What Paul says about the earthly pre-resurrection Jesus – a summary list

I have often heard, from non-historians, a claim that St Paul knew nothing about a human earthly Jesus, only a heavenly Jesus. This time around, instead of setting out background information as I’ve done elsewhere, this blog is just a summary list for easy reference (since the claim often comes up). (This blog collects into one place – in shorter form – material from across some of my other blogs. For in depth analysis of what I mean in relation to the details below, please see them.)

So: of the things Paul was taught about the earthly human Jesus, which does he mention in his letters?

In answering that question, I’m relying here only on letters which are generally undisputed as authentic by secular scholars, letters written by Paul around the 50s of the first century within about two decades of when Jesus is said to have died. Paul, of course, was a younger contemporary of Jesus. 

Some selected things Paul gives us in Galatians, Thessalonians, Corinthians and Romans (expanded detail further below with examples and references):

• Jesus’ birth ("out of a woman", he says, with no mention of a human father - Paul does not give names of parents – neither his own nor, unsurprisingly therefore, Jesus’ parents)
• Jesus’ location (Judea)
• Jesus’ childhood included having brothers and being in a family of observant Jews
• era in which Jesus lived (first half of first century - see timeline)
• Paul also references moral teachings in a way consistent with someone who knew they were Jesus’ teachings
• he also references Jesus’ apocalyptic views in a similar way
• he mentions Jesus being handed over (although he does not care to name who handed him over to whom, just as he mentions ‘the twelve’ without bothering to name most of them)
  

Some of those things are unpacked more below.

Timeline – life story of Jesus

Following the timeline of Jesus’ life, I pick out the following from those letters by Paul:

Jesus’ genealogy and birth

•          Jesus was an Israelite and he was descended from the family of King David, and that is 'according to the flesh'. Since it is 'according to the flesh' (rather than, say, 'according to the spiritual nature') then it is of human descent, of the flesh (Romans 1:3).

• Indeed: "To them [the Jews] belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Messiah" (Romans 9:5)

•          Jesus arrived into the world ‘out of a woman’ (Gal 4:4). Where a woman gives birth to a son, this makes her a mother, and her offspring human, obviously. So logically, Jesus was undoubtedly a human with a mother as far as Paul was concerned!

In summary, Paul says Jesus is of the Jewish race, of their flesh, of David's flesh, born "out of a woman", making them a Jewish mother and son, obviously. 

In real life, this only ever happens on earth, and is only ever attributable to human beings. There is no special case for an exception from real life norms there.



Family and upbringing

•         This is not only a racial background (of the Jewish race, of their flesh, of David's flesh), but also a religious family background, as Jesus was born into a family of observant Jews. That is clear because he was born "under the law", that is, under the Jewish law, which Jews call the Torah(Galatians 4:4).

•          In his family, Jesus had a brother named James (Gal 1:19), and he had other brothers, who had wives (1 Cor 9:5).

• By way of contrast, note how in Galatians Paul addresses the church as "brothers", unlike how he speaks in passing of James categorically as "the Lord's brother" whom he met (1:19), perhaps so that this James not be confused with another James. (Not crucial to mention here, but elsewhere we are told that the John whom Paul met in Jerusalem had a sibling who was also called James, was one of the twelve, and was killed in Jerusalem, but that's another story. What Paul says here makes it clear which James he met.) 
• And again for contrast, note how in 1 Corinthians Paul speaks of the church as "my brothers" (1 Cor 1:11; 11:33; 14:39; 15:58), unlike how he categorically speaks of "the Lord's brothers" who could travel with a believing wife (1 Cor 9:5).
• In a broader contrast, Paul speaks of "my brother Titus" (2 Cor 2:13), "my brother Epaphroditus" (Phil 2:25),  and "our brother Timothy" (1 Thess 3:2), whereas James is not called Paul's brother but "the Lord's brother".
• It's quite clear that there is a difference in the way that Paul speaks of the Lord's brother James and the Lord's brothers who had wives, for which the simplest explanation is the natural reading that these were members of Jesus' family.
• In referring to James, Paul actually speaks of himself and Peter and James, but only James gets called "the Lord's brother", an honour which Paul couldn't claim for himself or Peter. It becomes all the more clear with each piece of evidence that the simplest explanation is the natural reading that James was a member of Jesus' family.

•          Jesus’ life was in the first half of the first century:

• That is, Paul was writing in the 50s of the first century (the date is calculated from dating information in Paul's letters), and Jesus' brothers were adults with wives and clearly still alive in the 50s: this means Jesus' life can be dated to the first half of the first century.

In real life, all this only ever happens on earth, and is only ever attributable to human beings. There is no special case for an exception from real life norms there.

Reference to Jesus' brothers makes it reasonable to conclude that these brothers were part and parcel of his childhood and upbringing.

Jesus’ ministry

•          Jesus had a ministry specifically to Israelites: "Christ became a servant of the Jews" (Romans 15:8-9). Again, 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)

Jesus’ Passion Week (the last week of his life)

•          Location-wise, Jesus spent time in the land of the Judeans, homeland of Israelites, and this is where he died (1 Thess 2:15 - see footnote on this text).

•          Jesus was handed over at night-time, on the night of a gathering which extended from before supper till after supper, at which Jesus handled some of the food and a cup (1 Cor 11:23) - I go into this scene in much more detail in another post.

•          Jesus' death was associated with Passover, which is a specific time in the Jewish calendar each year when  lamb was killed (1 Cor 5:7).

•          Some people of Judea caused Jesus’ death (1 Thess 2:15): “You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches [in Judea] suffered from the Judeans, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.” –

o          That’s a bit of a scrapbook of incidents – the sufferings in Judea of churches and Jesus and Paul and his friends, as well as ancient prophets who Paul drags into the subject!

•          Jesus’ death was by crucifixion (ἐσταύρωσαν - 1 Cor 2:8), and therefore logically by the Romans. The Romans because Paul would have known that it was the Romans who practised crucifixion in Judea and elsewhere, but he simply refers to the killers cagily as  ἀρχόντων τοῦ αἰῶνος, "the rulers of this age". He uses that ἀρχόντων (plural) in 1 Cor 2:6-8, and otherwise only in Romans 13:3, where it refers to the human governments under whom people live. The simplest identifier for who they were, is that they were relying on a Roman method of execution. Interestingly, by the way, it is the very same word used by Luke for some rulers in Judea who were instrumental in the execution of Jesus (Luke 23:13, 35).

•          His death was no later than the 30s of the first century. (The date is calculated from dating information in Paul's letters.)

•          Jesus’ body was buried (1 Cor 15:4).


You may have noticed that 1 Corinthians is the most informative of Paul's letters about Jesus' death - so, to pick these out from it:

•          Jesus' death was associated with a time in the Jewish calendar when a lamb was killed - Passover

•          Jesus was handed over at night-time, the night of a gathering which extended from before supper till after supper, at which Jesus handled some of the food and a cup

•          Jesus’ death was by crucifixion

•          Jesus died and was buried

Of course, all of those details are also found in the gospels, but that's a subject for other posts. You'll notice elsewhere in this post that it is also in 1 Corinthians that quite a bit of the other material here is found too. 

In real life, all this only ever happens on earth, and is only ever attributable to human beings. There is no special case for an exception from real life norms there.

If anyone claims, against the balance of probabilities, an exception to real life norms, the onus is on them to justify such a strange exception. Until then, these is a long list of mundane things, that only ever happen on earth and only with human beings. Paul never says of these "here's an exception to the norm." He doesn't have to say "I'm conforming to norms" because that is a given unless otherwise stated. It would be highly implausible that Paul's long catalogue of things that would normally be earthly, are a weird exception from the norm when he never claims an exception from the norm for them.

And there’s more…

In addition, Paul says other things about Jesus that you would expect him to say if he were talking about a human Jesus. (Whether you choose to believe Paul here 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.) So Paul speaks of:

Jesus’ personality

• 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

Jesus having disciples

• 'the twelve' (1 Cor 15:5). Paul just assumes that the reader knows what he means by 'the twelve'.

Jesus’ apocalyptic teachings

•          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) 

Jesus’ moral teachings 

•          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)

• 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.

The important thing shown by this is that, whether you think this is a connection between Paul and the words of the pre-resurrection Jesus or post-resurrection Jesus, you can't say that teachings associated with the pre-resurrection Jesus are completely missing, as they are not.

Glen Miller provides more example here. 

Some would ask whether Paul's sources included anything other than supernatural revelation and reading scripture, and I discuss that in another post.

Conclusions

Taking all the above together, to claim as if it were a fact that Paul knew nothing about the earthly Jesus would be sheer ignorance. Paul is an important secondary source on the historical Jesus, and our earliest. He was a contemporary of Jesus. We can gauge that because writing in the 50s of the first century - dated according to secular scholars - Paul refers to himself as an "old man" (Philemon v.9) which, going by the writings of his Jewish contemporaries, means that Paul was in his fifties at the time of his writing and therefore he was born around the start of that century: thus a contemporary of Jesus. This is a simple deduction. Thus he was writing within about two decades of Jesus’ death, which is nothing really. And his potential sources weren’t bad: he knew Jesus’ brother James, and also Peter and John – people reputed to be eyewitnesses of the historical Jesus. Which is why Paul is an important secondary witness to Jesus. Historians of ancient history deal with secondary sources all the time – they are bread and butter of a historians’ work, along with primary sources. 

In fact, when Paul is talking about his contemporaries, he doesn't ever talk about fictional ones. That's important - it is characteristic of the kind of documents Paul was writing - his personal letters to real locations, to real churches about pastoral things. Paul never wrote a gospel, or a book of theology, or a book of poetry, but he wrote letters to real people about issues in their lives. He didn't invent fictional people in his letters.

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. As for his sources, I discuss that in another post.

Footnote: 1 Thessalonians 2:15

The footnote on the authenticity of 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 has been moved to here.

Related blogs:


Did Jesus Really Exist? 1. A little introduction

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

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

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

Did Paul learn about Jesus only from 'revelations'?

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

Did Jesus Exist? 5. Did Paul invent Jesus?

Who authored the earliest gospel?

What debt does secular humanism owe to Christianity, and English Christianity in particular?

Some secular humanists think they are saving the world from Christianity. But have they got this wrong? The thing is, western secular humanism is shot through with tacit Christian values, values that are alien to some other societies even today:

• Such as all people being lovable [to God] irrespective of status and therefore all worthy of respect and rights
• Or such as the separation of church from lawmakers being a good thing
• And the development of democracy from the Puritan individual's conscience and congregationalist practice

For more on those last two points, my write-up here:  http://gettingtothetruthofthings.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/england-used-to-be-more-christian.html

Secular humanism owes a debt to Christianity for these things. Not all cultures share these values. One example that springs to mind to which these values are antithetical is Sharia law, but one could just as easily think of some of some of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Islam has not produced a secular humanism. It arose out of societies with deep Christian roots, even it if likes to present itself as anti-Christian in some quarters.

We could go further about the debt owed to Christianity. How about:

• The Christian innovation of the concept of children having a ‘childhood’, an idea that is so cherished today: http://theweek.com/articles/551027/how-christianity-invented-children
• The practice and methodology of subjecting ancient religious texts to scholarly scrutiny. Secular academia has kept the Christian methodology which hails from early Christian times, but has simply now stripped the methodology of its Christian content. This methodology came out of ancient Christian scholars comparing four gospels, comparing the Old and New Testaments, and their various books, sifting and weighing them. Christians have got used to secular academia applying this methodology to the Bible for that reason. (The Christian attitude to holy texts differs, say, from many muslims' attitudes to holy texts. When the same method of historical methodology is applied to the Quran, this is much more unsettling for many muslims. For them, it is harder to apply this Christian-originated methodology to their holy texts.) Secular scholars owe such rigorous scholarly methodology to Christianity. Historian Tom Holland explains more about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnFR1IBq7DI

If society chips away at its Christian values, it is cutting off the branch it is sitting on. Without a coherent Christian worldview, there is no saying that these great benefits will last, as these values are increasingly confronted by other worldviews that don’t share those values. Fundamentalist Islam is only one example. How can secular humanism stand up to it when we are chipping away at our own Christian foundations? The future is not bright without Christianity at the heart of public discourse.

They were devoted to the apostles' teaching

Irenaeus – On the Apostolic Preaching

I like to post about evidence for early Christianity that gets less attention that it could get, if we open our eyes a little more. Stuff that the ‘ordinary’ Christian doesn’t know, but academic scholars do know. I like to put this in the hands of ordinary Christians.

This one is about a late but valuable witness to what Jesus’ apostles were preaching. You might think that we have it all in the New Testament. But what if there is more? In the Book of Acts, in the New Testament, it is written that the church was devoted to the apostles’ teaching, but how much of this teaching do we have? Nothing in the New Testament ever says that the New Testament includes the apostles’ whole teaching. (How could it? It wasn’t all completely collected and called the New Testament until after the writers’ deaths, so none of them knew its contents list.) The Gospel of John says that it doesn’t have enough space to tell of everything Jesus did.

So here it is: Irenaeus’ book called On the Apostolic Preaching. This is something special: an early church document that says it contains the apostles’ teaching, preserved by the church, and now summarised in the second century. Could there be a core in this that really does go back to Jesus’ apostles?

This document was written down by a second century Christian, Irenaeus of Lyon. The second century might seem a bit late at first, but on the other hand, Irenaeus was well placed. He tells us that he learned as a young man from a Christian bishop called Polycarp who had learned from John. (See Irenaeus’ other book Against Heresies, III.3.4.) So the relationships between these people are not far removed from the first century at all.  

On the Apostolic Preaching isn’t based on the New Testament, that’s for sure. And its contents lend credence to its claim to go right back to the apostles’ era. And Irenaeus didn’t just make it up. Before him, Justin Martyr also wrote down chunks of it, and he didn’t base it on the New Testament either. Writing in the second half of the second century AD, Irenaeus is quite clear about the first century origins of the material. He is writing it down, he says,

‘as the elders, the disciples of the apostles have handed down to us’ (3)

 ‘true is the tradition of preaching, that is, the witness of the apostles’ (86)

 ‘This, beloved is the preaching of the truth ... the apostles handed over...’ (98)

(John Behr’s translation, the numbers are as in his translation.)

The document sets out how Old Testament predictions come true in the life of Jesus:

• His country of birth was Judea and his people were the Jews (58)
• This happened while the land of Israel was under Roman rule (57)
• He was born in Bethlehem and born of a virgin (63)
• The magi visited the infant Jesus in a house (58)
• Jesus performed healings including for the deaf, the blind and the lame (67)
• He also raised the dead (66)
• Some believed in Jesus and others did not (56)
• Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a foal (65)
• At his arrest, Jesus was left abandoned by his disciples (76)
• Jesus was tortured and killed and his death was voluntary on his part (68)
• Herod and Pontius Pilate between them condemned Jesus to crucifixion (74)
• Pilate had, until then, held ill-will toward Herod (77)
• Jesus’ arms were stretched out on the cross (79)
• The soldiers crucifying him cast lots for his tunic (80)
•  Judas took thirty pieces of silver from Jewish leaders but repented and hanged himself, and the silver was used to buy a field for burial (81)
• On the cross Jesus was given vinegar to drink (82)
• He died (78)
• He was buried (72)

And there is a fair bit about his resurrection too.

Now I’m not writing this to say that On the Apostolic Preaching proves anything about the life of Jesus to us. That’s not my point at all.

What is so interesting is that Irenaeus is not saying that he is quoting from the gospels (which he had read) but that he was writing down the apostles’ preaching which had been handed down. We usually consider that we have this sort of information from the gospels. But Irenaeus has to be taken to mean this: that the core of this teaching is older than when the gospels were written down. He is writing down what was handed down from the apostles. If you are familiar with reading the gospels, and read On the Apostolic Preaching, then you will immediately note the difference in style when reading this. As for the style of it, it feels more like the sermons of Peter in the Book of Acts. That fits, given that this is supposed to be the apostles’ preaching.

Why did Irenaeus write it down? He himself gives his reason, when addressing his document to someone called Marcianus:

‘since at this present time, we are separated from each other in body... we have not hesitated to speak a little with you... by writing ... and to demonstrate, by means of a summary, the preaching of the truth, so as to strengthen your faith.’ (1)

In other words, this isn’t even the whole thing! It is a summary written down for Marcianus, since this man wasn’t present with Irenaeus to keep hearing the fuller tradition.

John Behr makes some really helpful comments about this document: one of the things that makes the document special is that it is the first summary of plain and straightforward church teaching that was passed from person to person. Unlike much of what Christian wrote in the second century -

• It isn’t argumentative – it isn’t one side of a polemical debate.
• It isn’t apologetics – it isn’t written as a defence of the faith from the attacks of outsiders – it’s teaching inside the early church.
• It isn’t a system of theology and beliefs.
• It hardly talks about how the church should be organised.
• The New Testament isn’t used as the basis of the teaching, although Irenaeus knows the NT.[1]

What the apostolic preaching does show is how the early church understood the Old Testament to be about Jesus. Whether you think it makes a good preach is another matter of course! This is a contribution to the evidence of a very early way of telling the story of Jesus that, at its core as an oral tradition, may be even older than the written version of the gospels – indeed in my view it likely is.

Whether or not you are convinced by the way the Old Testament has been drilled and mined and quarried and excavated to find scriptures to fit the life story of Jesus is up to your judgment. Some may seem to be stretching things, unearthing things in the Old Testament that you would never have thought of applying to Jesus’ story but making that connection anyway!

All that remains is for you to go and read it! I Recommend John Behr’s translation. Online versions can also be found.

---

[1] I don’t mean to give the impression that parts of the Bible were called ‘Old Testament’ and ‘New Testament’ in Irenaeus’ day. These terms hadn’t been thought of, but I’m keeping this simpler for the general reader.

Tracing 'who knew who' back to the historical Jesus

There are independent lines of transmission, leading back to Jesus from many independent authors of material about Jesus.

Here are some examples of those independent lines of transmission (with references, in case you want to look them up). All of these point to a historical Jesus.

Who knew who?

Paul>>Jesus’ brother James, and Peter>>historical Jesus (see Galatians 1:19)

Luke>>eyewitnesses>>historical Jesus (see Luke 1:1-2), Including
Luke>>James>>historical Jesus (Acts 21:18 "and the rest of us went to see James")

Mark>>Peter>>historical Jesus (see Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3.1. See also Papias in Eusebius, History of the Church, III.39)

John>>historical Jesus (John 21:23-24; 1 John 1:1-3)

Author of Hebrews>>those who heard Jesus>>historical Jesus (see Hebrews 5:7; 2:3; 2:17,)

Papias>>his travelling contacts>>elders>>Andrew and other disciples>>historical Jesus (see Papias in Eusebius, History of the Church, III.39)

Papias>>Philip's daughters>>Philip>>apostles>>historical Jesus (see in Eusebius, History of the Church, III.39)

Papias>>Aristion and John the Elder>>historical Jesus (see in Eusebius, History of the Church, III.39)

Ignatius>>Onesimus>>Paul>>Jesus’ brother James, and Peter>>historical Jesus (see in Ignatius’ Letter to the Ephesians 1, 2, 6)

Irenaeus>>Polycarp>>John and other apostles>>historical Jesus (see Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III.3.4)

Irenaeus>>Polycarp>>others who saw Jesus>>historical Jesus (see Irenaeus, Letter to Florinus, in Eusebius, History of the Church, V.20)


Josephus>>unknown sources>>historical Jesus (e.g. Antiquities Book 20 Chapter 9.1)

Tacitus>>unknown sources>>historical Jesus (Tacitus, Annals, 15.44)

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".