Paul claims that Jesus appeared to him. Does this present a reliable witness to the Christian claim that Jesus was resurrected?
In 1 Corinthians 15:8, Paul refers to his alleged encounter with a risen apparition of Jesus on the road to Damascus. The description of this visitation as found in Acts 9:1-6 is very different from the allegedly physical, visible manifestation supposedly experienced by what he calls “the twelve” (that is, the eleven disciples). In 1 Corinthians 15:8, Paul describes his alleged encounter with a phantom voice using the same verb (ophthe kamoi, “he appeared also to me”) as he uses for the encounter allegedly experienced by “the twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:5). However, the account of Paul’s alleged experience with this phantom voice recorded approximately fifty years later, by the author of the Book of Acts, shows that he did not see anyone. In this description of the alleged event, it is claimed that Paul heard the voice of Jesus call out to him. There is no claim that Jesus met him in the flesh. In the midst of a seizure Paul hallucinated, believing that out of a blinding light he heard a
