The conversion of Paul

The evidence explained

This item is unusual because we have first-person testimony. Paul writes about his own prior persecution of the church and his reversal in letters historians accept as authentically his — Galatians and 1 Corinthians among them. We are therefore not dependent on a later narrator's account of somebody else's inner life.

The argumentative force lies in motive. Conversions in the direction of one's existing incentives are easy to explain; Paul's ran the other way. He moved from a position of standing and security within his community to one of floggings, imprisonments, and eventual execution, on the basis of a claim he says he received by appearance rather than by instruction.

The skeptical explanations are serious and should be stated fairly: a visionary or hallucinatory experience under psychological strain, or a gradual reconsideration later narrated as a sudden event. Defenders respond that a hallucination hypothesis fits an existing expectation poorly — Paul had no expectation of a crucified Messiah being vindicated — and that group appearances resist the same explanation. Skeptics reply that individual psychology is unpredictable and that group appearance reports may be later consolidations. The disagreement is about the best explanation of an agreed set of facts, which is exactly what a mature apologetic conversation looks like.