Toto

What do you disagree with? This would be easier if you wrote more complete thoughts.

I didn't hypothesize that the epistles didn't have to detail it. I suspect that whoever wrote the epistles regarded those details as reserved for initiates.

That's right, the author of Acts invented the story of Saul and the whole Damascus road incident. There was no reason for the author of the epistles to know anything about it.

But there are references in the epistles to Paul's communication with a spiritual Christ and traveling to the third heaven. There were probably more details of that reserved for initiates.

Toto

What's your point here? There are clearly two different stories, but the author of Acts appears to have lifted some elements about Damascus to fashion his account.

In Corinthians Paul is threatened by "King Aretas" although Aretas did not rule over Damascus in the relevant time period. If you don't think his followers saved him, who lowered him over the wall?

In Acts, it is a conspiracy of Jews to kill him - also probably of dubious historical accuracy, reflecting the widening split between Christians and Jews.

There are literary critics who study the construction of narratives who can explain this technique of appropriation and transvaluation of previous narratives. That's what you are seeing here.

What great accomplishment??

aa5874

The story in Acts of the Damascus incident is NOT from the Pauline letters to the Churches.

Whether or not the Damascus event was invented does NOT establish that the author of Acts was aware of Pauline letters to the Churches.

The author of Acts dedicated 13 chapters of Acts to the Pauline TOUR of the Roman Empire and the Pauline Voyage to Rome and did NOT record a single Pauline letter to any Church.

It must be remembered that the author of Acts claimed he TRAVELED and Prayed with Paul all over the Roman Empire and in Major cities.

Duvduv

It doesn't matter who lowered him, but the epistles version didn't know about the followers lowering him on the wall. I am not sure I would say that the author merely invented stories that didn't appear in the epistles but rather he was recounting oral tales he heard from others about this fellow Paul.

The great accomplishment of being the only person to see the risen Christ in a vision after he had gone back to heaven although this has not content in the epistles the way it has in Acts.

Duvduv

I think it is contextually relevant that there are no sets of Peter epistles the way there are of Paul epistles. I made the point earlier that the religion evidently needed the "apostle" who never saw the Christ in the flesh. This suggests to me that the epistles developed apart from Acts. Otherwise someone looking to keep things on an even keel would have wanted to also provide a set of letters from the great apostle Peter of the gospels AND Acts as part of the great apostolic succession and Rock of the Church.

aa5874

Now that the Damascus incident has been brought up, the author of Acts stated that Saul was BLINDED for three days after the incident and that is NOT found in the Pauline writings. [Acts 9.9]

Again, quite remarkably, the author of Acts has so much details of Paul yet does NOT have any information at all on the most significant Pauline letters to the Churches.

If Acts of the Apostles was written well after the Pauline letters, decades later, then the author of Acts may have only known of him by the letters if they were supposedly written Before the Fall of the Temple and those are the same Epistles that the author of Acts wrote NOTHING about.

It is clear that the author of Acts did NOT know of Paul through the Pauline letters to the Churches.

By the way, the author of Acts would have been a good candidate to settle the matter regarding the authorship of Hebrews if he had ONLY known the Pauline letters to the Churches.

Toto

or other details that Acts invented. On the contrary, the idea of being lowered over a wall was derived from a story in the Hebrew Scriptures in 1 Samuel. You don't have to conjure up any hypothetical oral tales, which Christian apologists typically conjure up to explain gaps in the historical record.

Your profile says that you are an orthodox Jew. You don't seem to have the background of someone who has read the Hebrew Scriptures.

Why exactly do you think that Paul was the only person to see the risen Christ in a vision? And why would you call this an accomplishment? :huh:

Toto

Non sequitur.

aa5874

1. You have NOT provided any evidence of antiquity that the Pauline letters to the Churches are before Acts of the Apostles.

2. You have NOT shown that the Pauline letters to the Churches were written before the mid 2nd-3rd century.

3. You are incapable of showing that the author of Acts knew of the Pauline letters to the Churches.

Duvduv

Toto, just because the idea may have originated from Samuel doesn't imply that the author of Acts didn't believe the event was related to Paul who he believed existed. The totality of the texts suggest that someone to whom the ascended Christ appeared was not a regular occurrence in Acts. However, I am not sure that the Paul of the epistles had that type of revelation.