6. Apostolic authority

Doherty next observes that Paul, in defending his apostolic credentials as equal to those of Cephas, James, and the other "pillars" in Jerusalem, apparently never had to deal with accusations that he had never known Jesus in the flesh. On a historicist assumption, this would certainly have been an issue that Paul could not have pretended to ignore.

It is not at all clear, from documents of Paul's time, what actually was required to be an apostle, but by the time Acts was written, there seems to have been a supposition that it was necessary to have known Jesus personally during his earthly ministry (Acts 1:21-22). Nothing in the early Christian literature, canonical or otherwise, suggests any reason why an exception was made for Paul, and there is no hint in Paul's own writings that any exception was even necessary.

And as Doherty points out, it is not as though Paul tries to hide the fact that some people thought he had no business calling himself an apostle. Whatever their objections, though, Paul's defense never addresses the point that he never met Jesus. But surely that would have been the chief complaint by his detractors? We don't need to assume that Acts was historically accurate about the selection of Judas's successor. If there was a real Jesus, no dispute about apostolic authority would have been conducted without Paul's adversaries raising the issue of who had known Jesus during his earthly ministry and who had not.

While conceding that "Doherty makes a good point," Ted tries hard to find an explanation in the "context," but it's all just so many could-bes, perhapses, possiblies, and for-all-we-knows. Speculations cannot be evidence, though, especially when they assume their conclusion.

In setting up his case, Ted notes:

Paul appears to be stressing his direct call from God to assert his authority with the Galations to whom he is writing. He stresses that he did not confer with flesh and blood directly after his conversion, and how he didn't go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before him, apparently for 3 years (1:16-18). He does say he spent 15 days with Peter in Jerusalem, but doesn't say why or what they talked about or did during that time. He states of those who were "of high reputation" that what they were makes no difference to him (2:6). He says he opposed Cephas (Peter) to his face for hypocritical behavior (2:11).

Yes, indeed. And every bit of that is contrary to what we should expect if Paul had been converted to a religion that began with Jesus of Nazareth's ministry and was now being led by men who had been with Jesus throughout that ministry. Even supposing that Paul was egotistical enough to think he understood Jesus' teachings better than the men who had heard the teachings from Jesus himself, it is not credible that he would act if that difference between him and Cephas et al. did not even exist. Those who questioned Paul's authority had to have been screaming bloody murder over it, and he would have to have said something in response to that if he wanted the Galatians or anyone else to take him seriously.

Ted goes on:

It may well be that Paul's emphasis on his direct revelation from God and on his close relationship with the Galations . . . was in response to this unexplained authority of the pillars and others.

How is this supposed to resolve the discrepancy? Whatever it took to be an apostle, Paul could reasonably suppose that the Galatians knew what it was. He could not, however, reasonably suppose that, if the pillars had gotten their authority from Jesus himself, the Galatians would just take his word for it that his own claim to apostolic authority was just as good as theirs.

Why else does Paul clearly acknowledge their authority?

He does not clearly acknowledge that they had any authority over him. He acknowledges that they have some authority over some part of the Christian community. He could hardly have denied that. Obviously, the Christian community had accepted the pillars' authority before Paul's conversion. It is also not apparent why he would have wanted to deny their authority. All he needed for his own ministry was that his own authority be accepted.

Why did he visit Peter for 15 days and say nothing about their visit? Why did he privately lay out his gospel before the pillars "lest I had been running in vain", without saying why their position mattered to him? Could it now be because their authority came from having known the Christ on earth--something Paul could never claim?

More likely it was only because their authority was senior to his. They were apostles before he was an apostle. It is hardly surprising that he would have preferred having their endorsement if he could get it. At the same time, he clearly had no intention of getting their endorsement if the price was going to be his complete submission to them.

Had Paul written "8For as Jesus appointed Peter to be an apostle to the Jews, so too God the Father through his son Jesus Christ appointed me an apostle to the gentiles", he may have drawn further attention to his inferior status in opponents eyes

No matter what he wrote, his opponents would have drawn all the attention they needed to his inferior status. That was not an issue that he could make go away just by pretending it didn't exist.

In Galations we see that Paul downplays the authority of the pillars

Yes, as if they have no grounds whatever for claiming any more authority than he does. The issue for Paul is not whether the pillars have any authority. The issue for Paul is whether Paul has any authority.

an authority he still subjects himself to

I don't see subjection. I see accommodation. He doesn't want to fight them. All he wants is to be allowed to do his own thing.

it would not be surprising if Paul had decided to phrase Peter's appointment similarly to that of his own, in order to bring his own authority up to the level of Peter's.

Right. It would be particularly not surprising in the event that Peter's appointment was as a matter of fact no different from Paul's own. What we see is exactly what we would expect to see if (1) Paul's credentials actually were the same as all the other apostles' credentials and (2) getting people to accept those credentials was purely a matter of salesmanship.

Ted then gets into a discussion of four possible reasons why some were questioning Paul's status as an apostle, beginning with the observation that we "just don't know" which of them applies. I suspect his list is not exhaustive, but it doesn't matter much because he's right: We really have no idea. Paul does not tell us, and neither does any other Christian writer who might have been in a position to know. We also don't know, and have no reason to assume, that there was only one reason. We can note, however, that to suggest it had anything to do with his not having known Jesus during his ministry is to beg the question.

Concerning that suggestion, Ted seems to think it significant that "he never explains the importance of the twelve mentioned in 1 Cor 15, nor why the pillars—Peter, James, and John, were important to him." To some extent we've already discussed this. Their authority had been established before he came along, and he preferred—wisely, no doubt—to get along with them rather than overtly to fight with them. Ted thinks "it is clear he valued them," but that is not so clear. To me, what is clear is that he valued their acquiescence.

Then we skip over to I Cor. 9:5, where Paul has a throwaway line about the "brothers of the lord." It doesn't really have anything to do with apostleship, of course, but nobody defending Jesus' historicity can leave "brothers of the lord" alone. Admitting that he is "aware of other interpretations," Ted says that "one would normally assume in the absence of contrary information" that Paul is "referring to siblings of Jesus." I have no idea what Ted would consider "contrary information," but if there is a great deal of evidence that there was no historical Jesus, and if this verse is the only evidence that there was one, then I would argue that we have contrary information. Of course the division of evidence for and against Jesus' historicity is not quite that one-sided. The point is: Every scrap of documentary evidence that is pertinent to a study of Christianity's origins is relevant to how Paul's words here ought to be construed. If, absent this particular reference to "brothers of the lord," the preponderance of evidence is against Jesus' historicity, then some interpretation other than "siblings of Jesus" becomes what "one would normally assume."

Next, Ted turns to the gospel of Luke and the commissioning of the 70 in Chapter 10. Ted calls them apostles. Luke does not call them apostles, and in Chapter 6 he clearly implies there were only 12 apostles; but Ted refers to these 70 as apostles anyway, and so we'll go with that. His argument here is: Jesus told the apostles to greet people with peace and to rely on charity for their necessities; Paul in his letters often greets people with peace, and he asserts an entitlement to be supported by charity; therefore, "Paul may have been aware of a tradition that originated with the commandments of the gospel Jesus."

Well, yes, it is possible that he may have been aware of such a tradition. Speculation about what may have been the case, though, can never be evidence for (or against) what was in fact the case. Anyway, greetings like "Grace and peace to you" probably did not originate with Christianity, and we know very certainly that since time immemorial, religious leaders have expected their followers to feed them. It smacks of desperation for Ted to go even for a could-have-been in this instance.

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This page last updated on June 15, 2015.