Now you want to get all growed-uppity. I think that's great! Lets return to a more mature discussion that is void of gratuitous insults and debate the issues on the facts. No more Duh's. OK?
"We were disputing whether Paul had direct knowledge of Jesus before His crucifixion"
That is not what we were disputing. You have added the timing qualifier, and in essence changed the question half way through the discussion.
No one claims that Paul knew Jesus personally before the Crucifixion. Your contention was that "He knew nothing personally about Jesus." I see nothing about before the Crucifixion in that statement.
Paul clearly claims that his authority as an apostle stems from the fact that he was commissioned directly by the risen and glorified Jesus. It is a straw man to argue that Paul did not know Jesus before the crucifixion when he does not claim that he did. Paul not only knew of Jesus and His miracles personally, but he performed miracles himself as proof of his apostleship. (Edit) "The things that mark an apostle--signs, wonders and miracles--were done among you with great perseverance. (2 Cor 12:12)(see also Rom 15: below)
When he met him is irrelevant. That he met him, as the documentary evidence indicates, is beyond dispute.
Paul met Jesus more than once. Paul received direct information from Jesus about His life, death and resurrection and also about the purpose and meaning of the events. Therefore Paul had personal and direct knowledge of and about Jesus, His life, His death, the miracle of His resurrection, and the purpose of those events. That is why Paul was so passionate about the Gospel.
"Paul never ever ever met Jesus the man"
Jesus was never only a Man, He is/was, God incarnate. Jesus is for ever the God/Man and Paul did meet Him. As a matter of fact we will all meet Him; some sooner, some later, some to their great joy and some to their great sorrow.
Romans 15:15-
I have written you quite boldly on some points, as if to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather, as it is written:
"Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand." |
