Here is Rembrandt's 1627 painting of the Apostle Paul in prison suitably if ineply photoshopped. Paul's letters are the earliest writings we have which refer to Jesus, and they contain no reference to any of his teachings or miracles despite there being many places where such teachings would have been relevant to Paul's arguments. Paul makes numerous references to Jesus being crucified but never mentions his trial, pilot or any of the events surrounding his crucifixion. Nor does he give any indication of when the crucifixing occurred. He makes very few references of any kind that imply Jesus was on earth and each reference that he does make has been contested. This would be very strange for an apostle who was preaching essentially the same message as the Christian church preachers today. The silence of Paul was the starting point for the Jesus' myth theory which holds that the first Christians believe that Jesus was created cosmically, was crucified for our sins and raised from the dead all in the spiritual, not the earthly realm. The minimalist history theory on the other hand holds that the earliest Christians believe that Jesus was born lived preached and died on earth. To discriminate between history and mythicism I will look in Paul's writings for references to whether the events of Jesus' life occurred on earth or not rather than whether he was crucified. Bear in mind though that minimal history holds that all of the miracles and many of the sayings of Jesus were added to the story long after Paul died in which case Paul would have known nothing of them. Another point to note is that Paul's concept of what it is to be human was very different from ours. He was obviously very spiritually conscious as was his audience. He refers to body, mind and spirit but gives limited clues about what he understood these to be. He clearly believed in the existence of different kinds of bodies and this leaves us uncertain as to whether he believed Jesus had a physical body like ours or some other kind of body such as the kind he believed Christians have when resurrected. We have seven epistles of Paul that are regarded by most scholars as genuine. These are they in chronological order. First Thessalonians, Galatians, First Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, Second Corinthians and Romans spanning the period between 50 and 57 AD. If you read them looking specifically for references to events in the life of Jesus that occurred on earth and it is true you find very few. How few is to some extent subjective but I've tried to be fair. I have found five such references and will present them according to the order in which the epistles appear in the Bible. The first one is found at the beginning of Romans which starts Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God. The gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his son who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David and who through the spirit of holiness was appointed the son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead. Jesus Christ our Lord. That's the new international version which I shall mainly use. It's rendered in the revised standard version as who was descended from David according to the flesh and you probably know that in the King James version it refers to the seed of David. It has been argued firstly that this refers to events in a spiritual rather than an earthly realm and secondly that this first part of Romans is an interpolation and was not originally written by Paul. In any event it is certainly a suggestive reference to an earthly Jesus. The next reference is in this passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 starting at verse 3. It is one of the passages most often cited as evidence that Paul believed in the historical Jesus but I will not count it for reasons I'll come to. A further matter is that there is a part of this passage that could well be a later interpolation rather than from the original letter and that bit is colored here in green. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures and that he appeared to see-fest and then to the twelve. After that he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time most of whom are still living though some have fallen the sleep. Then he appeared to James and then to the Apostles and last of all he appeared to me as to one abnormally born. The reason I reject this as a reference to a historical Jesus is that we know that Paul never met Jesus and the only time Jesus appeared to Paul it was in vision or revelation. Paul in this passage describes the appearance of Jesus to the others in exactly the same way so we would assume that these people had Jesus appearing revelation rather than in the flesh and therefore I do not think it should be included as a potential reference to a historical Jesus but you may disagree. The third and fourth references are in Galatians. Paul is here referring to some of the people he met when he traveled to Jerusalem early in his ministry. He says I saw none of the other Apostles only James the Lord's brother. This is one of the more hotly contested passages. Historic is whole that this is clear evidence that Paul believed James who was a physical person he met in Jerusalem to be the brother of Jesus. The myth is on the other hand argued that it doesn't mean physical brother of Jesus but rather part of the brotherhood of the Church. I don't think this can be decided with certainty and so this does remain a suggestive reference to a historical Jesus. The fourth reference is in Galatians chapter 4 verse 4 and 5 but when the set time had fully come God sent his son born of a woman born under the law to redeem those under the law that we might receive adoption to sonship. The problem is that as is the case for Romans 1 verse 3 Paul uses the word genomenos meaning to happen or to become rather than his preferred word for natural childbirth. This makes it difficult to be sure whether Paul meant he thought Jesus was born of a woman on earth or born of a woman in the spiritual realm. Nevertheless this is suggestive enough for me to include as a possible reference to a historical Jesus. The fifth potential reference is here in first esolonians 2 verse 14 which reads, For you brothers and sisters became imitators of God's churches in Judea which are in Jesus Christ. You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displeased God on a hostile to everyone in their efforts to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit the wrath of God has come upon them at last. In this passage there is a very clear reference to a historical Jesus. In fact it is by far the clearest in all of Paul. The Jews is clearly an earthly reference and the fact that the Jews kill Jesus and the prophets and then also drove us out puts Jesus death on earth. The problem with this passage is the last line the wrath of God has come upon them. This is gloating over a misfortune that has befallen the Jews which sounds like the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in AD 70 which were several years after Paul died. Therefore this passage could be an interpolation and not original to Paul. But it is also possible that this was referring to some other Jewish misfortune and even if the last line is an interpolation it doesn't necessarily mean that the preceding lines are. Though in fairness it is uncharacteristic of Paul to be quite so vitriolic about his fellow Jews. That bit sounds more like John's Gospel. Another point is that the earliest secular historical records that we have refer to Jesus being killed by Pilate and not the Jews. Some minimal historicist positions hold that the Jew bashing and blaming in the Gospels was a later development making it odd that Paul would cite it here. Despite these reservations though I count this as a possible historicizing reference. This leaves four potential references to the historicity of Jesus in the 24,000 words of Paul's epistles. One in Romans as to his earthly life he was descended from David. One in Galatians 119 when he saw the brother of the Lord. One in Galatians 4-4 when God sent his son born of a woman and one in Thessalonians where the Jews killed him. All of these references to a potential historical Jesus are open to dispute but about one thing there can be no doubt. Paul's relative lack of comment on any historical features of Jesus such as his ministry, his parables in his life. So yes Paul is certainly pretty silent on the matter of a historical Jesus, possibly not completely silent but far quieter than we would expect under minimal historicity. So the silence of Paul is there and it seems to favor mythicism. In the next video we'll see how the historicists counter.