Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

The gospels were WRITTEN a few years later based upon the testimony of men who had seen Jesus risen from the dead BEFORE Paul wrote. Those were the men Paul conferred with when he traveled to Jerusalem around AD 35-36.

Do you think that Peter, James and John just left out the part about Jesus being alive (and his tomb being empty) during Paul's visit?

Ok, a few things.  First, not that I expect you to agree or grant this any weight, but I find Paul to be a uniquely poor source for much of anything.  Simply put, I don't trust him.  To me, his letters read like the ravings of a fanatic (first a fanatical opponent of the movement and then a fanatical convert).  I suppose you'll wish to know how I account for this change of heart, but the assumption that his conversion is the result of encountering bedrock truth in his alleged encounter with Christ isn't the only possibility, and any additional speculation is simply that -- speculation.  Paul may have been a bit unhinged.  Who knows?  In ancient times, people a few cards short of a full deck were often granted a special status as having a more direct line to the spiritual realm.  He may have been power-hungry and saw an opening within the movement for fulfilling his own needs for power or status.  Again, who knows?  But I refuse to grant special status as a source of truth to a guy who openly says he will be all things to all people in the pursuit of his self-appointed mission.  Paul seems to me to be the religious equivalent of a used car salesman.  Again, I don't expect you or any other believer to agree with me, but don't in turn expect me to swallow Paul's claims about himself wholesale, any more than you would expect me to uncritically buy whatever the car dealer says when I suspect he's trying to sell a lemon.

But that's kinda the point of this thread, isn't it? Five facts which are accepted by an super-majority of professional NT scholars (and it may surprise you to learn that not all of them are actually Christians) have been outlined and require explanation.

How do you explain ALL FIVE?

Paul WAS converted? Why? How? What caused it? And when you are grasping for an explanation, please be sure that your explanation fits neatly with the facts that Jesus was crucified and that his tomb was found empty. The facts are not stand-alone sound-bites; they are woven together like strands of a cord.

Second, you ask if I think that Peter, John, and James would forget to mention something like an empty tomb during their encounters with Paul.  It's a fair question.  But again, why the jump to assume that these alleged appearances were physical in nature or that an empty tomb was even mentioned?

Paul was a Pharisee in Jerusalem the day that Jesus was crucified. He was in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost when the Apostles got up to preach, the Holy Spirit fell on the crowd and 3,000 people were added to the Church in a single day. He knew the story of the resurrection because the Sanhedrin had spread the report that the disciples had stolen the body.

So, Paul's knowledge of the empty tomb PRE-DATES his meeting with the apostles after his conversion.

Couldn't Jesus' appearances (mind you, I'm simply granting the historicity of these appearances for the sake of argument) have been of a "spiritual" nature?  That would be more in line with a Jesus who passes through walls/doors and ascends into the sky.  You're simply assuming an empty tomb based on later Gospel claims.  And if Peter, el al, had mentioned an empty tomb, why is Paul not explicit about it? 

For a moment I will consider (though not grant) that Jesus' resurrection was purely spiritual.

How on God's green earth does that help the atheist who denies that God even exists? Jesus appears to Paul after his death spiritually? But NOTHING exists after death if naturalism be true.

If you are willing to concede life after death and that a supernatural event like Paul seeing God alive (even spiritually) actually occurred, then we're a lot closer to getting you baptized than I thought.

For that matter, if there really was such a meeting or series of meetings between Paul and Jesus' direct followers, why is Paul apparently ignorant of or uninterested in Jesus' actual teachings during his ministry?  Did his closest followers just happen to forget to mention any of that too?

Do Paul's letters strike you as being biographies of Jesus? Or did he leave that to his buddy, Luke, who was working on a book of his own? I mean, Luke is documenting the Life of Christ and the Acts of the Apostles, so why does Paul have to do it, also?

The purpose of Paul's letters is primarily theological and pastoral - not biographical or historical. And they are written to BELIEVERS - not to people who did not already know the basics. If there was need for basic instruction, Luke had his notes and probably a copy of Mark, Q and L to teach from.

Finally, if Paul is not misrepresenting what happened, how is it that he comes up with a theology (for lack of a better word) that is apparently so diametrically opposed to what we can glean about James based on the epistle that was apparently penned by one of James's followers, if not by the man himself?  Did Jesus' own brother so completely misunderstand what Jesus was about that he needed a guy who never met Jesus to get it right?  Perhaps you find that plausible.  I don't.

I think I understand where you're going but just to be sure, could you be more specific about the discrepancy you find between Paul and James?

Thanks.