I haven't been a christian in a long time, but I remember that when I was, I was disturbed by the fact that Paul clearly counted himself as an apostle based on seeing a vision (rather than encountering a physical body with fingerable wounds), and by the fact that Paul wrote so much earlier than the gospel writers. I continued believing in the whole story for years after that, even after I left Christianity. (It was untenable simply based on the concept of God being both good and omnipotent.) When I finally realized that it was just mythology, I looked back to that early cognitive dissonance and realized: I knew this all along. I just couldn't face it back then. I hope your material gets out to people who are like I was then -- bothered by what is clearly not true but needing someone else to connect the dots for them.
So the wounded in Christ are merely the wounded. I too was puzzled by the combative nature of Paul and so I suppose looking back on a similar 'period of faith in Christianity' that the seeds of ultimate disenchantment with religion were sewn along with it"s genesis. University and a deep dive into the history of Western Civilization to present day left my 'faith' consigned to the 'footnotes' of some pretty gruesome and horrid shit! I too appreciate the calm manner in which we are left to imagine the history with our own feet firmly planted on a solid foundation. If the wounded part in us needs a vitality that has been expunged in us then go jump out of a plane, swim with sharks, or even more challenging, watch your children do these. "Ye jest at scars that never felt a wound" (Shakespear) Find out what wounded you and reclaim what 'vital' piece of you that was taken. Don't give up... religion would have you healed in the 'netherworld" and keep you 'wounded' until then.
Sir I find this video troubling. I Am no Christian apologetic or whatever label you wish to use. I can relate to Paul because you are reading here from a 20 plus year a hard core drug addict who 15 years ago in literally 2 minutes I was healed and been serving THE LORD every since that night of January 28 of 2007 On that night, the last thing I planned on doing was serving THE LORD. I had gone to get my beer, package, smut magazines, smokes, downers I was prepared to party as I did for decades. I certainly did not know God nor cared about God but I tell you here and now. Today serving God is my life. Since that night I have not drugged, smoke, drank, nor used pills. This is why I find your video tdoubling. What people do not realize is that it is not our faith that help us believe. And how I know? Is because if JESUS is truly living HIS life in you then is NOT our faith but IT IS HIS Faith that help us believe. If one does not have Faith in the scriptures then is obvious JESUS is not living im you. That is why sir you have doubts.
@@richardearnshaw2719 that end quote is so true and i am talking from experience if u going through something practical physical they tell u call on jesus instead of helping u heal or getting to the root of the problem thats why stress kill we so because we not dealing with our problems how we should we keep it within until it becomes a death threat so i feel hour comment to my heart i have been There do u have a youtube channel
As a former christian who has spent countless hours listening to so many discussions such as this one in an attempt to arrive at some sort of personal justification for my own spiritual leanings, I find that I am developing a good sense of appreciation for Matthew Hartke's presentations.... short and to the point, intelligently presented and clearly showing a good deal respect for the listener as one intelligent enough to make up his or her own mind without appealing to that heavy weight of emotion which so often accompanies many bible-centered discussions. Thank you, Matthew, for understanding and for showing this community that one need not, indeed should not, appeal to one's personal feelings when trying to decide the merits of a well-presented argument.
@@torontoash45 Is it really so difficult to comprehend that someone may have genuinely believed in Christianity, then just as genuinely found reasons to not believe it anymore?
The weakness of this video is the fact that most scholars agree that both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are almost certainly written by the same person [we'll call him "Luke"]. They are VOLUMES 1 & 2," so to speak. However, when we compare the resurrection appearances of Jesus in GLuke, Luke goes out of his way to emphasize the literal physicality and corporeality of Jesus' body. So much so that Luke records Jesus eating fish [and honeycomb in some textual variants] after showing them His hands and feet. It even says that initially the disciples were frightened and startled because they thought the appearance of Jesus was of a ghost/spirit. Then Jesus contradicts that thought by saying, "For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Again, Luke is emphasizing the genuine corporeality of Jesus' body by recording all these things that way. *If Luke were fabricating and making all this up whole-cloth, then he would make the appearances to the disciples in GLuke and the appearance to Paul in Acts as similar as possible. EITHER by having both of them emphasizing Jesus' corporeality, OR both of them emphasizing the more numinous nature of Christ's appearance* . Instead, the author of Acts makes it clear that they are different in nature. In Acts he's presenting Jesus' appearance to Paul as a glorious theophany in the style of the Old Testament [especially to Ezekiel]. Anthony Rogers explains this well 15 minutes into his debate with Carlos Xavier here:ua-cam.com/video/WhjC0jRmjmU/v-deo.html That Jesus' appearance to Paul was of a different kind from the other disciples is clear from not only how it differs from the accounts in Luke, but from the appearances of Jesus in Acts chapter 1. Which are also apparently more on the side of the corporeal. Luke could do *both* WITHOUT CONTRADICTING himself because there's a long tradition in Jewish thought that goes back to the Old Testament that the same heavenly beings can appear either as ordinary humans or as evidently supernatural entities. That's true of angels in general and also of the Angel of the LORD [i.e. the Malak/Angel of Yahweh, who many Christians like myself believe to by the pre-incarnate Christ]. Luke 24: 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them. So, I would have to disagree with the statement made at 5:45 where Matthew says, "In other words, when we put all the relevant texts on the table we have very little reason for thinking that Paul's conversion experience was a physical appearance of the risen Jesus like the ones described in the resurrection narratives of Matthew, Luke and John which were all composed decades later." Moreover, it's not the case that Paul merely makes the claim that the risen Jesus appeared to him in a numinous way [probably multiple times]. Anyone can claim a past private supernatural experience. But Paul backs it up by also claiming to perform miracles ["signs and wonders"] like the other Apostles did. Both in his past ministry and continuing ministry (cf. 2 Cor. 12:12; Rom. 15:19); 1 Cor. 2:4-5). That miracles are still occurring in our modern world in the context of teaching about the Jesus of the New Testament suggests, or is an evidential chip in favor of, the truth of Jesus' resurrection and of the Christian religion. The quote of Strauss at 6:42 works only if one presupposes that Paul never interviewed the other Apostles and if neither the other Apostles nor he himself [i.e. Paul] were able to perform miracles attesting to the truth of their Gospel message. Yet, in the book of Galatians Paul claims to have met some of the other Apostles and to have compared their message and supernatural experiences with his own. It's not a stretch to think it went in the other direction as well such that the other Apostles compared notes with Paul's message and miraculous thaumaturgical feats. For the evidence of modern miracles see the following books and YT videos by the following authors: Read Craig Keener's two volume Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts [2011] Craig Keener's "Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World" [2021] Rex Gardner's Healing Miracles: A Doctor Investigates, and the appendices in Robert Larmer's The Legitimacy of Miracle as well as Larmer's book Dialogues on Miracle Testing Prayer: Science and Healing by Candy Gunther Brown [Publisher : Harvard University Press] Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing by Candy Gunther Brown [Publisher : Oxford University Press] Last I checked, she is a Professor, Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University also Adjunct Professor, American Studies Program Education: Ph.D., Harvard University, 2000 The Case for Miracles by Lee Strobel I don't know if Randy Clark's 2018 book "Eyewitness to Miracles: Watching the Gospel Come to Life" is any good, but it's been endorsed by Michael L. Brown. Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland came out with a recent 2021 book on modern miracles too. A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles: Instruction and Inspiration for Living Supernaturally in Christ by J.P. Moreland
Before I was a Christian, I also had a vision of the Holy City of God as described in the book of Revelation (I was not allowed to enter). Although I didn’t fully understand the vision until I later read the Bible, I became a believer in God and then a few years later a Christian.
@rboland2173 Firstly let me say that I have looked at a number of videos on YT of visions and NDE and to be honest I am sceptical of most of these especially if there is commercial aspect involved or if the individual was under the influence of medication. I don’t doubt the sincerity of some of these testimonies but doubt the origin or interpretation. I realise that what I say will most likely be received in the same light and to be honest I welcome this. My faith doesn’t rest on the vision I had, and looking back, the vision I had did not have a significant impact on my life at the time. I saw this vision as largely being personal and apart from telling my classmates the next day I didn’t mention it for many years. I was 15 at the time, I was bought up in a non-religious family but told that there was a God. I was a fairly bright student interested in science and naively expected the Bible to be a science book, but when I dipped into small parts of the Bible to me it was history and I had no idea of how to assess whether it was true but questioned why it wouldn’t largely be based on true historical events. I know in my arrogance I thought that it wouldn’t stand up to critical scientific reasoning. I cannot remember the context of the vision, but tend to think the experience was largely out of the blue but it is difficult to say as it was a long time ago. In the initial part of the vision I was on some form of pedestal in a place of total emptiness, darkness, best described as outer space but so remote there was nothing there. I had no idea where I was. I was not initially afraid but came to realise I was going to be here forever alone and separated from my parents. As this stage I began to fear where I was. My memory of this part of the experience has largely faded, I didn’t write anything down. Interestingly, a few weeks later I randomly opened the Bible at one of the passage’s that describes hell as being darkness. My immediate reaction was “that was where I was”. I don’t think I understood at the time of the vision that it might have been hell. This was the stage I saw the city of God. In the darkness it initially appeared as a shining star far away but rapidly came much closer. It was a walled City as described in revelation. The glory of God was shining above the city. I immediately knew this was Gods holy city. Then some form of being - I didn’t see its likeness, but was aware of a presence which transported me very rapidly to outside an entrance to the City. At this stage I can remember wondering if I was at judgement day. I did not see the details of the city as described in Revelation, ie pearl gate, coloured stones etc. I was outside looking upwards through the entrance. I could see no details inside of the city as everything was outshone by the very bright light. I could feel an overwhelming sense of the presence of God which I would describe as Love. There are no words in English to describe this adequately, the love was not ethereal but so intense as to be almost physical. At this stage My whole being kept calling out to God over and again to be with him. The next part of the vision I didn’t fully understand- but the being that had taken me to the entrance let me know I could not enter. I believe he told me why, but I did not understand - I know it had something to do with Jesus. All I know is that I kept telling God that I wanted to be with him. At this stage the experience ended. I immediately prayed that I would be with God some day. Following the vision I would have described myself as a believer in God and believed that God would answer the pray I made. I knew nothing of the Gospel message and the message of Salvation until much later. This came about through mentioning to the person I sat next to in maths class that I had watched a program on tv about a Bible week, and he told me he was going to one and invited me to join them, which I did. This was probably my first real exposure to the gospel message and where I became a Christian- ie believing in Christ for salvation and forgiveness of sins and not just in the existence of a God. I don’t think I was previously aware of the description of God’s city in the Book of Revelation prior to the vision. There is nothing I saw in my experience that isn’t already written in the Bible. Following the vision I was very much aware of the beauty and fingerprint of God in creation. Isaiah 6:3 “The whole earth is full of his glory”. I was also aware that hell is the complete and eternal absence of this. The punishment meant of hell for me is being eternally separated from the presence of God or anything else that is good. In summary, the experiences was a steppingstone to becoming a Christian, probably a significant one, but not the only one and difficult for me to judge. Hope this answers your question adequately.
Whenever I hear about Paul’s Damascus experience, I always think that he had a seizure, a stroke, or a psychotic episode before thinking that “god did it”.
The thing that has always gotten to me about Paul is, besides his apparent misogyny, and his unwitnessed conversion, is why did Jesus chose the disciples he did, if he intended Paul to come along and change what they said? The disciples would testify to churches, then when Paul arrived he would chide people for believing them. He disagreed with the disciples… doesn’t make sense to me.
Joseph Smith had a vision of the resurrected Jesus, just as Paul did. If you're going to accept Paul's testimony, why not accept Smith's testimony? If you don't accept Smith's testimony, why would you accept Paul's testimony?
@@alansnyder6565, what test of scrutiny do you mean? I tend to agree that Joseph Smith's theology is full of contradictions and errors. However, as far as I know, mainstream Christianity is no better.
Because Paul actually met the disciples of Jesus and died like them for his belief on Jesus. Smith instead was a polygamist black hater who made a religion for his on benefits while Paul was getting prisoned and beat up and died poor
The most important point was that Paul never claims to have seen Jesus _before_ the crucifixion, and any eyewitness to the resurrection is required to be able to identify any purported post-resurrection Jesus as definitely being the same Jesus that was crucified. We have countless testimonials from people for the past 2,000 years where people claim to have seen or spoken to the resurrected Jesus, but none of them rise to the level of eyewitness testimony of the _resurrection_ of Jesus. And the same is true of Paul's eyewitness testimony: *Paul's testimony is not eyewitness testimony of the resurrection of Jesus.*
Same is true of almost every religious sect they all have "unexplainable experiences". the christians will acknowledge these experiences but claim they are delusions or demonic possessions but fail to apply the same criticism to their own. I tend to think of paul's "revelation" in the same way as i think of Mohamad's. Two men with mental illness with a predisposition towards superstitious beliefs.
@@bobsmith3735 In his book, The End of Christianity, John W. Loftus speaks of applying the OTF to all of our own religious beliefs... The OTF is The Outsiders Test of Faith. It is exactly what you describe in looking at the "revelations" of the Koran. In other words, we should examine our own personal beliefs with the same kind of skepticism as we apply to the beliefs of others. This sounds quite sound and reasonable to most reasonable people... but christians, as they themselves will tell you, place faith above reason... and faith, as the little girl once told her pastor, "... is believing in something which you know ain't true."
@@anthonypaul1351 Outsider test of faith should be used by everyone that wants to think of themselves as rational. I think it is mostly due to personality types and superstitious leanings regardless of the religion used. Using the outsider test of faith on your claim i can tell you that i have spoken with muslims that make most christians sound rational and reasonable in comparison.
I just stumbled across your videos (thank you YT) and really enjoy them. The myriad plot holes (and all those "harmonizations" that are required to explain them) eventually led me out of the faith. Your videos are succinct, informative and imminently reasonable. I'm looking forward to getting caught up on your content. Keep up the great work. Hail, and well met, sir.
In my understanding I did not believe it was possible that other people could be having the same experience in a "vision" . To me it is clear that this was a physical apperance that Saul had, that Jesus said would not happen. When He appeared again every eye would see Him. Jesus warns us that if anyone says they saw Him in a desert or private room we were to not believe it. On the road outside Damascus it was considered desert or the wilderness. With this being said it greatly reduces any question in my mind that I should believe Saul had an experience with Jesus.
Acts 23:10 (KJV) And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bri ng him into the castle. Within said castle Paul claims to see and speak to Jesus in a chamber alone.
How could Jesus have made a physical appearance to Paul? Several areas of scripture, including Paul’s own letters, make it clear that Christ’s return, or second coming, will be be seen by all and the dead will rise, etc. Was Jesus visit to Paul a double secret return? I know believers will probably somehow find a way around this just as they do with the fact that scripture clearly says Jesus will return within the lifetime of the first believers, but c’mon!!
I am sixty five now and have fought with the story of Christianity all my life. I was raised in the Anglican Church belief in the UK as a boy. These days I believe without a doubt that the story of Christianity is true. I am a sinner just like the rest of us but I put my faith in what the Bible says and will go to my grave with that belief.
@@wataboutya9310 The Abrahamic god isn't real. Sorry. Check out *"The Origins of Yahweh"* by Atheologica. The fictional Abrahamic god of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
@@wataboutya9310 *Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El.* Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy stipulates that *“the Most High, El,* gave to the nations their inheritance” and that “Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob and his allotted heritage” (32:8-9). A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). *The claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan.* *It is generally accepted in the modern day, however, that Yahweh originated in southern Canaan as a lesser god in the Canaanite pantheon* and the Shasu, as nomads, most likely acquired their worship of him during their time in the Levant. *Yahweh in the Canaanite Pantheon* The biblical narrative, however, is not as straightforward as it may seem as it also includes reference to the Canaanite god El whose name is directly referenced in `Israel' (He Who Struggles with God or He Who Perseveres with God). *El was the chief deity of the Canaanite pantheon and the god who, according to the Bible, gave Yahweh authority over the Israelites:* When the *Most High [El]* gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Sons of God. For Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Masoretic Text). The Canaanites, like all ancient civilizations, worshipped many gods but chief among them was the sky-god El. *In this passage from Deuteronomy, El gives each of the gods authority over a segment of the people of earth and Yahweh is assigned to the Israelites who, in time, will make him their supreme and only deity; but it is clear he existed beforehand as a lesser Canaanite god.* Yahweh, according to Amzallag, was transformed from one god among many to the supreme deity by the Israelites in the Iron Age (c.1200-930 BCE) when iron replaced bronze and the copper smelters, whose craft was seen as a kind of transformative magic, lost their unique status. *In this new age, the Israelites in Canaan sought to distance themselves from their neighbors in order to consolidate political and military strength and so elevated Yahweh above El as the supreme being and claimed him as their own.* His association with the forge, and with imagery of fire, smoke, and smiting, worked as well in describing a god of storms and war and so Yahweh's character changed from a deity of transformation to one of conquest. *As the Israelites developed their community in Canaan, they sought to distance themselves from their neighbors and, as noted, elevated Yahweh above the traditional Canaanite supreme deity El.* They did not, however, embrace monotheism at this time. The Israelites remained a henotheistic people through the time of the Judges, which predates the rise of the monarchy, and throughout the time of the Kingdom of Israel (c.1080-c. 722). Google *"Yahweh - **WorldHistory.Org.**"* Watch Dr Christine Hayes at Yale University. Watch lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards and lecture 8 from 12:00 to 19:00 minutes. Google *"Jews and Arabs Descended from Canaanites - Biblical Archaeology Society."* Google *"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopaedia."* Google *"Canaanite Religion - **Realhistoryww.com**"* Google *"Canaanite Phoenician Origin of the God of the Israelites."* Google *"The Phoenician God Resheph in the Bible - Is That in the Bible?"* Google *"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."* Google *"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."* Google *"Married Deities: Asherah and Yahweh in Early Israelite Religion - Yahweh Elohim."* Google *"How the Jews Invented God and Made Him Great- Archaeology - Haaretz."* Google *"The Invention of God - Maclean's"* Google *"The Boundaries of the Nations - Yahweh Elohim."* Google *"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."* Google *"How Did the Bible’s Editors Conceal Evidence of Israelite Polytheism - Evolution of God by Robert Wright."* Google *"A Theologically Revised Text: Deuteronomy 32:8-9 - Ancient Hebrew Poetry."* Google *"Biblical Contradiction #3: Which God is the Creator of the Heavens and Earth: Yahweh or El?"* Google *"Biblical Contradiction #27. Are Yahweh and El the Same God or Not?"* Google *"Mark Smith: "Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh's Ascendancy - Lehi's Library."* Google *"Quartz Hill School of Theology - B425 Ugarit and the Bible."* Google *"The Origins of Yahweh and the Revived Kenite Hypothesis - Is That in the Bible?"* Google *"Yahweh, god of metallurgy - Fewer Lacunae."* Google *"Polytheistic Roots of Israelite Religion - Fewer Lacunae."* Google *"Biblical Polytheism - Bob Seidensticker."* Google *"Combat Myth: The Curious Story of Yahweh and the Gods Who Preceded Him - Bob Seidensticker."* Google *"Religious Studies: El, Yahweh and the Development of Monotheism in Ancient Israel."* Google *"Decoupling YHWH and El - Daniel O. McClellan."* Google *"Yhwh, God of Edom - Daniel O. McClellan."* Google *"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.*
@@wataboutya9310 The end is near? *The Bible’s New Testament contains a drumbeat of promises that Jesus is ready to return any day now, implying that it will happen so soon that it would be wise to keep it in mind when making any kind of life decision. But it didn’t happen.* The following is a sample of verses professing this theme: Matt 10:23: [Jesus said to his disciples] *‘When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next;* ***for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes’.*** (They fled through the towns but the Son of Man never came) Matt 16:28: [Jesus said to the disciples], *‘Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death* before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom’. Mark 9:1: And he [Jesus] said to them [the disciples], *‘Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death* before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power’. Mark 13:30: *[After detailing events up to end of world, Jesus says]* ‘Truly, I say to you, ***this generation will not pass away before all these things take place’.*** Mark 14:62: And Jesus said ***[to the high priest - died 1st cent. AD]*** ‘You will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven’. (The high priest died and never saw the Son of Man) Rom 13:12: The day is *at hand.* 1 Cor 7:29: The appointed time has grown very short; from now on, *let those who have wives live as though they had none.* (Funny thing to say if you didn’t think the end was imminent) 1 Cor 7:31: For the form of this world is *passing away.* Phil 4:5: The Lord is *coming soon.* 1 Thess 4:15: *We who are alive, who are left* until the coming of the Lord. Hebrews 1:2: *In these last days* he has spoken to us by a Son. Hebrews 10:37: For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and *shall not tarry.* James 5:8: The coming of the Lord is *at hand.* 1 Peter 1:20: He [Christ] was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the *end of the times.* 1 Peter 4:7: The end of all things is *at hand.* 1 John 2:18: *It is the last hour;* and as you have heard that antichrist is coming. Rev 1:1: The revelation of Jesus Christ (i.e., the end of the world)…to show to his servants what must *soon take place.* Rev 3:11: [Jesus said] ‘I am *coming soon’.* Rev 22:6: And the Lord…has sent his angel to show his servants what must *soon take place.* Rev 22:20: [Jesus said] ‘Surely I am *coming soon’.* *It is puzzling to understand why Christianity survived the failure of this prediction. It is not ambiguous.* This would be like a rich uncle who promises to give you $10,000 ‘very soon.’ Ten years pass and he still hasn’t given anything to you, but he still says he will do it very soon. Would you still believe that it will happen any day? No, you would realize that it is a false promise. *For some reason, Christians cannot comprehend that they have been scammed. Jesus is not coming back, not tomorrow, not next year, not ever. But they still think it will happen any day.* www.kyroot.com/ Watch "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet, Historical Lecture - Bart D. Ehrman" on UA-cam ua-cam.com/video/s6GHEOOAXRI/v-deo.html
@@wataboutya9310 I don't think anyone really cares what people believe its what you can prove that we care about. Just like you don't care what a billion muslims believe.
Paul has been identified as a liar priest, an infiltrator and an imposter from different sources. Jesus did not record any of his teachings and so Paul was able to influence the early followers of Christ. Even though Paul was not one of Christ's disciples he asserted his own authority .in deciding what was to become the Christian religion. Ironically Jesus was not a great fan of organized religion; but thanks to people like Paul, the oral tradition of his teachings and other doubtful writings were cobbled into a religion. Essenes , Gnostics and many individuals whose take on Jesus was of a different authenticity, were deemed to be heretics.
Paul preached against the Law, while James, Peter and John did not. It had gotten so bad that the "mother church" in Jerusalem under the auspices of James, Peter and John sent out their own ambassadors (apostoloi) to correct Paul's errant teaching. At one point, Paul was made to take a "vow" (Nazirite vow) to prove that he was not preaching against the Law. You can see in many of Paul's letters to the churches how much he despised James, Peter and John, and how upset he was they had turned away from his teachings. As a slight aside, knowing this, I think that Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was the problems he was having with the "mother church" and James, Peter and John. I have no proof of this; just what I think it could have been. Because they were a thorn in the flesh to Paul.
And a fraud. How did Paul die after insisting he be tried as a Roman citizen in Rome rather than submitting to martyrdom? Well...the ROMANS didn't have a record of his trial, and the Vatican don't have a record, and it's not in the Bible anywhere. It's like he - maybe - decided on his epic jailbird journey to offer a cup of wine or a handful to grain to Caesar and just quietly wander off into the sunset or something, huh?
Great video. I've never understood how Paul can be cited as a witness (though I agree he claims to be one) to the resurrected Jesus when the stories about him overwhelmingly suggest what he saw was not a physical body. Surely the only proper witnesses would have to be those who saw Jesus before the ascension?
Not a physical body? Jesus by default, after the Ressurection and the ascension RETAINED His physical body. What Paul saw wasn’t just an apparition if indeed he saw Jesus. He saw a resurrected Jesus. Essentially YHWH in his incarnated human body and nature.
The most important point was that Paul never claims to have seen Jesus before the _crucifixion,_ and any eyewitness to the resurrection is required to be able to identify any purported post-resurrection Jesus as definitely being the same Jesus that was crucified. We have countless testimonials from people for the past 2,000 years where people claim to have seen or spoken to the resurrected Jesus, but none of them rise to the level of eyewitness testimony of the _resurrection_ of Jesus. And the same is true of Paul's eyewitness testimony: *Paul's testimony is not eyewitness testimony of the resurrection of Jesus.*
@@pauligrossinoz it is eye witness because he saw Him, listened His voice and a literal miracle happened to him in his physical body that healed after meeting a member of The Way that eventually healed him and of course could confirm to Paul if the person he saw was Jesus. Jesus had numerous followers during his ministry beyond the 12, that could confirm what Jesus taught, how he looked etc. Paul never met Jesus, sure. Others he met, did.
@@nikostheater - Paul is not an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus because he never saw him before. It's that simple. He testifies only of an encounter, not the actual resurrection.
@@pauligrossinoz Paul himself said he testified of an encounter with the resurrected Jesus. No one saw the event of resurrection, only the aftermath. The person he saw in the event on the road to Damascus was Jesus.
By my reading, Paul is a quintessential religious zealot; basically a carnival barker; a raving lunatic. Yes, I think his conversion experience completely undermines the totality of the resurrection tenets.
1. Wouldn’t any con artist using religion as a tool say precisely that? “Just believe me! That’s what God wants.” 2. The fact that this same line can be used to justify contradictory messages and cults speaks to its poverty/ emptiness. Can’t Mormons, Muslims, JW’s, Catholics, Pentecostals, Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Hindus, etc. say the same thing to justify both a lack of good evidence as well as evidence that counters their faiths? 3. Says who? An untrustworthy, fallacious collection of ancient scrolls? 4. Faith without reason is problematic enough. Faith CONTRARY to reason and evidence is sooo much worse.
It's not! Noah's flood never occurred. The Exodus from Egypt never occurred, and if it had, anyone could have walked from Egypt to Canaan in less than a week. Not 40 years. The number 40 itself is used so many times in the Bible it can't be taken literally. It is a part of Hebraic mystical numerology.
The 7 real Pauline epistles are actually good historical sources (I say real because there are several epistles in the NT that were forgeries using Paul's name or were later falsely attributed to him). They're the oldest surviving Christian writings we have. Paul's generally just writing about his own thoughts and opinions, responding to criticism/questions, and hammering out extremely basic fundamental features of the faith. In those epistles, there's not a lot of room for BS when it comes to historical events The rest of the book is totally made up, though.
@@kerishannon775 yes. During the flood, for how many days and nights did it rain? 40. Must be code for something like "seems like a bloody long time. But not infinite"
@@kerishannon775 and they escape from Egypt to head to more of Egypt the land of Canaan was ruled by Egyptians so why would people escape from the land of their opressors just to go to more land of the oppressors.
This is really good content. I like learning and thinking about these topics, because I'm still deconverting and gaining more confidence in my non-belief now. Now, no longer believing and finding Christianity to be quite different than I thought it was, after critically examining so much of it. It's good to have fellow atheists produce content that educates us and guides us, as we all come and try to figure out how the claims of the Christian religion or all religions are just so lacking and easy-to-debunk, being just fictional stories from the Bronze Age. [SUBBING.]
@@ecisme10 My mother died a believer, and her life is hidden in Christ. Indeed, her soul now participates in the eternal joy and peace of the Son of God, beyond all expressing.
@@jackdomanski6758 sorry for your loss but you shouldn't be putting down reasonable rebuttals to myths and not expect a response. You left the door open for that one. P.S. Paul never met jesus in any form. The truth is not always joyful.
really weird for a Jewish pharisee who was on his way to hunt down Christians in Damascus just to turn his life around and start preaching the faith he was trying to destroy and perform miracles (acts 14:8-10, acts 20:9-12 acts 19:1-12) then get martyred because of his faith in Jesus all because he had a heat stroke but never met Jesus
The Gospels, Acts, and Paul's own writings are in alignment in that Paul's vision took place post-ascension. Thus, it would have inherently been different from pre-ascention appearances. The foundational premise of your assertion is materially flawed.
Great presentation On a somewhat tangential note…. I have recently become aware of the Ravi Zaharias … the formidably admirable evangelist…. Who turned out to be a highly charismatic con man and sex abuser. I think that Zaharias indisputably illustrates how thoroughly we can be taken in by spiritual frauds. And, in that context…. The story that Paul tells is sufficiently problematical that it is hard to rule out the possibility that he might also have been a spiritual fraud; a guy who found his career as an evangelist to be far more appealing than his previous calling as a tax collector.
So being beat continuously, living in humble conditions, under the threat of death, shipwrecked, stone, and beheaded, is more appealing than his former lifestyle? The lifestyle where he wasn’t beaten, and threaten, in fact, he was highly respected and was far advance in comparison to contemporaries in The Pharisee sect.
Paul makes it abundantly clear in his epistles his Jesus is a celestial being. He goes so far as to repudiate the experiences of the other disciples and apostles. Paul also appears to be a dualist, denouncing the "Evil God of this World".
Also interesting is Peter's "prison break" escape in Acts 12. Peter sees an angel but, at first, thinks he's just "seeing a vision" but upon completion of the escape he concludes the angel must have been real! Peter seems to have trouble distinguishing visions from reality. Similarly, in 2 Cor 12 Paul can't determine whether or not his vision took place "in or out of the body." So that's TWO "eyewitnesses" of the Risen Jesus in 1 Cor 15:5-8 that were prone to "seeing things." How do we know Peter didn't just think he had a vision of Jesus then conclude it must have been real just like his experience in Acts 12? Makes you question the veracity of the claim of Jesus "appearing" when the "eyewitnessing" may not have had anything to do with reality.
We always studied that Paul's conversion was from a vison. This was from a strongly Wesleyan denomination (Salvation Army - they're not an organization but an Evangelical Wesleyan non-denominational church)
This sort of this actually fascinates me. One of of reasons why I like Joan de Arc, is because she may have been schizophrenic. When you consider things, and try to work back things like this... well you can't sit there and diagnose mental illness from the past. But we can look at the symptoms that are displayed. For instance mellonicolia is obviously depression. Then you have someone like Joan who if she was ere today she'd be diagnosed and put up. It's really fascinating that mental illness has almost always been a part of humanity. Just makes you wonder how many religions were created because of mental illness.
@@mariawhite7337 What's also interesting is the fact that the author of Acts just expects his audience to believe this happened. So, evidently, these people had no trouble accepting claims of visions as normal experiences whereas today things are very different.
@@resurrectionnerd Today’s modern skepticism is certainly a mixed bag, as a wise man once wrote “the trouble with the world today is not a lack of wonders, but a lack of wonder.”
@@mariawhite7337, I think that the best explanation for Joseph Smith's career was that he was probably borderline mentally ill. He had real difficulty distinguishing reality from his own fantasies.
I think it's silly to think the first Christians were any more honest than the current-day Christians. Paul was *most likely* just a bronze age Jim Bakker. He saw a popular moment and cashed in with the same sincerity and humble-bragging humility that Jim does and tried to build a career out of it. Mystery solved. Why should I believe otherwise?
That's what I have allways felt, his revelation, flash of light came when he realised the tax he had collect meant they earned more than him. The claim to have seen Jesus was to give himself prominence, putting him on a par with the apostles. Not to be out done by the new boy, the apostles or thier followers created the resurrection. Paul may have seen Jesus, but he came to the originals first.
If you start looking for the problems with Christianity, all roads lead to Paul. It all happened in his head, the bible makes that perfectly clear. I have to ask in response to your last question, believe what? This hypnotic faith is not necessary in order to follow the teachings of Christ, it's not necessary to deify and worship the man, what he said works regardless. He doesn't even have to have existed in real life. Everything from line 2 of the Apostles Creed was imposed later, largely by the Roman church. The problem with Christianity is all this other nonsense. Paul's job was to neutralise the threat to the Empire
In the essay "Circling the Blanket for God", final chapter of "The Trouble with Testosterone" (1998), Robert Sapolsky describes Saul/Paul's episode on the road to Damascus, and subsequent religious obsessions, as being consistent with modern accounts of temporal lobe epilepsy (edit, NOT parietal lobe).
@@jayfredrickson8632 Thanks for the correction. You are correct. It's been 15 years since my last reading, and I don't work in the field, but I should have reflected on how the parietal lobe is mostly motor function and temporal lobes are focused on language. Let there not be a lateral sulcus between us.
How do you not have as many followers as viced rhino, the truth hurts, Aron Ra and mat dillahunty? You ask hard questions without any saber rattling, and I appreciate that style of discussion. This is my second video of yours I have watched, and I plan to watch more. Do you have a deconversion story video on here? I'm also thinking about starting a channel here to cover these kinds of questions, as well as my own experience of sexual abuse as a child. I've been an atheist for about seven years now, I was born Catholic, converted to wicca in middle school and revered the natural world through the worship of Artemis and Ares. a few years after highschool, I came to understand that the gods are not actually real. However, to quote extra credits extra mythology into, "myths are not stories that are untrue. Rather, they are tales that don't fit neatly into the historical record, which serves as the foundation to a culture." Artemis is an idea, not a real thing. She reminds the hunter to respect his prey. She reminds the adventurer to respect the wild places of the world, and she helps us remember that there are some things more dangerous than we are that deserve respect and fear. I feel like the god of Christendom embodies principals such as these as well, though certainly not a respect for the physical world. You should keep making videos, stranger friend!
I don’t assume that the authors were always writing what they believed to have happened, but what they wanted their readers to believe theologically… or were some of then writing what they believed to be fiction? They certainly used fictional devices, such as imitating Homer and dramatic irony.
A couple of observations: While the other apostles presumably had an experience of Jesus's post-resurrection body, and they subsequently witnessed that body physically ascend, Paul's experience was of not only Jesus's post-resurrection body, but his post-ascension body. In other words, Paul's stated experience and that described by the author of Acts, if it did involve Jesus's physical body, would have required Jesus's return to earth, just as he said he would. Is this the promised second coming? It hardly seems to fit the bill, yet if it wasn't Jesus in the (resurrected) flesh, what was it? As far as Paul's writings, it seems that he is always referring to his knowledge of Jesus as either a revelation, or a vision, and that what he was giving (to the churches) was "something he received". Is he referring to information he received from James and the other apostles, something he received during one of his visions, or something he received directly from interviews he had with the risen Jesus in his physical body? In other words, what was he doing for the 14 years between his so-called conversion and the beginning of his missionary activity? Do we know? Certainly he spent some of that time hashing out the implications that Jesus might be the Jewish promised Messiah. It would have taken time for him to re-think his theology and decide how he was to interpret the Jewish scriptures in light of this supposed revelation. There is no doubt that he benefited from oral traditions that began almost immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus. Something of tremendous significance happened to account for the existence of groups of believers throughout the Jewish diaspora that predate even Paul's earliest letters., since many of these gatherings were already in existence before he began to write. (At least the letters that are extant.) The author of the Gospels and the book of Acts base their material entirely on oral traditions (and possibly some other written material, now lost). But so did Paul. The difference is in the timing. When he quotes Jesus words at the Last Supper in his letter to the Corinthians, he is certainly using anecdotal sources, but remarkably, they are probably the earliest recorded words of Jesus we have.
I became a believer because the Spirit of God convicted me of sin and righteousness. Believing in the risen Christ is not hard to do once you have the Spirit of God teaching you. This is impossible for anyone who suppresses the truth in unrighteousness to understand.
Paul had a stroke or epileptic seizure which knocked him off his horse, blinded him and nearly killed him (A near death experience). Whatever he experienced inside his head altered his personality and convinced him to start his own religion. A variety of religious experiences which lead to the founding of new religions are quite common among human primates.
OMG. What lots of people (even pastors) don't (yet) understand. God created us according to His own image and likeness. Godly. Mankind/the first Adam fell. The image of God in man got lost. That's why there is all this predicament on earth (selfishness, greed, lust, wars, sicknesses, death, etc). We are all born into that mess. For the fall of man a perfect atoning sacrifice had to be made.... that is what God did in Christ. With His own once and for all perefect sacrifice, He paid the debt for the fall of man for us, so we can be indwelled by His Spirit again and finally receive the divine life of the ages back, the first Adam let got of in the fall of man. An amazing act of grace and love by our creator. That is what you see happening in Christ's first disciples. They too healed all and walked in unselfish love. And yes.... that is still avaible today. The holy blood is in place, the Holy Spirit is here to give us understanding, power and transform us back to origin. Not to be debated about, but to be embraced and be-come. So: The Kingdom of God already came. Through Christ, in Spiritform, in those that understand. Hence the divine healing miracles we experience. God manifested in Christ to give us back the divine life mankind lost in the fall of Adam. Christ, the exact image of the invisible God. The image we were created after in Gen 1. The image we lost in the fall of man. The image that can be freely restored by Christ's blood and Holy Spirit working IN us. What a plan. What a solution. What a love. What a God. Jesus is amazing. It is the ultimate conclusion of the word and plan of God. God came full circle. He Himself stooped down from glory to restore us back to original created value: Christlikeness. Walking in divine healing power and unselfish love. Jesus, born of the Spirit of God, filled with the spirit of God. The "Son" of God, the incarnated word, God in the flesh. For three years He healed all, raised the dead, casted out demons, controlled nature, spoke pure divine truth. He said: "Follow Me. If you see Me, you see the Father. The Father and I are one. The glory I have IN My Father, I give to you. It pleases the Father to give you His Kingdom/Holy Spirit/divine nature. I will send Holy Spirit, the same as Me, He will be IN you, guide you into truth and give you explosive power. The same miracles i do, you will do too, because you will understand that the Father is IN Me and I am IN you. Freely I give you My Kingdom/Holy Spirit/divine nature, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, freely I give, freely share" Etc, etc, etc. I have experienced thousands of beautifull healing miracles through the power of Holy Spirit IN me already. Broken bones, cancers, covid, all kinds of infirmities healed in seconds. Demons manifesting and casted out by a simple "get out, in Jesus name". Jesus. De name above all names. In Him all power and wisdom is sourced and.... He calls us one with Him. God in man and man in God again. C'mon Jesus!! So.... again: God stooped down IN Christ to restore us back to Gen 1:27 were He said: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness and let them have authority.....": walk as Christ. Christ, the exact image of the invisible God. The image we were created after and being restored to by His atoning blood for the fall of man and indwelling Holy Spirit. You are free to receive this original divine life of the ages by Holy Spirit of Christ/God. Ask Him to guide you into truth. Read the Gospel of John and fall in love with your creator. You are not made for the fall of man and its effects, but for the image/glory of God and to walk like Christ. Holy Spirit is the guide and transforming power that will get you there. Amazing grace. A big leap in faith can be made when we start realizing we are already IN Christ, IN the last Adam. Free from the fall! Loved! Growing into awareness of our new (yet old) godly identity. Changing by Holy Spirit. The most fullfilled life ever. Paul healed all on Malta. He understood and wrote: "As in the first Adam ALL died (lost the divine nature), so also ALL were made alive IN Christ to walk in Zoë (= divine life) again". "IN Christ (the last Adam) we are co-cruisified (dead to the fall and its effects), co-raised (justified/made righteousness, holy, blameless, above reproach), co-seated (one with Him)" "The fullness of deity dwells in Christ and YOU HAVE BEEN MADE COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of every principality and power". So.... thank you Jesus! Thank you for redeeming me from the fall of man. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that makes this new (yet old) divine life come alive in me. You are amazing! In the shadow of Peter the sick healed... He understood too and wrote: "By Gods power (Holy Spirit) and knowing Christ, we have become partakers of the divine nature and have escaped the fall of man". The divine life of the ages has been returned to us by Jesus once and for all perfect atoning sacrifice for the debt of the fall of man and His indwelling Holy Spirit in us. Jesus/God is amazing!!! Ask Him to give you revelation and change you to the way it was before the fall of man: Christlikeness. He will do so. For it is written: "the Spirit brings forth after His own kind". "I have come to give you Zoë (divine life) in abundance...."
Thanks for this. I (recently become ex-Christian) am just discussing with a Christian friend, and he claims that Paul's appearance must have been corporeal BECAUSE it is described in the same vein as the others he mentions. So it is 'dragged up' by the appearances to the disciples. The verses you quote strongly suggest the opposite, that those to the disciples are 'dragged down' by the appearance to Paul to the status of visions.
To make this point a little clearer. Paul uses the same verb "ophthe" for every "appearance" of Jesus mentioned in the earliest eyewitness list from 1 Cor 15:5-8. So since the appearance to Paul was a "vision" then obviously the word "ophthe" did not necessarily convey the meaning of seeing as in actually witnessing and touching a physical body. To drive this point home further, even a literal understanding of Paul's Damascus Road experience does not tell us Paul saw an actual person. Acts 9:7 even says the others with Paul "saw no one" which rules out a physical person being visible. So now we can derive an "appearance" of Jesus _did not necessarily require seeing an actual person._ Now think about how that affects the evidence for the Resurrection.
So if you describe Paul's experience without all of the religious context, here is what you get- Some guy is riding on a horse for a long time, falls off of his horse in the middle of nowhere and starts seeing visions. Goes on to try convincing everyone that his visions are from God, some believe him, many don't. We see this general pattern repeat many times, Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Oral Roberts seeing a 900 foot Jesus, etc.
@brettbrewer6091 The Bible doesn't mention Paul falling off a horse in any of its accounts of his conversion. In Acts 9:3-4, 22:6-7, and 26:12-14, the Bible says that Paul fell to the ground after seeing a light from heaven, but doesn't mention a horse. Paul also doesn't mention falling off a horse in his letters to churches.
"Anybody here Seen my old friend, Jesus?? Can you tell me where he's gone?? He freed a lot of people, But the good, it seems they die young. I look around and he is gone."
I am glad you showed up in recommendations! I still haven’t figured out 1 cor 15:3-4. Paul says he got his information from scripture, but I couldn’t find any reference to a 3 day resurrection story in the OT. Where do I have to look? Did he even mean the OT?
Jonah and the Belly of the Fish could be something. That's 3 days in the chaotic waters. Which chaotic waters are seen as distant from God in many respects
@@partydean17 thanks! So I shouldn’t look for a literal resurrection story, just passages that kind of fit my purpose. Just like Paul did? I bet I find a lot of references to the number 3. your example is great though.
@@name_christian Paul's "scriptures" weren't identical to our "scriptures." I know, for example, that Paul included the book of Enoch, among other extra canonical works, some of which no longer exist. Enoch was only rediscovered in modern times in Egypt.
Amazing video and very salient point. Granted, Jesus’ resurrection is not at all disproven by his disciples’ experiences of it being visionary - but it does call into question the gospel accounts themselves. And at that point the apologetics seem to fall apart rapidly
Paul was always a problem for me, until I remembered that Jesus had said that one would come after him who would claim to speak on His behalf, and would lead multitudes into darkness. Jesus was warning about Paul!!! The main division between Orthodox Christianity and Protestant Christianity IS PAUL. The Orthodox versions of Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism) look to Jesus for answers when they have questions. Protestant sects like Lutheranism, Baptists, and right wing evangelicals look to Paul.
Catholics also see Paul as a legitimate mouthpiece of the Spirit. I'll agree tho they dont have to basically worship everything he says like evangelicals do. Which is why they value what James and Peter says more so.
The physicality of the appearances is not part of the case for the resurrection. Whether it is physical or non-physical, the fact is that the disciples (and unbelievers like Paul and James) experienced appearances of Jesus alive in a way that led them to begin preaching that Jesus had been raised (from the dead) despite all of their Jewish predisposition to the contrary. That is a matter of historically established fact.
The problem with assuming the other resurrection appearances were also visions is that Christians assume that the apostles wrote the gospels, or at least that the gospels are accurate, even if not by eye witnesses.
Paul's experience of the resurrected Jesus was a visionary experience - as he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom. Also, it is interesting that there is no account of the appearance to Peter or to the 500 at one time, (unless one accepts the reception of the Spirit at Pentecost - Acts 2, as a resurrection appearance).
Visions are gifts from the Lord. Why would he give that to a Paul who persecuted Christisns for a living before. I think he is the reason Christians were such rule makers instead of following Jesus with love instead of power.
@@johnnyplunkett8532 Your statement is false. Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things. Essentially cause and effect; nothing spontaneous.
@@edwardschneider6396 Materialists think life comes from non living matter and energy. It violates all known laws of science. They also believe the entire Matter Energy Space Time universe was squished into a teeny tiny polkadot in violation of the laws of physics. Only a God or gods could do that because it requires power and intelligence to create a biological system. Belief in God or gods is simple rational thinking not faith.
@@johnnyplunkett8532 Ah, the intelligent design believe. Believing is not a FACT that is demonstrable by a falsifiable method. You are confusing philosophical position with science. Which god or god's should we believe in? We have about 10,000 since man walked upright. How can you determine which god or gods are REAL? We have a hypothesis and then try to determine if evidence supports it and conclude with a working theory. That Is how science works. All religions are unfalsifiable institutions. No method of determining true or false.
deeper than "doubt"! Paul/Saul saw an opportunity to hustle the crowd of fishermen/farmers/miscreants/superstitiously-inclined dissatisfied subjects - and he took it!
It strikes me that Paul in fact is putting his experiance on par with that of the Apostles as a means of buttressing his own authority . Paul was a zealous persecutor then a zealous evangelizer...but in neither case did he seem to doubt his own righteousness.
He never seemed to doubt his own AUTHORITY. Half of his letters are to wayward churches who weren't doing what he told them to and he was chastising them for it. He also, when he NEEDED Gentiles to join his church, had the most convenient "revelation" in the history of religion when Jesus appeared to him and told him that gentiles didn't have to obey Jewish law. Without that, Romans would not have joined up, and christianity would have been just another failed cult.
@@commonsense5494 Liker when Mohammad was told by god he could take on more wives than other men LOL. If i get pulled over for a speeding ticket ill be sure to mention to the officer that god revealed to me that it was ok for me to drive at that speed.
I always saw Paul as a religious zealot on par with the evangelical, mega church preachers and cult leaders we see today. Every story they come up with happens to fill a gap they need and not a shred of evidence to back them up. When scrutinized you find major holes that they never resolve. And yet these stories are where they claim their divinely mandated authority comes from. "Listen to me, God and I are best buds. Just ignore that this sounds ridiculous." Again, if Paul was talking about anything besides Jesus we would rightfully call him crazy and ignore what he has to say. But just as those pushing religion on TV and in politics, because it's Jesus you must ignore that literally everything coming out of their mouth in no way comports with reality.
Would you be willing to do an analysis of the Papias source? I’ve seen this resurface in a number of online forums... used to establish that the authors of the gospels were kynown quite early (ca. 100 AD). In every case where I’ve seen Papias quoted for this purpose, left out of the discussion is this: we have no existing copies of Papias’ work whatsoever. Most of what we have is quoted by Eusebius in fragments. Since this information doesn’t necessarily disapprove anything, but does introduce reason to doubt, it may fit in well with the theme of your channel. Cheers!
Is Paul relaying what he knows personally about Cephas(Peter), the twelve apostles, and James in 1 Cor. 15:3-8, or simply what he has heard? Where does 1st Corinthians fit in the timeline of his trip or trips to Jerusalem? Before or after? The statement “what I in turn had received” and what follows it can be interpreted to mean he’s relaying what he’s heard, or could be read as a recited creed, or he could just be relaying what the actual apostles told him when he was in Jerusalem.
I contest Paul as a witness, especially a reliable one. 15 years or so after the supposed event, he wrote that he had an epiphany. People have bad memories and can convince themselves of a lot of things. We don’t have to look beyond current politics to see people behaving according to what they want to believe rather than what they have evidence to believe. Putting himself next to others who never wrote that they saw a risen Jesus does not prove much, except that Paul thought a lot of his own story.
I really love the point you’ve made at the end about the nature of Paul’s experience of Jesus ostensibly being the same as the other apostles’. I believe this subjective experience of the risen Jesus is precisely what many liberal Christian scholars/theologians (JD Crossan and Marcus Borg come to mind) argue for on historical and philosophical grounds. Clearly this undermines fundamentalist theology, and even classical theism, but I do think it’s a promising view that lends itself to inclusive, non-oppressive forms of Christianity and even non-Christian appreciation.
It is what makes the most sense, they all had experiences they couldn't understand and they attributed them to their cult. Same thing happens even today in every religion.
There are three accounts of Paul's conversion experience in the book of Acts and they all contradict one another. A good analogy to these accounts from the New Testament are the visions of Roman Catholic saints such as Fatima. Such phenomena are in fact fairly common and are easily explained psychologically as a product of stress and expectation.
Than you sir for another well considered and researched piece of work. When one spends even a modicum of research into the Second Testament writings, it becomes apparent that the belief methodology we have called Christianity for centuries should rightfully be redefined as "Paulanity". In ancient traditional literature outside of the European Christian culture, the teachings of a Sage, or of a Saint were defined as valid by the inherent Truth that was perceived to exist within the argument itself, as in "...For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit...". Luke 6:43-45 (KJV). However Paul turns this understanding of the validity of Jesus The Nazarene's wisdom teaching inside out, and instead postulates that the teachings of Jesus were valid ( not because any inherent wisdom or truth in and of itself ), but because Jesus was The Son Of God, and the proof of this was his resurrection. As a result Paul refocuses the wisdom teachings of Jesus The Nazarene away from the inherent "Truth" that existed within his life and teachings, to that of Jesus as "Divinity". This redefinition of what it means to be a follower of the teachings of Jesus had profound repercussions in the future of the developing Christian religion, indeed when one considers where our concepts of how a follower of Jesus to behave and act, these definitions come almost exclusively from Paul.
And, likely, Paul did this to make these teachings more palatable to his "Gentile" audience ( and thus assured that a small Jewish cult would become an imperial world religion)!
Gal 2:9a And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship;
Paul's encounter is definitely a lesser encounter than the ones experienced by the disciples. Jesus's bodily appearances should have ceased after his ascension. I do believe Paul recognized this fact and thus considered himself the least among the apostles. "I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody." 2 Cor 12:11 "Though I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ," Eph 3:8 "For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." 1 Cor 15:9 Paul was a persecutor and a late comer to the church, which probably bothered him, still he considered his visions of the Lord as objective revelations, binding and true on par with the experiences of the twelve. I wouldn't lump the physical appearances with Paul's visions or other visions the disciples had post ascension (don't think Paul would too).
It's been a blight on christianity that Paul's writings were put in the bible. In many ways his words have brought everything that's misogynistic and homophobic to the religion.
No, Paul’s letters are perfectly just and quite easy to understand. Really, you gotta scrape the bottom of the barrel to try to find something explicitly sexist in Paul’s letters. Homosexuality is explicitly condemned, but I don’t see a reason to consider that a plight on Christianity.
Thats complete rubbish really. He was a person of his time and no more sexist or homophobic than anyone else back then. He condemns homosexuality in places but in that he would be in line with any Jew of his day. On women a lot of the bits people object to are from the pastoral epistles which are considered by many scholars to be falsely attributed to him so not his words.
As I recall, Paul didn’t “see” Jesus, he appears to “experience” Jesus - and I think that is what happened. Regardless as to the veracity of the resurrection, it appears to be a fact that most of these people died on behalf of Christianity. Apologist point out that it is difficult to find people to die for what they know to be a lie. Some theologians will say the point of the resurrection is that death is not the final or ending experience - and the martyrdom of so many of the apostles would seem to validate that concept. Pauls conversion experience is not compelling but his martyrdom experience is. So to answer your question, “what historical basis is there to say that the experience of the other apostles was similar to his“ the answer might be, they all accepted death (with the exception of John) as martyr’s for Christ - and that no one dies for that which they know to be lie, let alone a cohort dying for something they know to be a lie. We are endowed with free will to accept or not accept God as expressed this way. Life is very hard, for all creatures. In that context it is hard to accept that there is a God who would create such a creation, except for that fact that he thinks creation is so essential that rather than eliminate suffering in creation he puts himself through it, both creation and the suffering that comes with it. In the face of those two concepts (life is sufference, God puts himself through that sufference) we are given free will to consider that there is a God or there is not a God and we are free to come to our own conclusions. The parable of the Prodigal Son neatly lays out the mechanics of this theology, but the choice, for each of us, is all ours, either way, and all the Christian God asks is that you pursue truth as your own volition dictates.
Bullshit! People die stupidly every day because that's where they find themselves - even though they do does nothing to tell us their state of mind! Think about what 'facts' you are convinced of, and challenge them before you go hanging a whole tapestry on them.
@@richardearnshaw2719 Whoa, slow down there Tonto. It’s just a discussion. If you have a counter point or supporting point make it. I just put up some points I heard from Christian apologist. Put up the counter points if you have them. Else please attempt to be polite. No point otherwise.
@@kaneinkansas we should all become muslim then because the 9-11 hijackers couldn't die for a lie. - I can already hear the excusses and apply those same excuses to Paul or any other "martyr". But your problem is even worse, we don't know how paul died. Even if he did die in Rome we don't know if he was told he would be forgiven if he denounced Christianity, We don't know if he was killed for murdering Christians We don't know if he recanted and said it was all a lie and was still killed WE DONT KNOW. Even if he was actually killed, even if he never recanted, even if he earnestly believed he had a legitimate vision- all we can conclude is that his decisions put him on the other side of a roman murder THAT IS ALL. MAybe he got caught up in a position of power in a small cult and once he got arrested he was already in too deep. Maybe he joined this cult to have sex with some of the more gullible women there like happens so often in real life. or maybe he had serious guilt over murdering other people. Or maybe he was just a gullible person himself that saw a cloud and that's all it took to get him started. WE DONT KNOW. David Koresh, the 9-11 hijackers, Peoples Temple, and the Heaven's Gate cult all "died for a lie" and that's just a few off the top of my head! it is as if you are completely unaware of valid criticism or of other groups outside your sect. And then you start pilling assertion after assertion after assertion, WOW. Vishnu/Allah puts himself through that sufference) we are given free will to consider that there is a Vishnu/Allah or there is not a Vishnu/Allah and we are free to come to our own conclusions.
People die all the time for ideas that they know may not, in fact, be true. This is because we live our lives in the context of communities and tribes, which are way more important to us than truth. We would rather die with and for our group (family, community, tribe, nation, and, yes, religion) than bend our knee to the other guy's group - regardless of some set of truth claims. All it takes is a charismatic leader to fan the flames of tribalism and apply peer pressure, and a whole group of people will willingly put themselves entirely on the line - even die - for the group. We don't have to be convinced of a truth claim, like a resurrection, to sacrifice ourselves. We just need to believe in our group and our leader. For example, millions of soldiers have died, often in very sacrificial ways, for their group (nation, community, fellow soldiers). They may carry with them some vague platitudes about the "rightness" (truth) of their cause, but that is not really why they sacrifice themselves.
@@douglasschnabel4480 I am not in disagreement with your point. If you know anyone that has been in the marines, they create a communitarian atmosphere to help them fight. Perhaps the most intense communitarianism might be the Japanese, and we all know how hard and willingly they fought and died in WWII. So you are suggesting that the first disciples of Christ all died for communitarian reasons? Are there any other reasons or suggestions from what we know and have inherited from history that this was prevailing upon them? I think a lot of these disciples all went off in different directions. But I suspect that the spread of Christianity was right on their heals. It seems to have offered something that wasn't there before. In pre20th century people, generally, did not do a lot of traveling. Yet within a few decades there were Christian communities all over the Mediterranean basin.
What lots of people (even pastors) don't (yet) understand. God created us according to His own image and likeness. Godly. Mankind/the first Adam fell. The image of God in man got lost. That's why there is all this predicament on earth (selfishness, greed, lust, wars, sicknesses, death, etc). We are all born into that mess. For the fall of man a perfect atoning sacrifice had to be made.... that is what God did in Christ. With His own once and for all perefect sacrifice, He paid the debt for the fall of man for us, so we can be indwelled by His Spirit again and finally receive the divine life of the ages back, the first Adam let got of in the fall of man. An amazing act of grace and love by our creator. That is what you see happening in Christ's first disciples. They too healed all and walked in unselfish love. And yes.... that is still avaible today. The holy blood is in place, the Holy Spirit is here to give us understanding, power and transform us back to origin. Not to be debated about, but to be embraced and be-come. So: The Kingdom of God already came. Through Christ, in Spiritform, in those that understand. Hence the divine healing miracles we experience. God manifested in Christ to give us back the divine life mankind lost in the fall of Adam. Christ, the exact image of the invisible God. The image we were created after in Gen 1. The image we lost in the fall of man. The image that can be freely restored by Christ's blood and Holy Spirit working IN us. What a plan. What a solution. What a love. What a God. Jesus is amazing. It is the ultimate conclusion of the word and plan of God. God came full circle. He Himself stooped down from glory to restore us back to original created value: Christlikeness. Walking in divine healing power and unselfish love. Jesus, born of the Spirit of God, filled with the spirit of God. The "Son" of God, the incarnated word, God in the flesh. For three years He healed all, raised the dead, casted out demons, controlled nature, spoke pure divine truth. He said: "Follow Me. If you see Me, you see the Father. The Father and I are one. The glory I have IN My Father, I give to you. It pleases the Father to give you His Kingdom/Holy Spirit/divine nature. I will send Holy Spirit, the same as Me, He will be IN you, guide you into truth and give you explosive power. The same miracles i do, you will do too, because you will understand that the Father is IN Me and I am IN you. Freely I give you My Kingdom/Holy Spirit/divine nature, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, freely I give, freely share" Etc, etc, etc. I have experienced thousands of beautifull healing miracles through the power of Holy Spirit IN me already. Broken bones, cancers, covid, all kinds of infirmities healed in seconds. Demons manifesting and casted out by a simple "get out, in Jesus name". Jesus. De name above all names. In Him all power and wisdom is sourced and.... He calls us one with Him. God in man and man in God again. C'mon Jesus!! So.... again: God stooped down IN Christ to restore us back to Gen 1:27 were He said: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness and let them have authority.....": walk as Christ. Christ, the exact image of the invisible God. The image we were created after and being restored to by His atoning blood for the fall of man and indwelling Holy Spirit. You are free to receive this original divine life of the ages by Holy Spirit of Christ/God. Ask Him to guide you into truth. Read the Gospel of John and fall in love with your creator. You are not made for the fall of man and its effects, but for the image/glory of God and to walk like Christ. Holy Spirit is the guide and transforming power that will get you there. Amazing grace. A big leap in faith can be made when we start realizing we are already IN Christ, IN the last Adam. Free from the fall! Loved! Growing into awareness of our new (yet old) godly identity. Changing by Holy Spirit. The most fullfilled life ever. Paul healed all on Malta. He understood and wrote: "As in the first Adam ALL died (lost the divine nature), so also ALL were made alive IN Christ to walk in Zoë (= divine life) again". "IN Christ (the last Adam) we are co-cruisified (dead to the fall and its effects), co-raised (justified/made righteousness, holy, blameless, above reproach), co-seated (one with Him)" "The fullness of deity dwells in Christ and YOU HAVE BEEN MADE COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of every principality and power". So.... thank you Jesus! Thank you for redeeming me from the fall of man. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that makes this new (yet old) divine life come alive in me. You are amazing! In the shadow of Peter the sick healed... He understood too and wrote: "By Gods power (Holy Spirit) and knowing Christ, we have become partakers of the divine nature and have escaped the fall of man". The divine life of the ages has been returned to us by Jesus once and for all perfect atoning sacrifice for the debt of the fall of man and His indwelling Holy Spirit in us. Jesus/God is amazing!!! Ask Him to give you revelation and change you to the way it was before the fall of man: Christlikeness. He will do so. For it is written: "the Spirit brings forth after His own kind". "I have come to give you Zoë (divine life) in abundance...."
Listening to a lot of conservative Christians, they claim that Paul wrote his epistles around 52 CE or earlier. That’s a mere 20 years after Jesus’ crucifixion. And when he wrote these letters he was not a young guy anymore. If so, he must have been a contemporary of Jesus. Paul claims to have been a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a leader of Jews. Studied at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). He had been given authority to persecute the Christians. He could not have come out of nowhere (Tarsus) and then suddenly risen to the top. He was there at the stoning of Stephen, which would not have been long after Pentecost. Then it would have taken some time for the church to grow and expand to Damascus. Then Paul was converted, spent 3 years in the desert. Then went on missionary journeys, which were arduous and time consuming. Then the churches developed and finally Paul wrote them letters. All that would have taken at least 20 years. If Paul was who he said he was (and what Luke makes him out to be) he must have been around Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, no matter how you figure it. (He was there at the stoning of Stephen remember, which probably was only a few months after the crucifixion.) As a young, ardent Pharisee he must have run into Jesus, maybe even had an argument, witnessed Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, been there at the cleansing of the temple, the trial, the crucifixion -been aware of the empty tomb, etc. He must have met people like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, etc. Strange that he never refers to any of these encounters. Paul could have said something like this, “Yeah, I was around Jerusalem when the Roman guards reported about the angel coming down and rolling away the stone.” It seems like Paul knows absolutely nothing biographical of Jesus. Also, his account of post resurrection witnesses differs from the gospels. Strange! If you insist on that time-line for the epistles, Paul must have been around at the time of Jesus, but he knows nothing about him, other than what was revealed to him in his hallucination.
Yeah imagine a blow hard like him not mentioning he had a personal conversation with the living Jesus at every chance he got. The man was a paid murderer but we are all supposed to believe every far fetched fantasy he wrote down.
I would submit the very strong possibility that he was exaggerating his Jewish background. Gamaliel was one of the most powerful and influential Jewish scholars of that era, and quite famously didn’t take anyone under 30. The problem here is that Paul quite often misquoted and misunderstood Jewish sources. He talks about Jesus as the unique seed of woman in Genesis - problem being that the word “seed” in Hebrew doesn’t have a separate plural form. It’s “zara” no matter how many seeds you have and is used in the plural sense elsewhere. He interprets the curse of the hanged man in Dueteronomy as attaching to the hanged man where Judaism has traditionally ascribed the curse to the ground, not the man. Now I don’t think it’s totally implausible that he might disagree with standard doctrine of his era, but he doesn’t ever seem to bother acknowledging the original meaning or the Hebrew text. As such, I don’t think it likely that he studied under a rabbi let alone the most famous one there is.
*Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El.* Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy stipulates that *“the Most High, El,* gave to the nations their inheritance” and that “Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob and his allotted heritage” (32:8-9). A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). *The claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan.* *It is generally accepted in the modern day, however, that Yahweh originated in southern Canaan as a lesser god in the Canaanite pantheon* and the Shasu, as nomads, most likely acquired their worship of him during their time in the Levant. *Yahweh in the Canaanite Pantheon* The biblical narrative, however, is not as straightforward as it may seem as it also includes reference to the Canaanite god El whose name is directly referenced in `Israel' (He Who Struggles with God or He Who Perseveres with God). *El was the chief deity of the Canaanite pantheon and the god who, according to the Bible, gave Yahweh authority over the Israelites:* When the *Most High [El]* gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Sons of God. For Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Masoretic Text). The Canaanites, like all ancient civilizations, worshipped many gods but chief among them was the sky-god El. *In this passage from Deuteronomy, El gives each of the gods authority over a segment of the people of earth and Yahweh is assigned to the Israelites who, in time, will make him their supreme and only deity; but it is clear he existed beforehand as a lesser Canaanite god.* Yahweh, according to Amzallag, was transformed from one god among many to the supreme deity by the Israelites in the Iron Age (c.1200-930 BCE) when iron replaced bronze and the copper smelters, whose craft was seen as a kind of transformative magic, lost their unique status. *In this new age, the Israelites in Canaan sought to distance themselves from their neighbors in order to consolidate political and military strength and so elevated Yahweh above El as the supreme being and claimed him as their own.* His association with the forge, and with imagery of fire, smoke, and smiting, worked as well in describing a god of storms and war and so Yahweh's character changed from a deity of transformation to one of conquest. *As the Israelites developed their community in Canaan, they sought to distance themselves from their neighbors and, as noted, elevated Yahweh above the traditional Canaanite supreme deity El.* They did not, however, embrace monotheism at this time. The Israelites remained a henotheistic people through the time of the Judges, which predates the rise of the monarchy, and throughout the time of the Kingdom of Israel (c.1080-c. 722). Google *"Yahweh - **WorldHistory.Org.**"* Watch Dr Christine Hayes at Yale University. Watch lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards and lecture 8 from 12:00 to 19:00 minutes. Google *"Jews and Arabs Descended from Canaanites - Biblical Archaeology Society."* Google *"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopaedia."* Google *"Canaanite Religion - **Realhistoryww.com**"* Google *"Canaanite Phoenician Origin of the God of the Israelites."* Google *"The Phoenician God Resheph in the Bible - Is That in the Bible?"* Google *"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."* Google *"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."* Google *"Married Deities: Asherah and Yahweh in Early Israelite Religion - Yahweh Elohim."* Google *"How the Jews Invented God and Made Him Great- Archaeology - Haaretz."* Google *"The Invention of God - Maclean's"* Google *"The Boundaries of the Nations - Yahweh Elohim."* Google *"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."* Google *"How Did the Bible’s Editors Conceal Evidence of Israelite Polytheism - Evolution of God by Robert Wright."* Google *"A Theologically Revised Text: Deuteronomy 32:8-9 - Ancient Hebrew Poetry."* Google *"Biblical Contradiction #3: Which God is the Creator of the Heavens and Earth: Yahweh or El?"* Google *"Biblical Contradiction #27. Are Yahweh and El the Same God or Not?"* Google *"Mark Smith: "Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh's Ascendancy - Lehi's Library."* Google *"Quartz Hill School of Theology - B425 Ugarit and the Bible."* Google *"The Origins of Yahweh and the Revived Kenite Hypothesis - Is That in the Bible?"* Google *"Yahweh, god of metallurgy - Fewer Lacunae."* Google *"Polytheistic Roots of Israelite Religion - Fewer Lacunae."* Google *"Biblical Polytheism - Bob Seidensticker."* Google *"Combat Myth: The Curious Story of Yahweh and the Gods Who Preceded Him - Bob Seidensticker."* Google *"Religious Studies: El, Yahweh and the Development of Monotheism in Ancient Israel."* Google *"Decoupling YHWH and El - Daniel O. McClellan."* Google *"Yhwh, God of Edom - Daniel O. McClellan."* Google *"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.*
Yeah, well the most interesting thing is that, like most cultures, the Isrealites were not interested in shoving their religion down other people's throats. It was Paul who we have to thank for that.
@@dooleyfussle8634 Yeah the better you understand Paul the less feasible Christianity becomes. He frames the garden of Eden as the "fall of man" which requires a saviour (which coincidentally he knows really well) but the Jews never saw it this way and saw death less as a punishment and more a part of the cycle of life.
"Incontestable"?? In what way? We have only the word of Acts & a few of the epistles for this amazing event, & the Bible has a pretty low credibility rating.
The verbs used in Greek also imply it, though it isn't definitive; but it's also not definitive from the word choices that Paul ever intended to describe anyone's experiences as actual physical meetings with an embodied person. The point is that, while Paul does not say the experiences were the same, parsimony would suggest that if he is describing his experiences as equivalent, he at least assumes them to be similar. It would not make a lot of sense for me to write "John saw Bigfoot, and Phil, and seventeen hikers, and also I saw him," if John, Phil, and the hikers all claimed to have actually physically seen Bigfoot in the wild while I just saw a TV show about Bigfoot. To suppose I meant that would be a stretch for you, and for me to write that when my experience was fundamentally different would immediately destroy my credibility (if I'd lie about having seen Bigfoot the same way the others did for clout, what else would I lie about?). But the real dirty secret in all of this is that it's not clear whether Paul even believed in or knew about a living historical Jesus at all. If you pretend the Gospels don't exist and just read his letters, you might be surprised at the picture of "Jesus Christ" that Paul appears to have believed in.
Am I to understand that this guy can't grasp the simple idea that Paul's conversion experience might not have been the only time Paul had an encounter with Jesus? As for the gospels being written down "decades" after being written - I'll match you with "Commentaries on the Gallic Wars", the oldest written copy of which dates to over a thousand years after the events [based on this guy's issues we should say] allegedly describes.
Then how did he know it was actually Jesus. A resurrection, an ascension into heaven AND then a reappears to Paul, THREE events that have NO PROBABILITY to have ever occured ever in history much less in these instances. I'm not familiar with the Gallic Wars, but the level of belief in a claim should be in accordance with the evidence, and if the claim is of a supernatural one, then level of proof for belief should be be equal to that if the claim. Grand claims, require grand evidence.
@@baptistoriginals No probability? So you've existed throughout history, observed all events that have ever occurred and know this to be true? That's what you just claimed. [and then some people get upset when I say atheists are arrogant]. I agree with you - grand claims, like God doesn't exist, require grand evidence. Let's hear yours. Read up on the Gallic wars. If you're going to believe something happened based on something written down a thousand years after the event, it is more probable that something written down decades (at most) after the events it described happened.
@@inwalters probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of How likely an event is to occur or How likely it is that a proposition is true. To my knowledge THERE IS NO CONFIRMED RESURRECTIONS, Jesus' resurrection is a claim. Thus the calculable data for resurrections is 0, until such time as any demonstrable data can confirm the events, that will continue to be zero. Now any event written down without confirmation can be given the benefit of the doubt, especially hundreds and thousands of years later. But when the level of claim is that of improbable events, and in the case of the Bible, SEVERAL improbable events, none of which that can provide independent attestation for any of them. Why would the benefit of the doubt be given to what my any other metric would be considered myth and fantasy?
@@baptistoriginals Any event that occurred before the memory of the oldest person alive falls in the same category of believability - someone told us it happened. You have pre-decided not to believe the Bible as a source, even though all the "historical" events described in the Bible have been shown to have occurred. For example I don't think there's any other source for the events described in 'The Anabasis", yet I have no doubt that you believe that they occurred, as such belief requires you no make no change in your lifestyle, while belief in the Bible would. That's why you've decided you're just not going to believe the Bible as a source. Period.
@@inwalters sir, I have not pre- decided anything, in fact I was a Christian the first half of my life so I one time believed these events. But believing events that concur with myth and legend was the mistake. Most of the critical moments of the Bible have been debunked or do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the claim. The only events in the Bible that history agrees are those that have multiple sources. No supernatural event from any corner of the globe is considered part of history. Because they don't meet their burden of proof. You can choose to believe anything you desire sir, but withholding belief for events such as Jesus resurrection, is there most logical position. EVEN if Jesus is the son of a god, died and was resurrected, IT SHOULD NOT BE BELIEVED WITHOUT THE LEVEL OF EVIDENCE FOR THE CLAIM. This a whole other point, but Jesus dying and coming back to life isn't proof for God, only that he could come back to life, it could potentially be another method... That's the reason evidence is so important.
The reason there hasn't been an answer for 150 years is because Christian apologists are forced to accept that Jesus was resurrected in a "glorified body", that is, glorified flesh and bones, so as to accept the trinity doctrine. That his glorified body is his true nature, and that he has no other. The Bible is clear on what it teaches about that, however. Jesus was not resurrected as a holy and glorified version of flesh and bones with all its marks and cuts left in it. It says that God resurrected Jesus as a spirit, and, not sure if you know this but, spirits can manifest themselves as flesh if allowed by God to(in the Lot story of Sodom and Gomorra, in several places it calls the spirit creatures sent by God both MEN and ANGELS). Jesus is not a resurrected glorified body. He is a "life-giving spirit" that can manifest as flesh. But his true nature is that of a spirit. And people can indeed have visions about spirits in themselves, like Ezekiel and Daniel had. What you have to understand, though, is that these are not what spirits look like. Humans CANNOT see spirits in their actual form because spirits aren't made of any physical matter(and it's physical matter that interacts with the electromagnetic spectrum); our eyes are LITERALLY incapable of seeing spirits. The spirits that people like Ezekiel or Paul saw were mere visions given to them to help them, well, ENVISION them. Not in a way that makes them understand their true form(once again, that's impossible). Just in a way that makes them understandable to us and our tiny minds with such limited perspectives and experiences compared to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe... Anyway, Paul did have a vision of Jesus; a vision of Jesus' life-giving SPIRIT body, which has the ability to take on various physical forms(which are what the apostles in the Gospels saw). So; "When Paul... places the Christophany which occurred to himself in the same series with the appearances of Jesus in the days after his resurrection, this authorizes us... to conclude that, for all the Apostle knew, those earlier appearances were of the same nature with the one experienced by himself." No, because Paul knew that Jesus didn't have some glorified body, but that He was a spirit in heaven with the ability to manifest himself as flesh and bones. He could have easily known that was the appearances of Jesus in the days after his resurrection were appearances of him manifesting in flesh and bones so that others could interact with him, but that the appearance of Jesus in his experience was an experience of a vision of the SPIRIT of Jesus. There is nothing stopping Jesus from revealing himself as flesh and bones(in the days after his resurrection) OR as a spirit through a vision(like He would have given Paul), and Paul knows that. So just because Jesus revealed himself to Paul as a spirit through a vision that took place IN Paul, we don't have to necessarily conclude that it was the same for the rest of his detailed appearances. This is also, in part, an answer to the whole, "Jesus' ascension to heaven in the skies sure seems a lot more fictitious considering how people in those times believed that heaven was literally in the skies." Yes, they did believe that, and yes, it does seem fictitious. But that's the point. God isn't required to let His people know the actual truth about everything(like that the Earth isn't flat or that the heavens aren't in the skies). These are all things people at that time believed, and that's fine. Human ignorance is a part of our imperfections, and God doesn't have to fix it. In fact, He could use it to His advantage. That's what I think Jesus did when He arose in the sky. I quite literally think He was putting on a show. He could have merely vanished into thin air(something he had done before). But this was the last time His disciples were ever going to see Him in their lifetimes; people who He loved and people who loved him. Why not go out in a way that strengthens their faith by putting them in complete AWE and WONDER, by, well, flying up into the sky where the heavens supposedly are(something they did believed, which isn't inherently wrong)? I mean, obviously I know the heavens aren't in the skies, but if I saw ANY man float up into the sky I'd be in amazement. Now, a man who is the king and lord over ALL in existence and savior of all mankind, ascending into the skies, which my ignorant mind(remember, nothing inherently wrong with that) believes to be where heaven is? Well, no word could describe that supposed feeling. Who is to say that's not what Jesus did? It's certainly an explanation. The point is, Christian apologists are blinded by their inherent needs to support certain doctrines, such as that of Jesus' glorified body, or that of the Trinity doctrine, or hellfire doctrine. After all, all "real" Christians believe in this simple truths found in the Bible. No wonder they don't have an answer for this after 150 years!! That's a long time... Well, I just gave you one.
I believe in Christ and to what the disciples claimed to a risen Jesus. If they are not telling the truth of Christ, why then would those in power killed them?
Are you serious? They were in a cult that the Romans saw as rebellious and advocating for a new "king". Romans would kill you for much less than that buddy. And Romans killed a bunch of cultist that had nothing to do with Christianity are those cults also true? LOL
Its like from 1975 till 2011 I not just believed that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus in the Grove of trees in 1820 , I knew it to be true . And yet pull all of the lies and falsehood curtains back, all I had was faith + feelings mixed with loose fitting facts , believing it to be a hard core actual event . And yet from 2011 to 2013 I discovered 6 to 9 different versions of the so called First Vision , which I believed in only 1 , thinking that was all there was. Like a house of cards , it all blew down as does all man made religions which give humanity a false sense of security . All we really have is time on this Earth . If there is something beyond this life, will be a surprise , not a fact until that moment , but just faith .
As a teenager growing up in Catholic Italy, I stopped believing the Bible had any truth when I was 14/15. I just could never accept the resurrection stories, but Jesus could prove to me by showing up. He hasn't and don't expect he will.
Paul was a Tax Collector. He never met nor knew Jesus. His gig was to please others, so that he could still collect taxes. Paul was a Greek and only ever lived in the Levant, and never near the river Jordan.
Brother I am not trying to be rude but I am orthodox Christian reformed in doctrine who believes in reliability and infallibility of the scripture...I am confused if you are a Christian or a critique to Christians...If you doubt Paul's writing, which basically is half of the New testament then I doubt you can call yourself a true Christian... brother I will pray to God to take out all your doubts and open your eyes to God's truth.God bless you.
The problem with the passages containing Paul’s vision I will describe. I genuinely believe that Paul was a mystic and that he had several visions. I’m going to go a different direction with this. First, let me say this is that there is a description of creation that goes back thousands of years earlier. It has to do with Anu(El) mating with a being of the primordial water which is connected the the Temple in Eridu, the first city, bringing forth the heavens, a firmament in the sky, and a formless earth that Enlil the creates the formed earth from and Enki fertilizes to produce life, much to the irritation of Enlil but that’s another story. Since the late 3rd Millenium El resided when resting on his throne on the firmament in the constellation of Taurus, the bull of the heavens (El was the bull in the west). You can find various aspects of the story in the Bible (Enki/Ea and Enlil removed and replaced with Yahweh). From the book of enoch comes the notion of third heaven. These concepts of 7 levels of heaven, 9 levels of hell, 33 levels or whatever. It’s all vision surfing from vision seekers exploring the inner convolutions of their own mind, the harder they try to see visions the more they are likely to see things they already know to be true. So with regard to mysticism and these types of visions where one sees a completely unknown individual in an imaginary place with all the bells and whistles, this was deemed a long time ago by the orthodoxy to be “spiritual delusion”. They can occur because of intoxication, mental problems, fasting, or simply trying to force the mediation process, such as Hesychasm, ‘naval staring’. I wasn’t aware of the third heaven reference but it adds even more weight to the profane nature of the vision already explicit in Acts. Paul never met Jesus and never heard him talk, so without someone interpreting his visions, how would he know. Certainly not by “Hey fella, I’m your master Jesus Christ”, the guy you’ve been persecuting. Paul had gone to Jerusalem to school in the Gamaliel school of pharisees, he apparently left as a failure, tried to redeem himself by hunting early Christians and had some sort of mental breakdown on the road to Damascus. Some mystic follower of the disciples explained it to him as a resurrection appearance of Yeshua. And so he explored this in further visions fleshing out his theology. I think we need to separate Paul’s visions from the putative visions of disciples and family members of Yeshua. The first reason is that it was a traumatic and untimely death, second Yeshua was a teacher of esoteric mysticism. We can judge this by the large number of mystical beliefs that radiated from his followers within the 50 years that followed his crucifixion. Third, posthumous appearances are rather common even among non mystics, and especially so among mystics. I think that probably the disciples saw Yeshua after they heard the news of the execution the next time they focused on meditation and probably did not think too much of it. Some later (Pauline christians) when hearing these stories made big deal of it.
Isnt there a prior pagan parell to this which includes divine blindness? Also, rabbi tovi singer says this is essentially an old testement rip off. Interesting, David says to Saul ( o.t) " why r u persecuting me" .
Is Dunn’s quote based on the one word, “within”? If that is the only evidence, it fails: all of Paul’s and everyone’s perceptions happen within us. His epiphany is no different. He more likely wrote Within because there was something special about it, maybe he was trying to portray his experience as more profound than that of the disciples because theirs happened only through their eyes and ears. (Actually in the original Mark, the first biography of Jesus, no disciples or anyone explicitly sees Jesus risen.)
How could've Paul know what Jesus looked like if he never met him alive before. Or could Paul be one of the pharisees that questioned Jesus when he was still alive and during his ministry? Paul was a pharisee after all.
Paul became a Christian in 32 or 33 AD. Jesus was crucified in 30 AD. I am enjoying your content, but 2 or 3 years should not be considered "several". Anyway, overall I am most definitely enjoying your work. Please keep it up!
I'm not convinced that Paul says that his vision was like the other appearances that he describes. He even mentions that he's the last of all of them, as to depict his lower status towards the others that have seen these appearances. And even if the appearances themselves are not described, we do know from "that Christ was raised" that the appearances were somehow convincing enough that the people who've seen these appearances were convinced that Jesus rose from the dead. I'm not saying this is enough for us to be convinced that it happened, I'm saying that the argument that Paul claims that the appearances were of similar kind is simply not justified. Paul leaves out any details at all so the inference that "the appearances were all of the same kind" is simply not justified. That's simply reading more than what the text actually says. "Appearances" could be of many kinds, including visions and physical appearances.
I haven't been a christian in a long time, but I remember that when I was, I was disturbed by the fact that Paul clearly counted himself as an apostle based on seeing a vision (rather than encountering a physical body with fingerable wounds), and by the fact that Paul wrote so much earlier than the gospel writers. I continued believing in the whole story for years after that, even after I left Christianity. (It was untenable simply based on the concept of God being both good and omnipotent.) When I finally realized that it was just mythology, I looked back to that early cognitive dissonance and realized: I knew this all along. I just couldn't face it back then. I hope your material gets out to people who are like I was then -- bothered by what is clearly not true but needing someone else to connect the dots for them.
Haha “fingerable wounds” 😂
So the wounded in Christ are merely the wounded. I too was puzzled by the combative nature of Paul and so I suppose looking back on a similar 'period of faith in Christianity' that the seeds of ultimate disenchantment with religion were sewn along with it"s genesis. University and a deep dive into the history of Western Civilization to present day left my 'faith' consigned to the 'footnotes' of some pretty gruesome and horrid shit!
I too appreciate the calm manner in which we are left to imagine the history with our own feet firmly planted on a solid foundation.
If the wounded part in us needs a vitality that has been expunged in us then go jump out of a plane, swim with sharks, or even more challenging, watch your children do these.
"Ye jest at scars that never felt a wound" (Shakespear)
Find out what wounded you and reclaim what 'vital' piece of you that was taken. Don't give up...
religion would have you healed in the 'netherworld" and keep you 'wounded' until then.
@@kirkmarshall2853 the fingerable wound is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes until you finger and find the g-spot
Sir I find this video troubling. I Am no Christian apologetic or whatever label you wish to use.
I can relate to Paul because you are reading here from a 20 plus year a hard core drug addict who 15 years ago in literally 2 minutes I was healed and been serving THE LORD every since that night of January 28 of 2007
On that night, the last thing I planned on doing was serving THE LORD. I had gone to get my beer, package, smut magazines, smokes, downers I was prepared to party as I did for decades.
I certainly did not know God nor cared about God but I tell you here and now. Today serving God is my life. Since that night I have not drugged, smoke, drank, nor used pills. This is why I find your video tdoubling.
What people do not realize is that it is not our faith that help us believe. And how I know? Is because if JESUS is truly living HIS life in you then is NOT our faith but IT IS HIS Faith that help us believe. If one does not have Faith in the scriptures then is obvious JESUS is not living im you. That is why sir you have doubts.
@@richardearnshaw2719 that end quote is so true and i am talking from experience if u going through something practical physical they tell u call on jesus instead of helping u heal or getting to the root of the problem thats why stress kill we so because we not dealing with our problems how we should we keep it within until it becomes a death threat so i feel hour comment to my heart i have been There do u have a youtube channel
As a former christian who has spent countless hours listening to so many discussions such as this one in an attempt to arrive at some sort of personal justification for my own spiritual leanings, I find that I am developing a good sense of appreciation for Matthew Hartke's presentations.... short and to the point, intelligently presented and clearly showing a good deal respect for the listener as one intelligent enough to make up his or her own mind without appealing to that heavy weight of emotion which so often accompanies many bible-centered discussions. Thank you, Matthew, for understanding and for showing this community that one need not, indeed should not, appeal to one's personal feelings when trying to decide the merits of a well-presented argument.
why a former christian ? maybe you weren´t a true christian in the first place .. i know it happens to many people
@@torontoash45 Is it really so difficult to comprehend that someone may have genuinely believed in Christianity, then just as genuinely found reasons to not believe it anymore?
it is really not difficult to see Mark that you probably still believe in Santa Claus
@@torontoash45 What's a 'true' in YOUR EYES .. don't bother answering .. "No true Scotsman'
When dealing with belief .. does one make up one's own mind .. Moot point I''d imagine. And as for intelligence ... wel ..!!
The weakness of this video is the fact that most scholars agree that both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are almost certainly written by the same person [we'll call him "Luke"]. They are VOLUMES 1 & 2," so to speak. However, when we compare the resurrection appearances of Jesus in GLuke, Luke goes out of his way to emphasize the literal physicality and corporeality of Jesus' body. So much so that Luke records Jesus eating fish [and honeycomb in some textual variants] after showing them His hands and feet. It even says that initially the disciples were frightened and startled because they thought the appearance of Jesus was of a ghost/spirit. Then Jesus contradicts that thought by saying, "For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." Again, Luke is emphasizing the genuine corporeality of Jesus' body by recording all these things that way.
*If Luke were fabricating and making all this up whole-cloth, then he would make the appearances to the disciples in GLuke and the appearance to Paul in Acts as similar as possible. EITHER by having both of them emphasizing Jesus' corporeality, OR both of them emphasizing the more numinous nature of Christ's appearance* . Instead, the author of Acts makes it clear that they are different in nature. In Acts he's presenting Jesus' appearance to Paul as a glorious theophany in the style of the Old Testament [especially to Ezekiel]. Anthony Rogers explains this well 15 minutes into his debate with Carlos Xavier here:ua-cam.com/video/WhjC0jRmjmU/v-deo.html
That Jesus' appearance to Paul was of a different kind from the other disciples is clear from not only how it differs from the accounts in Luke, but from the appearances of Jesus in Acts chapter 1. Which are also apparently more on the side of the corporeal. Luke could do *both* WITHOUT CONTRADICTING himself because there's a long tradition in Jewish thought that goes back to the Old Testament that the same heavenly beings can appear either as ordinary humans or as evidently supernatural entities. That's true of angels in general and also of the Angel of the LORD [i.e. the Malak/Angel of Yahweh, who many Christians like myself believe to by the pre-incarnate Christ].
Luke 24:
37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.
38 And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?
39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."
40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?"
42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish,
43 and he took it and ate before them.
So, I would have to disagree with the statement made at 5:45 where Matthew says, "In other words, when we put all the relevant texts on the table we have very little reason for thinking that Paul's conversion experience was a physical appearance of the risen Jesus like the ones described in the resurrection narratives of Matthew, Luke and John which were all composed decades later."
Moreover, it's not the case that Paul merely makes the claim that the risen Jesus appeared to him in a numinous way [probably multiple times]. Anyone can claim a past private supernatural experience. But Paul backs it up by also claiming to perform miracles ["signs and wonders"] like the other Apostles did. Both in his past ministry and continuing ministry (cf. 2 Cor. 12:12; Rom. 15:19); 1 Cor. 2:4-5). That miracles are still occurring in our modern world in the context of teaching about the Jesus of the New Testament suggests, or is an evidential chip in favor of, the truth of Jesus' resurrection and of the Christian religion.
The quote of Strauss at 6:42 works only if one presupposes that Paul never interviewed the other Apostles and if neither the other Apostles nor he himself [i.e. Paul] were able to perform miracles attesting to the truth of their Gospel message. Yet, in the book of Galatians Paul claims to have met some of the other Apostles and to have compared their message and supernatural experiences with his own. It's not a stretch to think it went in the other direction as well such that the other Apostles compared notes with Paul's message and miraculous thaumaturgical feats.
For the evidence of modern miracles see the following books and YT videos by the following authors:
Read Craig Keener's two volume Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts [2011]
Craig Keener's "Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World" [2021]
Rex Gardner's Healing Miracles: A Doctor Investigates,
and the appendices in Robert Larmer's The Legitimacy of Miracle
as well as Larmer's book Dialogues on Miracle
Testing Prayer: Science and Healing by Candy Gunther Brown [Publisher : Harvard University Press]
Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing by Candy Gunther Brown [Publisher : Oxford University Press]
Last I checked, she is a Professor, Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University
also Adjunct Professor, American Studies Program
Education: Ph.D., Harvard University, 2000
The Case for Miracles by Lee Strobel
I don't know if Randy Clark's 2018 book "Eyewitness to Miracles: Watching the Gospel Come to Life" is any good, but it's been endorsed by Michael L. Brown.
Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland came out with a recent 2021 book on modern miracles too.
A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles: Instruction and Inspiration for Living Supernaturally in Christ by J.P. Moreland
Before I was a Christian, I also had a vision of the Holy City of God as described in the book of Revelation (I was not allowed to enter). Although I didn’t fully understand the vision until I later read the Bible, I became a believer in God and then a few years later a Christian.
@rboland2173 Firstly let me say that I have looked at a number of videos on YT of visions and NDE and to be honest I am sceptical of most of these especially if there is commercial aspect involved or if the individual was under the influence of medication. I don’t doubt the sincerity of some of these testimonies but doubt the origin or interpretation. I realise that what I say will most likely be received in the same light and to be honest I welcome this. My faith doesn’t rest on the vision I had, and looking back, the vision I had did not have a significant impact on my life at the time. I saw this vision as largely being personal and apart from telling my classmates the next day I didn’t mention it for many years.
I was 15 at the time, I was bought up in a non-religious family but told that there was a God. I was a fairly bright student interested in science and naively expected the Bible to be a science book, but when I dipped into small parts of the Bible to me it was history and I had no idea of how to assess whether it was true but questioned why it wouldn’t largely be based on true historical events. I know in my arrogance I thought that it wouldn’t stand up to critical scientific reasoning. I cannot remember the context of the vision, but tend to think the experience was largely out of the blue but it is difficult to say as it was a long time ago. In the initial part of the vision I was on some form of pedestal in a place of total emptiness, darkness, best described as outer space but so remote there was nothing there. I had no idea where I was. I was not initially afraid but came to realise I was going to be here forever alone and separated from my parents. As this stage I began to fear where I was. My memory of this part of the experience has largely faded, I didn’t write anything down. Interestingly, a few weeks later I randomly opened the Bible at one of the passage’s that describes hell as being darkness. My immediate reaction was “that was where I was”. I don’t think I understood at the time of the vision that it might have been hell. This was the stage I saw the city of God. In the darkness it initially appeared as a shining star far away but rapidly came much closer. It was a walled City as described in revelation. The glory of God was shining above the city. I immediately knew this was Gods holy city. Then some form of being - I didn’t see its likeness, but was aware of a presence which transported me very rapidly to outside an entrance to the City. At this stage I can remember wondering if I was at judgement day. I did not see the details of the city as described in Revelation, ie pearl gate, coloured stones etc. I was outside looking upwards through the entrance. I could see no details inside of the city as everything was outshone by the very bright light. I could feel an overwhelming sense of the presence of God which I would describe as Love. There are no words in English to describe this adequately, the love was not ethereal but so intense as to be almost physical. At this stage My whole being kept calling out to God over and again to be with him. The next part of the vision I didn’t fully understand- but the being that had taken me to the entrance let me know I could not enter. I believe he told me why, but I did not understand - I know it had something to do with Jesus. All I know is that I kept telling God that I wanted to be with him. At this stage the experience ended. I immediately prayed that I would be with God some day. Following the vision I would have described myself as a believer in God and believed that God would answer the pray I made. I knew nothing of the Gospel message and the message of Salvation until much later. This came about through mentioning to the person I sat next to in maths class that I had watched a program on tv about a Bible week, and he told me he was going to one and invited me to join them, which I did. This was probably my first real exposure to the gospel message and where I became a Christian- ie believing in Christ for salvation and forgiveness of sins and not just in the existence of a God. I don’t think I was previously aware of the description of God’s city in the Book of Revelation prior to the vision. There is nothing I saw in my experience that isn’t already written in the Bible. Following the vision I was very much aware of the beauty and fingerprint of God in creation. Isaiah 6:3 “The whole earth is full of his glory”. I was also aware that hell is the complete and eternal absence of this. The punishment meant of hell for me is being eternally separated from the presence of God or anything else that is good. In summary, the experiences was a steppingstone to becoming a Christian, probably a significant one, but not the only one and difficult for me to judge. Hope this answers your question adequately.
Whenever I hear about Paul’s Damascus experience, I always think that he had a seizure, a stroke, or a psychotic episode before thinking that “god did it”.
I'm a stroke survivor and spoken to many iy community nothing matches Paul's conversation
Paul was probably one of countless sincere religious figures throughout history who's beliefs stemmed from some organic brain pathology.
My view was much simpler. He fell off his donkey and hit his head.
sure he could have just made it up as well..his story cannot be verified even in his time..amen
The thing that has always gotten to me about Paul is, besides his apparent misogyny, and his unwitnessed conversion, is why did Jesus chose the disciples he did, if he intended Paul to come along and change what they said? The disciples would testify to churches, then when Paul arrived he would chide people for believing them. He disagreed with the disciples… doesn’t make sense to me.
Joseph Smith had a vision of the resurrected Jesus, just as Paul did. If you're going to accept Paul's testimony, why not accept Smith's testimony? If you don't accept Smith's testimony, why would you accept Paul's testimony?
Because Paul's theology stands the test of scrutiny while Joseph Smith's is full of contradictions and errors.
@@alansnyder6565, what test of scrutiny do you mean? I tend to agree that Joseph Smith's theology is full of contradictions and errors. However, as far as I know, mainstream Christianity is no better.
Because Paul actually met the disciples of Jesus and died like them for his belief on Jesus. Smith instead was a polygamist black hater who made a religion for his on benefits while Paul was getting prisoned and beat up and died poor
The most important point was that Paul never claims to have seen Jesus _before_ the crucifixion, and any eyewitness to the resurrection is required to be able to identify any purported post-resurrection Jesus as definitely being the same Jesus that was crucified.
We have countless testimonials from people for the past 2,000 years where people claim to have seen or spoken to the resurrected Jesus, but none of them rise to the level of eyewitness testimony of the _resurrection_ of Jesus.
And the same is true of Paul's eyewitness testimony: *Paul's testimony is not eyewitness testimony of the resurrection of Jesus.*
Same is true of almost every religious sect they all have "unexplainable experiences". the christians will acknowledge these experiences but claim they are delusions or demonic possessions but fail to apply the same criticism to their own.
I tend to think of paul's "revelation" in the same way as i think of Mohamad's.
Two men with mental illness with a predisposition towards superstitious beliefs.
Some have seen him on toast! 😉
Bob and Paul , have you SEEN, Jesus and is that why you are Chritians? I would that millions have SEEN Saint Mary, the Mother of God!😉
@@bobsmith3735 In his book, The End of Christianity, John W. Loftus speaks of applying the OTF to all of our own religious beliefs... The OTF is The Outsiders Test of Faith. It is exactly what you describe in looking at the "revelations" of the Koran. In other words, we should examine our own personal beliefs with the same kind of skepticism as we apply to the beliefs of others. This sounds quite sound and reasonable to most reasonable people... but christians, as they themselves will tell you, place faith above reason... and faith, as the little girl once told her pastor, "... is believing in something which you know ain't true."
@@anthonypaul1351 Outsider test of faith should be used by everyone that wants to think of themselves as rational.
I think it is mostly due to personality types and superstitious leanings regardless of the religion used.
Using the outsider test of faith on your claim i can tell you that i have spoken with muslims that make most christians sound rational and reasonable in comparison.
Thank you for making these videos. So much packed into each one. So helpful.
I just stumbled across your videos (thank you YT) and really enjoy them. The myriad plot holes (and all those "harmonizations" that are required to explain them) eventually led me out of the faith. Your videos are succinct, informative and imminently reasonable. I'm looking forward to getting caught up on your content. Keep up the great work.
Hail, and well met, sir.
LET’S GOOO!!
Nice sound quality btw 😉
In my understanding I did not believe it was possible that other people could be having the same experience in a "vision" . To me it is clear that this was a physical apperance that Saul had, that Jesus said would not happen. When He appeared again every eye would see Him. Jesus warns us that if anyone says they saw Him in a desert or private room we were to not believe it. On the road outside Damascus it was considered desert or the wilderness. With this being said it greatly reduces any question in my mind that I should believe Saul had an experience with Jesus.
Acts 23:10 (KJV) And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bri ng him into the castle. Within said castle Paul claims to see and speak to Jesus in a chamber alone.
How could Jesus have made a physical appearance to Paul? Several areas of scripture, including Paul’s own letters, make it clear that Christ’s return, or second coming, will be be seen by all and the dead will rise, etc. Was Jesus visit to Paul a double secret return? I know believers will probably somehow find a way around this just as they do with the fact that scripture clearly says Jesus will return within the lifetime of the first believers, but c’mon!!
I am sixty five now and have fought with the story of Christianity all my life. I was raised in the Anglican Church belief in the UK as a boy. These days I believe without a doubt that the story of Christianity is true. I am a sinner just like the rest of us but I put my faith in what the Bible says and will go to my grave with that belief.
@@wataboutya9310 The Abrahamic god isn't real. Sorry.
Check out *"The Origins of Yahweh"* by Atheologica.
The fictional Abrahamic god of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
@@wataboutya9310
*Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El.* Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy stipulates that *“the Most High, El,* gave to the nations their inheritance” and that “Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob and his allotted heritage” (32:8-9). A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). *The claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan.*
*It is generally accepted in the modern day, however, that Yahweh originated in southern Canaan as a lesser god in the Canaanite pantheon* and the Shasu, as nomads, most likely acquired their worship of him during their time in the Levant.
*Yahweh in the Canaanite Pantheon*
The biblical narrative, however, is not as straightforward as it may seem as it also includes reference to the Canaanite god El whose name is directly referenced in `Israel' (He Who Struggles with God or He Who Perseveres with God). *El was the chief deity of the Canaanite pantheon and the god who, according to the Bible, gave Yahweh authority over the Israelites:*
When the *Most High [El]* gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Sons of God. For Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Masoretic Text).
The Canaanites, like all ancient civilizations, worshipped many gods but chief among them was the sky-god El. *In this passage from Deuteronomy, El gives each of the gods authority over a segment of the people of earth and Yahweh is assigned to the Israelites who, in time, will make him their supreme and only deity; but it is clear he existed beforehand as a lesser Canaanite god.*
Yahweh, according to Amzallag, was transformed from one god among many to the supreme deity by the Israelites in the Iron Age (c.1200-930 BCE) when iron replaced bronze and the copper smelters, whose craft was seen as a kind of transformative magic, lost their unique status. *In this new age, the Israelites in Canaan sought to distance themselves from their neighbors in order to consolidate political and military strength and so elevated Yahweh above El as the supreme being and claimed him as their own.* His association with the forge, and with imagery of fire, smoke, and smiting, worked as well in describing a god of storms and war and so Yahweh's character changed from a deity of transformation to one of conquest.
*As the Israelites developed their community in Canaan, they sought to distance themselves from their neighbors and, as noted, elevated Yahweh above the traditional Canaanite supreme deity El.* They did not, however, embrace monotheism at this time. The Israelites remained a henotheistic people through the time of the Judges, which predates the rise of the monarchy, and throughout the time of the Kingdom of Israel (c.1080-c. 722).
Google *"Yahweh - **WorldHistory.Org.**"*
Watch Dr Christine Hayes at Yale University. Watch lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards and lecture 8 from 12:00 to 19:00 minutes.
Google *"Jews and Arabs Descended from Canaanites - Biblical Archaeology Society."*
Google *"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopaedia."*
Google *"Canaanite Religion - **Realhistoryww.com**"*
Google *"Canaanite Phoenician Origin of the God of the Israelites."*
Google *"The Phoenician God Resheph in the Bible - Is That in the Bible?"*
Google *"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."*
Google *"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."*
Google *"Married Deities: Asherah and Yahweh in Early Israelite Religion - Yahweh Elohim."*
Google *"How the Jews Invented God and Made Him Great- Archaeology - Haaretz."*
Google *"The Invention of God - Maclean's"*
Google *"The Boundaries of the Nations - Yahweh Elohim."*
Google *"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."*
Google *"How Did the Bible’s Editors Conceal Evidence of Israelite Polytheism - Evolution of God by Robert Wright."*
Google *"A Theologically Revised Text: Deuteronomy 32:8-9 - Ancient Hebrew Poetry."*
Google *"Biblical Contradiction #3: Which God is the Creator of the Heavens and Earth: Yahweh or El?"*
Google *"Biblical Contradiction #27. Are Yahweh and El the Same God or Not?"*
Google *"Mark Smith: "Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh's Ascendancy - Lehi's Library."*
Google *"Quartz Hill School of Theology - B425 Ugarit and the Bible."*
Google *"The Origins of Yahweh and the Revived Kenite Hypothesis - Is That in the Bible?"*
Google *"Yahweh, god of metallurgy - Fewer Lacunae."*
Google *"Polytheistic Roots of Israelite Religion - Fewer Lacunae."*
Google *"Biblical Polytheism - Bob Seidensticker."*
Google *"Combat Myth: The Curious Story of Yahweh and the Gods Who Preceded Him - Bob Seidensticker."*
Google *"Religious Studies: El, Yahweh and the Development of Monotheism in Ancient Israel."*
Google *"Decoupling YHWH and El - Daniel O. McClellan."*
Google *"Yhwh, God of Edom - Daniel O. McClellan."*
Google *"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.*
@@wataboutya9310
The end is near?
*The Bible’s New Testament contains a drumbeat of promises that Jesus is ready to return any day now, implying that it will happen so soon that it would be wise to keep it in mind when making any kind of life decision. But it didn’t happen.* The following is a sample of verses professing this theme:
Matt 10:23: [Jesus said to his disciples] *‘When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next;* ***for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel, before the Son of man comes’.*** (They fled through the towns but the Son of Man never came)
Matt 16:28: [Jesus said to the disciples], *‘Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death* before they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom’.
Mark 9:1: And he [Jesus] said to them [the disciples], *‘Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death* before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power’.
Mark 13:30: *[After detailing events up to end of world, Jesus says]* ‘Truly, I say to you, ***this generation will not pass away before all these things take place’.***
Mark 14:62: And Jesus said ***[to the high priest - died 1st cent. AD]*** ‘You will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven’. (The high priest died and never saw the Son of Man)
Rom 13:12: The day is *at hand.*
1 Cor 7:29: The appointed time has grown very short; from now on, *let those who have wives live as though they had none.* (Funny thing to say if you didn’t think the end was imminent)
1 Cor 7:31: For the form of this world is *passing away.*
Phil 4:5: The Lord is *coming soon.*
1 Thess 4:15: *We who are alive, who are left* until the coming of the Lord.
Hebrews 1:2: *In these last days* he has spoken to us by a Son.
Hebrews 10:37: For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and *shall not tarry.*
James 5:8: The coming of the Lord is *at hand.*
1 Peter 1:20: He [Christ] was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the *end of the times.*
1 Peter 4:7: The end of all things is *at hand.*
1 John 2:18: *It is the last hour;* and as you have heard that antichrist is coming.
Rev 1:1: The revelation of Jesus Christ (i.e., the end of the world)…to show to his servants what must *soon take place.*
Rev 3:11: [Jesus said] ‘I am *coming soon’.*
Rev 22:6: And the Lord…has sent his angel to show his servants what must *soon take place.*
Rev 22:20: [Jesus said] ‘Surely I am *coming soon’.*
*It is puzzling to understand why Christianity survived the failure of this prediction. It is not ambiguous.* This would be like a rich uncle who promises to give you $10,000 ‘very soon.’ Ten years pass and he still hasn’t given anything to you, but he still says he will do it very soon. Would you still believe that it will happen any day? No, you would realize that it is a false promise. *For some reason, Christians cannot comprehend that they have been scammed. Jesus is not coming back, not tomorrow, not next year, not ever. But they still think it will happen any day.*
www.kyroot.com/
Watch "Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet, Historical Lecture - Bart D. Ehrman" on UA-cam
ua-cam.com/video/s6GHEOOAXRI/v-deo.html
@@wataboutya9310 I don't think anyone really cares what people believe its what you can prove that we care about. Just like you don't care what a billion muslims believe.
Paul has been identified as a liar priest, an infiltrator and an imposter from different sources.
Jesus did not record any of his teachings and so Paul was able to influence the early followers of Christ. Even though Paul was not one of Christ's disciples he asserted his own authority .in deciding what was to become the Christian religion. Ironically Jesus was not a great fan of organized religion; but thanks to people like Paul, the oral tradition of his teachings and other doubtful writings were cobbled into a religion. Essenes , Gnostics and many individuals whose take on Jesus was of a different authenticity, were deemed to be heretics.
Paul was an opportunist. I have no admiration for him. Neither did James, Jesus' brother, nor the Jerusalem followers of Jesus/James.
Paul preached against the Law, while James, Peter and John did not. It had gotten so bad that the "mother church" in Jerusalem under the auspices of James, Peter and John sent out their own ambassadors (apostoloi) to correct Paul's errant teaching. At one point, Paul was made to take a "vow" (Nazirite vow) to prove that he was not preaching against the Law. You can see in many of Paul's letters to the churches how much he despised James, Peter and John, and how upset he was they had turned away from his teachings. As a slight aside, knowing this, I think that Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was the problems he was having with the "mother church" and James, Peter and John. I have no proof of this; just what I think it could have been. Because they were a thorn in the flesh to Paul.
Me either, he probably was bipolar from his birth.
And a fraud.
How did Paul die after insisting he be tried as a Roman citizen in Rome rather than submitting to martyrdom?
Well...the ROMANS didn't have a record of his trial, and the Vatican don't have a record, and it's not in the Bible anywhere.
It's like he - maybe - decided on his epic jailbird journey to offer a cup of wine or a handful to grain to Caesar and just quietly wander off into the sunset or something, huh?
@@johntiggleman4686 Primarily because Paul was talking utter codswallop.
Great video. I've never understood how Paul can be cited as a witness (though I agree he claims to be one) to the resurrected Jesus when the stories about him overwhelmingly suggest what he saw was not a physical body. Surely the only proper witnesses would have to be those who saw Jesus before the ascension?
Not a physical body? Jesus by default, after the Ressurection and the ascension RETAINED His physical body. What Paul saw wasn’t just an apparition if indeed he saw Jesus. He saw a resurrected Jesus. Essentially YHWH in his incarnated human body and nature.
The most important point was that Paul never claims to have seen Jesus before the _crucifixion,_ and any eyewitness to the resurrection is required to be able to identify any purported post-resurrection Jesus as definitely being the same Jesus that was crucified.
We have countless testimonials from people for the past 2,000 years where people claim to have seen or spoken to the resurrected Jesus, but none of them rise to the level of eyewitness testimony of the _resurrection_ of Jesus.
And the same is true of Paul's eyewitness testimony: *Paul's testimony is not eyewitness testimony of the resurrection of Jesus.*
@@pauligrossinoz it is eye witness because he saw Him, listened His voice and a literal miracle happened to him in his physical body that healed after meeting a member of The Way that eventually healed him and of course could confirm to Paul if the person he saw was Jesus. Jesus had numerous followers during his ministry beyond the 12, that could confirm what Jesus taught, how he looked etc. Paul never met Jesus, sure. Others he met, did.
@@nikostheater - Paul is not an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus because he never saw him before.
It's that simple.
He testifies only of an encounter, not the actual resurrection.
@@pauligrossinoz Paul himself said he testified of an encounter with the resurrected Jesus. No one saw the event of resurrection, only the aftermath. The person he saw in the event on the road to Damascus was Jesus.
By my reading, Paul is a quintessential religious zealot; basically a carnival barker; a raving lunatic. Yes, I think his conversion experience completely undermines the totality of the resurrection tenets.
Paul was not a raving lunatic.
In his writings, he was articulate and clear on was needed to be written.
Yes!! More content please!
Without FAITH It's impossible to please God.
And this faith has no meaning with works.
1. Wouldn’t any con artist using religion as a tool say precisely that? “Just believe me! That’s what God wants.”
2. The fact that this same line can be used to justify contradictory messages and cults speaks to its poverty/ emptiness. Can’t Mormons, Muslims, JW’s, Catholics, Pentecostals, Orthodox Jews, fundamentalist Hindus, etc. say the same thing to justify both a lack of good evidence as well as evidence that counters their faiths?
3. Says who? An untrustworthy, fallacious collection of ancient scrolls?
4. Faith without reason is problematic enough.
Faith CONTRARY to reason and evidence is sooo much worse.
@@historian96 Turns out the thing that god values most in humans is credulity.
Same as a con artist but i'm sure that's just a coincidence.
I just don't believe the Bible is a viable source of historic truth.
It's not! Noah's flood never occurred. The Exodus from Egypt never occurred, and if it had, anyone could have walked from Egypt to Canaan in less than a week. Not 40 years. The number 40 itself is used so many times in the Bible it can't be taken literally. It is a part of Hebraic mystical numerology.
The 7 real Pauline epistles are actually good historical sources (I say real because there are several epistles in the NT that were forgeries using Paul's name or were later falsely attributed to him). They're the oldest surviving Christian writings we have. Paul's generally just writing about his own thoughts and opinions, responding to criticism/questions, and hammering out extremely basic fundamental features of the faith. In those epistles, there's not a lot of room for BS when it comes to historical events
The rest of the book is totally made up, though.
@@kerishannon775 Roman numerals for 40 is XL, but that was also Hebrew slang for “X-tra Long”. It’s a little known fact. Not even on Google, you know.
@@kerishannon775 yes. During the flood, for how many days and nights did it rain? 40. Must be code for something like "seems like a bloody long time. But not infinite"
@@kerishannon775 and they escape from Egypt to head to more of Egypt the land of Canaan was ruled by Egyptians so why would people escape from the land of their opressors just to go to more land of the oppressors.
This is really good content. I like learning and thinking about these topics, because I'm still deconverting and gaining more confidence in my non-belief now. Now, no longer believing and finding Christianity to be quite different than I thought it was, after critically examining so much of it. It's good to have fellow atheists produce content that educates us and guides us, as we all come and try to figure out how the claims of the Christian religion or all religions are just so lacking and easy-to-debunk, being just fictional stories from the Bronze Age. [SUBBING.]
Paul suffered from a heat stroke on the road to Damascus. Visions, falling, blindness; it all matches up.
your skepticism is boring and joyless
@@jackdomanski6758 like your mom.
@@ecisme10
My mother died a believer, and her life is hidden in Christ. Indeed, her soul now participates in the eternal joy and peace of the Son of God, beyond all expressing.
@@jackdomanski6758 sorry for your loss but you shouldn't be putting down reasonable rebuttals to myths and not expect a response. You left the door open for that one.
P.S. Paul never met jesus in any form. The truth is not always joyful.
really weird for a Jewish pharisee who was on his way to hunt down Christians in Damascus just to turn his life around and start preaching the faith he was trying to destroy and perform miracles (acts 14:8-10, acts 20:9-12 acts 19:1-12) then get martyred because of his faith in Jesus all because he had a heat stroke but never met Jesus
I love your analyses. Hope to see many more videos. Subscribed.
The Gospels, Acts, and Paul's own writings are in alignment in that Paul's vision took place post-ascension. Thus, it would have inherently been different from pre-ascention appearances. The foundational premise of your assertion is materially flawed.
Great presentation
On a somewhat tangential note…. I have recently become aware of the Ravi Zaharias … the formidably admirable evangelist…. Who turned out to be a highly charismatic con man and sex abuser. I think that Zaharias indisputably illustrates how thoroughly we can be taken in by spiritual frauds. And, in that context…. The story that Paul tells is sufficiently problematical that it is hard to rule out the possibility that he might also have been a spiritual fraud; a guy who found his career as an evangelist to be far more appealing than his previous calling as a tax collector.
If Paul was a Tv Preacher..........
So being beat continuously, living in humble conditions, under the threat of death, shipwrecked, stone, and beheaded, is more appealing than his former lifestyle? The lifestyle where he wasn’t beaten, and threaten, in fact, he was highly respected and was far advance in comparison to contemporaries in The Pharisee sect.
Paul makes it abundantly clear in his epistles his Jesus is a celestial being. He goes so far as to repudiate the experiences of the other disciples and apostles. Paul also appears to be a dualist, denouncing the "Evil God of this World".
Also interesting is Peter's "prison break" escape in Acts 12. Peter sees an angel but, at first, thinks he's just "seeing a vision" but upon completion of the escape he concludes the angel must have been real! Peter seems to have trouble distinguishing visions from reality. Similarly, in 2 Cor 12 Paul can't determine whether or not his vision took place "in or out of the body." So that's TWO "eyewitnesses" of the Risen Jesus in 1 Cor 15:5-8 that were prone to "seeing things." How do we know Peter didn't just think he had a vision of Jesus then conclude it must have been real just like his experience in Acts 12? Makes you question the veracity of the claim of Jesus "appearing" when the "eyewitnessing" may not have had anything to do with reality.
We always studied that Paul's conversion was from a vison. This was from a strongly Wesleyan denomination (Salvation Army - they're not an organization but an Evangelical Wesleyan non-denominational church)
This sort of this actually fascinates me. One of of reasons why I like Joan de Arc, is because she may have been schizophrenic. When you consider things, and try to work back things like this... well you can't sit there and diagnose mental illness from the past. But we can look at the symptoms that are displayed. For instance mellonicolia is obviously depression. Then you have someone like Joan who if she was ere today she'd be diagnosed and put up. It's really fascinating that mental illness has almost always been a part of humanity. Just makes you wonder how many religions were created because of mental illness.
@@mariawhite7337 What's also interesting is the fact that the author of Acts just expects his audience to believe this happened. So, evidently, these people had no trouble accepting claims of visions as normal experiences whereas today things are very different.
@@resurrectionnerd
Today’s modern skepticism is certainly a mixed bag, as a wise man once wrote “the trouble with the world today is not a lack of wonders, but a lack of wonder.”
@@mariawhite7337, I think that the best explanation for Joseph Smith's career was that he was probably borderline mentally ill. He had real difficulty distinguishing reality from his own fantasies.
I think it's silly to think the first Christians were any more honest than the current-day Christians. Paul was *most likely* just a bronze age Jim Bakker. He saw a popular moment and cashed in with the same sincerity and humble-bragging humility that Jim does and tried to build a career out of it. Mystery solved. Why should I believe otherwise?
That's what I have allways felt, his revelation, flash of light came when he realised the tax he had collect meant they earned more than him. The claim to have seen Jesus was to give himself prominence, putting him on a par with the apostles. Not to be out done by the new boy, the apostles or thier followers created the resurrection. Paul may have seen Jesus, but he came to the originals first.
If you start looking for the problems with Christianity, all roads lead to Paul. It all happened in his head, the bible makes that perfectly clear. I have to ask in response to your last question, believe what? This hypnotic faith is not necessary in order to follow the teachings of Christ, it's not necessary to deify and worship the man, what he said works regardless. He doesn't even have to have existed in real life. Everything from line 2 of the Apostles Creed was imposed later, largely by the Roman church. The problem with Christianity is all this other nonsense. Paul's job was to neutralise the threat to the Empire
Anything further to add, meaning expound a little more what you mean, are you saying he is an agent of Hellenism?
@@IsraeliteDefense No he was an agent of Rome. Hellenism came in with Alexander
In the essay "Circling the Blanket for God", final chapter of "The Trouble with Testosterone" (1998), Robert Sapolsky describes Saul/Paul's episode on the road to Damascus, and subsequent religious obsessions, as being consistent with modern accounts of temporal lobe epilepsy (edit, NOT parietal lobe).
Temporal lobe, actually.
@@jayfredrickson8632 Thanks for the correction. You are correct. It's been 15 years since my last reading, and I don't work in the field, but I should have reflected on how the parietal lobe is mostly motor function and temporal lobes are focused on language.
Let there not be a lateral sulcus between us.
How do you not have as many followers as viced rhino, the truth hurts, Aron Ra and mat dillahunty? You ask hard questions without any saber rattling, and I appreciate that style of discussion. This is my second video of yours I have watched, and I plan to watch more. Do you have a deconversion story video on here?
I'm also thinking about starting a channel here to cover these kinds of questions, as well as my own experience of sexual abuse as a child. I've been an atheist for about seven years now, I was born Catholic, converted to wicca in middle school and revered the natural world through the worship of Artemis and Ares. a few years after highschool, I came to understand that the gods are not actually real. However, to quote extra credits extra mythology into, "myths are not stories that are untrue. Rather, they are tales that don't fit neatly into the historical record, which serves as the foundation to a culture." Artemis is an idea, not a real thing. She reminds the hunter to respect his prey. She reminds the adventurer to respect the wild places of the world, and she helps us remember that there are some things more dangerous than we are that deserve respect and fear.
I feel like the god of Christendom embodies principals such as these as well, though certainly not a respect for the physical world.
You should keep making videos, stranger friend!
I have no idea. Why? You ask? Because I wasn't there. Were you? What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
I don’t assume that the authors were always writing what they believed to have happened, but what they wanted their readers to believe theologically… or were some of then writing what they believed to be fiction? They certainly used fictional devices, such as imitating Homer and dramatic irony.
A couple of observations:
While the other apostles presumably had an experience of Jesus's post-resurrection body, and they subsequently witnessed that body physically ascend, Paul's experience was of not only Jesus's post-resurrection body, but his post-ascension body. In other words, Paul's stated experience and that described by the author of Acts, if it did involve Jesus's physical body, would have required Jesus's return to earth, just as he said he would. Is this the promised second coming? It hardly seems to fit the bill, yet if it wasn't Jesus in the (resurrected) flesh, what was it?
As far as Paul's writings, it seems that he is always referring to his knowledge of Jesus as either a revelation, or a vision, and that what he was giving (to the churches) was "something he received". Is he referring to information he received from James and the other apostles, something he received during one of his visions, or something he received directly from interviews he had with the risen Jesus in his physical body?
In other words, what was he doing for the 14 years between his so-called conversion and the beginning of his missionary activity? Do we know? Certainly he spent some of that time hashing out the implications that Jesus might be the Jewish promised Messiah. It would have taken time for him to re-think his theology and decide how he was to interpret the Jewish scriptures in light of this supposed revelation.
There is no doubt that he benefited from oral traditions that began almost immediately after the crucifixion of Jesus. Something of tremendous significance happened to account for the existence of groups of believers throughout the Jewish diaspora that predate even Paul's earliest letters., since many of these gatherings were already in existence before he began to write. (At least the letters that are extant.) The author of the Gospels and the book of Acts base their material entirely on oral traditions (and possibly some other written material, now lost). But so did Paul. The difference is in the timing. When he quotes Jesus words at the Last Supper in his letter to the Corinthians, he is certainly using anecdotal sources, but remarkably, they are probably the earliest recorded words of Jesus we have.
These are some good points.
eh jewish cults were a dime a dozen and you are making unwarranted assumptions about when and how christianity spread.
@@scambammer6102
It spread by fire and sword. Today, behind freedom and democracy.
I became a believer because the Spirit of God convicted me of sin and righteousness.
Believing in the risen Christ is not hard to do once you have the Spirit of God teaching you. This is impossible for anyone who suppresses the truth in unrighteousness to understand.
Paul had a stroke or epileptic seizure which knocked him off his horse, blinded him and nearly killed him (A near death experience).
Whatever he experienced inside his head altered his personality and convinced him to start his own religion.
A variety of religious experiences which lead to the founding of new religions are quite common among human primates.
OMG.
What lots of people (even pastors) don't (yet) understand.
God created us according to His own image and likeness. Godly.
Mankind/the first Adam fell. The image of God in man got lost. That's why there is all this predicament on earth (selfishness, greed, lust, wars, sicknesses, death, etc).
We are all born into that mess.
For the fall of man a perfect atoning sacrifice had to be made.... that is what God did in Christ.
With His own once and for all perefect sacrifice, He paid the debt for the fall of man for us, so we can be indwelled by His Spirit again and finally receive the divine life of the ages back, the first Adam let got of in the fall of man. An amazing act of grace and love by our creator.
That is what you see happening in Christ's first disciples. They too healed all and walked in unselfish love.
And yes.... that is still avaible today. The holy blood is in place, the Holy Spirit is here to give us understanding, power and transform us back to origin.
Not to be debated about, but to be embraced and be-come.
So: The Kingdom of God already came. Through Christ, in Spiritform, in those that understand.
Hence the divine healing miracles we experience.
God manifested in Christ to give us back the divine life mankind lost in the fall of Adam.
Christ, the exact image of the invisible God.
The image we were created after in Gen 1.
The image we lost in the fall of man.
The image that can be freely restored by Christ's blood and Holy Spirit working IN us.
What a plan. What a solution. What a love. What a God. Jesus is amazing.
It is the ultimate conclusion of the word and plan of God. God came full circle.
He Himself stooped down from glory to restore us back to original created value: Christlikeness. Walking in divine healing power and unselfish love.
Jesus, born of the Spirit of God, filled with the spirit of God. The "Son" of God, the incarnated word, God in the flesh.
For three years He healed all, raised the dead, casted out demons, controlled nature, spoke pure divine truth.
He said:
"Follow Me. If you see Me, you see the Father. The Father and I are one. The glory I have IN My Father, I give to you. It pleases the Father to give you His Kingdom/Holy Spirit/divine nature. I will send Holy Spirit, the same as Me, He will be IN you, guide you into truth and give you explosive power. The same miracles i do, you will do too, because you will understand that the Father is IN Me and I am IN you. Freely I give you My Kingdom/Holy Spirit/divine nature, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, freely I give, freely share" Etc, etc, etc.
I have experienced thousands of beautifull healing miracles through the power of Holy Spirit IN me already. Broken bones, cancers, covid, all kinds of infirmities healed in seconds. Demons manifesting and casted out by a simple "get out, in Jesus name".
Jesus. De name above all names. In Him all power and wisdom is sourced and.... He calls us one with Him. God in man and man in God again. C'mon Jesus!!
So.... again: God stooped down IN Christ to restore us back to Gen 1:27 were He said: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness and let them have authority.....": walk as Christ.
Christ, the exact image of the invisible God. The image we were created after and being restored to by His atoning blood for the fall of man and indwelling Holy Spirit.
You are free to receive this original divine life of the ages by Holy Spirit of Christ/God. Ask Him to guide you into truth. Read the Gospel of John and fall in love with your creator.
You are not made for the fall of man and its effects, but for the image/glory of God and to walk like Christ. Holy Spirit is the guide and transforming power that will get you there. Amazing grace.
A big leap in faith can be made when we start realizing we are already IN Christ, IN the last Adam.
Free from the fall! Loved! Growing into awareness of our new (yet old) godly identity. Changing by Holy Spirit. The most fullfilled life ever.
Paul healed all on Malta. He understood and wrote:
"As in the first Adam ALL died (lost the divine nature), so also ALL were made alive IN Christ to walk in Zoë (= divine life) again".
"IN Christ (the last Adam) we are co-cruisified (dead to the fall and its effects), co-raised (justified/made righteousness, holy, blameless, above reproach), co-seated (one with Him)"
"The fullness of deity dwells in Christ and YOU HAVE BEEN MADE COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of every principality and power".
So.... thank you Jesus! Thank you for redeeming me from the fall of man. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that makes this new (yet old) divine life come alive in me. You are amazing!
In the shadow of Peter the sick healed... He understood too and wrote:
"By Gods power (Holy Spirit) and knowing Christ, we have become partakers of the divine nature and have escaped the fall of man".
The divine life of the ages has been returned to us by Jesus once and for all perfect atoning sacrifice for the debt of the fall of man and His indwelling Holy Spirit in us. Jesus/God is amazing!!!
Ask Him to give you revelation and change you to the way it was before the fall of man: Christlikeness.
He will do so. For it is written: "the Spirit brings forth after His own kind".
"I have come to give you Zoë (divine life) in abundance...."
Thanks for this. I (recently become ex-Christian) am just discussing with a Christian friend, and he claims that Paul's appearance must have been corporeal BECAUSE it is described in the same vein as the others he mentions. So it is 'dragged up' by the appearances to the disciples. The verses you quote strongly suggest the opposite, that those to the disciples are 'dragged down' by the appearance to Paul to the status of visions.
To make this point a little clearer. Paul uses the same verb "ophthe" for every "appearance" of Jesus mentioned in the earliest eyewitness list from 1 Cor 15:5-8. So since the appearance to Paul was a "vision" then obviously the word "ophthe" did not necessarily convey the meaning of seeing as in actually witnessing and touching a physical body. To drive this point home further, even a literal understanding of Paul's Damascus Road experience does not tell us Paul saw an actual person. Acts 9:7 even says the others with Paul "saw no one" which rules out a physical person being visible. So now we can derive an "appearance" of Jesus _did not necessarily require seeing an actual person._ Now think about how that affects the evidence for the Resurrection.
So if you describe Paul's experience without all of the religious context, here is what you get- Some guy is riding on a horse for a long time, falls off of his horse in the middle of nowhere and starts seeing visions. Goes on to try convincing everyone that his visions are from God, some believe him, many don't. We see this general pattern repeat many times, Joseph Smith, Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Oral Roberts seeing a 900 foot Jesus, etc.
Absolutely this. Paul's experience is indistinguishable from a person suffering some kind of stroke or seizure.
@@condorboss3339
Paul was hit by lightning thats why he went blind for 3 days
@brettbrewer6091
The Bible doesn't mention Paul falling off a horse in any of its accounts of his conversion. In Acts 9:3-4, 22:6-7, and 26:12-14, the Bible says that Paul fell to the ground after seeing a light from heaven, but doesn't mention a horse. Paul also doesn't mention falling off a horse in his letters to churches.
"Anybody here
Seen my old friend, Jesus??
Can you tell me where he's gone??
He freed a lot of people,
But the good, it seems they die young.
I look around and he is gone."
I am glad you showed up in recommendations! I still haven’t figured out 1 cor 15:3-4. Paul says he got his information from scripture, but I couldn’t find any reference to a 3 day resurrection story in the OT. Where do I have to look? Did he even mean the OT?
Jonah and the Belly of the Fish could be something. That's 3 days in the chaotic waters. Which chaotic waters are seen as distant from God in many respects
@@partydean17 thanks! So I shouldn’t look for a literal resurrection story, just passages that kind of fit my purpose. Just like Paul did? I bet I find a lot of references to the number 3. your example is great though.
Even apologists like Mike Licona have to admit that no one knows what scripture Paul is referring to in that passage.
@@name_christian yeah look into that, it's just the first thing to came to mind. You can read through Jonah really quickly
@@name_christian Paul's "scriptures" weren't identical to our "scriptures." I know, for example, that Paul included the book of Enoch, among other extra canonical works, some of which no longer exist.
Enoch was only rediscovered in modern times in Egypt.
All Religion is Special Pleading.
Amazing video and very salient point. Granted, Jesus’ resurrection is not at all disproven by his disciples’ experiences of it being visionary - but it does call into question the gospel accounts themselves. And at that point the apologetics seem to fall apart rapidly
Paul was always a problem for me, until I remembered that Jesus had said that one would come after him who would claim to speak on His behalf, and would lead multitudes into darkness. Jesus was warning about Paul!!! The main division between Orthodox Christianity and Protestant Christianity IS PAUL. The Orthodox versions of Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism) look to Jesus for answers when they have questions. Protestant sects like Lutheranism, Baptists, and right wing evangelicals look to Paul.
Catholics also see Paul as a legitimate mouthpiece of the Spirit. I'll agree tho they dont have to basically worship everything he says like evangelicals do. Which is why they value what James and Peter says more so.
I'm intrigued by what you said about Paul...could you cite the verse that says one would come after him and would lead multitudes into darkness?
The physicality of the appearances is not part of the case for the resurrection. Whether it is physical or non-physical, the fact is that the disciples (and unbelievers like Paul and James) experienced appearances of Jesus alive in a way that led them to begin preaching that Jesus had been raised (from the dead) despite all of their Jewish predisposition to the contrary. That is a matter of historically established fact.
What's odd is that everyone else fails to mention the resurrection. Especially since they had so many friends.
The problem with assuming the other resurrection appearances were also visions is that Christians assume that the apostles wrote the gospels, or at least that the gospels are accurate, even if not by eye witnesses.
Paul's experience of the resurrected Jesus was a visionary experience - as he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom. Also, it is interesting that there is no account of the appearance to Peter or to the 500 at one time, (unless one accepts the reception of the Spirit at Pentecost - Acts 2, as a resurrection appearance).
Visions are gifts from the Lord. Why would he give that to a Paul who persecuted Christisns for a living before.
I think he is the reason Christians were such rule makers instead of following Jesus with love instead of power.
" If it is a miracle any sort of evidence will answer. But if it is a fact, proof is necessary." Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Good old Mark Twain, what he said could always cut through the BS.
Materialists believe in spontaneous generation without evidence.
@@johnnyplunkett8532 Your statement is false. Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things. Essentially cause and effect; nothing spontaneous.
@@edwardschneider6396 Materialists think life comes from non living matter and energy. It violates all known laws of science. They also believe the entire Matter Energy Space Time universe was squished into a teeny tiny polkadot in violation of the laws of physics. Only a God or gods could do that because it requires power and intelligence to create a biological system. Belief in God or gods is simple rational thinking not faith.
@@johnnyplunkett8532 Ah, the intelligent design believe. Believing is not a FACT that is demonstrable by a falsifiable method. You are confusing philosophical position with science. Which god or god's should we believe in? We have about 10,000 since man walked upright.
How can you determine which god or gods are REAL? We have a hypothesis and then try to determine if evidence supports it and conclude with a working theory. That Is how science works.
All religions are unfalsifiable institutions. No method of determining true or false.
deeper than "doubt"! Paul/Saul saw an opportunity to hustle the crowd of fishermen/farmers/miscreants/superstitiously-inclined dissatisfied subjects - and he took it!
better call saul
Agnostic here. Why would paul continue this "hustle" - amidst beatings , imprisonment, stoning, and ultimately death.
It strikes me that Paul in fact is putting his experiance on par with that of the Apostles as a means of buttressing his own authority . Paul was a zealous persecutor then a zealous evangelizer...but in neither case did he seem to doubt his own righteousness.
He never seemed to doubt his own AUTHORITY. Half of his letters are to wayward churches who weren't doing what he told them to and he was chastising them for it. He also, when he NEEDED Gentiles to join his church, had the most convenient "revelation" in the history of religion when Jesus appeared to him and told him that gentiles didn't have to obey Jewish law. Without that, Romans would not have joined up, and christianity would have been just another failed cult.
Yeah, well it probably didn't take him long to realize that requiring his converts to cut off the tip of their penis might put a damper on things!
@@commonsense5494 he removed the circumcision requirement, a huge deterrent for converts. “Y’all don’t have to cut your dicks anymore.”
@@commonsense5494 Liker when Mohammad was told by god he could take on more wives than other men LOL.
If i get pulled over for a speeding ticket ill be sure to mention to the officer that god revealed to me that it was ok for me to drive at that speed.
If the kids in the *'Jesus Camp'* movie testifying doesn't convince you, nether should Paul.
What? Is something wrong with being in the Jesus camp?
I always saw Paul as a religious zealot on par with the evangelical, mega church preachers and cult leaders we see today. Every story they come up with happens to fill a gap they need and not a shred of evidence to back them up. When scrutinized you find major holes that they never resolve. And yet these stories are where they claim their divinely mandated authority comes from. "Listen to me, God and I are best buds. Just ignore that this sounds ridiculous."
Again, if Paul was talking about anything besides Jesus we would rightfully call him crazy and ignore what he has to say. But just as those pushing religion on TV and in politics, because it's Jesus you must ignore that literally everything coming out of their mouth in no way comports with reality.
the persecuting christians gig wasn't paying enough, so he switched sides.
Would you be willing to do an analysis of the Papias source? I’ve seen this resurface in a number of online forums... used to establish that the authors of the gospels were kynown quite early (ca. 100 AD). In every case where I’ve seen Papias quoted for this purpose, left out of the discussion is this: we have no existing copies of Papias’ work whatsoever. Most of what we have is quoted by Eusebius in fragments. Since this information doesn’t necessarily disapprove anything, but does introduce reason to doubt, it may fit in well with the theme of your channel. Cheers!
Is Paul relaying what he knows personally about Cephas(Peter), the twelve apostles, and James in 1 Cor. 15:3-8, or simply what he has heard? Where does 1st Corinthians fit in the timeline of his trip or trips to Jerusalem? Before or after?
The statement “what I in turn had received” and what follows it can be interpreted to mean he’s relaying what he’s heard, or could be read as a recited creed, or he could just be relaying what the actual apostles told him when he was in Jerusalem.
3:00 if Paul suggests Jesus'appearance was like the other apostles, could he have meant, a spiritual appearance for all??
I contest Paul as a witness, especially a reliable one. 15 years or so after the supposed event, he wrote that he had an epiphany. People have bad memories and can convince themselves of a lot of things. We don’t have to look beyond current politics to see people behaving according to what they want to believe rather than what they have evidence to believe.
Putting himself next to others who never wrote that they saw a risen Jesus does not prove much, except that Paul thought a lot of his own story.
Plus Paul is a liar. He admits that he will say whatever sells to the Jews and gentiles. 500 witnesses, but not a single detail? How convenient.
I really love the point you’ve made at the end about the nature of Paul’s experience of Jesus ostensibly being the same as the other apostles’. I believe this subjective experience of the risen Jesus is precisely what many liberal Christian scholars/theologians (JD Crossan and Marcus Borg come to mind) argue for on historical and philosophical grounds. Clearly this undermines fundamentalist theology, and even classical theism, but I do think it’s a promising view that lends itself to inclusive, non-oppressive forms of Christianity and even non-Christian appreciation.
IKR? If the story doesn't work just make up a new story.
It is what makes the most sense, they all had experiences they couldn't understand and they attributed them to their cult. Same thing happens even today in every religion.
There are three accounts of Paul's conversion experience in the book of Acts and they all contradict one another. A good analogy to these accounts from the New Testament are the visions of Roman Catholic saints such as Fatima. Such phenomena are in fact fairly common and are easily explained psychologically as a product of stress and expectation.
Than you sir for another well considered and researched piece of work.
When one spends even a modicum of research into the Second Testament writings, it becomes apparent that the belief methodology we have called Christianity for centuries should rightfully be redefined as "Paulanity".
In ancient traditional literature outside of the European Christian culture, the teachings of a Sage, or of a Saint were defined as valid by the inherent Truth that was perceived to exist within the argument itself, as in "...For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit...". Luke 6:43-45 (KJV). However Paul turns this understanding of the validity of Jesus The Nazarene's wisdom teaching inside out, and instead postulates that the teachings of Jesus were valid ( not because any inherent wisdom or truth in and of itself ), but because Jesus was The Son Of God, and the proof of this was his resurrection.
As a result Paul refocuses the wisdom teachings of Jesus The Nazarene away from the inherent "Truth" that existed within his life and teachings, to that of Jesus as "Divinity". This redefinition of what it means to be a follower of the teachings of Jesus had profound repercussions in the future of the developing Christian religion, indeed when one considers where our concepts of how a follower of Jesus to behave and act, these definitions come almost exclusively from Paul.
And, likely, Paul did this to make these teachings more palatable to his "Gentile" audience ( and thus assured that a small Jewish cult would become an imperial world religion)!
I personally have hallucinated many absurd things walking down long desert highways!
Gal 2:9a And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship;
Paul's encounter is definitely a lesser encounter than the ones experienced by the disciples. Jesus's bodily appearances should have ceased after his ascension. I do believe Paul recognized this fact and thus considered himself the least among the apostles.
"I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody." 2 Cor 12:11
"Though I am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ," Eph 3:8
"For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." 1 Cor 15:9
Paul was a persecutor and a late comer to the church, which probably bothered him, still he considered his visions of the Lord as objective revelations, binding and true on par with the experiences of the twelve.
I wouldn't lump the physical appearances with Paul's visions or other visions the disciples had post ascension (don't think Paul would too).
It's been a blight on christianity that Paul's writings were put in the bible. In many ways his words have brought everything that's misogynistic and homophobic to the religion.
But what about the fact that his writings are the earliest and most authentic that Christians have?
I want to join pleasure parade 😀
No, Paul’s letters are perfectly just and quite easy to understand. Really, you gotta scrape the bottom of the barrel to try to find something explicitly sexist in Paul’s letters. Homosexuality is explicitly condemned, but I don’t see a reason to consider that a plight on Christianity.
Lol you've clearly never read the OT
Thats complete rubbish really. He was a person of his time and no more sexist or homophobic than anyone else back then. He condemns homosexuality in places but in that he would be in line with any Jew of his day. On women a lot of the bits people object to are from the pastoral epistles which are considered by many scholars to be falsely attributed to him so not his words.
As I recall, Paul didn’t “see” Jesus, he appears to “experience” Jesus - and I think that is what happened. Regardless as to the veracity of the resurrection, it appears to be a fact that most of these people died on behalf of Christianity. Apologist point out that it is difficult to find people to die for what they know to be a lie. Some theologians will say the point of the resurrection is that death is not the final or ending experience - and the martyrdom of so many of the apostles would seem to validate that concept. Pauls conversion experience is not compelling but his martyrdom experience is.
So to answer your question, “what historical basis is there to say that the experience of the other apostles was similar to his“ the answer might be, they all accepted death (with the exception of John) as martyr’s for Christ - and that no one dies for that which they know to be lie, let alone a cohort dying for something they know to be a lie. We are endowed with free will to accept or not accept God as expressed this way. Life is very hard, for all creatures. In that context it is hard to accept that there is a God who would create such a creation, except for that fact that he thinks creation is so essential that rather than eliminate suffering in creation he puts himself through it, both creation and the suffering that comes with it. In the face of those two concepts (life is sufference, God puts himself through that sufference) we are given free will to consider that there is a God or there is not a God and we are free to come to our own conclusions. The parable of the Prodigal Son neatly lays out the mechanics of this theology, but the choice, for each of us, is all ours, either way, and all the Christian God asks is that you pursue truth as your own volition dictates.
Bullshit!
People die stupidly every day because that's where they find themselves - even though they do does nothing to tell us their state of mind!
Think about what 'facts' you are convinced of, and challenge them before you go hanging a whole tapestry on them.
@@richardearnshaw2719 Whoa, slow down there Tonto. It’s just a discussion. If you have a counter point or supporting point make it. I just put up some points I heard from Christian apologist. Put up the counter points if you have them. Else please attempt to be polite. No point otherwise.
@@kaneinkansas we should all become muslim then because the 9-11 hijackers couldn't die for a lie. - I can already hear the excusses and apply those same excuses to Paul or any other "martyr".
But your problem is even worse, we don't know how paul died. Even if he did die in Rome we don't know if he was told he would be forgiven if he denounced Christianity, We don't know if he was killed for murdering Christians We don't know if he recanted and said it was all a lie and was still killed WE DONT KNOW.
Even if he was actually killed, even if he never recanted, even if he earnestly believed he had a legitimate vision- all we can conclude is that his decisions put him on the other side of a roman murder THAT IS ALL.
MAybe he got caught up in a position of power in a small cult and once he got arrested he was already in too deep. Maybe he joined this cult to have sex with some of the more gullible women there like happens so often in real life. or maybe he had serious guilt over murdering other people. Or maybe he was just a gullible person himself that saw a cloud and that's all it took to get him started. WE DONT KNOW.
David Koresh, the 9-11 hijackers, Peoples Temple, and the Heaven's Gate cult all "died for a lie" and that's just a few off the top of my head!
it is as if you are completely unaware of valid criticism or of other groups outside your sect. And then you start pilling assertion after assertion after assertion, WOW.
Vishnu/Allah puts himself through that sufference) we are given free will to consider that there is a Vishnu/Allah or there is not a Vishnu/Allah and we are free to come to our own conclusions.
People die all the time for ideas that they know may not, in fact, be true. This is because we live our lives in the context of communities and tribes, which are way more important to us than truth. We would rather die with and for our group (family, community, tribe, nation, and, yes, religion) than bend our knee to the other guy's group - regardless of some set of truth claims. All it takes is a charismatic leader to fan the flames of tribalism and apply peer pressure, and a whole group of people will willingly put themselves entirely on the line - even die - for the group. We don't have to be convinced of a truth claim, like a resurrection, to sacrifice ourselves. We just need to believe in our group and our leader. For example, millions of soldiers have died, often in very sacrificial ways, for their group (nation, community, fellow soldiers). They may carry with them some vague platitudes about the "rightness" (truth) of their cause, but that is not really why they sacrifice themselves.
@@douglasschnabel4480 I am not in disagreement with your point. If you know anyone that has been in the marines, they create a communitarian atmosphere to help them fight. Perhaps the most intense communitarianism might be the Japanese, and we all know how hard and willingly they fought and died in WWII.
So you are suggesting that the first disciples of Christ all died for communitarian reasons? Are there any other reasons or suggestions from what we know and have inherited from history that this was prevailing upon them? I think a lot of these disciples all went off in different directions. But I suspect that the spread of Christianity was right on their heals. It seems to have offered something that wasn't there before. In pre20th century people, generally, did not do a lot of traveling. Yet within a few decades there were Christian communities all over the Mediterranean basin.
What lots of people (even pastors) don't (yet) understand.
God created us according to His own image and likeness. Godly.
Mankind/the first Adam fell. The image of God in man got lost. That's why there is all this predicament on earth (selfishness, greed, lust, wars, sicknesses, death, etc).
We are all born into that mess.
For the fall of man a perfect atoning sacrifice had to be made.... that is what God did in Christ.
With His own once and for all perefect sacrifice, He paid the debt for the fall of man for us, so we can be indwelled by His Spirit again and finally receive the divine life of the ages back, the first Adam let got of in the fall of man. An amazing act of grace and love by our creator.
That is what you see happening in Christ's first disciples. They too healed all and walked in unselfish love.
And yes.... that is still avaible today. The holy blood is in place, the Holy Spirit is here to give us understanding, power and transform us back to origin.
Not to be debated about, but to be embraced and be-come.
So: The Kingdom of God already came. Through Christ, in Spiritform, in those that understand.
Hence the divine healing miracles we experience.
God manifested in Christ to give us back the divine life mankind lost in the fall of Adam.
Christ, the exact image of the invisible God.
The image we were created after in Gen 1.
The image we lost in the fall of man.
The image that can be freely restored by Christ's blood and Holy Spirit working IN us.
What a plan. What a solution. What a love. What a God. Jesus is amazing.
It is the ultimate conclusion of the word and plan of God. God came full circle.
He Himself stooped down from glory to restore us back to original created value: Christlikeness. Walking in divine healing power and unselfish love.
Jesus, born of the Spirit of God, filled with the spirit of God. The "Son" of God, the incarnated word, God in the flesh.
For three years He healed all, raised the dead, casted out demons, controlled nature, spoke pure divine truth.
He said:
"Follow Me. If you see Me, you see the Father. The Father and I are one. The glory I have IN My Father, I give to you. It pleases the Father to give you His Kingdom/Holy Spirit/divine nature. I will send Holy Spirit, the same as Me, He will be IN you, guide you into truth and give you explosive power. The same miracles i do, you will do too, because you will understand that the Father is IN Me and I am IN you. Freely I give you My Kingdom/Holy Spirit/divine nature, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, freely I give, freely share" Etc, etc, etc.
I have experienced thousands of beautifull healing miracles through the power of Holy Spirit IN me already. Broken bones, cancers, covid, all kinds of infirmities healed in seconds. Demons manifesting and casted out by a simple "get out, in Jesus name".
Jesus. De name above all names. In Him all power and wisdom is sourced and.... He calls us one with Him. God in man and man in God again. C'mon Jesus!!
So.... again: God stooped down IN Christ to restore us back to Gen 1:27 were He said: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness and let them have authority.....": walk as Christ.
Christ, the exact image of the invisible God. The image we were created after and being restored to by His atoning blood for the fall of man and indwelling Holy Spirit.
You are free to receive this original divine life of the ages by Holy Spirit of Christ/God. Ask Him to guide you into truth. Read the Gospel of John and fall in love with your creator.
You are not made for the fall of man and its effects, but for the image/glory of God and to walk like Christ. Holy Spirit is the guide and transforming power that will get you there. Amazing grace.
A big leap in faith can be made when we start realizing we are already IN Christ, IN the last Adam.
Free from the fall! Loved! Growing into awareness of our new (yet old) godly identity. Changing by Holy Spirit. The most fullfilled life ever.
Paul healed all on Malta. He understood and wrote:
"As in the first Adam ALL died (lost the divine nature), so also ALL were made alive IN Christ to walk in Zoë (= divine life) again".
"IN Christ (the last Adam) we are co-cruisified (dead to the fall and its effects), co-raised (justified/made righteousness, holy, blameless, above reproach), co-seated (one with Him)"
"The fullness of deity dwells in Christ and YOU HAVE BEEN MADE COMPLETE IN HIM, who is the head of every principality and power".
So.... thank you Jesus! Thank you for redeeming me from the fall of man. Thank you for your Holy Spirit that makes this new (yet old) divine life come alive in me. You are amazing!
In the shadow of Peter the sick healed... He understood too and wrote:
"By Gods power (Holy Spirit) and knowing Christ, we have become partakers of the divine nature and have escaped the fall of man".
The divine life of the ages has been returned to us by Jesus once and for all perfect atoning sacrifice for the debt of the fall of man and His indwelling Holy Spirit in us. Jesus/God is amazing!!!
Ask Him to give you revelation and change you to the way it was before the fall of man: Christlikeness.
He will do so. For it is written: "the Spirit brings forth after His own kind".
"I have come to give you Zoë (divine life) in abundance...."
Who compiled the Bible and when?
We should question all stories, especially those with supernatural elements, i.e. elements that may he impossible.
Ooooh yes! Thank you for saying it!
Listening to a lot of conservative Christians, they claim that Paul wrote his epistles around 52 CE or earlier. That’s a mere 20 years after Jesus’ crucifixion. And when he wrote these letters he was not a young guy anymore. If so, he must have been a contemporary of Jesus. Paul claims to have been a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a leader of Jews. Studied at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). He had been given authority to persecute the Christians. He could not have come out of nowhere (Tarsus) and then suddenly risen to the top. He was there at the stoning of Stephen, which would not have been long after Pentecost. Then it would have taken some time for the church to grow and expand to Damascus. Then Paul was converted, spent 3 years in the desert. Then went on missionary journeys, which were arduous and time consuming. Then the churches developed and finally Paul wrote them letters. All that would have taken at least 20 years. If Paul was who he said he was (and what Luke makes him out to be) he must have been around Jerusalem at the time of Jesus, no matter how you figure it. (He was there at the stoning of Stephen remember, which probably was only a few months after the crucifixion.) As a young, ardent Pharisee he must have run into Jesus, maybe even had an argument, witnessed Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, been there at the cleansing of the temple, the trial, the crucifixion -been aware of the empty tomb, etc. He must have met people like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, etc. Strange that he never refers to any of these encounters. Paul could have said something like this, “Yeah, I was around Jerusalem when the Roman guards reported about the angel coming down and rolling away the stone.” It seems like Paul knows absolutely nothing biographical of Jesus. Also, his account of post resurrection witnesses differs from the gospels. Strange! If you insist on that time-line for the epistles, Paul must have been around at the time of Jesus, but he knows nothing about him, other than what was revealed to him in his hallucination.
Yeah imagine a blow hard like him not mentioning he had a personal conversation with the living Jesus at every chance he got.
The man was a paid murderer but we are all supposed to believe every far fetched fantasy he wrote down.
I would submit the very strong possibility that he was exaggerating his Jewish background. Gamaliel was one of the most powerful and influential Jewish scholars of that era, and quite famously didn’t take anyone under 30. The problem here is that Paul quite often misquoted and misunderstood Jewish sources. He talks about Jesus as the unique seed of woman in Genesis - problem being that the word “seed” in Hebrew doesn’t have a separate plural form. It’s “zara” no matter how many seeds you have and is used in the plural sense elsewhere. He interprets the curse of the hanged man in Dueteronomy as attaching to the hanged man where Judaism has traditionally ascribed the curse to the ground, not the man. Now I don’t think it’s totally implausible that he might disagree with standard doctrine of his era, but he doesn’t ever seem to bother acknowledging the original meaning or the Hebrew text. As such, I don’t think it likely that he studied under a rabbi let alone the most famous one there is.
Thanks for this.
Great video!
New sub! 😊
*Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El.* Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy stipulates that *“the Most High, El,* gave to the nations their inheritance” and that “Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob and his allotted heritage” (32:8-9). A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). *The claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan.*
*It is generally accepted in the modern day, however, that Yahweh originated in southern Canaan as a lesser god in the Canaanite pantheon* and the Shasu, as nomads, most likely acquired their worship of him during their time in the Levant.
*Yahweh in the Canaanite Pantheon*
The biblical narrative, however, is not as straightforward as it may seem as it also includes reference to the Canaanite god El whose name is directly referenced in `Israel' (He Who Struggles with God or He Who Perseveres with God). *El was the chief deity of the Canaanite pantheon and the god who, according to the Bible, gave Yahweh authority over the Israelites:*
When the *Most High [El]* gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Sons of God. For Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9, Masoretic Text).
The Canaanites, like all ancient civilizations, worshipped many gods but chief among them was the sky-god El. *In this passage from Deuteronomy, El gives each of the gods authority over a segment of the people of earth and Yahweh is assigned to the Israelites who, in time, will make him their supreme and only deity; but it is clear he existed beforehand as a lesser Canaanite god.*
Yahweh, according to Amzallag, was transformed from one god among many to the supreme deity by the Israelites in the Iron Age (c.1200-930 BCE) when iron replaced bronze and the copper smelters, whose craft was seen as a kind of transformative magic, lost their unique status. *In this new age, the Israelites in Canaan sought to distance themselves from their neighbors in order to consolidate political and military strength and so elevated Yahweh above El as the supreme being and claimed him as their own.* His association with the forge, and with imagery of fire, smoke, and smiting, worked as well in describing a god of storms and war and so Yahweh's character changed from a deity of transformation to one of conquest.
*As the Israelites developed their community in Canaan, they sought to distance themselves from their neighbors and, as noted, elevated Yahweh above the traditional Canaanite supreme deity El.* They did not, however, embrace monotheism at this time. The Israelites remained a henotheistic people through the time of the Judges, which predates the rise of the monarchy, and throughout the time of the Kingdom of Israel (c.1080-c. 722).
Google *"Yahweh - **WorldHistory.Org.**"*
Watch Dr Christine Hayes at Yale University. Watch lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards and lecture 8 from 12:00 to 19:00 minutes.
Google *"Jews and Arabs Descended from Canaanites - Biblical Archaeology Society."*
Google *"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopaedia."*
Google *"Canaanite Religion - **Realhistoryww.com**"*
Google *"Canaanite Phoenician Origin of the God of the Israelites."*
Google *"The Phoenician God Resheph in the Bible - Is That in the Bible?"*
Google *"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."*
Google *"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."*
Google *"Married Deities: Asherah and Yahweh in Early Israelite Religion - Yahweh Elohim."*
Google *"How the Jews Invented God and Made Him Great- Archaeology - Haaretz."*
Google *"The Invention of God - Maclean's"*
Google *"The Boundaries of the Nations - Yahweh Elohim."*
Google *"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."*
Google *"How Did the Bible’s Editors Conceal Evidence of Israelite Polytheism - Evolution of God by Robert Wright."*
Google *"A Theologically Revised Text: Deuteronomy 32:8-9 - Ancient Hebrew Poetry."*
Google *"Biblical Contradiction #3: Which God is the Creator of the Heavens and Earth: Yahweh or El?"*
Google *"Biblical Contradiction #27. Are Yahweh and El the Same God or Not?"*
Google *"Mark Smith: "Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh's Ascendancy - Lehi's Library."*
Google *"Quartz Hill School of Theology - B425 Ugarit and the Bible."*
Google *"The Origins of Yahweh and the Revived Kenite Hypothesis - Is That in the Bible?"*
Google *"Yahweh, god of metallurgy - Fewer Lacunae."*
Google *"Polytheistic Roots of Israelite Religion - Fewer Lacunae."*
Google *"Biblical Polytheism - Bob Seidensticker."*
Google *"Combat Myth: The Curious Story of Yahweh and the Gods Who Preceded Him - Bob Seidensticker."*
Google *"Religious Studies: El, Yahweh and the Development of Monotheism in Ancient Israel."*
Google *"Decoupling YHWH and El - Daniel O. McClellan."*
Google *"Yhwh, God of Edom - Daniel O. McClellan."*
Google *"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.*
Its a bit off topic but super cool, I was looking for something like this.
Yeah, well the most interesting thing is that, like most cultures, the Isrealites were not interested in shoving their religion down other people's throats. It was Paul who we have to thank for that.
@@dooleyfussle8634 Yeah the better you understand Paul the less feasible Christianity becomes. He frames the garden of Eden as the "fall of man" which requires a saviour (which coincidentally he knows really well) but the Jews never saw it this way and saw death less as a punishment and more a part of the cycle of life.
@@dooleyfussle8634 Religion was more functional and natural back then, it didn't need to be SOLD like you se today.
"Incontestable"?? In what way? We have only the word of Acts & a few of the epistles for this amazing event, & the Bible has a pretty low credibility rating.
Paul never says that he saw Jesus in exactly the same way that the apostles saw him. Just that they both saw him.
No, but he implies that his experience was Jesus appearing to him as he had to the disciples, and that is awkward for a physical resurrection
@@joygibbons5482 Where did he say that? Where does he say that the way Jesus appeared to the other apostles was the same way he appeared to him?
The verbs used in Greek also imply it, though it isn't definitive; but it's also not definitive from the word choices that Paul ever intended to describe anyone's experiences as actual physical meetings with an embodied person. The point is that, while Paul does not say the experiences were the same, parsimony would suggest that if he is describing his experiences as equivalent, he at least assumes them to be similar. It would not make a lot of sense for me to write "John saw Bigfoot, and Phil, and seventeen hikers, and also I saw him," if John, Phil, and the hikers all claimed to have actually physically seen Bigfoot in the wild while I just saw a TV show about Bigfoot. To suppose I meant that would be a stretch for you, and for me to write that when my experience was fundamentally different would immediately destroy my credibility (if I'd lie about having seen Bigfoot the same way the others did for clout, what else would I lie about?).
But the real dirty secret in all of this is that it's not clear whether Paul even believed in or knew about a living historical Jesus at all. If you pretend the Gospels don't exist and just read his letters, you might be surprised at the picture of "Jesus Christ" that Paul appears to have believed in.
Am I to understand that this guy can't grasp the simple idea that Paul's conversion experience might not have been the only time Paul had an encounter with Jesus? As for the gospels being written down "decades" after being written - I'll match you with "Commentaries on the Gallic Wars", the oldest written copy of which dates to over a thousand years after the events [based on this guy's issues we should say] allegedly describes.
Then how did he know it was actually Jesus. A resurrection, an ascension into heaven AND then a reappears to Paul, THREE events that have NO PROBABILITY to have ever occured ever in history much less in these instances. I'm not familiar with the Gallic Wars, but the level of belief in a claim should be in accordance with the evidence, and if the claim is of a supernatural one, then level of proof for belief should be be equal to that if the claim. Grand claims, require grand evidence.
@@baptistoriginals No probability? So you've existed throughout history, observed all events that have ever occurred and know this to be true? That's what you just claimed. [and then some people get upset when I say atheists are arrogant]. I agree with you - grand claims, like God doesn't exist, require grand evidence. Let's hear yours. Read up on the Gallic wars. If you're going to believe something happened based on something written down a thousand years after the event, it is more probable that something written down decades (at most) after the events it described happened.
@@inwalters probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of How likely an event is to occur or How likely it is that a proposition is true. To my knowledge THERE IS NO CONFIRMED RESURRECTIONS, Jesus' resurrection is a claim. Thus the calculable data for resurrections is 0, until such time as any demonstrable data can confirm the events, that will continue to be zero. Now any event written down without confirmation can be given the benefit of the doubt, especially hundreds and thousands of years later. But when the level of claim is that of improbable events, and in the case of the Bible, SEVERAL improbable events, none of which that can provide independent attestation for any of them. Why would the benefit of the doubt be given to what my any other metric would be considered myth and fantasy?
@@baptistoriginals Any event that occurred before the memory of the oldest person alive falls in the same category of believability - someone told us it happened. You have pre-decided not to believe the Bible as a source, even though all the "historical" events described in the Bible have been shown to have occurred. For example I don't think there's any other source for the events described in 'The Anabasis", yet I have no doubt that you believe that they occurred, as such belief requires you no make no change in your lifestyle, while belief in the Bible would. That's why you've decided you're just not going to believe the Bible as a source. Period.
@@inwalters sir, I have not pre- decided anything, in fact I was a Christian the first half of my life so I one time believed these events. But believing events that concur with myth and legend was the mistake. Most of the critical moments of the Bible have been debunked or do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the claim. The only events in the Bible that history agrees are those that have multiple sources. No supernatural event from any corner of the globe is considered part of history. Because they don't meet their burden of proof. You can choose to believe anything you desire sir, but withholding belief for events such as Jesus resurrection, is there most logical position. EVEN if Jesus is the son of a god, died and was resurrected, IT SHOULD NOT BE BELIEVED WITHOUT THE LEVEL OF EVIDENCE FOR THE CLAIM. This a whole other point, but Jesus dying and coming back to life isn't proof for God, only that he could come back to life, it could potentially be another method... That's the reason evidence is so important.
Love your channel. You stick to the point without getting caught in the weeds. You’re very careful to not fall into any traps that other skeptics do
Or to not fall into any traps proposed by believers. Also, without condemnation of any point of view. This is rare.
Question: Did Paul really see Jesus on the road to Damascus?
Answer: No.
If Paul's conversion happened in Louisiana 1981, we'd have never heard of it.
The reason there hasn't been an answer for 150 years is because Christian apologists are forced to accept that Jesus was resurrected in a "glorified body", that is, glorified flesh and bones, so as to accept the trinity doctrine. That his glorified body is his true nature, and that he has no other. The Bible is clear on what it teaches about that, however. Jesus was not resurrected as a holy and glorified version of flesh and bones with all its marks and cuts left in it. It says that God resurrected Jesus as a spirit, and, not sure if you know this but, spirits can manifest themselves as flesh if allowed by God to(in the Lot story of Sodom and Gomorra, in several places it calls the spirit creatures sent by God both MEN and ANGELS). Jesus is not a resurrected glorified body. He is a "life-giving spirit" that can manifest as flesh. But his true nature is that of a spirit. And people can indeed have visions about spirits in themselves, like Ezekiel and Daniel had. What you have to understand, though, is that these are not what spirits look like. Humans CANNOT see spirits in their actual form because spirits aren't made of any physical matter(and it's physical matter that interacts with the electromagnetic spectrum); our eyes are LITERALLY incapable of seeing spirits. The spirits that people like Ezekiel or Paul saw were mere visions given to them to help them, well, ENVISION them. Not in a way that makes them understand their true form(once again, that's impossible). Just in a way that makes them understandable to us and our tiny minds with such limited perspectives and experiences compared to the incomprehensible vastness of the universe...
Anyway, Paul did have a vision of Jesus; a vision of Jesus' life-giving SPIRIT body, which has the ability to take on various physical forms(which are what the apostles in the Gospels saw). So;
"When Paul... places the Christophany which occurred to himself in the same series with the appearances of Jesus in the days after his resurrection, this authorizes us... to conclude that, for all the Apostle knew, those earlier appearances were of the same nature with the one experienced by himself." No, because Paul knew that Jesus didn't have some glorified body, but that He was a spirit in heaven with the ability to manifest himself as flesh and bones. He could have easily known that was the appearances of Jesus in the days after his resurrection were appearances of him manifesting in flesh and bones so that others could interact with him, but that the appearance of Jesus in his experience was an experience of a vision of the SPIRIT of Jesus. There is nothing stopping Jesus from revealing himself as flesh and bones(in the days after his resurrection) OR as a spirit through a vision(like He would have given Paul), and Paul knows that. So just because Jesus revealed himself to Paul as a spirit through a vision that took place IN Paul, we don't have to necessarily conclude that it was the same for the rest of his detailed appearances.
This is also, in part, an answer to the whole, "Jesus' ascension to heaven in the skies sure seems a lot more fictitious considering how people in those times believed that heaven was literally in the skies." Yes, they did believe that, and yes, it does seem fictitious. But that's the point. God isn't required to let His people know the actual truth about everything(like that the Earth isn't flat or that the heavens aren't in the skies). These are all things people at that time believed, and that's fine. Human ignorance is a part of our imperfections, and God doesn't have to fix it. In fact, He could use it to His advantage. That's what I think Jesus did when He arose in the sky. I quite literally think He was putting on a show. He could have merely vanished into thin air(something he had done before). But this was the last time His disciples were ever going to see Him in their lifetimes; people who He loved and people who loved him. Why not go out in a way that strengthens their faith by putting them in complete AWE and WONDER, by, well, flying up into the sky where the heavens supposedly are(something they did believed, which isn't inherently wrong)? I mean, obviously I know the heavens aren't in the skies, but if I saw ANY man float up into the sky I'd be in amazement. Now, a man who is the king and lord over ALL in existence and savior of all mankind, ascending into the skies, which my ignorant mind(remember, nothing inherently wrong with that) believes to be where heaven is? Well, no word could describe that supposed feeling. Who is to say that's not what Jesus did? It's certainly an explanation.
The point is, Christian apologists are blinded by their inherent needs to support certain doctrines, such as that of Jesus' glorified body, or that of the Trinity doctrine, or hellfire doctrine. After all, all "real" Christians believe in this simple truths found in the Bible. No wonder they don't have an answer for this after 150 years!! That's a long time... Well, I just gave you one.
Excellent!
excellent. succinct and compelling.
Hotty intellectual with a sultry voice and amazing beard? This is the content I’m here for 😘
He's not real but only a vision.
Your taste in men is dubious at best. Please don't have children.
cognitive bias maybe? It's ok-- warm & fuzzy even!!
Perhaps you should compare beards together ? I bet both of you are hiding a round face and no jaw line.
@@stechriswillgil3686
Be Nice! 😀
How did Paul now it was JESUS on the road to Damascus and he never knew Jesus before ??
All those books...I must trust him...
Thanks for the video :)
I believe in Christ and to what the disciples claimed to a risen Jesus. If they are not telling the truth of Christ, why then would those in power killed them?
Are you serious? They were in a cult that the Romans saw as rebellious and advocating for a new "king". Romans would kill you for much less than that buddy.
And Romans killed a bunch of cultist that had nothing to do with Christianity are those cults also true? LOL
Its like from 1975 till 2011 I not just believed that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus in the Grove of trees in 1820 , I knew it to be true . And yet pull all of the lies and falsehood curtains back, all I had was faith + feelings mixed with loose fitting facts , believing it to be a hard core actual event . And yet from 2011 to 2013 I discovered 6 to 9 different versions of the so called First Vision , which I believed in only 1 , thinking that was all there was. Like a house of cards , it all blew down as does all man made religions which give humanity a false sense of security . All we really have is time on this Earth . If there is something beyond this life, will be a surprise , not a fact until that moment , but just faith .
As a teenager growing up in Catholic Italy, I stopped believing the Bible had any truth when I was 14/15. I just could never accept the resurrection stories, but Jesus could prove to me by showing up. He hasn't and don't expect he will.
Paul was a Tax Collector. He never met nor knew Jesus. His gig was to please others, so that he could still collect taxes. Paul was a Greek and only ever lived in the Levant, and never near the river Jordan.
Brother I am not trying to be rude but I am orthodox Christian reformed in doctrine who believes in reliability and infallibility of the scripture...I am confused if you are a Christian or a critique to Christians...If you doubt Paul's writing, which basically is half of the New testament then I doubt you can call yourself a true Christian... brother I will pray to God to take out all your doubts and open your eyes to God's truth.God bless you.
The problem with the passages containing Paul’s vision I will describe. I genuinely believe that Paul was a mystic and that he had several visions. I’m going to go a different direction with this. First, let me say this is that there is a description of creation that goes back thousands of years earlier. It has to do with Anu(El) mating with a being of the primordial water which is connected the the Temple in Eridu, the first city, bringing forth the heavens, a firmament in the sky, and a formless earth that Enlil the creates the formed earth from and Enki fertilizes to produce life, much to the irritation of Enlil but that’s another story. Since the late 3rd Millenium El resided when resting on his throne on the firmament in the constellation of Taurus, the bull of the heavens (El was the bull in the west). You can find various aspects of the story in the Bible (Enki/Ea and Enlil removed and replaced with Yahweh). From the book of enoch comes the notion of third heaven. These concepts of 7 levels of heaven, 9 levels of hell, 33 levels or whatever. It’s all vision surfing from vision seekers exploring the inner convolutions of their own mind, the harder they try to see visions the more they are likely to see things they already know to be true.
So with regard to mysticism and these types of visions where one sees a completely unknown individual in an imaginary place with all the bells and whistles, this was deemed a long time ago by the orthodoxy to be “spiritual delusion”. They can occur because of intoxication, mental problems, fasting, or simply trying to force the mediation process, such as Hesychasm, ‘naval staring’. I wasn’t aware of the third heaven reference but it adds even more weight to the profane nature of the vision already explicit in Acts. Paul never met Jesus and never heard him talk, so without someone interpreting his visions, how would he know. Certainly not by “Hey fella, I’m your master Jesus Christ”, the guy you’ve been persecuting.
Paul had gone to Jerusalem to school in the Gamaliel school of pharisees, he apparently left as a failure, tried to redeem himself by hunting early Christians and had some sort of mental breakdown on the road to Damascus. Some mystic follower of the disciples explained it to him as a resurrection appearance of Yeshua. And so he explored this in further visions fleshing out his theology.
I think we need to separate Paul’s visions from the putative visions of disciples and family members of Yeshua. The first reason is that it was a traumatic and untimely death, second Yeshua was a teacher of esoteric mysticism. We can judge this by the large number of mystical beliefs that radiated from his followers within the 50 years that followed his crucifixion. Third, posthumous appearances are rather common even among non mystics, and especially so among mystics. I think that probably the disciples saw Yeshua after they heard the news of the execution the next time they focused on meditation and probably did not think too much of it. Some later (Pauline christians) when hearing these stories made big deal of it.
Isnt there a prior pagan parell to this which includes divine blindness? Also, rabbi tovi singer says this is essentially an old testement rip off. Interesting, David says to Saul ( o.t) " why r u persecuting me" .
Is Dunn’s quote based on the one word, “within”? If that is the only evidence, it fails: all of Paul’s and everyone’s perceptions happen within us. His epiphany is no different. He more likely wrote Within because there was something special about it, maybe he was trying to portray his experience as more profound than that of the disciples because theirs happened only through their eyes and ears.
(Actually in the original Mark, the first biography of Jesus, no disciples or anyone explicitly sees Jesus risen.)
How could've Paul know what Jesus looked like if he never met him alive before. Or could Paul be one of the pharisees that questioned Jesus when he was still alive and during his ministry? Paul was a pharisee after all.
If Jesus ever existed, he was no god, so after being killed by the Romans, he could’ve never been able to appear to Paul.
Paul became a Christian in 32 or 33 AD. Jesus was crucified in 30 AD. I am enjoying your content, but 2 or 3 years should not be considered "several". Anyway, overall I am most definitely enjoying your work. Please keep it up!
But he didn't say that the way Jesus appeared to the other apostles was the same way he appeared to him.
I'm not convinced that Paul says that his vision was like the other appearances that he describes. He even mentions that he's the last of all of them, as to depict his lower status towards the others that have seen these appearances.
And even if the appearances themselves are not described, we do know from "that Christ was raised" that the appearances were somehow convincing enough that the people who've seen these appearances were convinced that Jesus rose from the dead.
I'm not saying this is enough for us to be convinced that it happened, I'm saying that the argument that Paul claims that the appearances were of similar kind is simply not justified. Paul leaves out any details at all so the inference that "the appearances were all of the same kind" is simply not justified. That's simply reading more than what the text actually says. "Appearances" could be of many kinds, including visions and physical appearances.
Why does everyone in the religious community pronounce the name as "Jesuuusss" ?