Note: attached below is something I wrote some time ago as an apologetic piece. I'm not sure how useful it is in detail, but I thought the concept itself might be of interest. So, I've presented it here in its entirety.
Paul
in 4D
By
Kevin Lloyd Kilgore
V7.0 May 28, 2015
Table
of Contents
Introduction – from
Jesus to Paul
Paul in 4D – the
argument, simply stated
Paul’s Letters – indisputable
Deceived
Deceiver
Delusional
Disciple
Decision – your
turn
Introduction – from Jesus to Paul
In the book Mere Christianity, CS Lewis presented a Christian apologetic
argument regarding the deity of Jesus Christ that has become known as the
“Lord, Liar, Lunatic Argument.” This
argument has become very popular among Christians and really helps to put into
context how we view Jesus as more than just a “good man.” We believe that Jesus was, and is, God; and
that his life and teaching demands much more of a response than you would
normally afford to a human being. It is
worth reading Lewis’ complete argument in context, but I will summarize the key
points here.
The key point Lewis is stressing in this argument is that you can’t call
Jesus a “good man” or “great teacher”, but then reject his claim to be
God. Jesus, by His life and words, didn’t
allow such a response. The central point
of Jesus’ teaching is that He was God, and salvation is through Him only. If you throw away that part of Jesus’
teaching then you have no substance left.
How can you call Jesus a good teacher if His whole premise was wrong and
misguided? Lewis points out that you only
have three options regarding who Jesus is, and “good man” isn’t one of
them. The three options are that Jesus
was either: 1) a Liar, 2) a Lunatic, or 3) Lord. These three views are summarized as follows:
Liar: When Jesus speaks about being equal with the
Father, the “I am”, etc., he knows that he is exaggerating. He is intentionally deceiving his
disciples. However, with this view, it
is hard to explain the miracles of Jesus and, of course, impossible to explain
His resurrection.
Lunatic: Jesus was crazy. This is essentially the approach the
Pharisees took when they claimed He was of the devil. This could explain some miracles, but doesn’t
explain his teaching. You don’t hear this
argument much.
Lord: Jesus was who He said He was.
I find the argument to be quite compelling, and I think most people
do. In fact, I rarely find people will
attack the logic of this argument directly. Instead, they attack the assumptions
that this argument is based on. In Mere Christianity, Lewis explains those
assumptions and presents his arguments for believing them, but when the “Lord,
Liar, Lunatic” argument is expressed in daily conversation, the background
information is usually dropped in favor of presenting a brief, simple
argument. But, like all arguments, the
foundational assumptions are important and should not be forgotten.
The important assumption of the Lord, Liar, Lunatic argument is that the
gospels, as we have them today, accurately record the words and actions of
Jesus. Since people don’t want to accept
Jesus as Lord, and they can’t get their minds to accept the Liar or Lunatic
argument (because they’d like to think he was a “good man” or represents the
“good in all of us”, but want to reject any idea that Jesus was God or
represents the “only way”), then they have
to attack the assumptions of this argument.
This shifts the focus from Jesus Christ to the reliability and accuracy
of the gospel accounts. When it comes to
the accuracy of the gospel accounts, there is room for scholarly argument. Personally, I think the arguments are weak,
but I don’t believe you have to commit intellectual suicide to at least place
some doubt on the literal wording in the gospels. You can argue that they were written well
after Jesus’ death, and if 30 years qualifies as “well after”, then you could
say that. The Gospel of John was
probably written 70 years after the events.
And you can argue about specific wording in terms of some of the
differences in the manuscripts (although that really doesn’t get you very
far). Further, if you want to go the way
of the Jesus Seminar and similar groups, you can convince yourself that the
real words Jesus spoke were only a small subset of what is in the gospels, and words
were added in the intervening couple of decades or centuries. These issues have been debated for a long
time. The debate regarding the accuracy
of the gospels is important, but it is likely to go on and on. People who don’t want to accept Jesus as the
Son of God will find enough doubt regarding the reliability of the gospels that
they will never seriously consider the Lord, Liar, Lunatic argument. This, I feel, unfortunately diverts the power
of the argument. In fact, what I find is
that even people who really don’t know that much about the evidence for the
accuracy of the gospels, or who basically accept that the gospels are true,
still persist in this idea of “Jesus as a good man”. I think they feel they can do this because
they have this vague notion that you can’t rely on the Gospels as completely
true, so there is some wiggle room in interpreting Jesus’ sayings. It is not a well thought-out dismissal of the
Lord, Liar, Lunatic argument, but it is a dismissal nonetheless. Therefore, there are many people who, I
believe, would really benefit from a deeper understanding of this argument, but
who do not take it seriously because of the perceived doubts about the
authenticity of the gospel accounts.
It struck me, though, that a similar argument could be made in regards
to the Apostle Paul, what I refer to as the “Deceived, Deceiver, Delusional,
Disciple” argument. The strength of this
approach is not necessarily in the logic of the argument itself, since it
simply follows the same logic as the Lord, Liar, Lunatic argument. Rather, the strength of the argument is in
the difficulty of “working around” the argument and claiming that the epistles
of Paul do not accurately reflect his writing.
Specifically, there is almost universal agreement that at least some of
the key letters of Paul were written by Paul.
There are no “Paul Seminars” where a group of scholars decide which of
the passages in the key epistles were originally written by Paul and which
passages were added later by Christian heretics trying to popularize their own
views. I will address this in more
detail in the next chapter, but for now, let us suffice by consulting Wikipedia
(never known to present a highly conservative view!) regarding the authorship
of Paul’s epistles:
“There is wide
consensus, in modern New Testament scholarship, on a core group of authentic
Pauline epistles whose authorship is rarely contested: Romans, 1 and 2
Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon.” ...and…
“These seven letters are quoted or
mentioned by the earliest of sources, and are included in every ancient canon,
including that of Marcion (c.140).[15] There is no record of scholarly doubt
concerning authorship until the 19th century when, around 1840, German scholar
Ferdinand Christian Baur accepted only four of the letters bearing Paul's name
as genuine, which he called the Hauptebriefe (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians,
and Galatians). Hilgenfeld (1875) and H. J. Holtzmann (1885) instead accepted
the seven letters listed above, adding Philemon, 1 Thessalonians, and
Philippians. Few scholars have argued against this list of seven epistles,
which all share common themes, emphasis, vocabulary and style.”
I should note that, for the sake of the argument I am presenting here, I
only want to claim the authenticity of Romans and I Corinthians. The point is that there are a lot of
non-Christian secular scholars who would, at the very least, accept the
authenticity of these two books.
Paul in 4D - The Argument, Simply Stated
The argument is simply this:
Paul, who clearly believed that Jesus Christ rose from the dead [I Cor 15:12],
that He appeared alive after His death [I Cor 15:5-8], that He died for our
sins [Rom 5:8], and that justification for our sins is through faith in Him
alone [Rom 3:28]; was either:
1. Deceived: Paul was tricked into believing these things by
the Disciples of Christ, who misrepresented (i.e. lied) about what they heard,
saw, and experienced regarding Jesus. Paul
genuinely believed that they were telling him the truth – was totally convinced
by them – and then became completely sold-out to their way of thinking. Paul died still completely convinced of the
lies he was told by the Disciples of Christ.
2. Deceiver:
Paul knew that what he was preaching was false, but he continued to preach
it anyway. Paul was, potentially, on an
ego trip and found that he could become famous by making the audacious claims
that he made. He took some vague stories
and ideas that he learned from the Disciples and turned them into the biggest
religion in the world. He knew he was
stretching and bending the truth, but he kept at it all the way to his death.
3. Delusional:
Paul had some disease (some have suggested epilepsy) that caused him to
see visions. Paul was so convinced by
these visions, particularly the vision of Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus,
that he was totally convinced of the truth of his mission. Once so convinced, he melded the things he
heard from the disciples (or maybe he had visions of those stories as well)
with his own experience. Paul went to
his death believing that the visions he had were real when, in fact, they were
symptoms of some type of physical or mental disorder.
4. Disciple:
Paul faithfully recorded what he witnessed and faithfully preached what
he learned from Jesus Christ, speaking the truth and teaching the truth. When he speaks about his own experiences and
visions, and when he relays the events he learned from the disciples and
others, he speaks the complete truth.
I suggest that this argument could be as compelling as the Lord, Liar,
Lunatic argument because there is considerably less argument about the timing
and validity of Paul’s writings. Specifically,
a fifth option could be considered and then fully disputed (see next
chapter): Paul’s letters were written
sometime after the events in question by later Christians hoping to justify
their religious views and make their views more credible to the general
public. As we will show, no intelligent
person can hold this latter position.
Therefore, my proposition would be that anyone who rejects option #4,
that Paul was telling the truth, must pick one of the first three options to
justify his or her stance regarding Paul.
And, as we will show, these first three options are tenuous and poor
choices at best.
Although there are many many excellent passages in Paul’s epistles, I
suggest that the beginning of the 15th chapter of I Corinthians may
be the best to keep in mind as we consider the Deceived, Deceiver, Delusional,
Disciple argument:
“Now, brothers, I want to remind
you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have
taken your stand. By this gospel you are
saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have
believed in vain. For what I received I
passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the
third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then
to the Twelve. After that, he appeared
to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are
still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then
to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one
abnormally born.” [I Cor 15:1-8]
This is either worthless, meaningless and deceptive drivel, or it is
among the most important life-changing statements ever written. What I want you to consider with respect to
the 4D argument is that it does not allow anyone to consider these statements
of Paul (and many like them in the epistles) as “good advice” or “nice
principles to live by”. They are either
true and life-changing, or false and meaningless. Paul is either one of the most important
individuals in the history of mankind, or he is a complete nobody. The point of the 4D argument is that there is
no middle ground.
Paul’s Letters – indisputable
From nearly the time they were written, Paul’s letters were known around
the Christian world. In fact, even in
his own letters, Paul suggests that one church share the letter with other
churches. The original letters were not
read by a single person, but by a whole community of believers. Paul’s importance in the early church, and
the important content of these letters, insured that they were instant “hits”
and were afforded respect from the moment they were received.
It seems clear that, very quickly, copies of these letters were
distributed at least regionally and became very well known and read in public. When documents become widely distributed,
there is, of course, some risk that these documents will be modified. When that happens, a multiplicity of versions
arise in the extant copies. However,
there is no multiplicity of versions with respect to the key letters of Paul. There are minor variations that indicate
copying mistakes but there are no variations that indicate intentional changes
to the meaning of the text. People did
not take the approach of trying to change Paul’s letters – probably because of
the fact that there were so many existing copies out there so quickly that it
was virtually impossible to introduce false text. Instead, anyone wishing to propagate their
own ideas wrote their own documents (e.g. the various Gnostic documents).
The earliest nearly complete physical copies of Paul’s epistles extant
today are dated 175-225AD. This is the
Chester Beatty Papyrus and includes almost all of Paul’s epistles, starting
with Romans 5 (the first few pages, presumably containing the beginning of
Romans, were lost). Thus, by 225AD,
there is no question that the letters are what they are and contain the words
that we have in front of us today. Therefore,
we just need to establish a “chain of custody” from Paul’s original writings to
225AD.
When did Paul write these letters?
First, he obviously wrote them before he died (again, focusing, for the
sake of argument, on Romans and I Corinthians).
In the letters, he claims to have written them himself (possibly with
the help of someone taking dictation).
Further, the letters are full of clues as to the time of the writing,
based on the various events that he refers to.
Although the exact date of Paul’s death is not known with certainty,
later Christian writers claim that he died 65-67 AD. The other information that we have is from
the book of Acts, which traces Paul’s travels and provides us with time points
at which the letters could have been written.
Given this, the writing of I Corinthians is dated as 53-57 AD.
Between the writing of the letter in the 50’s AD and the extant copies
we have available to us in 225 AD, there is a continuous chain of references to
Paul’s writings. These are summarized
below.
~ 60 – 67 AD Peter refers to Paul’s writings…
II Peter 3:15-16 “And account that the longsuffering of our Lord
is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom
given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in
them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which
they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other
scriptures, unto their own destruction.”
~ 90 AD Clement refers to Paul, his teaching and his writing in I
Clement.
"By reason of jealousy and strife Paul
by his example pointed out the prize of patient endurance. After that he had
been seven times in bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had
preached in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the
reward of his faith, having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having
reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony
before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place,
having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance".
Also in I Clement he states: “Take up the
epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle” (I Clement xlvii. 1)
~105 AD In Ignatius of Antioch's letter To the
Romans, he writes that Paul was martyred.
“Ye are initiated into the mysteries of the
Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred, inasmuch as he was “a chosen vessel;””
Ignatius Letter to the Ephesians XII.
Ignatius also wrote: “I do not enjoin you, as Peter and Paul did.
They were Apostles, I am a convict; they were free, but I am a slave to this
very hour.” Letter to Romans 4:3
~110 AD
Polycarp's letter to the Philippians (early
2nd century); composed around AD 110 to 140 quotes Romans and I Corinthians
(and many other New Testament writings).
Specifically:
Polycarp 11:2
“But he who cannot govern himself in these
things, how doth he enjoin this upon another? If a man refrain not from
covetousness, he shall be defiled by idolatry, and shall be judged as one of
the Gentiles who know not the judgment of the Lord, Nay, know we not, that the saints
shall judge the world, as Paul teacheth?”
The phrase “that the saints shall judge the
world” is a quote from I Corinthians 6:2.
Note that Irenaeus (130 AD – 202 AD) refers
to this letter by Polycarp.
~170 AD
The Muratorian fragment mentions "the
departure of Paul from the city [of Rome] when he journeyed to Spain". The
Muratorian Fragment lines 38–39 lists the books of the NT, particularly the
letters of Paul and mentions Paul many times.
“…As for the Epistles of Paul, they
themselves make clear to those desiring to understand, which ones [they are],
from what place, or for what reason they were sent. First of all, to the
Corinthians, prohibiting their heretical schisms; next, to the Galatians,
against circumcision; then to the Romans he wrote at length, explaining the
order of the Scriptures, and also that Christ is their principle. …”
~200 AD
Chester Beatty Papyrus, as mentioned above.
Paul’s writings were known by other Christians from the time of the
apostles (within a few years of the letters being written). Throughout the entire period, from ~65AD to
200AD, Christians continuously referred to Paul’s letters, and their comments
indicate that these letters were well known to all Christians. We have a physical document that lists Paul’s
writings by name that is dated 170AD (Muratorian fragment). If someone around that time (170AD) wanted to
“create” the letters of Paul, they would also have to create the history of
Polycarp, Ignatius, and Clement. This is
very unreasonable.
The point is this: even
reasonable skeptics and atheists agree that the letters of Romans and I
Corinthians are genuine. They were
written by Paul as first-hand accounts of his views and teachings. They were written while Paul was alive and in
the heat of the battle (i.e. they are not recollections of past events many
years later). The early Church Fathers
were aware of Paul’s writings. They
quoted from them. There is no mystery
here. No one can dream up a DaVinci Code
for Paul’s writings, or have a “Paul Seminar”.
These letters are what they claim to be.
Paul the Deceived
It seems almost certain that Paul did not see the risen Christ along
with the original disciples, as he was an enemy of Christians at that
time. It seems unlikely that he spent
much time listening to Jesus preach and heal.
By Paul’s own admission, he was a committed Pharisee, completely focused
on observing the Jewish law. So, in that
sense, Paul comes along “after the fact”, just like any believer today. Paul was not converted by seeing Jesus’
earthly ministry. If we are skeptical of
Christianity, then we are skeptical of the conversion stories of all
Christians, and especially of the disciples.
Did they really see what they claimed to see? Given this, we may hypothesize that the
original Christian believers preached to Paul, and Paul was convinced by them
to believe. Therefore, if the original
story (about Jesus) was not true, then Paul was, following this line of
thinking, deceived into believing.
Here is where we need to understand the unique nature of Paul’s
conversion. Paul’s conversion is
recounted in some detail three times in the book of Acts. Among the unique aspects of his conversion is
that there were no other Christians
around when he was converted. He was
with his travelling companions, who certainly were not Christians. The early Christians were afraid of him, at
least initially, and so Paul was fairly isolated. The point is, Paul did not come to Christ
because of what other people told him – he came to Christ because of what he
experienced first-hand. Here is what
Paul says about what he heard:
1Co 15:3,5,8 “For what I received I passed on to you … that he appeared
to Peter…and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.”
The phrase “…he appeared to me also…” shows that Paul was converted as a
direct result of a vision of Jesus Christ.
The disciples were not around at the time, so he was clearly not
deceived by them. He believed first, and
only afterwards came to them to learn more.
I suppose one could claim that Paul was deceived by the spiritual
visitor. Rather than Jesus Christ
appearing to Paul, it was an evil spirit, appearing as an “angel of light” to
deceive Paul. But I will not seriously
consider this possibility here, as most people who are doubters of Christianity
would not believe that there are evil spirits either. They would consider those who see any
“spirits” or “visions” as delusional, something we will deal with in the
discussion on “Paul the Delusional”.
Paul the Deceiver
If Paul was not deceived, then we might claim that Paul himself was
deceiving others. We could claim that
Paul made up the stories about his own conversion and intentionally set out to
deceive people. This argument is the
weakest of all, because there is no motivation at all for Paul to do such a
thing. It’s not like Paul joined a
popular cause – he joined something that was particularly unpopular.
Probably the most logical way to present this argument is to suggest
that Paul was secretly a Christian before his “conversion”, and that he made up
most or all aspects of his conversion story to have something
attention-grabbing to tell to others. This
means that most of the book of Acts is wrong and also that many of the early
Church Fathers, who had nice things to say about Paul, were also deceived by
him.
Paul lived a very difficult life.
He was persecuted and imprisoned and eventually killed for his
faith. It is very hard to make any kind
of strong case that anyone would willingly do what Paul did for a known
lie.
Paul’s teachings, particularly as detailed in Romans and I Corinthians,
are also not dependent on his personal conversion. In his letters, he refers to the “power” of
the gospel, but when he does, he is referring to the power of God that was
experienced by those he is writing the letter to. He is not referring to his own past. In that sense, each Christian had his or her
own conversion experience, and Paul makes reference to their experiences as the
important point leading to each individual’s belief.
Paul the Delusional
For those who want to discredit Paul’s conversion and teaching, the most
common way is to claim that Paul was delusional. Specifically, regarding his conversion, some
suggest that Paul only thought he saw some sort of a vision, but in reality he
did not. The thinking goes along these
lines: “Paul had a seizure, heard a voice, and was convinced it was Jesus
talking to him”. From there, everything
else is built upon this single delusional event (or series of delusional
events). This approach assumes that Luke
embellished Paul’s conversion story by saying that others saw something and
linking Paul’s blindness and the subsequent healing, which must have been a
coincidence. The result of this line of
thinking is the suggestion that Paul was epileptic or schizophrenic or had some
similar psychological malady.
As we explore this line of thinking, we will start with the principle that
Paul really believes that Jesus appeared to him. Specifically, we have already dealt with
“Paul the Deceiver” and we have demonstrated that this is not in line with the
rest of Paul’s life. Here we consider
the possibility that Paul did not fabricate this story of conversion, but instead
had a psychotic vision.
It is important to point out that even if delusions could explain Paul’s
personal experiences, they do not explain Paul’s other teachings. Specifically, Paul talks about the
resurrection of Jesus, describing how he was the last to see Jesus. Paul’s teaching is about the power of the
resurrection as witnessed by many different people. To some extent, Paul’s own conversion
experience is not important to his message.
Therefore, even if Paul had psychotic visions, these may explain his own
personal drive, but we still need Paul to be either deceived or a deceiver in
order to explain his message. It seems
to me that the most likely case to build on top of “Paul the Delusional”
argument is that, because Paul was convinced by his vision of Jesus, he wanted
to strengthen his message and therefore twisted and modified the previous
stories of Jesus to fit his message.
This would mean, specifically, that the disciples hadn’t really seen the
risen Jesus, but rather Paul reported that they had and the rumor spread. As unlikely as this scenario seems to be
(particularly given that Paul is teaching this while the disciples are still
living), the point is that attributing delusional visions to Paul is not
sufficient to reject Paul’s teachings.
Two possible diseases have been proposed to explain Paul’s visions: schizophrenia and temporal lobe
epilepsy. In general, it doesn’t seem
like schizophrenia fits the key features of Paul’s vision, such as a conversation
(Jesus speaks to Paul in the vision) and temporary blindness. Instead, epilepsy seems to be the most
commonly proposed pathological reason for Paul’s visions. For example, the idea that Paul had temporal
lobe epilepsy is taken up in Lansborough, “St. Paul and Temporal Lobe
Epilepsy”, J. Neurology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry, 50:659-664, 1987. Basically, there are two features in line
with epilepsy and two that are not in line.
In line:
1. Paul saw a light and had a religious
experience resulting in religious conversion.
This has also happened with a few epileptics after seizures. It is extremely rare, but feasible.
2. Post seizure blindness does occur in rare
cases.
Not in line:
1. Paul reports a two-way conversation with
Jesus in his vision. Such a two-way conversation
is not typical of a seizure.
2. The people around Paul reported seeing a
light and hearing something. This
obviously would not be consistent with a seizure.
In fact, these two latter issues must not have happened, or they would
completely exclude the possibility of an epileptic event. Therefore, to even consider this single
vision of Jesus as an epileptic event, it is necessary that the story (in Acts)
has been embellished in these two areas.
How and why would such embellishments come about? Surely Paul, or Luke (the writer of Acts),
would not have anticipated that people would later claim this event was an
epileptic fit and therefore altered the story so that it would be harder to
make that claim in the future. As we
have already discussed, intentional deceit does not fit the entirety of Paul’s
life, and therefore we must consider any embellishments to the story to be
unintentional. Unintentional embellishments
would need to be fairly minor. It could
be argued that embellishing a vision so that it included a brief give-and-take
conversation might be possible, especially if initially the portion of the
conversation contributed by Paul was really relaying his thoughts on the matter
rather than what he actually said. It
seems to me harder to imagine that the story was embellished by relaying that
the others heard something, didn’t see anything and couldn’t understand what
they heard. First, to embellish the story
with details that can be refuted by those who were with Paul at the time (who,
it could be expected, were now his enemies since they were joining him on a
mission to arrest Christians) seems somewhat unworkable. Maybe they waited until all those people died
first before spreading the story. A
pretty weak argument. But, further, the
embellishment involving others seems too weak of an attempt at embellishment. Specifically, it still means that Paul, and
only Paul, is relaying what Jesus said and that no one else in the party Paul
was with could corroborate his vision of Jesus.
It seems to me that usually an embellishment has some useful,
interesting, or valuable component to it - something that makes the story more
believable. By relaying such a weak
experience by the others, how does that make the story more believable? About the only thing it does is make it
harder to believe Paul had an epileptic fit, but, as we mentioned before, how
could first century writers anticipate the argument of an epileptic fit?
If we move on from the Paul’s vision to the events that followed
immediately thereafter, there is a further complication. Paul was blind following the vision which,
although unusual, could be consistent with an epileptic event. However, in the vision, Paul is told to go to
Damascus and wait, which he does. Then,
at the same time, another individual living in Damascus, Ananias, has his own
vision in which he is told where to find Paul, and that he should go see him
and lay hands on him so that he will regain his vision. Note that Ananias’ vision also included a
two-way conversation. As a result of the
vision, Ananias goes and finds Paul, lays hands on him, Paul receives his
sight, and then spends time with Ananias.
This, of course, is totally incompatible with an explanation of
epilepsy. We’d have to consider Ananias
to also have epilepsy, to have had a similar vision, and for that similar
vision to have, by chance, provided him with enough of an address to find
Paul. Also, the timing of Ananias’
laying on of hands has to coincide with Paul’s spontaneous recovering of his
vision. That is all unrealistic.
In order for the epileptic event theory to hold any water, the events
related to Ananias have to be complete fabrication. Specifically, it is necessary to consider
that Paul went to Damascus and there, over some time, spontaneously recovered
his vision and then later sought out Ananias, whom he knew to be a
Christian. This is too much of an
alteration of the story relayed in Acts to have originated with Paul without
intentional deceit. Therefore, the only
real option is that Luke added his own embellishments. What would be his source of embellishment? He was a companion to Paul, so he surely
heard the story from Paul and, in fact, Luke relays the story a second time in
recounting Paul’s words before a king in Ephesus. The story of Ananias could not be an innocent
embellishment of second-hand information (or possibly first-hand information if
Luke was there to hear Paul speak at Ephesus).
It seems that the only way to reconcile these issues is to consider the
book of Acts to have been written much later in time and based on hearsay that
was passed around the Christian community.
More specifically, it means that Acts could not have reasonably been
written by Luke, since his would have been a first-hand account of at least
some of these events, and a second-hand account of Paul’s life in almost all
cases. There is, of course, no evidence
that these passages were altered or made up, but that is the requirement if
Paul’s conversion experience is to be understood as an epileptic seizure.
If we consider Paul’s life and writings to be the result of an epileptic
seizure that convinced Paul to completely devote the remaining part of his life
to the message of Jesus Christ, we face some further difficulties. A convincing seizure could explain why he was
willing to undergo hardships and ultimately die for his beliefs, but it does
not explain the content of his writings.
Again, focusing on Romans and I Corinthians, neither book is based on
Paul’s personal experiences on the road to Damascus. In fact, Paul doesn’t directly relay his
conversion story in any of his own writings.
Instead, his focus is on the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. This takes us back to Paul being
deceived by the disciples regarding the truths related to Jesus Christ,
particularly His resurrection and appearance to many people. Paul relays these events as truths. One must believe that, because Paul was
convinced by his epileptic vision of the truth that Jesus was still alive, he
was therefore more accepting of the stories of the disciples and susceptible to
deception.
Paul the Disciple
The final alternative is
that Paul really did have a conversion experience in which the risen Jesus
spoke to him. Paul made a complete turn
in his thinking and, for the rest of his life, was completely committed to
serving Jesus Christ. Paul wrote what he
believed, which included what he heard directly from Jesus, what he heard and
learned from the disciples, and the conclusions he came to using his own logic
and training in Jewish law. If so, his
teaching is with power. His conversion
alone is a demonstration of that power.
He is not simply making a logical argument, though he does that. Though Paul is very learned, and can argue
with the best of them, he says this:
“My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words,
but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not
rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.” [I Cor 2:4-5]
It is this combination that you have to wrestle with. What evidence is sufficient for you to
believe Paul’s words?
Paul also said this in I Corinthians – written at most, 30 years after the event, but probably written within 20
years of the crucifixion:
“Now, brothers, I want to remind
you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have
taken your stand. By this gospel you are
saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have
believed in vain. For what I received I
passed on to you as of first importance:
- that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures,
- that he was
buried,
- that he was
raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
- and that he
appeared to Peter,
- and then to the
Twelve.
- After that, he
appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of
whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
- Then he appeared
to James, then to all the apostles,
- and last of all
he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” [I Cor 15:1-8]
Paul also made it clear that belief in the resurrection of Jesus was
central to the Christian faith. Here is
what he says at the end of his letter to the Corinthians:
“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how
can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then
not even Christ has been raised. And if
Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false
witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from
the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ
has not been raised either. And if
Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in
Christ are lost. If only for this life
we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But
Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who
have fallen asleep.” [I Cor 15:12-20]
If, as Paul proclaims, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is real, then,
we owe it to ourselves to pay attention to what he has written. In particular, in Paul’s letter to the Romans
he outlines the key principles regarding the Christian faith. It is
well worth reading the book of Romans, which has been recognized by people
throughout history as critical to the Christian faith.
Decision – your turn
It is now time for you to take the test.
The test only has one question and it is multiple choice. It is a take-home open book test. But it is an important test and could be
life-changing. Here it is…
1. When Paul writes that Jesus Christ died and
rose from the dead, and that salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, he was:
A. Deceived
B. Deceiver
C. Delusional
D. Disciple
The time starts
now!
