Bad Anti-Christian Argument: Paul Didn't Believe in an Earthly Jesus

On my alternate-history forum, there was a discussion about what might have happened if Jesus had died in infancy.  From a historical perspective, this means no Christianity, period, which in turn spawns a multitude of other changes.

However, this derailed into a discussion about whether Jesus actually existed in the first place.  Although the Jesus Myth Theory is no longer as prominent as it was in the 19th Century, there are still some people who believe in it.

One of the arguments used by the JMT crowd is that the Apostle Paul did not believe in an actual Jesus who walked the Earth and instead believed in a Jesus whose sacrifice and resurrection took place in the spiritual realm.  Scholar Robert Price, according to the Wikipedia article, said the letters of Paul do not provide evidence of a historical Jesus, while George Albert Wells suggests Paul's Jesus was primarily a heavenly being.

Here's another link describing the "heavenly Jesus" theory in more detail:

Christ As "Man": Does Paul Speak of Jesus as a Historical Person?

Here's another:

Did Jesus Actually Exist?

However, this argument fails because Paul makes references to the earthly Jesus in several different contexts.

Jesus as a descendant of Abraham: Galatians 3:15-16 (ESV)

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ.

Jesus as a physical descendant of King David: Romans 1:3 (ESV)

concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh.

Jesus born of a woman and subject to the Law of Moses: Galatians 4:4 (ESV)

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law. 


Jesus' institution of the Last Supper: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (ESV)


 ²³For  I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that  the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." ²⁵In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." ²⁶For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Jesus, like the Old Testament prophets, had been persecuted and killed: 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16


¹⁴For you, brothers,became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, ¹⁵ who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind ¹⁶by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God’s wrath has come upon them at last


Jesus appeared to mortals after His resurrection: 1 Corinthians 15:1-6 (ESV)

³For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.


Jesus had mortal brothers, who were married and whose wives traveled with them: 1 Corinthians 9:5 (NIV)

Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?

And the Wikipedia article on the JMT contains other Pauline references to Jesus's earthly life that I did not include because they *could* be construed, however weakly, as not taking place on this earth.  I think those I did choose are enough to destroy the notion that Paul did not believe in a human Jesus.

Also, the Acts of the Apostles, which was written by Luke, describes how Paul was present when Stephen, the first martyr, was killed.  This takes place in Acts 6, which does not appear to be all that long after Jesus's ascension into heaven and Pentecost.  Even though Paul was not a Christian at this point, he would have likely at least had some familiarity with Jesus' earthly ministry.

This article here also finds parallels between Jesus' teachings and those of Paul, which should also nix those claims that Paul was using Jesus to advance his own ideas and that he was not familiar with the teachings of the earthly Jesus, a claim that is sometimes tied with the "heavenly Jesus" idea:

Pauline Theology: Jesus and Paul

Even if Christianity is not "the true religion" (and I would be dishonest if I did not say there are some things that have caused me to doubt in recent years), there are still a whole lot of really bad arguments against it.  If we're going to debate something with eternal implications (such as the veracity of Christianity), we should at least get rid of the foolish arguments on both sides.

(There are bad Christian arguments too, but those are not the focus of this blog post.)