The writings of the Apostle Paul (that likely predate the Gospels) are important witnesses to the historical Jesus (listen to this episode of my podcast). Mythicists, however, argue this is a weak point in the argument for Jesus. It is not surprising that R.G. Price addresses Paul in his Case Against Historical Christ.
The earliest writings about Jesus, from Paul and others, contain no details of his life
Price has an interesting place to start in arguing against Paul’s knowledge of Jesus. He begins by looking at 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16. This is not the strongest evidence for what Paul knows about Jesus and it is not something I use in my arguments.
Price points to this passage for a very specific rhetorical reason. Price states: “This passage is widely accepted by scholars as a later addition to the Pauline text for the purpose of establishing a later doctrine.” Let’s take a look at this claim.
Is it “widely accepted”? He does provide a link to an article by a scholar making such a claim but it is hardly “widely accepted.” The reason for this is that there is no textual evidence for such an addition. That is, no surviving manuscript for the passage being added.
So why does anyone think it is added? Speaking of some of the things that some Jews had done, Paul says “but wrath has come upon them completely.” (1 Thessalonians 2:16) The assumption is that this is the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Since 1 Thessalonians was written a couple of decades before that, this passage must be a later addition.
But Paul does not specify the nature of the wrath and assuming it is the events of 70 AD is pure speculation. And why would someone add this anyway? Price says it is for “establishing a later doctrine.” Presumably he means that of a Jesus who really existed (although technically it is possible the wrath part was added as an interpretation with Paul’s words about the death of Jesus being authentic).
The only reason Price is bringing this up is to plant the seed that whatever evidence for the historical Jesus that we might find in Paul was all later additions. The problem is that there is no textual evidence for this claim.
I am not going to go into all of the details that Paul gives about Jesus. But I will point you toward an article I wrote for an academic journal that shows the evidence for the historical Jesus in 1 Corinthians (one of the “authentic” letters of Paul).
But why doesn’t Paul say more about Jesus? As a historian of early Christianity, I wish he did. There are two things to consider.
One is that Paul was not writing biographies, nor was he writing to satisfy the curiosity of modern Christians. He was writing to specific churches, that were familiar with the life of Jesus (at least in outline) and he was responding to certain situations that they were facing. It just didn’t fit with his purposes to mention the virgin birth or go over the parables.
The other thing is that, along with being meagre on biographical data on Jesus, Paul is reluctant to share autobiographical information about himself. For example, Paul never mentions in his letters that his name was also Saul and that he was Tarsus. That is found only in Acts.
Does Paul mention anything about the historical Jesus? Not as much as we would like, but contrary to Mythicists such as R.G. Price, Paul is not silent on Jesus.
do not find that explanation for Paul’s silence very persuasive.
While I might not expect Paul to discuss biographical details of Jesus’ life, I don’t see how he could have avoided discussing the meaning of things that the historical Jesus said and did because his opponents would have brought it up. For example, in the debate over circumcision, surely one of his opponents would have pointed to the fact that Jesus was known to be an observant Jew. I think that Paul would have had to deal with that argument.
I would also have expected there to be discussions of the authenticity of teachings attributed to Jesus. Just as there were people who forged letters in Paul’s name in order to bolster their position, I find it difficult to believe that there wouldn’t have been some people who invented stories about the things Jesus taught in order to bolster their position. Identifying authentic teachings of Jesus would have necessarily been a matter of great concern, yet we do not see any hint of that in Paul’s letters.
It is of course difficult to know exactly what Paul’s opponents were arguing since we only have his side of the conversation. Nevertheless, if there had been people relying on their personal knowledge of things that the earthly Jesus said and did, it is hard for me to believe that some evidence of that wouldn’t have shown up in the way that Paul structured his arguments.