I have always assumed that, as an apostle, Paul personally knew Jesus, but Michael H. Hart in his book The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History claims that it was doubtful they ever met. Is this conspiracy theory stuff or does it have any merit?
What does the historical record say?
I meant to post this in General Questions, so go ahead and move it if you need to.
No, Saul was a persecutor of the New Jews or early christians. He never saw Jesus Christ while he was alive. On the day of his conversion, he does claim that God spoke to him. That should be close enuf…?
Paul didn’t know anything about Jesus while Jesus was on Earth. After the ascension, Paul even because to persecute members of this nascent new religion within Judaism. His conversion to Christianity, documented in Acts, occured after he was blinded by a vision of Christ on the road to Damascus.
If you believe Paul’s account, then he did know Jesus personally, albeit not corporeally. If you dismiss Christianity, then he didn’t.
UnuMondo
Not unless you count hallucinations.
since there was a corroborating witness that Saul had indeed converted, it wasnt a simple hallucination. Youre only insane if youre the only one who hears God talk to you. If another heard the same story, then either both are crazy but with strangely connected stories or they really were telling the truth.
http://www.lapraik.com/cordeaux/GCSE%20Short%20course/st_paul’s_conversion.htm
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hallucination.
Well, Paul and Jesus did meet once. After Jesus came down from the cross, had sex with Mary Magdalane, married that other chick called Mary and settled down into a normal, happy life of raising animals and children, he ran into the Apostle Paul proselytizing in the city square. Jesus calls him to task, saying that he never died and he’ll tell everyone that Paul is a liar, and Paul says: “Go ahead. Tell them now. Who’s going to believe you? You don’t understand how much people need G-d. I created the truth out of what people wanted to hear.” [slightly paraphrased]
Of course, it all turned out to be a dream – or rather, a demonic temptation, by Satan posing as a little girl. His Last Temptation, if you like. 
Hunh…? my link died
heres a quote from the site:
Now. If it was a hallucination then the question becomes, how does a stranger (Ananais) who dislikes Saul by reputation, come to the same conclusion that Saul must preach to world about the word of Christ? How can 2 separate hallucinations be so congruent in context? Why would Ananais trust a persecutor of his religion become one if its preachers?
You’re assuming, of course, that Luke was 100% accurate in writing his gospel. As opposed to writing down the stories told him by Paul.
Assuming, again, that the Luke who’s popularly believed to have written both the gospel of that name and the Acts of the Apostles is the real author of either.
Then that is a matter of faith.
According to Acts 22:9, Paul’s companion’s could not hear the voice.
I mean companions, not “companion’s.”
On your side of the question, perhaps. On the rational side, it’s a matter of unreliable and inconsistent evidence making an unconvincing case for things being as the more rigid of the Faithful wish it to be.
I don’t know of anyone who claimed, in the first place, that Paul met the living Jesus. Paul himself never claims to have met the man. Instead, Paul has some sort of experience on the road with a sort of spiritual Jesus. I’ve heard, though can’t confirm, that in the Pauline account of the event, there was some controversy over the passage, which is translated sometimes as “[Christ] was revealed TO him” and sometimes “[Christ] was revealed IN him”: two translations with radically different theological implications.
Did Luke ever meet Paul? I’m not sure he ever did (or that anyone claims he ever did). Certainly, Luke’s account of Paul gives a radically different spin on who Paul was than Paul’s own letters do. Luke’s Gospel and Acts are much later documents who’s main focus seems to be establishing the idea of empowered Apostolic authority. I think we can assume that Paul’s own accounts of his own experiences should count for more than Luke’s later retelling.
It’s even more confusing and contradictory than that, Diogenes. In two different places in the same book, that’s reversed.
Acts 9:7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.
Acts 22:9 Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me.
So, which was it? Did they see the light but not hear the voice? Or did they hear the voice and not see the light? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
Just for myself, I think it would have been better all around if Saul of Tarsus had taken that left turn at Albquequrqe and avoided the road to Damascus altogether. With Paul, Xtian thought falls from religion into the lifeless grasp of theology. More’s the pity.
Well, Jesus might not have met St. Paul, but He might have visited Minneapolis.
(At least, if you believe in the Book of Mormon.)
Drag that man out and shoot him. I’ll swear out the warrant later.
Is it just me, or does it seem as though S/Paul just changed his persecution of Jesus followers from outward to inward? I mean, instead of threatening to kill them, he just made their lives a living hell with his ideas of how to live.