When Paul Met Jesus: How an Idea Got Lost in History

by Stanley E. Porter

Overview

Did Paul ever meet Jesus and hear him teach? A century ago, a curious assortment of scholars - William Ramsay, Johannes Weiss, and James Hope Moulton - thought that he had. Since then, their idea has virtually disappeared from New Testament scholarship, to be revived in this monograph. When Paul Met Jesus is an exercise in both biblical exegesis and intellectual history. After examining the positive arguments raised, it considers the negative influence of Ferdinand Christian Baur, William Wrede, and Rudolf Bultmann on such an idea, as they drove a growing wedge between Jesus and Paul. In response, Stanley E. Porter analyzes three passages in the New Testament - Acts 9:1-9 and its parallels, 1 Corinthians 9:1, and 2 Corinthians 5:16 - to confirm that there is New Testament evidence that Paul encountered Jesus. The implications of this discovery are then explored in important Pauline passages that draw Jesus and Paul back together again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107127968
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/24/2016
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.33(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Stanley E. Porter is President, Dean, Professor of New Testament, and Roy A. Hope Chair in Christian Worldview at McMaster Divinity College, Ontario. He has written and edited numerous books, and his recent publications include Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament: Studies in Tools, Methods, and Practice and Paul and Ancient Rhetoric: Theory and Practice in the Hellenistic Context (with Bryan R. Dyer, Cambridge, forthcoming).

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. What scholars have said in the past about Paul and Jesus; 2. What scholars now say about Paul and Jesus; 3. What the New Testament does and does not say about Paul and Jesus; 4. The implications of Paul having met Jesus; Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

'I, for one, think that based upon those considerations alone it is more likely that Paul did in fact see Jesus than that he did not. For other to be persuaded, they will need to pick up a copy of Porter’s monograph and weigh the evidence for themselves.' Kenneth Berding, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

From the Publisher