Did Paul Ever Meet Jesus?
Posted: Wednesday, June 24, 2009
by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com
I'm getting so tired of ignorant people dismissing Paul's biblical writings by claiming that he never met Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth. Haven't these people ever read the Bible? If not, they would be advised to stop commenting on something they've never read.
Who do they think struck Paul down and spoke to him on the Damascus road? Barack Obama? No, Paul did not meet Jesus (as far as we know) while Jesus physically walked on earth. However, his encounter with the Son of God has had more impact on the world than 99% of the earthly meetings with Jesus that ever took place. Paul went on from his experience with Jesus to write the majority of the New Testament and take the gospel to the gentiles.
Every biblical writer, including Paul, was inspired by God, so their words stand on an equal footing, even with those of Jesus himself. Therefore, one doesn't have the option of simply plucking Jesus' words from the Bible and ignoring everything else that's written therein. The Bible is not a buffet.
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More commentsThe Bible is in fact "errant" on numerous subjects. For instance, because each generation averages about 25 years, including children who are not firstborn, Luke's list of 40 generations between David and Joseph approximates a realistic one thousand years. By contrast, Matthew's list of 25 generations is too short and can only represent a schematized or otherwise interrupted line. Basically, the two authors of Luke and Matthew needed to show Jesus' lineage to David to validate that the prophesy thet the "Messiah" would be "from the house of David". Also, Jesus' father was known to be Joseph. So the only similarities between the to listed geneologies are David, Joseph and Jesus. If the Bible is supposed to be the inerrant word of God, how can these two genealogies possibly be so very different? Common rational sense dictates...because they were written by the hand of man, who by his very nature, is "errant".
Luke 3:23-38
•David
•Nathan
•Mattatha
•Menna
•Melea
•Eliakim
•Jonam
•Joseph
•Judah
•Simeon
•Levi
•Matthat
•Jorim
•Eliezer
•Joshua
•Er
•Elmadam
•Cosam
•Addi
•Melki
•Neri
•Shealtiel
•Zerubbabel
•Rhesa
•Joanan
•Joda
•Josech
•Semein
•Mattathias
•Maath
•Naggae
•Esli
•Nahum
•Amos
•Mattathias
•Joseph
•Jannai
•Melchi
•Levi
•Matthat
•Heli
•Joseph
•Jesus
Matthew 1:1-16
•David
•Solomon
•Rehoboam
•Abijah
•Asa
•Jehoshaphat
•Jehoram
•Uzziah
•Jotham
•Ahaz
•Hezekiah
•Manasseh
•Amon
•Josiah
•Jeconiah
•Shealtiel
•Zerubbabel
•Abiud
•Eliakim
•Azor
•Zadok
•Achim
•Eliud
•Eleazar
•Matthan
•Jacob
•Joseph
•Jesus
Terry, what makes the writings of Paul any better than those of Clement of Rome (studied under Peter the apostle), Igantius of Antioch (studied under John the apostle), and Polycarp of Smyrna (also studied under John)? Paul never met Jesus, other than through a vision. These other men wrote epistles and letters. Don't many people have visions? Even if these other men didn't have visions, they studied directly under Jesus' apostles.Here's the difference: Paul's words (except for those he explicitly says are his opinion) were inspired by God.Terry, I have a very simple question for you. Outside of faith how do you know this fact that you base your entire argument upon?Nothing outside of my faith is required. If something is in the Bible, that makes it an indisputable fact. The Bible contains only truth.
Repent of your sins today and ask Jesus to save you and come into your heart. Your mind and eyes will then the opened to the Truth of the Word of God.
God bless you, sir.
"Nothing outside my faith is required" You said it all. This is the difference between a rational skeptic and a delusional dreamer. Faith is belief in the absense of compelling evidence. What I find most fascinating and tiring about Christian fundamentalists is there desire to tell me what will happen to me when I die. My death will be a uniquely personal exerience. It is the height of illogic and irrationality for someone with a book based on faith to tell me what will happen to ME when they don't even know what will happen to themselves. One cannot know the unknowable. Frankly, the only way to know what will happen when I die, is to die.There you go changing the subject. I never said anything about what was going to happen to you when you die. That is not for me to say. Only God can make that decision.Seriously? I am changing the subject? Your direct quote "Repent of your sins today and ask Jesus to save you "
Save me from what? Your statement implies that I or the other person needs to be saved from something. Sin? If the end of life is oblivion, then this is pointless. So the obvious implication here is the threat of hell if I or others are not saved. Now, if you wish to recant and stop telling people to repent and be saved, then I shall withdraw my arguement that you are telling people what will happem to them when they die. But you can't do that can you? Your entire faith is sold to people on the fear of what will happen to them when they die.
Constantine felt a kinship with Paul and therefore was partial to his writings during the Council of Nicea when they put the Christian Bible together. Both had visions that converted them to Christianity.
Like I said in my first posting..."Some may believe that it was Divinely Inspired, but no one knows that for sure except the actual writers of the different books." Who made the determination that one writing was inspired by God and the other wasn't? A council of men...at Nicea. It can be said that ALL writings that pertain to faith and spirituality are "Divinely Inspired". The key is if everyone is willing to accept it as such on the word of men saying that it is...especially decades and centuries after it was written. Paul wrote his letters to the various churches describing his vision of what Christianity should be...it was up to those churches to accept his philosophy or not...and not all did. He was often at odds with the Apostles about his preaching. He never intended his letters to become canonized as gospel, he just sent them as information that the churches...on their own, used in their sermons.
My words are not meant to shake anyone's faith...faith is a wonderful thing to have in this day and age. However, historical content and indesputable truths must be relevent cornerstones of faith.....in anything.
Terry, can you provide any scripture where Paul claims to see a physical Jesus?
In Acts, it appears there is a flash of light from heaven, Paul falls to the ground, hears a voice, gets up, and then is blind. Nowhere in this passage says he saw a physical Jesus.
In 1 Corinthians 15:8, Paul claims Jesus appeared to him, but this could be referencing the above passage in Acts, stating himself "as to one abnormally born", in which case he is not physical.
I never claimed that Paul physically meet Jesus. The "flash of light" meeting is just as valid.The account does sound an awful lot like a lack of oxygen to the brain Terry... The fact remains that people in modern times and all throughout history have "visions". All walks of life and all religions included. We don't give any credence to most of them. However, set the account in an 1800 year old letter written by a guy that you never met and your willing to believe it without question?
A "flash of light" meeting is not "just as valid". How can someone be expected to intimately know Jeshuas teachings based on second or third hand sources? Today if someone claimed visions of God and started telling everyone how to live their lives you would consider them crazy or medically unstable.You claim that the "account does sound an awful lot like a lack of oxygen to the brain" If so, it would not have been in the Bible. The Bible contains only truth.
Repent of your sins today and ask Jesus to save you and come into your heart. Your mind and eyes will then the opened to the Truth of the Word of God.
God bless you, sir.
Paul wrote 2/3 of the NT. Nuff' said.
Most people, other than evangelical Christians, think it's significant that Paul never actually met Jesus because:
1. Anyone can claim to have had a divine revelation, and
2. Pauls writings form the bedrock of Christian theology.
Therefore, the central teachings of Christianity could very well be based on a well-intentioned delusion, or a blatant fabrication. Claims of divine revelation are irrefutable. One can dismiss them as absurd, but one can't refute them with any sort of authority. It would be like telling someone they dont 'really' feel that pain of a headache...it's totally within the individuals personal conciousness, known only to them. If we're going to accept without question Pauls claim of divine revelation as true, we also have to accept that of every other prophet since the beginning of human civilization. Joseph Smith, Muhhamad, Buddha, etc, etc, ad infinitum. The question should be; "what extra-biblical evidence do we have that attests to the authenticity of Pauls supposed divine revelations?" I know of none, therefore I dismiss them as fantasy.Warren, let me address your points here.
1. You are right, anyone can claim to have had a divine revelation. However, Paul DID have have divine revelation. The Bible says so. If it were not true, it would not be in the Bible. If the Bible says it happened, it's indisputable fact.
2. You left a couple of things out on this point. Pauls writings, which explain and compliment the teachings of Jesus and were inspired by the Holy Spirit, form the bedrock of Christian theology.
You claim that the "central teachings of Christianity could very well be based on a well-intentioned delusion, or a blatant fabrication." Ha! Not possible. If they are delusional frabrications, they would not have been in the Bible. The Bible contains only truth.
Repent of your sins today and ask Jesus to save you and come into your heart. Your mind and eyes will then the opened to the Truth of the Word of God.
God bless you, sir.
You keep saying that if it's in the Bible it's indisputable fact. How do you know this? By reading the Bible? Do you find anything, anything at all wrong with that logic?If God said it, who am I or anyone else to dispute it?You're making a circular argument.
The authenticity of the Bible being the word of God DEPENDS on the honesty of Paul. If Paul was a liar, it follows that the Bible is not the word of God. So you can't use the Bible itself to verify the authenticity of Paul's claim of having a vision, because he's the one who wrote that in the Bible in the first place.
I am a Muslim, so I believe that Jesus is a prophet/messenger of God to humanity, but unfortunately modern Christianity is the religion of Paul and not the religion of Jesus. The Qur'an was revealed by God through the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammed, was recorded by his companions, and is available to all of us today in exactly its original form, word for word. That's what you can call a reliable transmission.
“I'm getting so tired of ignorant people dismissing Paul's biblical writings by claiming that he never met Jesus". After calling people ignorant you admit what they are stating is true. How Christian of you.
Acts 9: 1-7:
Note, Paul is on a journey, he then sees a light and hears a voice, this voice is supposedly Jesus. Paul then asks Jesus what do you want me to do? The response by Jesus is for Paul to go to the city and it will be made known to him over there.
Now lets read what Acts 26: 12-18: So note the difference, in the first account all Jesus tells him is go to the city to find out what you must do, in this account in Acts 22 we see Jesus already telling Paul what he must do! So which one is it? Will Paul know what his purpose is in the city? Or did he already know?
Paul never met Jesus in the flesh, he only claimed some spiritual visions and proceeded to Hellenize the teachings of Jesus (who preached a generic form of Judaism), until he created Pauline Christianity . After his vision, according to Paul's own account (Galatians 1:17), he went into the desert of Arabia for a period, seeking no instruction. Yet according to Acts, he sought instruction first from Ananias of Damascus and then from the apostles in Jerusalem. These contradictory accounts reflect a change in Paul's status: in his own view, he had received a revelation that put him far higher than the apostles, while in later Church opinion he had experienced a conversion that was only the beginning of his development as a Christian.
Jorge, you are so wrong on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin - and you accuse ME of being dishonest? First of all, I never said Paul met Jesus in the flesh. YOU are that jump in logic. Let me ask you a question, why do you think a meeting in the flesh is the only valid form of meeting? Where did you get a notion like that? Where it come from? Obviously, a spiritual meeting is just as valid, or perhaps even more so.
The voice Paul heard was not "supposedly" that of Jesus, the Bible says it WAS the voice of Jesus. Which part of that do you not understand? When the Bible says somthing happened, it happened. Period. End of sentence. No question about it. There is no "supposedly". You got that now?
Along the same same line, Paul did not just "claim" some spiritual visions, he in fact HAD those spiritual visions. The Bible says so. That makes it an undisputed a fact.
Also, there's no contradiction in any of these passages, as you claim. It just seems that way to darkened mind who has no respect for the Bible. Repent of your sins today and ask Jesus to save you and come into your heart. Your mind and eyes will then the opened to the Truth of the Word of God.
God bless you.Your entire first paragraph are arguing statements that I clearly never made “only valid form of meeting" on and on, I never made these claims!
The contadictions are clear … They are not my claim, it’s simply what is biblically stated. You state that I am blind becouse I point out discrepencys. Jesus never preached or glorified or asked us to be ignorant. During his time on earth he continuously taught and corrected the deciples, they were human with human failings, and also inspired by God. Although inspired by the father, in no way were they the infalable perfection of God. You “seem" to believe that your particular interpitaion is as infalable and perfect at that of the Father. There are 1001 (not to be taken litterallly) discrepencies in the bible. Of all the writings, rewritings, and interpretaions, of the many versions of the Bible over the last (roughly ) two centuries lies much of the truths that Jesus tried to teach. The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. Most biblicle scholars agree that at that time there were an extimated sixhundred versions of the bible. From these came many of our present versions, they counldn’t all be right.
Close your eyes if it is your way, but this in no way changes the truth. We are human with human failings (you being the exception) an we try our best to live our lives as Jesus lived and instructed us to live.
You may not want to read the following:
God dwells in light: 1 Tim 6:16
God dwells in darkness: 1 Kings 8:12, Ps 18:11, Ps 97:2
God is seen and heard: Ex 33:23, Ex 33:11, Gen 3:9-10, Gen 32:30, Is 6:1, Ex 24:9-11
God is invisible and cannot be heard: John 1:18, John 5:37, Ex 33:20, 1 Tim 6:16
God is tired and rests: Ex 31:17, Jer 15:6
God is never tired and never rests: Is 40:28
God is everywhere present, sees and knows all things: Prov 15:3, Ps 139:7-10, Job 34:21-22
God is not everywhere present, neither sees nor knows all things: Gen 11:5, Gen 18:20-21, Gen 3:8
God knows the hearts of men: Acts 1:24, Ps 139:2-3
God tries men to find out what is in their hearts: Deut 13:3, Deut 8:2, Gen 22:12
God is all-powerful: Jer 32:27, Matt 19:26
God is not all-powerful: Judges 1:19
God is unchangeable: James 1:17, Mal 3:6, Ezek 24:14, Num 23:19
God is changeable: Gen 6:6, Jonah 3:10, 1 Sam 2:30-31, 2 Kings 20:1-6, Ex 33:1, 3, 14, 17
We could go on and on, but it doesn’t change the truth.
Logic and ignorance, both of these terms seem to be favorites of yours.
Problem 1) Everything in the bible is absolute truth because the source claimed in the same book (God) cannot be in error because the same book says he (God)cannot be error. This arguement is a logical fallacy because it is an arguement from authority, and a questionable authority at that. It is also an infinite loop.
a)The infallability of the bible is not testable, predictable, or quantifiable.
b)Glaring errors in detail have been pointed out, and there are many more. A perfect book would not have any errors in even the slightest detail.
Problem 2)Paul claims to have met the ghost or spirit of Jesus on the road to Damascus. We have only Paul's word for this.
a) From all empirical data we have ever seen, the dead stay dead. From all testing and quantifying we have ever done, the dead stay dead.
1)Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
b)Paul's claim rests in the fact that spirit of the ressurected Jesus visited him, this demands evidence for the claim of ressurection as well as the spirit visit.
1)Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
c)All of this depends on an anthromorphic sky father that no one has ever been able to prove existence of. Whose supernatural powers cannot be predicted, measured, tested or quantified. Where is God's throne and heaven? Outside the orbit of Neptune?
1)Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Please keep this in mind when speaking of Logic, reason, and ignorance.
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