What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus?

[Wootah]

Acts 9 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Conversion of Saul
9 But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. 4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? 5 And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do. 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus?

[brunumb]

Where are the stone tablets

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/03/ ... ew-search/

The Ark of the Covenant, which supposedly has contained the tablets with the Ten Commandments, is the subject of a new search

Completely irrelevant if there were no stone tablets. By the way, even the existence of Moses is disputed.

[Yahwehismywitness]

Completely irrelevant if there were no stone tablets. By the way, even the existence of Moses is disputed.

Outside sources are now irrelevant although science proof was wanted? Why would they be searching for something if it did not exist? Something that old would require archeologist are you against them too?

[Trismegistus]

Nothing happened to Paul ! It is a fake story . Paul was a Jewish turncoat who became a Roman sympathiser . Paul hijacked the mystical Jesus teachings from James brother of Jesus .
Paul created that conversion story to create a confraternity to Jesus were none existed ! Paul was a grifter !

[r1xlx]

[Replying to post 1 by Wootah]

Saul was a murderer delighting in capturing and killing Christians.
GOD and Jesus decided to make him the ultimate martyr and Christian apologist.
Jesus was sent to meet Saul on the road to Damascus and blinded him to make him helpless to give him reason to believe and time to think how wrong and doomed he was by his Jewish upbringing.
9:19 So when he had received food, he was strengthened and changed his name to Paul. Then Paul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. We aren't told how many days he spent learning the truth but when we remember Moses spent 80 days and nights hearing GOD tell of Creation we can believe that the days with the disciples were intense study of the scriptures and Jesus's life and message.
Once they and he had straightened out his beliefs he spent the rest of his life preaching the gospel, guiding and correcting the congregations .
His meeting with Jesus is foolshness to non-Christians as comments on this thread show.

[Trismegistus]

[Replying to post 34 by r1xlx]

You are quoting a bible with zero evidence to back up Pauls words about his conversion . I presented a theory that has historical non - biblical evidence that is research. Now there is no topic of this we can trust with out conjecture or faith , but faith will not hold up in a courtroom.

[Yahwehismywitness]

Saul was a murderer delighting in capturing and killing Christians.

John 8:44 he was murderer from the beginning and abode not in truth

Sign of murderer does not abode in truth

Clue number 1. Acts 9:14 with authority of high priest - Same folks he was working for as a murderer. He knew them Acts 26:12

Then Jesus said to them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Matthew 16:6

Only spirit there is Satan signs and wonders like the Egyptians

[Difflugia]

...changed his name to Paul.

This is a common claim, but there's no good reason to think it's what the story means.

Acts 13:9 only says that Saul "is also Paul." Before that, the narrator of Acts referred to him as Saul and called him Paul from then on, but he doesn't actually lose the name as though it were changed. In chapter 22, the angel and Ananias still refer to him (presumably in Aramaic or Hebrew) as Saul. Saul was his Hebrew/Aramaic name and Paul was his Greek name. Both were true simultaneously and no change was needed or implied.

If I may engage in a bit of speculation, I don't think he ever was actually called Saul. My guess is that the author of Acts was using "Saul" as a way to distance Paul from the story of Sergius Paulus until he could neutralize it in 13:6-12. The whole reason Acts was written seems to have been to reconcile Petrine (Jewish or Jerusalem) and Pauline (Gentile or Asian) Christianities. A number of commentators think that Simon Magus of Acts 8:9-24 was based on a caricature of Paul, seeing the "simony" of Simon Magus being a twisting of Romans 15:26-28 and Galatians 2:8-10 into Paul offering a bribe. I think Acts 13:6-8 is another such story and vv 9-12 are the harmonizing neutralization.

I'm guessing that the original libel behind 13:6-8 was that Paul was a sycophant that took the name of Paul from Sergius Paulus (as Josephus called himself Flavius to flatter Vespasian). He then (the story went) tried to teach Sergius Paulus a false (Pauline) form of Christianity. The author of Acts wanted to avoid this association until it could be neutralized, so Paul became Saul until the very verse (13:9) in which he confronted the evil sorceror that was obvs a totally different person. The libel thus refuted, Paul could then get his real name back for the rest (and best parts) of the story.

[Trismegistus]

[Replying to Difflugia]

I agree with some of your stuff . Paul was born a Roman Citizen and would have been named Paul by his father (praenomen) . Saul would have been a second name (cognomen ) . When Paul travelled for work into gentile territory he reverted to his surname of Paul . Saul had some bad meanings in greek like Saulos which mean being provocative Saul also had a meaning of sauntering or lazy manner to walking .

Saul was his Jewish second name when around Jewish people . Paul would have been a Roman name which he was born in the State . My opinions . Good thread though !

[bluegreenearth]

Given the limited quantity and poor quality of the available evidence, any intellectually honest person will have to acknowledge that it is impossible to precisely determine what actually happened to Paul on the road to Damascus compared to what Paul claimed happened. However, if we are going to speculate, the most reasonable and rational approach is to evaluate all explanations that have been proposed and rank them according to their possibility and plausibility.

So, how do we determine if a proposed explanation is possible? An explanation is possible if it describes something that has an implicit empirical basis. We know something has an implicit empirical basis if has been previously demonstrated to occur or exist. For example, if I walk into the kitchen and find the pieces of a shattered plate on the floor, the explanation that my dog accidentally knocked it off the table while attempting to lick off the remaining scraps of food is possible because everything about this explanation has an implicit empirical basis. My dog has been previously demonstrated to exist, and the described behavior of my dog has been previously observed to occur. Similarly, the explanation that a black bear found its way into my house and knocked the plate onto the floor after bumping into the kitchen table on the way out the back door is also a possibility on account of it having an implicit empirical basis as well. However, despite the fact that black bears have been demonstrated to exist and are known to enter homes on occasion, this possible explanation is more implausible than the dog explanation for intuitive and obvious reasons that I assume you will understand and accept.

Meanwhile, the explanation that an evil demon materialized on my kitchen table and knocked the plate on the floor before it escaped back to the netherworld is not yet known to be possible because evil demons have never been demonstrated to exist. Consequently, it would be presumptuous and unreasonable for me to claim that it is possible for an evil demon to have been responsible for knocking the plate off the table. If I had previously acquired empirical evidence demonstrating the existence of evil demons, then the evil demon claim could have been considered a possible candidate explanation for the shattered plate on the kitchen floor. It should be noted, though, that I'm not declaring the evil demon explanation to be impossible either. Given the lack of empirical evidence, I simply cannot know if the existence of evil demons is possible or impossible to even begin considering it as a candidate explanation.

We can apply the same rationale and reasoning to explanations given for Paul's Damascus Road experience. The standard Christian explanation is that Jesus was actually supernaturally resurrected, ascended to heaven, then later decided an encounter with Paul would be the most effective strategy for communicating his message about eternal salvation. Does this supernatural resurrection claim have an implicit empirical basis for us to know it could be a possible candidate explanation? No, we have no empirical evidence demonstrating that anything supernatural exists or occurs for us to know this supernatural resurrection explanation is even a possibility to be considered. This is not at all the same thing as declaring the supernatural resurrection explanation to be impossible. We are just compelled by intellectual honesty to place greater weight on claims with an implicit empirical basis because that serves to demonstrate they are at least possible as candidate explanations.

[Goose]

Given the limited quantity and poor quality of the available evidence,...

Granted the evidence is limited. Of course it is. Very little evidence from the first century or close to it which reported on the activities of first century Judea has come down to us. As for the poor quality of evidence, against what historical standard are you determining it to be poor? It seems to me the book of Acts represents very strong historical evidence in regards to Paul. The internal evidence suggests the author of Acts was a companion not only of Paul himself but was in the presence of the leaders in Jerusalem. Even if we arent willing to grant those two points, Acts is still written quite close to the life Paul by a near contemporary and would therefore still constitute good historical evidence by comparison to other history.

...any intellectually honest person will have to acknowledge that it is impossible to precisely determine what actually happened to Paul on the road to Damascus compared to what Paul claimed happened.

Of course. But that isnt really saying much. We have to say that it is impossible to precisely determine what actually happened in regards to any event from ancient history.

However, if we are going to speculate, the most reasonable and rational approach is to evaluate all explanations that have been proposed and rank them according to their possibility and plausibility.

How do you propose to do that objectively without simply preferring a set of explanations because they seem to align with your world view? Would it not be better to go with the explanation that has the greatest explanatory scope and power?