Was Paul a follower of Jesus?

My title begs for definitions. By Paul I mean to designate the author of the seven undisputed first-century letters attributed to him: Romans, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, First Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon. By Jesus I mean to designate the early first-century Judean man who was crucified by Roman authority between AD 26 and 36. By follower I mean to raise the question was Paul an adherent, disciple, or partisan of, and loyal to, the ideas he gleaned from the man from Galilee of Judea, who died when Pontius Pilate was Prefect of Judea.

            Paul knew bits of data about the life of the Judean man that came to him through the tradition: Jesus was born of woman under the Israelite Torah (Gal 4:4); Paul knew that Jesus had a brother (Gal 1:19). Paul also mentions three incidents from the life of Jesus. He ate a meal on the night he was arrested (1 Cor 11:23-25), he was crucified (Gal 3:1) and was buried (1 Cor 15:4).¹ Paul also was aware of certain sayings that perhaps can be traced back to sayings attributable to the man from Galilee (1 Cor 11:23-25, 7:10-11; 2 Cor 12:9; 1 Thess 4:15). But he attributes these sayings to "the Lord."² By the use of this title is he referring to the Judean man or the spirit of the resurrected Lord of faith who, he claimed, dwelled within the believer (Rom 8:9-11)? What is at issue is precisely whom does he follow.

            Paul uses the name of the Judean man, Jesus, only ten times alone in the undisputed letters without the Christological titles awarded to him by the faith of the later religious community. Generally, he uses the name of Jesus in combination with the theological titles. The titles are, Christ and Lord, or some combination thereof, but in these ten instances Paul uses the name of the Judean man alone. Which figure does he seem to be evoking by using the name Jesus alone: the Judean man or the Christ spirit within him?

            Rom 3:26 concludes: "…that he [God] is righteous, justifying a person by the faith of Jesus."³ Here he appears to be speaking about the Judean man, not the Christ spirit that motivates him.

            Rom 10:9: "Jesus is Lord"; Jesus refers to the Judean man and the title Lord refers to the resurrected Lord of faith, whom Jesus became by his resurrection from the dead.

            1 Cor 12:3: in both cases, the name Jesus refers to the Judean man and the title Lord refers to the Christ spirit within Paul.

            2 Cor 4:10-11: "the death of Jesus" evokes the death of the Judean man, while "the life of Jesus" evokes the resurrected Lord of faith.

            2 Cor 11:4: the "Jesus" that Paul proclaimed was Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23), an expression evoking the death of the Judean man.

            Gal 6:17: the "marks of Jesus on Paul's body" could only refer to the crucified Judean man.

            1 Thess 1:10: it was the Judean man who was "raised from the dead," albeit spiritually (1 Cor 15:44, 50).

            1 Thess 4:14: The Jesus who died and rose again was the Judean man, albeit spiritually resurrected (1 Cor 15:44, 50).

Phil 2:10: Phil 2:6-11 has long been regarded as an early pre-Pauline hymn that Paul quoted and in doing so added the following words to verse 8, "even death on a cross." In the hymn, Jesus (2:10) is the Judean man whom God exalts. I suggest that Phil 2:11 are Paul's own words added to the hymn to harmonize the Judean man with the spirit of the resurrected Lord of faith. Compare in the first half of Phil 2:11 the words "every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord" to Rom 10:9 and in the second half of the verse the words "by the glory of God, the Father" to Rom 6:4.This latter phrase appears as a standard Pauline element of the epistolary salutation in his letters: "Grace to you and peace from God, our Father…" (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Phil 1:2; Philemon 3), as well as in Pauline doxologies (2 Cor 1:3; Gal 1:4; Phil 4:20) and thanksgivings (1 Thess 1:3).

            Here is a statement Paul makes in 2 Cor 5:16: "…if also we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer think [of him that way]."⁴ If this statement were applied to the situation in this essay, it would suggest that Paul no longer thinks of Jesus as a Judean man become divine (i.e., a half human⁵), rather he now thinks of Jesus as the Lord Jesus Christ, God's son, rather than Mary's son.⁶

This essay is incomplete; it is more suggestive than definitive.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Hedrick, The Wisdom of Jesus, 1-2.

²In Rom 13:9 Paul does not cite the Lord as source; he likely knew it through reading Hebrew Bible (Lev 19:18).

³The Greek reads: dikaiounta tov ek pisteōs Iēsou. See the translation of Rom 3:26 in A. Dewey, et al., The Authentic Letters of Paul (Salem, OR: Polebridge Press, 2010), 219. See also the cameo essay on Gal 2:16, pp. 65-66.

⁴The literal expression "according to the flesh" (kata sarka) in the Danker-Bauer Greek-English Lexicon is translated as: "according to human standards."

⁵A term (ēmianthrōpos) used of Dionysus by Lucian in the second century (the Parliament of the Gods, 4). For a list of the Demigods in ancient belief see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demigods.

⁶The statement by Paul has created a great deal of difficulty for commentators on the text of second Corinthians. See Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 32 A; New York: Doubleday: 1984), 312-14, 329-32.