[parodysbird]

I called him a divine being to describe the kind of experience it was. There was a historical human form of Jesus that the chosen apostles interacted with. In Paul's testimony he encounters Jesus who is not take the form of a historical human anymore and therefore the type of religious experience this is, is one with the divine. I am not making a Christological argument on the full nature of Jesus.

I am Christian btw, but I support bringing historical and documentary rigor to theology. I also haven't actually doubted anything, at least not of Christ. I've just characterized Paul's gospel and mission as coming from a private and separate revelation, unlike the gospels and missions that the original apostles received.

The point that I made based on that is that it is strange that a lot of the theology of Christianity as it develops centuries later is derived more from the exceptional and privately delivered gospel of Paul, rather than from the gospels of the apostles of Jesus when he also held a historical human form.

I think there is also an obvious scholarly reason for this that doesn't even require belief, which is that Paul's writings are the closest documents we have to the time of historical Jesus. However, that also gives reason for us to be cautious in hanging major theological positions on specific sections in Paul that seem absent from or in tension with the synoptic gospels.

[noshitsherlock]

So I’m wondering, do you the epistles Paul wrote as less authoritative and scriptural then the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? I just trying to understand the distinctions you are trying to communicate in your responses. Thank you for sharing and I don’t want to continue to make assumptions like I did in my first comment that miss the mark

[noshitsherlock]

I would just refer you to 2 Peter 3:15-16 where Peter, whom you might consider authoritative, claims Paul’s writings as being scripture.