George S

Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of Christians, would of course have to know the outline of what they believed. When he had his vision, he made it fit with the myth he had embedded in his unconscious mind.

The Mystic Experience is reported to be very powerful. A realization, suddenly, that ... it is indescribable ... um ... Being is ... the being here ... the being now ... being composed of stardust -- literal stardust of exploding stars ... one with the universe ... and in this state Fact is perfectly distinguishable from non-Fact. I suspect that our friend Saul had a Mystic experience and became Paul. Changed his identity from mythphobic to mythphilic.

sugarhitman

aa587, that is correct. Because what would be the point of writing about Jesus, David, the resurrection, etc. if your listeners don't even know who and what they are. They must have detailed information (The epistles do not have such information ) first, to understand your letters of reminders and encouragement of something already known. And how did they understand? Because they had the written Gospels, which proves not only that Paul and the church knew the Gospels, but that they were written earlier.

Amaleq13

Well, in my defense, it was quite poorly written and I foolishly did not consider that it would involve another, unstated, example of circular reasoning.

You indicated that "Peter, James, John or a brother named James" didn't really exist and Paul made up his encounters with them. What I didn't realize was that you were also assuming your conclusion to support your conclusion. Again.

You don't see that, without relying on the logical fallacy of assuming your conclusion, what you describe is entirely consistent with later stories being at least partially based on Paul's claims?

Calling Paul a liar does nothing to suggest the Gospels were written later.

Conclusions based on logical fallacies are not reliable.

Prove it rather than simply assert it. And do keep in mind the difference between "lying" and "being wrong" or "deluded" or even "crazy". There is a much higher standard of evidence for the former.

You also don't say how you know this without simply assuming it.

How did you determine that he didn't really believe they happened?

That can only mean you don't understand that my confusion about your last post doesn't actually change anything since my mistake was a failure to recognize the unstated logical fallacy upon which you were relying. You continue to have no credible evidence or logical argument to support your assertion so there continues to be no good reason to take it seriously.

aa5874

And what was that outline of what they believed? That Jesus had disciples called Peter, James and John, that Jesus betrayed the same night after supper, that he was crucified, died, resurrected the third day, and ascended to heaven, and is coming back for a second time.

There is nothing mystic about Paul's revelations.

I repeat. There is nothing mystical about Paul's revelations only the manner by which he received his information.

His revelations from the resurrected Jesus Christ is identical or similar to the Jesus in the gospels.

In the gospels, Jesus was betrayed in the night after the last supper, was crucified, died, rose after the third day, ascended to heaven and promised to return a second time.

The so-called revelations of Paul about Jesus are identical to the gospels.

There is absolutely nothing mystical about Paul's revelations.

And Paul, from his revelations, did not even provide any additional or new details about Jesus that is not found in the gospels.

Nothing mystical about Paul's revelations about Jesus Christ at all.

His revelations are nothing new, basically a mirror image of the gospel Jesus.

aa5874

This argument has very little merit.

Examine the gospel according to Mark and Matthew, the Jesus story of betrayal, crucifixion, death and resurrection on the third day are similar but there are differences.

These differences do not alter the fact that one author is aware of the other or some earlier source.

For example, one author asked if Jesus was not a carpenter and the other asked if Jesus was not the carpenter's son.

In another incident, the author of gMatthew claimed Jesus asked his disciples to fetch two donkeys but the author of Mark claimed that it was a single ass.

There are many many discrepancies in the Jesus stories even though they are fundamentally the same.

The author of gJohn, writing after the Synoptics, claimed the body of Jesus was wrapped in spices before burial, the authors of the Synoptics claimed the women went after the burial with spices.



But, the differences in the numbers do not alter the fact that the writer Paul was aware that there was an earlier tradition where Jesus had disciples and does not alter the fact that the writer placed himself LAST to see Jesus.

fatpie42

The thing is who wrote about these first? Paul? Or the gospel writers?

Naturally Paul didn't have access to the written gospels if we accept that they are dated later than his epistles. He may have had access to some of the original stories or lessons which those gospels compiled, but he does not appear to have the same kind of narrative from bith until death in mind.

George S

The Mystic experience is a normal occurrence not a magical one. It is an identifiable psychological state.

The fact that Saul knew Christian mythology makes sense. He must have been able to identify them. He was familiar with that mythology.

When his "vision" (hallucination) happened he fit it into the mythology he knew.

aa5874

I am still waiting for you to present your evidence that Paul did not know or was not aware of the gospel stories.

All this talk about mis-understanding, logical fallacies and all manner of confusion is actually irrelevant.

Name passages in the NT, the church writings or source of antiquity that show Paul did not know the gospels.

I am still waiting for these words, the start of an actual defense with evidence, Paul did not know the gospels because.............................." Please fill in the blanks.

Now, the writer Paul was aware of the gospel stories, he claimed he received revelations from Jesus Christ [b]after he persecuted those who preached the faith he once destroyed.

Ga 1:23 - In the gospels, Jesus told his disciples PRIVATELY that he would be betrayed, killed, dead, resurrected on the third day, and is coming back a second time.

Later, Paul persecuted those who preached the faith of Jesus, and afterwards Paul himself preached the same faith, that Jesus was indeed betrayed, crucified, resurrected on the third day, and is coming back a second time.

The writer Paul clearly was aware of the Jesus stories, he lied when he claimed he had revelations from Jesus when Jesus did not exist except on paper sometime long after the very Paul was supposed to be dead already.

Amaleq13

That isn't very smart since you already know such an expectation is an illogical attempt to shift the burden.

Stop dodging and start providing credible support for your assertion with something logical and credible.

No, the logical fallacies and confusion I've pointed out in your defense are certainly relevant to determining if your assertion has any merit. So far, it does not look good for you. Blatantly false assertions, evidence that has no logical connection to your claim, and attempts to shift the burden away from your assertion seem to be all you have.

...there is no credible evidence suggesting that he did.

I don't know why you are still waiting for something you've been given more than once. It only requires a basic understanding of logic to grasp the concept that an assertion which cannot be supported with credible evidence can be rejected on that basis, alone.

Besides, you've already shown that this expectation isn't genuine because you ignored show no mercy when an example was offered. But don't try to use that to avoid doing your job!

Explain how that suggests, let alone establishes "absolutely", that Paul read the Gospels? There is no apparent connection.

Or will you ignore this question just like you've ignored all the earlier ones and keep trying to shift the burden?

show_no_mercy

All of this is why there's a synoptic problem. These different authors had to have known about a gospel story and each wrote their own account of the oral traditions to promote their own theologies. The synoptic problem is in trying to figure out who copied off of who (why they're similar) and which other documents they were unfamiliar with. The fact that there are contradictions in the gospel documents means that they were ignorant of each other's writings. And if Paul contradicts the resurrection accounts found in the gospel documents, then he is also unaware of their existence.

You're trying to claim that Paul actually read the canonical gospels. We're arguing that the canonical gospels didn't exist when Paul was writing, otherwise he would have copied from them verbatim like what Paul does with the LXX. Paul and his audience(s) only know about some sort of story of good news, not a document that is read.

There's a difference between the gospel (simply good news - ευαγγελιον) and the Gospels which are writings that describe the ministry and actions of the Jesus Christ character. "Gospel" as pertaining to an actual document is a later development.