cabio

Do you agree with my answer?

Paul was an apostle because the first basic requirement was being a witness to the resurrected Jesus. He claims to have seen Jesus in 1 Corinthians 9:1, "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?? He saw the resurrected Jesus at two times. The first on the Damascus road in Acts 9:1-9, and the second possibility took place in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 where he describes when he was caught up into paradise. He also makes the claim of having seen Jesus and therefore being an apostle in 1 Corinthians 15:8-9.

The second requirement of being an apostle is that one has demonstrated miraculous signs and wonders. This requirement is both defined and shown to have been fulfilled in Paul's ministry in 2 Corinthians 12:12, "The things that mark an apostle - signs, wonders and miracles - were done among you with great perseverance."

aa5874

You just cannot use the words of Paul alone to corroborate the very same character. You need some external credible source to test the veracity of the Pauline letters.

For example, it is claimed that some Saul called Paul was [blinded by Jesus from heaven with a bright light. Now if Saul/Paul could not see, isn't it possible that he spoke to the devil instead of Jesus?

How can the veracity of the conversion and the revelations of Saul/Paul be tested.?

Huon

I am an apostle because the first basic requirement is being a witness to the resurrected Jesus. I claim to have seen Jesus in 1 NewYorkers 9:1, "Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?? I saw the resurrected Jesus at two times. The first on the Paris road in MyActs 9:1-9, and the second possibility took place in 2 NewYorkers 12:2-4 where I describe when I was caught up into paradise, like Muhammad. I also make the claim of having seen Jesus, Muhammad and Bernadette Soubirous and therefore being an apostle in 1 NewYorkers 15:8-9.

The second requirement of being an apostle is that I have demonstrated miraculous signs and wonders. This requirement is both defined and shown to have been fulfilled in My ministry in 2 NewYorkers 12:12, "The things that mark an apostle - signs, wonders and miracles - were done among you with great perseverance."

Prove that this is false, 50 years after the date when the signs, wonders, and miracles were performed (allegedly). There were no newspapers, no radio, no TV, no Internet, and even, no cops to record the trouble in the street...

Doug Shaver

So far as I am aware, nobody actually knows what the requirements were in Paul's time. The notion that an apostle had to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus seems to be a retrojection by the second-century author of Acts.

The Damascus Road story is almost certainly not historical.

That is a possibility, yes, but he does not say that he saw the resurrected Christ on that occasion.

He claims that Jesus appeared to him. Exactly what he meant by that is anybody's guess. It's also anybody's guess how many times it might have happened.

OK. He claimed to have done some miracles, and he claimed that the resurrected Christ appeared to him on at least one occasion. Therefore, his claim to apostleship was legitimate.

Do you think this proves something important?

aa5874

But, really you have not shown that anything you have said is true, I can assert or consider that it is not true until you prove it is. There is no obligation on the reader to prove anything, it is you that MUST provide all the necessary proof or evidence to support your claim.


And I just dreamed that everything you said have been proven false, whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knows.

cabio

This is often the case, but here it is not. For both requirements, Paul is justifying that he has met them in a letter to others. In the letters, it is a basic assumption that his readers are well aware that he has seen Jesus and that he has done miracles. In 1 Corinthians 9:1, he is asking a rhetorical question in which he points out that they know he has seen Jesus. In the account in Acts 9:1-9 of the Damascus road encounter, this was written by Luke, and so is an external source. Many people were involved in this account and it was well known. In 2 Corinthians 12:12, Paul is referring to their knowledge of the miracles he did among them. Why would he refer to these signs if he did not actually do them, especially when the people he was writing to would know whether he did them or not?

In the Acts account of seeing and speaking with Jesus, it is not possible that he spoke to the devil instead of Jesus because of his blindness. This is shown when reading the account since it says that Saul became blind only after the encounter, verse 8, when he "arose from the earth."

Ben C Smith

It is common to interpret 1 Corinthians 9.1 as a link between seeing the Lord and being an apostle. 1 Corinthians 15.5-9 also links the appearances with the apostles.

I do not know how far you question the Pauline corpus as it stands, but Galatians 1.17 seems to imply that his conversion experience, at least, occurred in or near Damascus.

It is possible (as you say) to take revelations of the Lord (verse 1) as visions in which the Lord appears. (This would be taking the genitive as objective. It is also possible to interpret the genitive as subjective, in which case the phrase would mean visions from the Lord.)

Ben.

aa5874

But, even if the letter writer's eyes were wide open, Jesus was supposed to be in heaven, I don't think the letter writer could have seen Jesus. If you remember, from Acts, Jesus had already gone through the clouds.

Who is Luke? Luke wrote what? Just show me where someone called Luke claimed he wrote anything in the NT.

I don't know one thing about Luke. Eusebius in Church History claimed some Luke wrote a gospel before the death of Nero, scholars have deduced that the gospel called Luke was written long after Nero died.

You might have the wrong Luke.

But even the character called Jesus in the NT claimed there would be people who would call themselves Christ and deceive many.

Mark 13.6 The devil is a deceiver, according to Revelation 20.10. Paul may have been deceived.

There are even those who have come in the name of "Paul" and have deceived, and one have come in the name of Peter, too. There are lots of deceivers in the NT.

cabio

Right, and he could not have come back down? For the point of the argument, you said that Jesus was supposed to be in heaven since he went through the clouds. If you assume, for the point of the argument, that he went through the clouds, then it is only right to assume that he could "come back down through the clouds."

While the point of this discussion is not to debate the author of the gospel of Luke and of Acts, my point is that the book of Acts is assumed by many to be written by someone other than Paul, hence an external source that Paul saw Jesus.

First off, while this may be so, his justification for apostleship still holds true. He met with whom he and the whole early church believed was the resurrected Jesus. Therefore, the early church, believing he saw Jesus, would be justified in calling him an apostle. That was the whole initial point of this discussion.

Second off, it is highly unlikely that what happened to Saul on the Damascus road, was caused by a mere man, dressed up as Jesus, so that only Saul could see him but none of his companions but who heard Jesus speak, who caused temporary blindness, who set up a meeting later with members of the early church, was a mere man. That being said, if it was Satan, as you suggested, why would Satan cause the transformation of what was his greatest tool, Saul, into what would be his greatest enemy, someone who became a firm believer in the risen Jesus? None of that which is recorded as being said to Saul makes any sense if it was said by Satan. It would only serve to harm Satan. This does not seem plausible and you are grasping at straws.

In the end, since you are arguing with the possibility that Saul encountered the devil on the road, this also leaves open the possibility that Saul encountered Jesus on the road. Since we have that possibility, then my initial statement in which Paul can be considered an apostle still holds, and the evidence supports that.

aa5874

And what about the Second Coming? You mean Jesus is not coming back again. He came back already!



No, No, No.

You mean an apologetic source. Acts of the Apostles and the letter writers called Paul are all found in the NT.

And it is known not assumed that the author of Acts wrote fiction.

First off, while this may be so, his justification for apostleship still holds true. He met with whom he and the whole early church believed was the resurrected Jesus. Therefore, the early church, believing he saw Jesus, would be justified in calling him an apostle. That was the whole initial point of this discussion.

Second off, it is highly unlikely that what happened to Saul on the Damascus road, was caused by a mere man, dressed up as Jesus, so that only Saul could see him but none of his companions but who heard Jesus speak, who caused temporary blindness, who set up a meeting later with members of the early church, was a mere man. That being said, if it was Satan, as you suggested, why would Satan cause the transformation of what was his greatest tool, Saul, into what would be his greatest enemy, someone who became a firm believer in the risen Jesus? None of that which is recorded as being said to Saul makes any sense if it was said by Satan. It would only serve to harm Satan. This does not seem plausible and you are grasping at straws.

In the end, since you are arguing with the possibility that Saul encountered the devil on the road, this also leaves open the possibility that Saul encountered Jesus on the road. Since we have that possibility, then my initial statement in which Paul can be considered an apostle still holds, and the evidence supports that.[/QUOTE]

All that is known is that Saul/Paul's conversion as presented in Acts appears to be fiction.

And you would agree that only those who believe can be deceived.

You cannot prove anything about Saul/Paul is true, nothing.