Interplanner
Well-known member
Paul mentions several sightings of Christ resurrected. In this post I just want to dwell on the one large one, and on the timing, and especially on where Paul was in his enforcement of Judaism. It creates a triple-strength proof of what he intended to mention.
He was still in training to enforce some of Judaism's restrictions on apostates. Of course, it was considered apostate for a member to claim to be God, and a claim to be Messiah was such. So to have a group operating within Judaism was scandalous; and they were: they were actually meeting on the temple compound in their early days as such.
The sightings Paul is referring to in I Cor 15 are between the Resurrection and Pentecost. In both I Cor 15 and--more important--in the moment being recollected in I Cor 15, Paul is referring to when he was in training to enforce Judaism, and starting that career-move. He held cloaks at Stephen's martyrdom because stoning was reserved for elder members.
So let us understand the consequence each way: what is the impact on Paul at that time of such a huge sighting vs. a wobbly 2nd hand sighting passed on by an emotionally unstable person? (let's say a woman, not to be biased in the modern sense, but to reflect the bias of that generation's Judaism). Do zealots like Paul even bother with the wobbly accounts? No, they pursue the major accounts and censor them. Why would Paul bother with it, if it had nothing to it? Instead, we would expect him to ridicule it as a mass hysteria. But he could not. Nor could he do so with the others on the list.
This, instead, forced him to press even further; no time could be wasted to stop the movement which had such a weapon. He had to get around the region and shut the thing down. He knew he was not battling a delusion, but solid reality which could only be answered by force.
Nothing could be more clear about the resurrection than the fact that the zealous Paul had no answer to the Christians sightings other than police force and imprisonment.
He was still in training to enforce some of Judaism's restrictions on apostates. Of course, it was considered apostate for a member to claim to be God, and a claim to be Messiah was such. So to have a group operating within Judaism was scandalous; and they were: they were actually meeting on the temple compound in their early days as such.
The sightings Paul is referring to in I Cor 15 are between the Resurrection and Pentecost. In both I Cor 15 and--more important--in the moment being recollected in I Cor 15, Paul is referring to when he was in training to enforce Judaism, and starting that career-move. He held cloaks at Stephen's martyrdom because stoning was reserved for elder members.
So let us understand the consequence each way: what is the impact on Paul at that time of such a huge sighting vs. a wobbly 2nd hand sighting passed on by an emotionally unstable person? (let's say a woman, not to be biased in the modern sense, but to reflect the bias of that generation's Judaism). Do zealots like Paul even bother with the wobbly accounts? No, they pursue the major accounts and censor them. Why would Paul bother with it, if it had nothing to it? Instead, we would expect him to ridicule it as a mass hysteria. But he could not. Nor could he do so with the others on the list.
This, instead, forced him to press even further; no time could be wasted to stop the movement which had such a weapon. He had to get around the region and shut the thing down. He knew he was not battling a delusion, but solid reality which could only be answered by force.
Nothing could be more clear about the resurrection than the fact that the zealous Paul had no answer to the Christians sightings other than police force and imprisonment.
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