Did Paul learn about Jesus only from 'revelations'?

This blog follows on from my earlier blog about what St Paul knew about Jesus. This is of interest for a few reasons:

• because Paul was a contemporary of when Jesus was supposed to have lived, frequenting the same places in Jerusalem and a fellow Israelite;
• because Paul started out from an independent position, initially opposed to the Jesus' movement, rather than part of it; and even when he changed sides, some tensions with the Jesus movement persisted, so he always had some independence;
• because Paul left his personal letters, several letters recognised as authentic by secular scholars, and in them he makes autobiographical comments about meeting some of the earliest Christians in the 30s and 40s of the first century - naming some of them, Peter, James, John - and it is clear he had time to learn from them about the Jesus they were so interested in;
• secular and Christian scholars agree that these letters were written in the 50s of the first century, about 20 years or so after Jesus is supposed to have gone public with his ministry, and as such are the earliest historical witness;
• and with these things in mind, we have an important secondary witness to the Jesus who these people said they were following.

So Paul was a contemporary of Jesus, and to a degree had an independent perspective, initially opposed to the Jesus movement, not its pupil; and we have Paul's own words written within about two decades or so of Jesus' death. In fact, when Paul is talking about his contemporaries, he doesn't talk about fictional ones.

So why are some people saying there are issues with his sources of information about Jesus? In an autobiographical passage in his personal letter known as Galatians (written in the 50s of the first century according to first-hand eyewitness data), Paul said that he received his 'gospel' message by a revelation direct from God (Galatians 1:11-12). But what did he mean by that, and did he have any other sources of information about Jesus?


It's not easy to break down what he knew, because in Paul's words, he first of all knew 'the Scriptures' as a good Jew would. Then he knew stuff about the 'faith' of 'the churches of Judea' and he tried to destroy that 'faith' (until he changed sides). Then a 'gospel' came to him. These three things, 'Scripture', the 'faith' and a 'gospel', run like threads through his letters, but it is not easy to break them down into 'which is which', or to apportion Paul's knowledge about Jesus to each stage, especially when we realise how much contact with believers should be taken account of.

A claim (sometimes made by 'mythicists') that Paul had information about Jesus from 'revelations' only and from no other source is unsubstantiated. He did have other sources, but it is overlooked by those who focus only on his claims about having 'revelations'. Claiming Paul's knowledge is only from revelations has to sustain the far-fetched idea that Paul had learned not a single thing about Jesus from his direct contact with followers of Jesus when he was persecuting them, and had learned not a single thing about Jesus when spending a fortnight with Peter and when meeting Jesus' brother James. Not a single thing. It is highly implausible and improbable that he learned nothing. Some of this is to do with the Greek words used by Paul about how knowledge reached him, and as this is technical, I'm explaining about it in a footnote at the bottom of this post.

Some common mistakes are made by people who are not paying attention to what Paul actually says. Mistakes such as:

• failing to making the important distinction between Paul's 'gospel' and his 'faith' and his general information about Jesus, that which isn't in itself his 'gospel' message as such, or his 'faith';
• ignoring that Paul had a view of Jesus prior to his 'revelations'. That Paul did have such a view can only mean that he did have some information about Jesus prior to his revelations (and therefore his information was obviously not from revelations alone).
• imposing a few words in Galatians 1 on  how we read texts written years later (as if Paul met no-one who talked about Jesus in the meantime!). This, any academic can tell you, is very poor methodology for how to read a later text. The scientific thing to do is to ask, what (and how) did Paul know by the time he wrote Galatians? Then, what by the time he wrote 1 Corinthians? Then, what by the time he wrote Romans? To know what Paul was learning up to the time he wrote, say, Romans, then it would be wrong to have a cut-off too early. What happened in his life both before and after he wrote Galatians is fundamental to any investigation of Paul's knowledge. What happened in-between letters? Paul says he met various people over time who talked about Jesus, and this means he had other sources of information from time to time. 
• ignoring that Paul could have been in possession of writings by others, with some stories or sayings of Jesus written down in them.
• ignoring that in the time between his 'revelations' and his letter-writing, were moments of information verification. This in itself debunks the 'revelation' only theory.

Here is more on each of those things:

• There is a difference between Paul's 'gospel' message (which he says came by revelation) and his 'faith' and his general knowledge about Jesus. This compels us to enquire what his gospel message was, and it was to do with God reaching out to Gentiles (non-Jews). It is particularly his 'gospel' message which he says came by revelation - but he never says the same about every bit of information he has about Jesus. It is important to define which content constitutes his 'gospel'. All other information falls into a different 'non-gospel' category, which I am calling other information. Paul's 'gospel' is typically taken to be the novelty of how the message could be made appealing to non-Jews, by putting them on an equal footing with Jews but not requiring Gentile men to get circumcised. That's basically it. So there is a difference in categories of message that we need to understand so that we categorise Paul's information scientifically.
• Paul had an independent opinion of Jesus before his conversion, before he had any 'revelations' or 'gospel' message from God (2 Corinthians 5:16). He had information first; revelations came later. As Paul puts it himself, prior to conversion he was giving unwanted attention to the "churches of Judea", because "I persecuted the church", when his attention was on "the faith he once tried to destroy.” (Gal 1:13, 22) That's an example of where he talks about his 'faith' as something distinct from (but not disconnected from) his 'gospel'. It's obvious that Paul knew stuff about the 'faith' before his conversion, either from the Christians he confronted as their persecutor, or from what Paul's informants told him. Paul knew things that way, and he knew the Scriptures before his conversion, but in addition something unique about his 'gospel' came to him after his conversion, as covered above.
• Another mistake is to presume that Paul learnt nothing from anyone after he wrote that to the Galatians (a letter that looms large in these discussions). His life story didn't end when he wrote Galatians. Bear in mind that by the time he wrote years later to the Romans and Corinthians and others, a lot could and would have happened in the meantime. We know from what Paul says that he met other Christians a number of times after he wrote to the Galatians. So for example, he could have received from them things he later mentions about Jesus. Our parameters of investigation should not be limited by what he says in an earlier letter (Galatians) about revelations prior to that time.
• Another mistake is to overlook the possibility that Paul might have acquired written information about Jesus. That is, as well as meeting people, what about written information about Jesus circulating - could Paul have had access to some of this? Since Paul is giving his own writings into circulation in the early church, it is unlikely that these were the only things in circulation. However much or little time Paul spent with Jesus' disciples, he could spend as much time as he liked with what anyone else may have written. That's speculating a little, but it makes more sense than thinking that all of Paul's knowledge dropped out of the sky.
• Another mistake is to overlook that Paul consulted human sources to verify what had been revealed to him. In fact, Paul qualifies his claims about revelation by saying that his message was checked out  by people whose knowledge of Jesus goes further back than his own (Galatians 1:17-19; 2:1-2), and it was only after such consultation with human sources was done that he actually wrote his letters, the texts from which we get our information about him. So prior to writing Galatians, Paul's information is like a coin with two sides - revelation from God and verification from apostles., the end product being what he tells the Galatians.  

We can't speak only of Paul believing that he received 'revelations' direct from God, as if that's the whole story, when really it's only half the story, as we learn once we look at the texts carefully and understand about his human sources.

As mentioned, apart from his 'gospel' message, Paul had general knowledge about Jesus, and in other blogs I sum up his knowledge of Jesus' life and his knowledge of some other things about Jesus.


To say a little more about him consulting human sources, I've seen some sceptics nowadays speaking about Paul as if he walked about in a bubble keeping his revelations untouched by the world around him, when Paul says the opposite. For example:

• how did Paul come to think that Jesus had appeared to Peter? Setting aside whether we think such unusual events happen, did that story about Peter come as a private 'revelation' from God to Paul? Whether we think so or not, Paul after three years went to meet Peter and spent fifteen days with him. This gives it away: Paul's knowledge about Peter has been checked - if not altogether informed - by virtue of meeting Peter for himself.

• or how did Paul come to think that James was Jesus' brother? Was that a private revelation from God to Paul? Whether we think so or not, Paul met James at the same time that he met Peter. This gives it away: Paul's knowledge about James has been 'sense-checked' by virtue of meeting James for himself.

This sense-checking of Paul's knowledge is made firmer still because after fourteen years he goes to meet Peter and James in Jerusalem again, to get his preaching vetted by them.

And afterwards, Paul is confident enough to indicate in writing that he preaches the same gospel message as they did. That indicates that Paul has 'compared notes' with Peter and James (and John too, he mentions) and that is how he can say that his gospel matches theirs.

So, however Paul acquired his knowledge about Jesus - before and after his conversion and his revelations - he's been in situations where that knowledge has been through a process of validation by people whose knowledge of Jesus goes further back than his own, and his letters are an end product of this process. His letter to the Galatians actually says that he exposed his knowledge to the 'experts', and was reassured about his message by this process of validation. And he had plenty of opportunity to learn more from them in the process too. 

Some people ask 'Did Paul invent Jesus?' and - in addition to what is above - a more specific answer on that is here. Prior to his interrogating church members, Paul's knowledge of Jesus may have been limited to what he heard through the grapevine from his fellow Pharisees. (As for that being part of his background, he describes himself as "in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church" Phil 3:6.) It is doubtful whether he would have regarded anything as reliable that he heard through that grapevine, once he had converted to following Jesus. After his conversion, his sources would have been as above.


Footnote: the technical language

1. παραδίδωμι and παραλαμβάνω

Sometimes Paul uses technical language about teaching being passed down to himself, and himself passing it down to others. Confusion about this language leads some people to think that Paul is attributing knowledge to private divine revelations even when Paul isn't.
In fact, Paul was putting his original readers on notice precisely when he was talking about tradition that was being passed on person to person where he was a link in the chain. He did this by using together two specific Greek words. No English translation makes that obvious because the smoke signal is two Greek words that had a technical meaning when Greek-speaking Jewish rabbis used either of them - and especially when using them both together - about teaching their religion. These two words used are paradidomi - παραδίδωμι - and paralambano - παραλαμβάνω. Where he was using these words about teaching - and especially where using these two words together about teaching - Paul wasn't laying claim to direct messages from heaven. He was claiming to be a legitimate teacher of what the church was passing on from person to person. It's embedded in his choosing to use these words.


The first word, paradidomi (παραδίδωμι), had an everyday meaning and a specialist technical meaning. It's everyday meaning would be expressed in something like this: "the policeman handed over the criminal to the jailor". The meaning of "handing over" someone or something physically is the common meaning, and you see it used that way in, for example, Acts 12:4, 21:11, and 27:1. You see it used that way in all four gospels too. That's not the sense that Paul uses it in when talking about church teaching. Here he uses it the same way that Jewish rabbis did about their teaching. It's used here in the sense that a tradition or teaching was passed down, passed along, handed on.


The second word, paralambano (παραλαμβάνω), also had an everyday meaning and a specialist technical meaning. It's everyday meaning would be expressed in something like this: "the mother took along her daughter". The meaning "took along" is the common meaning, and you see it used that way in, for example, Acts 15:39, 16:33, 21:24, 21:26, 21:32, and 23:18. You see it used that way in all four gospels too. That's not the sense Paul uses it in. He uses it in his letters the same way that Jewish rabbis did about their teaching. It's used here in the sense that a tradition or teaching was passed down, passed along, handed on, very similar to how paradidomi was used. Although English translations get it right by saying "handed on", that's not enough to tell us that this is a technical word in the right context.

2. Prepositions: παρα and ἀπὸ

Translations of Paul's letters tend to obscure this by translating it simply as "received". The meaning gets obscured further by the fact that Paul uses the word with different prepositions which don't have a simple one-to-one direct correspondence in English. When he says he received something by revelation from God, he uses the preposition παρα. But we have to note where he varies from this and why he does so.


So, Paul uses παρα with παραλαμβάνω when talking about direct communication from one to another in Gal 1:12, 1 Thess 2:13, 1 Thess 4:1, 2 Thess 3:6. That goes whether it is teaching from an apostle or revelation from God.


You see a difference in 1 Cor 11:23 when the preposition isn't παρα but rather ἀπὸ. Now it has the sense of a teaching that was passed down from the Lord, rather than passed down by the Lord. That is, it's a church tradition, which is attributed to Jesus as the original source, but was passed down to Paul second or third hand.


You see another difference in 1 Cor 15: 1-3, where it is used without either παρα or ἀπὸ, and the sense is of a teaching that is passed on, without bothering to say who it's from previously. The sense that scholars get here is that 1 Cor 15:3-7 is a very early Christian creed from days before Paul's conversion to Christianity, possibly from the apostolic circle, and passed from church to church. Paul was just one of the teachers passing it on.


This sort of technical language is the kind of thing lurking under the surface of translations that is hard to convey effectively without some knowledge of what is going on in the Greek. Where paradidomi - παραδίδωμι - and paralambano - παραλαμβάνω - are used together, it gives the sense that the teacher is passing down a teaching, and the pupils are receiving it as passed down to them. That's what Paul does in 1 Cor 15:3 as παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον, ὅτι...

Paul also uses these two words together this way in 1 Corinthians 11:23 thus: ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, ὅτι...

So where he is doing this, just like a rabbi he is flagging up to his churches that he is acting in effect as their rabbi duly passing on established church teaching to them, not claiming personal divine revelation from heaven for it. His pupils wouldn't take it any other way.


In the few places where Paul does claim personal direct revelation from heaven, he clearly departs from using those words to describe the transmission from heaven to himself, avoiding confusion in Greek, but not avoiding confusion in English translation.

I'm indebted for some of these points to A. M. Hunter's book, Paul and his Predecessors, (London: SCM Press, 1961) pages 19-20.


For a brief, broader overview of evidence, Richard Bauckham in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006):

“The evidence is found in Paul's use of the technical terms for handing on a tradition (ρaradidσmί, i Cor 11:2, 23, corresponding to Hebrew másar) and receiving a tradition (ρaralambanö, ι Cor 15:1, 3; Gal 1:9; Col 2:6; ι Thess 2:13; 41 2 Thess 3:6, corresponding to Hebrew gίbbel). (For this terminology, see M. S. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism 200 BCE - 400 CE (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 73-75, 80.) These Greek words were used for formal transmission of tradition in the Hellenistic schools and so would have been familiar in this sense to Paul's Gentile readers. They also appeared in Jewish Greek usage (Josephus, Ant. 13.297; C. Αρ. 1.60; Mark 7:4, 13; Acts 6:14), corresponding to what we find in Hebrew in later rabbinic literature (e.g.,265m. Avot 1.1). Paul also speaks of faithfully retaining or observing a tradition (katecho, 1 Cor 11:2; 15:2; krateo, 2 Thess 2:15, which is used of Jewish tradition in Mark 7:3, 4, 8, corresponding to the Hebrew 'ahaz) and uses, of course, the term "tradition" itself (paradosis, 1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15; 3:6, used of Jewish tradition in Matt 15:2; Mark 7:5; Gal 1:14; Josephus, Ant. 13.297).”

2. κατὰ

Misconceptions can arise from translators choice of words. In some English translations, you find 1 Corinthians 15:3 confusingly saying that Jesus died for sins "according to" the Scriptures. Problem. This is simply translating one Greek word, κατὰ, and translators prefer this very formal sounding language for it. What they mean is "in keeping with". Christ died for sins in keeping with the Scriptures. That is, the event was in line with expectations from religious writings, in keeping with them. So, what's the misconception? Not knowing the Greek, some people have taken "according to" as meaning, "Christ died, so the Scriptures say". That misconception comes only from the slightly misleading English phrase "according to". It has prompted some people to think that this is evidence to support a fringe theory that Paul's knowledge of Jesus dying was only on the say so of Old Testament writings that he had read, and from revelations. Whereas the key to understanding this correctly is to know that κατὰ here does not mean "on the say so" but rather means "in keeping with".

Who wrote the gospels?

Some people like to ask this question: who wrote the four gospels?

But that’s not one question, it’s four. Let’s start with one: the best question of all. What is the earliest evidence for who wrote any of these gospels?

Mark’s gospel

Mark’s gospel is dated to the first century and the authorship is credited to Mark. But how do we know that? It is Papias’ comments on how Mark came to write his gospel that give it away. Who was Papias? Born in the first century, he was a church leader in Asia.

In the second century he published a series of books of Jesus’ sayings, sadly now lost. Bits remain. In them, he explains Mark’s gospel as it as was told to him:

“Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord’s sayings and doings. For he had not heard the Lord or been one of His followers, but later, as I said, one of Peter’s. Peter used to adapt his teachings to the occasion, without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord’s sayings, so that Mark was quite justified in writing down some things just as he remembered them. For he had one purpose only – to leave out nothing that he had heard, and to make no misstatement about it.’” (Eusebius, History of the Church, III.39.)[i]

The fact that Papias didn’t wholeheartedly approve of the way Mark’s gospel is ordered gets a bit of attention. This doesn't seem to mean that Mark has no structure at all; but by contrast Papias says that Matthew wrote an ‘ordered arrangement’ of the material in his gospel. We know that Mark's gospel is structured very carefully, if you have eyes to see it. Either Papias couldn't see that, or he didn't like it. Papias was probably measuring Mark against the 'Matthew's gospel' that he knew, and preferred the order of events in this Matthew.[ii] The obvious difference is that in Matthew's Gospel, "the Lord’s sayings and doings" are interweaved much more, more chunks of teaching placed in the narrative compared to Mark. It's almost as if readers of Mark originally had two sections that were not integrated - a well-structured story section, and a sayings section which had not yet been integrated into the narrative, leaving Papias distinctly unimpressed with the lack of orderly integration of "the Lord’s sayings and doings" in Mark's Gospel.

It is worth mentioning that there are critics who distrust Papias as a historian getting his facts straight about who wrote Mark, but they do so because, ironically, they do trust Papias as a historian insofar as saying the contents of Mark are not in order. This is a really methodologically unsound criticism. How can Papias be a good enough historian to recognised inadequately integrated work, but at the same time not a good enough historian to say that Mark was the one responsible for that lack of orderly integration?

There are several good reasons for finding this account, as recorded by Papias, credible:

• Papias doesn’t try to credit the writing to an apostle. Naming a relatively obscure person – Mark – as the author is the sort of thing you wouldn’t do unless there was real substance to this. Mark’s name doesn’t give the gospel any great boost, it establishes it as second hand. In the second century, the fashion was to attribute newly written gospels to the name of an apostle or someone else with a big role in the New Testament. Mark’s name just doesn’t tick those boxes. The opportunity to pass the work off as written by an apostle isn’t seized. It signals authenticity in Mark’s name.
• Papias’ criticism levelled at Mark (for not putting all the events in a clear chronological order) suggests that this is an honest account of the gospel’s origins. This isn’t some legend unreasonably praising it to the skies. Far from it.[iii]
• The span of time between the writing of Mark and the presbyter's knowledge of how it was written isn’t going to be very great. It’s within the span of living memory.[iv]

The link with Peter, as Mark’s source, also has support which is important for the credibility of what Papias says:

• With unintentional usefulness, episodes written elsewhere establish a link between Peter and Mark. Peter led a group meeting in the house of Mark’s mother (Acts 12:12).[v]
• Peter is repeatedly the focal point of anecdotes in Mark’s gospel.[vi]
• The geography of Mark's gospel is an idiosyncratic mental map of a Galilean fisherman, fitting Peter.[vii]

These factors complicate things for critics who doubt the trustworthiness of what Papias wrote.

In the second century, church leader and author Irenaeus also wrote, “After [Peter’s] departure Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself delivered to us in writing what had been announced by Peter.” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III.1.1[viii]) Irenaeus probably got that from Papias. Apart from Papias, an early church writer called Clement corroborates Mark’s authorship of the gospel.[ix]

The evidence places the writing of Mark’s gospel squarely in the second half of the first century. That comes via Papias from the presbyter who was closer in time to when Mark was written.[x]

Or was Mark’s gospel really inspired by Paul?

By the way, an interesting thing about this: it’s been suggested to me by a sceptic that the biblical gospels are based on Paul’s teaching instead of that of Jesus’ disciples. But if that were so, then Paul is very conspicuous by his absence in Papias’ accounts of the writing of the gospels! Take a look: Papias says more about his sources of information, and – wait for this – Paul doesn’t get the slightest mention anywhere. (This digression has a potential bearing on dating by the way. Paul and Peter had exchanges going back to the thirties of the first century - according to Galatians 1-2 which was written in the 50s of the first century according to good data - so, how much should a gospel based on Peter's reflections reflect any debate between Peter and Paul? How might we expect that influence to show if Mark's Gospel were written in the 60s of the first century? How if it were written in the 40s, or the 50s? Should it show at all?)

Papias interviewed people late in the first century about the sayings of Jesus, and names some of them. He wrote about it early in the second century. (His words are preserved in Eusebius, History of the Church, III.39).[xi] Papias interviewed people who knew the first century 'elders' (named by him as John and Aristion) who were still living and had known the disciples Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John and Matthew. Note: no Paul there.

Papias did the interviews to get as much as possible of the disciples' recollection of Jesus' teachings. (That these elders, still living, had known the disciples therefore puts Papias’ interviews in the late first century.[xii]) The point of his interviews is that these earlier disciples had direct access to Jesus' teachings, that was not possible for later Christians such as himself and the readers of his book. This does not make sense, by the way, unless Jesus was known to be a real person by Papias' contacts, and that Jesus lived when Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John and Matthew were alive.[xiii]

No mention of Paul, to return to the point. Papias’ chains of transmission do not include Paul, either for Jesus’ sayings or for the gospels. This undermines one of the modern conspiracy theories that Paul was behind it all. He doesn’t even figure in Papias’ picture. (In fact, the first person to try to tie Paul to a gospel – the gospel of Luke – comes later in the form of Irenaeus, but he’s not very convincing about it.) And Papias’ information was first century information.

Was Mark’s gospel originally anonymous?

Most expert biblical scholars will tell you that all the biblical gospels are anonymous, in a technical sense. Usually, the argument is that they were anonymous until Irenaeus gave them names towards the end of the second century.

As said, careful scholars mean ‘anonymous’ in a purely technical sense, which is that in the body of the text the author is anonymous in the same way that the actual authors are anonymous in the text of Harry Potter, Oliver Twist and To Kill A Mockingbird. (e.g. You don't see J. K. Rowling's name in the Harry Potter stories. The actual text of Harry Potter is technically anonymous. We know the author's name from the book cover and publicity.)

Many scholars like to go further and speculate that when the gospels were first circulated there was nothing attached to them equivalent to a book cover with an author's name on it. (This would typically be a tag attached to a scroll in ancient times, not a book cover). Some scholars go even further and assert that no-one originally knew who wrote any of the four gospels, and that names such as Mark were only added to them long afterwards. This sort of absolute anonymity is what the ordinary person would mean by 'anonymous', as distinct from the purely technical use of the word. So who is right?

Let’s go straight to Mark’s Gospel. Is it anonymous?  The argument arises (apart from other theories explained further below) by speculating as to what was on Mark's gospel before it got its formulaic "according to Mark". The argument for anonymity infers that there was a version before the "according to attribution Mark" attribution, and it assumes that this earlier version had no kind of author's attribution at all. No tag. Thus, on the basis of inference, speculation and assumptions, critics assert, as if it were a fact, that the gospels were anonymous in the sense that there was no tag on them. This is not a conclusion drawn from evidence, but from inference – scholars observe that since the first copies no longer exist, then it is fair game to infer what they were like. Some would say they probably had a tag. Others say they probably didn't have a tag. 

The argument for anonymity can easily give the weird impression of some intentionality - that the author's name was deliberately withheld from the start, that the early Christian community was in the dark about the origin of this gospel and every biblical gospel. It is a strange scenario. You might think it's like comparing it to when a writer of a complaint wants their name withheld, or to a generous donor who wishes to remain anonymous. But the argument for absolute anonymity is more extreme than that. Why assume all the writers of all the gospels would so wish it? It's a big assumption. When you try to image the scene, it starts to look very silly. I'll come to that.

By way of background, the words “according to Mark” are a formula (like “according to Matthew”, “according to Luke”, “according to John”), a formula that, it is inferred, became the norm in the second century rather than the first, and that this happened regardless of how the gospels authors’ were presented beforehand.[xiv] The inference is quite reasonable, although it is really an argument from silence, based on the observation that the church fathers don’t at first refer to them as "gospel according to..." until later. However, arguments from silence are hard to make stick. And a manuscript tradition of these supposed earlier versions is unattested by the church fathers and absent from ancient manuscripts. It remains an inference. Now it is not a wild suggestion to say that ‘Gospel according to…’ was added as a formula. But it is a more radical suggestion to say that the name ‘… Mark’ was added later, for example.

Of course in general, if the community in which it was written knows who wrote a book, then the mere absence of a name on a cover does not make it anonymous, at least not in the sense that ordinary people use the word. That’s just detail - the authorship is known in that community. Therefore, speculating that there were versions for every gospel without authors' names on scrolls does not in any case necessarily lead to a conclusion that they were anonymous. The theory of anonymity assumes more or less also that the original community was uninformed as to authorship.

This is where the scenario that many scholars assume starts to look a bit silly, if you think it through. In the close-knit world of the first Christians, it seems unlikely that a gospel would appear out of thin air without those around knowing who wrote it. It is rash to speak of the gospels as if they were produced anonymously by hermits unknown to anyone. First century Christianity was very much about community. There is no reason to suppose that the first recipients of the gospels happened to find the gospels miraculously without knowing who wrote them, as if they were dropped on the doormat in the night wrapped in unmarked brown paper by a masked individual wearing a hood. 

The balance of probabilities is that the Christian communities knew who amongst their members could read and write and who was spending all the hours God sends writing up a gospel. It would have been a talking point. In such communities, if you have something unusual for breakfast the whole community knows about it by lunchtime. It is easy to imagine the scribe being thanked before the community (eg in church). Deliberate anonymous writing within the church community - for something as substantial as a gospel - would have been unlikely to say the least, and one wonders what sort of society is imagined by people who suppose this. Complete anonymity is a pretty incredible idea when we’re talking about this. The only realistic question which could possibly be asked is whether the attribution of names has been preserved accurately, which name on which gospel.

It’s no surprise that Papias knows. Papias just happens to provide our earliest surviving discussion of the subject.[xv] 

What about other academic theories that the gospels were anonymous?

Such theories usually circle around the fact that early church fathers cite passages corresponding with the gospels but none of them name them as contents of this or that named gospel until Irenaeus does in the second half of the second century (setting aside for the moment that we have at least got named gospels in Papias, and Justin Martyr – before Irenaeus wrote – picks out one gospel as ‘Peter’s Memoirs’, by which he is referring to Mark’s Gospel). 

The hasty conclusion that the gospels were anonymous on the basis of their not being named in their earliest citations by church fathers (eg Ignatius) is unscientific in a manner unfortunately typical of some scholars outside the physical sciences. In contrast, any scientist would introduce a control for comparison: for example, do the said church fathers normally name authors when citing books with famous author attributions? If the answer is yes, then the 'anonymous' gospels theory has more weight. If the answer is no, then the anonymous gospels theory can draw no support from the manner of early citations. In fact, in case after case, we find early church fathers quoting all manner of things without naming their source - they are inconsistent, but very often quote without citing sources. This humanities theory does not pass more scientific manners of testing. 

The same unscientific fault can be found when scholars inspect Irenaeus' contribution. Many a  scholar will say that as Irenaeus was first to report the names of the four gospels as a group (forgetting for the moment about Papias), unlike earlier citations in Ignatius and Justin Martyr etc., then Irenaeus probably invented the four gospel authors names. Where is the scientific control element in this? In fact, Irenaeus names things in the manner of a cataloguist, which he very much does across the breadth of his work, especially in cataloguing heresies. The fact that he normally behaves as a cataloguist  - which provides a control element - does not mean that he invents the things he is cataloguing in the case of the gospels. He groups and orders information undoubtedly. In fact he names a number of apocryphal gospels too - are we to suppose that he invented their names also? Are we to assume that Irenaeus invented the name of every darned thing he catalogues except for those already named by a predecessor? Hardly. But humanities-style imaginations sometimes run riot when analysing the naming of gospels. 

About our witness Papias

We only have snippets of what Papias wrote, preserved by being quoted by other writers (e.g. Irenaeus, Eusebius, Apollinaris, Jerome and Andreas and half a dozen other church fathers discuss it[xvi]). The longest quotes from Papias are found in Eusebius’ History of the Church. Can we trust these quotes? There is no basis in evidence to dispute the accuracy of Eusebius’ quotes from Papias. Eusebius was no fan of Papias (because of Papias’ millennarian theology) so it is inconceivable that Eusebius fictitiously made Papias into an authority about any subject.

Also on the gospels:

The biblical gospels were all originally anonymous? How historically plausible is that?
Did Jesus exist? 6. Do the gospels believe in a historical Jesus?

Chinese Whispers? On the reliability of the accounts of Jesus' life & teachings




How could a historical Jesus prophesy that the Temple would be destroyed?



62AD: The year in which the Book of Acts was written? (This gives a date for when Luke's Gospel was written by.)

               

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[i] Eusebius, The History of the Church, translated by G.A. Williamson, with an introduction by A. Louth (London, Penguin, 1989) 103-4..

[ii] Schoedel, W.R., “Papias” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. 5, 140.

[iii] Barnett, P., The Birth of Christianity The First Twenty Years (Michigan/Cambridge, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005) 160-1.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Barnett, P., Finding the Historical Christ (Michigan/Cambridge, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009) 90.

[vii] See Richard Bauckham's talk "Mark's Geography and the origin of Mark's Gospel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4THNI0CxbE

[viii] Grant, R.M., Irenaeus of Lyons (London/New York, Routledge, 1997), 124.

[ix] Ehrman, B. D., The New Testament and other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, Second Edition (New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004) 369.

[x] Barnett, P., The Birth of Christianity The First Twenty Years (Michigan/Cambridge, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005) 159.

[xi] See introduction in Grant, R.M., Irenaeus of Lyons (London/New York, Routledge, 1997), 35. Grant’s conclusion is that Papias supplied his information towards the end of the first century or soon after.

[xii] Wedderburn puts it that Papias was writing when the elders were still alive. Wedderburn, A.J.M. A History of the First Christians (London, T&T Clark International, 2004) 246 n.21.

[xiii] Jake O'Connell, "Papias' Testimony to the Existence of Jesus" in Shattering the Christ Myth, ed. James Patrick Holding, (Xulon Press, 2008) 73-86.

[xiv] When English translations say, “according to”, that is just our way of translating the original Greek word which is just KATA. “According to…” was probably put on the four gospels to preserve the names for each gospel as passed down to us.

[xv] You might ask: supposing Mark’s name was never on the gospel, in contrast why is it different for Paul whose name appears in his letters? Paul put his name precisely because they were letters from him to someone else. The gospels are not letters. The question is: what should be expected of a gospel? (not, ‘why does a gospel not look like a letter?’).

[xvi] Ehrman, B. D., The New Testament and other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, Second Edition (New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004) 369.

Did Jesus Exist? 3b. Why didn’t St Paul say more about Jesus?

This page is a companion piece to Did Jesus Exist? 3a. What did St Paul know about the life story of Jesus? That blog is about what Paul said about Jesus. This blog is different: mainly it addresses questions about whether Paul should have said more. (and whether he did!) (This page was originally part of the previous blog, but that was getting far too long for a blog, so I’ve split it into two blogs. Hopefully, this makes it easier to read).

As before, it’s worth saying that Paul talks about both a pre-resurrection Jesus on earth and a post-resurrection Jesus in heaven. And as before, this blog is only about the former, the Jesus on earth from birth to death. If you think about the details of Jesus' life that Paul gives (mentioned in the other blog), it is not a massive amount.

A ‘control’

First you have to be methodical, and that means you have to decide what you should reasonably expect to find. You have to compare how much Paul says about Jesus with how much he says about other things that are important to him. It’s like the ‘control’ in an experiment. People who ask me the question are usually using the gospels as a ‘control’. That is to say, they are comparing Paul’s letters with the gospels to decide whether his letters say enough. Making that comparison leads them to ask: why doesn’t Paul mention Nazareth? Why doesn’t he mention Galilee? You could read the gospels and make your own list; it might not make much difference what is on the list! The problem is the method here: Paul never wrote a gospel, so why on earth are we comparing his personal letters with a gospel? It’s an informative experiment – good to see the difference – but it doesn’t tell us what Paul should be expected to write.

We need a ‘control’ that gives a meaningful result: we have to decide whether telling anyone’s life stories is typical or unusual for Paul? Indeed, is Paul interested in telling life stories of any length, long or small? What if we find no sign of him ever liking to tell anyone’s story in his letters?

And once we have a control, we can see to what degree Paul behaves differently when he is writing about Jesus.

Our control experiment reveals that Paul doesn’t normally tell the details of people’s lives or reflect on the history of the places he has been. For a first century Jew who lived in Jerusalem, there are glaring omissions in Paul's letters. For example:

• Paul writes that he himself was from a very traditional Jewish background, but he never names his parents.
• Paul mentions that he has done missions and preached and taught and passed on traditions, but he never actually writes the content of his talks in any of the letters we have. We’d love to have one of his missionary talks to read: the best we can do is try to piece them together from bits and pieces that he does write.
• Paul talks about Caesar's household but he never names a Roman emperor. In the time of the events he was referring to, the emperors were, in turn, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. But he never names them.
• He speaks of his trips to Jerusalem, but he doesn't name its famous residents. He doesn't even name any of its high priests.
• Paul says he chose to follow Pharisaism before he followed Jesus, but he doesn't name the most famous Jewish rabbis. Even famous names such as Hillel and Shammai don't get any mention in his letters.
• Judea in Paul's day was under Roman occupation, and historian Josephus mentions the dreaded Roman poll tax which had triggered a Jewish rebellion around the time, more or less, that Paul would have been born. Even though Paul says to pay your taxes, he does so without a hint of the past disturbances resulting from that issue. 
• Paul tells us that he has spent time in Jerusalem but – unlike Josephus - never mentions the incendiary acts of Pontius Pilate that stirred up his countrymen. He doesn't even name Pontius Pilate in the letters this blog uses. (The reference to Pilate in Timothy is a separate subject for another day). (And by the way, this silence is quite unlike second century Christians who repeatedly name Pontius Pilate in the manner of a creed, whereas Paul's letters don't do so.)  
• Paul is well read, but his letters don't state which authors he has read. He never even mentions Philo by name, a fellow Jew also writing in Greek, who was a contemporary of Paul. 

Paul is like someone who sometimes says, "I don't like to talk about it." He’s not making much of an exception for Jesus, except that he does give information about Jesus’ life story. But let’s carry on with the ‘control’ because this is interesting.



More things Paul doesn't say

Take what Paul says about Peter. Hardly anything, except to describe an argument with him (Galatians 2). For someone who spent fifteen days with Peter, he tells us precious little about him. He never tells us about Peter’s parents or Peter’s job, or Peter’s age, appearance, health, education or background. He mentions in passing that Peter had a wife but doesn’t mention her name (1 Cor 9:5), and that Peter was a church leader in Jerusalem (with a claim about Peter having seen a resurrected Jesus, but that’s another story), and that’s about all, really. Oh, and he calls Peter by his Greek name Cephas. Not much to go on. It’s a shame if – like me – you would like to know more from Paul about Peter! And that was someone Paul actually spent time with! Come to that, Paul never mentions that he himself used to be called Saul. (Only Luke tells us that.)

Or what about Barnabas whom Paul actually spent time doing mission work with? Paul says next to nothing except that they both had to work for a living (1 Cor 9:6).

In other words, if you wanted to find a full blown biography of Jesus, Paul’s personal letters aren’t really the place you would look. Paul did not write letters like a reporter would write. He didn’t write stories about other people. People only really get a mention in Paul’s letters when he is telling his own life story and he mentions who helped him and who didn’t. He never tells us much about anyone - except Jesus. It’s a shame. People would love to know more about someone called Junia - it’s a woman’s name - as he calls her an apostle, but he doesn’t tell her story.

Fact: Paul gives us more information about the life story of Jesus than of anyone else he mentions, except about himself! The historian can make use of what he does tell us about Jesus (using Paul as a historian's 'secondary souce'), and about the people in the church (as a 'primary source'). As a primary source, Paul helps us to understand what other people said about Jesus  in the 30s,before he, Paul, personally took any interest in Jesus.

So our ‘control’ cautions us not to make sweeping judgments about Jesus from the fact that Paul doesn’t say more about Jesus’ life story. It also cautions us not to have expectations based on what we would wish rather than what Paul would wish. What he does say about Jesus is way more than what he says about anyone else, and there’s a thing.



Inconvenient?


Important to say, it could be that an account of Jesus' ministry that was doing the rounds in Paul's day (say an oral version of something like Mark's Gospel) may have been inconvenient to Paul, inasmuch as Mark's Gospel does not obviously yield up Paul's theology. Someone hearing how Jesus interacted with Jews (in Mark) is not going to leap to Paul's conclusion that the Gentiles are saved by faith alone. Scholars today disagree on reconciling the two messages, and Paul may not have had it any easier. There are ways to reconcile the messages, but Paul could easily have come across as awkward if he were the person who tries to do so convincingly, when this sort of material could cause a church split or, worse still for Paul, better serve his opponents (such as so-called "Judaizers"). It may have been more convenient for Paul to try and to keep "Chinese Walls" up between his letters and the oral/written text of, say, Mark's Gospel. Any great use by Paul of something like Mark's text could easily expose the difficulty Paul faced. One cannot emphasise enough how vulnerable to collapse new religious movements and churches can be: any such new movement in Paul's day was entering a crowded market place, where there would be other groups only too glad to take Paul's church members off him. There are clear signs that Paul knew he had to compete successfully: the mere fact of using letters to gain an advantage in communication indicates it loud and clear; put that together with his attempts to get to know the lead apostles in Jerusalem; and his long distance visits to his churches - all this points to Paul knowing that the gains in his mission were precarious at times. Making a good deal of early gospel content - say like Mark's  complex content - would just be throwing a potential spanner in the works of his simplified salvation of gentiles by faith message, raising too many awkward questions - questions that divide scholars to this day.

Does Paul say more than we credit him for?


A strange one, this: I've seen it claimed that, from Paul's letters, you would never know about Jesus' personality, or any of Jesus' teachings, or even that Jesus had a ministry, or that Jesus had disciples, or that Jesus ever dealt with anyone other than apostles. But is that true? The following notes are about that.

The first thing to say is that those raising the question are making a comparison. They are comparing what Paul says with what we read about Jesus in the gospels. Regular readers will know that this series of blogs is not about using Paul to prove that the gospels are true. These blogs are just about gathering the data in Paul’s letters as stand-alone witness evidence. However, for the sake of readers who make the comparison with the gospels, this is for you!

1: Does Paul ever describe Jesus' personality?

If anyone were to say that Paul should have described the personality of Jesus, Paul does. This is not to prove whether Paul is talking about either the pre-resurrection Jesus or the post-resurrection Jesus, but it can't be said that such comments are altogether missing. So in Romans and 2 Corinthians, we find that Paul says this about Jesus' personality:

• Jesus was not the sort of person who lives to please himself. And Jesus took the attitude of being a servant – and this was towards circumcised people (that is to say, Jews) (Romans 15:3, 8)
• Jesus chose a life of poverty, and Paul describes Jesus as meek and gentle (2 Corinthians 8:9; 10:1)

So whether you choose to believe Paul is describing the pre-resurrection Christ, or the post-resurrection Christ (or both!), we can't say that the sort of comments that should be made about the personality of a real person are totally missing - they're not.

In addition, there are inferences that can be drawn that tell us more about Jesus’ attitudes. For example, before his conversion, Paul was a violent traditionalist, such was his brand of what he calls Judaism. That was when he persecuted the church. On his conversion, he renounced his past: as he put it himself, he was going over to the faith of the people he had persecuted. For him, going over to Peter's and James' side meant giving up his violent traditionalist agenda; and meeting them three years later kept him on his new course. This all happened in the 30s of the first century (I work out the dates from eyewitness data here). This is so close to the time when Jesus was supposed to have lived that it has an extra significance: the short time makes most likely that the views of Peter and James would not have changed significantly from the views they believed Jesus held to only a handful of years before. Paul, in renouncing violent nationalism and joining the persecuted church, was doing what he believed was in line with the views and attitudes of Jesus.

2: Does Paul ever mention Jesus had a ministry?


If anyone were to say that Paul should have mentioned Jesus' ministry, Paul does. Again, this is not to prove whether Paul is talking about either the pre-resurrection Jesus or the post-resurrection Jesus, but it can't be said that such comments are altogether missing. So in Romans, we find that Paul says:

"Christ became a servant to the circumcised [the Jews] to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs" (Romans 15:8)

So Paul says that Christ has served/ministered to Israelites. (as it happens, that is of course what the Jesus of the gospels spends most of his time doing). This doesn't say Christ has become a servant of Israelites and Gentiles, which is what you might expect it to say if it were about a post-resurrection Christ in heaven. In fact Gentiles only come into this statement with a secondary benefit: after Christ has served Jews, and after Christ has confirmed promises made to Israel's ancient fathers, only then do the Gentiles glorify God:

"Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed and, moreover, that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy." (Romans 15:8-9, ESV)

To be clear, this is a human Jesus ministering to fellow Israelites as a member of their race: "To them [the Jews] belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Messiah" (Romans 9:5).

But when was Christ a servant to the Israelites? Paul says it was when Jesus arrived in the world as a descendant of King David and of David's father Jesse (as Paul says, 'the root of Jesse' Romans 15:12).

So a pre-resurrection Jesus who had a ministry of service to Israelites is surely what Paul is writing about.

In short, whether you choose to believe Paul is describing the pre-resurrection Christ, or the post-resurrection Christ (or both!), we could not say that the sort of reference that should be made about the ministry of Jesus is totally absent - it's not.

Lastly, on the life and ministry of Jesus, Paul's awareness of Jesus' lived example needs to be heard where he tells Christians in Corinth to " Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." Paul's logic is that their lived experience should mirror his own lived experience which follows the example of Jesus' lived experience. Like follows like follows like. This only makes sense if Paul knew what experiences (of Jesus) he was modelling his life on, and that Paul and Jesus had comparable life experiences in comparable situations - in their ministry - which the Christians could imitate. Paul describes this example over and again, but this one specific mention is in 1 Corinthians 11:1. Repeatedly, Paul keeps describing how this means a life of sharing the gospel despite suffering for it, without retaliating when abused, and building a community of kindness and love, with an attitude of serving people rather than dominating over them. This clearly can be nothing but the example of Jesus that he considered himself to be following; this is how his words are intelligible. By the way, the word 'servant' - which is what Paul describes Jesus as - is the same word that the Jesus of the gospels uses himself when he tells his disciples to have a lowly attitude like servants  (e.g. Mark 9:35; 10:43).

And curiously, on Jesus being a descendant of Jesse: in Luke's Acts, Paul is shown as making a speech which makes a similar point that Jesus came as a descendant of Jesse (Acts 13:22-25).

If anyone should ask why Paul doesn't write the stories of the Galilee days, it is obvious that others in the early church were the eyewitness authorities on that, and Paul could not rival that: it would put him in the shadow of the eyewitnesses if he were to author such a thing. That was not something that would bother other authors, but it would bother Paul, whose relationship with the apostles was something of an issue. Why set yourself up for a comparison where you will come off worse? Paul only compares himself with the apostles where he can come off equal to them (except where he is making a dramatic point about himself being 'the least of the apostles', which is of course a way of including himself in their number, while being self-effacing).

3: Does Paul ever mention Jesus having disciples?

If anyone were to say that Paul should have mentioned Jesus having disciples, Paul does. In 1 Corinthians, we find that Paul says the post-resurrection Jesus was seen by 'the twelve' (1 Cor 15:5). Paul just assumes that the reader knows what he means by 'the twelve'.

By the way, the words 'the twelve' are used in the gospels to describe Jesus' disciples (e.g. Mark 9:35). It would be very odd if Paul's 'the twelve' meant something totally different (such as the twelve turnips!). Whatever you think 'the twelve' are, we can't say that the sort of reference that should be made about Jesus' disciples is totally missing - it's not.

4: Does Paul ever mention Jesus' teachings?

If anyone were to say that Paul should have mentioned Jesus' teachings, there is much to see here too. (Never mind that Paul never even actually wrote down his own sermons for posterity, let alone anyone else's.) People usually have in mind only the teachings of the Jesus of the biblical gospels when they raise this question.

There is more to see than you might expect. For comparison, in 1 Thessalonians 4:15, Paul starts off declaring stuff "in the word of the Lord". Whatever "in the word of the Lord" means, what Paul says next does actually align with the apocalyptic teaching of the gospels' Jesus. Thus:

1 Thess 4:15-16 = Matthew 24:31 (note the mention of the trumpet)

1 Thess 4:17 = Matthew 25:5-7 (note the mention of meeting Jesus)

1 Thess 5:3-7 = Matthew 24:42-43 (note the mention of the thief in the night)

In 1 Corinthians, repeatedly when Paul says he has a teaching from the Lord, it does actually align with the gospels' Jesus. So:

1 Cor 7:10-11 = Mark 10:9-12 (on marriage and divorce)

1 Cor 9:14 = Luke 10:7 (on labourers for the Lord being paid)

Whether you think Paul got this information before, during or after his revelations - and whatever explanation you hold for the alignment - we can't say that the sort of reference that should be made about Jesus' teaching is totally missing - it's not.

There is a general alignment too with a good deal of Jesus' ethical teaching, and it is striking that out of all the alternatives in Paul's world, this finds its way into his letters. So in Romans:

Romans 12:14 = Matthew 5:44

Romans 12:17 = Matthew 5:38-48

Romans 13:7 = Mark 12:17

Romans 13:8 = Mark 12:31

Romans 14:13 = Mark 9:42

Romans 14:14 = Mark 7:15

Romans 14:20 = Mark 7:19

One thing you may have noticed is that these are not haphazard scatterings of teachings in Paul’s letters. They come in packages such as 1 Thess 4-5 and Romans 12-14. They are known to Paul as chunks of teaching.  

Again, whether you think Paul got this information before, during or after his revelations - and whatever explanation you hold for the alignment - we can't say that teachings of the gospels' Jesus are totally absent - they're not.

For more on these things, see Paul Barnett's The Birth of Christianity, pages 120-126 (to which I am indebted for this summary of teachings).





Did Jesus Really Exist? 1. A little introduction

Did Jesus Exist? 2a. Did any writers mention Jesus at the time he was alive?

Did Jesus Exist? 2b. Were ancient authors silent about Jesus' existence?

Did Jesus Exist? 2c. Outside the Bible, does anyone else say Jesus existed?

Did Jesus Exist? 2d. What about these authors then, Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny?

Did Jesus Exist? 3a. What did St Paul know about the life story of Jesus?

You are here - Did Jesus Exist? 3b. Why didn’t St Paul say more about Jesus?

Did Jesus Exist? 3c. Did Peter and Paul talk about Jesus?

So when did St Paul persecute the church? (And when did Jesus die?)

Did Jesus Exist? 4a. So then: what about the people who were interested in Jesus before Paul was?

Did Jesus Exist? 4b. What did people know about the life story of Jesus before Paul came on the scene?

Did Jesus Exist? 5. Did Paul invent Jesus?

Did Jesus exist? 6. Do the gospels believe in a historical Jesus?

Who authored the earliest gospel?

Chinese Whispers? On the reliability of the accounts of Jesus' life & teachings

How could a historical Jesus prophesy that the Temple would be destroyed?