RUmike

Well for one, you can't definitively say that Paul has no clue that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Him not mentioning it does not mean he does not know it, and realistically, there would have been little reason for him to mention such a fact in his letters. Remember, his letters were written for specific communities at specific times, all with a specific purpose or purposes in mind. We would not necessarily expect Paul to spit out miscellaneous facts about Jesus' earthly life unless they pertained to the subject he was writing about.

Paul admits that he did not know Jesus (he called his "birth" (spiritual conversion) "untimely"), and also he seems to have spent little time with the apostles. Paul does seem unconcerned with facts of Jesus' life, but realistically, he probably knows extremely little of them. For Paul, the important things are the saving power of the risen Jesus and the freedom from the Law that Christians now have due to Jesus' death.

Also, Paul did not write in 70 C.E. His first letter that we have is 1 Thessalonians, which is typically dated c. 50 C.E. Other letters span the time from this date until c. 60 C.E. By 70 C.E., Paul was probably dead (martyred in Rome).

Julian

Terminology is important here. Apostle can be misunderstood. Paul called himself an apostle. If you are referring to the disciples, i.e. the twelve who followed Jesus around then, yes, we have their names from the gospels of Mark and Luke. Unfortunately, the lists are not the same. And, yes, Peter was supposedly one of the twelve.

Julian

Julian

Kata sarka (in greek it is κατα σαÏ?κα) means 'according to flesh' and is a very controversial sentence. The transaltion I gave is the most common but has been disputed, mostly by mythicists. Most take that sentence, written by Paul, to mean that Paul believed that Jesus was a flesh and blood person, whereas mythicists believe that all the Jesus stuff happened in a mythical realm. It gets much more involved but I don't think you want to go there. I generally don't...

Julian

RUmike

Yes, according to the gospels Peter was the "number one" disciple to Jesus. He is featured prominently in all 4 gospels. As you probably already know, there were 12 apostles in the gospels. Their names vary slightly from gospel to gospel, but are mostly the same. The only ones given any significance at all are Simon called Peter, his brother Andrew, and James and John (sons of Zebedee). James, John and Peter are the most prominent, with Andrew being runner-up (he is included in a few anecdotes, but rarely, if ever, with speech), and about the other apostles the gospels tell us virtually nothing.

If memory serves, here is the list as given by Mark:
Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, John and James sons of Zebedee (John is the alleged author of the 4th gospel), Levi son of Alphaues (called Matthew in Matthew's gospel, who is also the alleged author of that gospel [but virtually no modern scholars think that the apostle actually wrote that gospel]), Thomas (who has a small appearance at the end of John's gospel), Bartholomew, Judas Iscariot, Phillip, Simon the Canaanite, Thaddeus, and another James (called "the less" usually).

Most scholars think that the number 12 is probably a creation of the early Church, and that Jesus probably did not single out exactly 12. It is certainly not impossible, but unlikely. It is also not certain whether Jesus actively sought recruits. But he certainly had followers, regardless of how many or how he got them.

Julian

List of disciples from Mark:

17 And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder:

18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, 19 And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him: and they went into an house.

And add to this Peter, of course.

List of disciples from Luke:

14 Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew,

15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes, 16 And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.

TomboyMom

Levi is supposed to be Matthew but isn't? Does Matthew say he's Levi?

I guess Christians don't think it's a big discrepancy that the gospels list different disciples?

Paul wrote his first letter only around 20 years after Jesus died? What year is Saul supposed to have become Paul? Where do I get 70 A.D. from?

TomboyMom

What year do we think Mark was written?

TomboyMom

So apparently there were some people who were Christians, in the religious sense, who were alive when Christ was alive? Again, to me that tends to corroborate HJ. Is that the mainstream view on that?

Julian

Standard estimates place it somewhere around 65-80.

Julian

I can't really answer this one very well. Anyone?
They have a whole field dedicated to such explanations. It is called apologetics.
Paul supposedly converted just a few years after Jesus' death, somewhere in the mid-30s.

The year 70 was the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans following an insurrection by the Jews. A most momentous occasion for Judaism. It is also significant because it seems that the gospels refer to this destruction and must therefore have been written after this event.

Julian