S.C.Carlson

I was responding to your statement that "Paul does not claim to have been a witness to the resurrection." Paul, however, did indeed make the claim in 1 Cor. 15:8. True, the claim may not mean very much for the accuracy of the gospel accounts (none of which mention Paul, by the way) or the historicity of the resurrection, but Paul did make the claim and it was a claim accepted by his contemporaries. Indeed, Paul's apostleship rests on his peers' acceptance of his claim.

Stephen Carlson

Diogenes the Cynic

I think this may be a question of Semantics. I concede that in a most technical sense, Paul does claim to have "witnessed" a resurrected Christ but my own claim was in relationship to the alleged resurrection event of the Gospels (i.e. the period between the physical resurrection and the ascension). I don't consider a visionary experience to be equivalent to a witness of a historical event, though. Paul is a figurative "witness," not a literal one.

John Kesler

When Paul states that he received his gospel "through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Galatians 1:12), do you think he means that he actually met Jesus, or that this "revelation" came in another way?

Doug Shaver

It is not controverted by any factual evidence. It is controverted by Christian tradition and nothing else. The traditional attributions having nothing going for them except an assumption that second-century Christian tradition is just as inerrant as some Christians say the Bible itself is.

Diogenes the Cynic

It's not controversial at all in NT scholarship. There's is pretty much a universal consensus among all but the most conservative religious traditionalists that the authorship traditions are late developing and inauthentic. At very best, the traditions are unsupported by any direct evidence and unproven traditions are not sufficient to overcome the default status of those authorships being unknown.
See, that's just it, Scholarship really is NOT divided on this. Virtually no objective NT scholar still accepts the authenticity of the patristic authorship traditions. Those traditions are only really defended these days by religious conservatives who base their arguments not on empirical methodology but on faith, reversed burdens of proof ("prove it WASN'T Mark") and similar non-empirical (or pseudo-empirical) tactics.
All of the evidence has been considered. Nothing is left out. Nothing has failed to be taken into account. The evidence for the authorship traditions is simply too weak and too countermanded by other evidence to be accepted as credible.

Actually, a genuine eyewitness account of Jesus (or even a secondary one) would be far more "appealing" to me than the alternative. When I first became interested in Biblical Criticism, I found the lack of primary evidence for Jesus disappointing. Not gratifying, but frustrating. I wanted to read an eyewitness account of Jesus but alas there are just none to be had.

S.C.Carlson

I doubt that Paul ever met the pre-crucifixion Jesus; rather, all of his encounters are with the risen Christ.

Stephen

patchy

Especially if by "encounters," you mean, "daydreams."

John Kesler

Okay, but do you think that Paul claims to have encountered this "risen Christ" in person or via some other mechanism?

S.C.Carlson

It depends on you mean by "in person" in reference to the risen Christ, but, as far as historical criticism is concerned, I think the technical term for the mode of Paul's encounter would be "vision" (or perhaps "audition", if the relevation is strictly auditory).

Stephen

RUmike

Hmm. I think it is you who needs to be reminded about the current state of gospel scholarship. There is no "deep" division on the authorship of Mark. It is most definitely, in the minds of the significant majority of scholars, unknown.