Board index ‹ Paul the Apostle

[Pree]

I think it's entirely plausible that Paul faked his conversion story in order to gain the trust of Christians. Perhaps he acted as a Trojan horse or just sought to obtain inside information about the growing sect.

But eventually he too grew fond of the Christians and became one of them. Empathizing with their persecution, seeing how fervently they believed, and experiencing firsthand their communal love for one another may have been the catalyst that eventually sparked a change in the heart of Paul.

This is a hypothesis I consider entirely plausible and I wanted to know how Christians respond to it.

[jimwalton]

That's some interesting speculation you have there, but (1) it's total speculation (2) without any evidence to support it, and (3) all the evidence points to the contrary.

1. Plausibility has to be based on syllogistic premises, and you have offered none. All you have offered is ideas based in fantasy. Maybe you think they're clever approaches, but without logic you have nowhere to go. You might as well speculate that he rose up from the ground having previously been a woodchuck.

2. There is no evidence to support (a) that he had any motive of gaining the trust of Christians as a way to subvert the movement, (b) that he had motive to covertly obtain inside information of Christianity, (c) that he gradually grew fond of them, or (d) that he was somewhat surprised by how fervently they believed. All of these are unfounded and without evidence.

The evidence is to the contrary. Having been trained in Jerusalem by Gamaliel, and being a Pharisee, he would have had information about Christianity. He would have known from the execution of Stephen how fervently they believed. He was going to Damascus with violence, not subversion, as a strategy. His change after conversion was instantaneous, not gradual.

Therefore your hypothesis is not entirely plausible; it's not plausible at all. The scientific method would require that after you state your hypothesis, you design a way of arriving at the truth of it and play it through to completion before you declare it plausible. You haven't done the work needed to arrive at your conclusion.