mean that the meaning has to be precisely the same in every case. Does the word mother meant the same in the following sentences:

WW2 was the mother of all wars?
My mother is a widow?
My wife has a tendency to mother me?

Meaning depends upon context.

Amaleq13

I sure do since I understood your original statement to deny that a resurrected Jesus could have appeared to Paul since Paul believed Jesus was in heaven:

"But since Paul beleived that Christ had been raised from the dead and was living with the Father, then it was a revelation concerning a real live Jesus."

IOW, I understood this to mean: Since Paul believed Jesus was in heaven, he could not be saying that Jesus appeared him. Therefore, his revelation was about Jesus not from or of Jesus.

The conclusion does not follow from the premise because there is nothing to preclude a resurrected Jesus in heaven from making an appearance to Paul.

mikem

I would agree with the last statement. My point was simple: a living Christ was the source of Paul's revelation, for Paul.

Amaleq13

Only if a resurrected Christ can be referred to as "living".

As I've said in another thread, I consider that to be a confusing equivocation of the term.

mikem

Not for Paul, who believed that Jesus resurrection constituted an entry into a new realm of existence in a body that had been transformed by the power of God. It is equivocation if one thinks that existence as a conscious physical organism and non existence as a dead lump of matter separated into it's constituent chemical elements are the only options. "Life" and "death" very often refer to whether one has a relationship with God in the New Testament. Believers and non believers use the words in very differerent ways. From a nonbeliever's perspective, to describe someone who has died as "living in some other form" goes beyond equivocation - it is actually meaningless. The clash over the meaning of the words is really a clash of world views.