this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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This is a level of stupidity and confident wrongness that I haven't seen in some time. I would say this is a ChatGPT disaster but even ChatGPT isn't this stupid. The incident on the road to Damascus was a description of a vision after Jesus's death. Neither Acts, nor any of the gospels mention Paul in the ascension story, and none of Paul's letters mention him knowing Jesus during his earthly life, witnessing the crucifixion, or the ascension.
Read Acts and tell me where Paul is before Chapter 8.
https://www.bible.com/bible/2016/ACT.1.NRSV
What about a search in the Bible for "Saul?" Hmmm nothing in Acts or the Gospels before Acts 8? Fascinating.
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?qs_version=NRSVUE&quicksearch=saul&startnumber=1&resultspp=250
What about a search for "Paul?"
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=paul&resultspp=250&version=NRSVUE
I mean, ultimately you're both basically arguing over Star Wars about whether Han shot first or second. Its several non-fictional people tied together with a fictional story to push an agenda of control.
You do realize the historicity of Paul is pretty robust and the common consensus amongst historians is Jesus was also a real person. Him being a real person doesn't mean he was a Messiah or had magical powers. But just deciding that anyone who was involved with the foundation of a religion didn't exist means you are founding your views on feelings instead of actual information.
That is not what they are saying. It is perfectly valid to say that there are zero contemporary primary sources to confirm the existence of Jesus. Historians have come to the consensus that he most likely existed, on account of the influence stemming from later sources, but they all also know there are no contemporary sources, so that consensus is based on circumstantial evidence.
The historicity of Paul is not robust, it is definitely better sourced than Jesus, but that historicity stems from himself, and as we cannot take his supernatural religous experiences for fact (he can very well have believed them as fact, but we know that they cannot have happened in objective reality like that), he is not exactly the most reliable witness in the first place.