"The most popular expression of religious faith during the era which saw the rise of Christianity was not the official state religion of "Olympian" gods, but the salvation cults known as the "mystery religions".
This is a quote from a website promoting the theory that Paul, the earliest writer of the New Testament was presenting a "Saviour" that came from ancient mystery religions, then the writers of the Gospels attached those ideas to the more recent person of Jesus of Nazareth. They say this explains how the "legend" of Jesus could have developed so quickly after he lived. Last time we looked at the problems with the latter part of this theory, now lets look at what they say about Paul.
- We need to remember that the Jews were very resistant to pagan religious ideas. Paul was a former Pharisee, so why would he start to promote a new religion based on pagan ideas? Also, there is no evidence that mystery religions even existed until after Paul wrote his epistles.
- If Paul was writing about a Jesus who lived long ago, why did he refer to Jesus's brother James who was still living? (Galatians 1:19).
- In 1 Corinthians 1:11-13, Paul lists people to whom Jesus appeared to after his resurrection. They were not people in the past, but contemporaries of Paul, many of whom were still alive when he wrote the book.
- In 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 Paul indicates it was the people who killed Jesus who were at that time hindering him from preaching the gospel. That doesn't sound like a Jesus who lived in the distant past.
It seems pretty clear when reading what Paul wrote about Jesus that he was writing about someone not from ancient times but from his own lifetime. Next time, we will look at the question some raise about why Paul did not give more details about the life of Jesus.
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