Category Archives: faith

Jesus and the Blind Man

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This time we’ll take a closer look at Mark 8:22-26, a story about Jesus healing a blind man:

They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village.”

This parable is doing a lot of metaphorical heavy lifting.

First, it is located in Bethsaida, the home of some of the disciples as well as the place where Jesus does some of his most spectacular miracles, only later to curse the village for its lack of interest in him (Mark 11:21). It is symbolic of those who reject the cult’s message, or are too dim to see that their heavenly Jesus is the Messiah.

Second, the story is sandwiched (no pun intended) between the feeding of the four thousand, in which the hapless disciples fail to recognise Jesus’ miraculous status, and the account of Peter realising that Jesus is in fact the Messiah. The healing of the blind man, neatly placed between the two, is therefore an allegory within allegories about seeing (gettit?) Jesus for who he really is (i.e. what cultists believed him to be.)

Third, the story is a prophecy-fulfilled parable. Isaiah 35:5 says that when the Messiah comes ‘the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.’ Jesus has to be made to do these things – he performs some ear unstopping too (Mark 7:31-35) – to show he is indeed the prophesied Messiah.

Fourth, physical blindness is a very obvious metaphor for spiritual blindness. The preceding story reminds those who can’t ‘see’ the cult’s truth for themselves: ‘Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?’ (Mark 8:18). This is itself a borrowing of Isaiah 6:9-10. Indeed, the entire story, together with that of the deaf man being cured, is a parable of Isaiah’s ‘prophecy’:

You shall indeed hear but never understand, and you shall indeed see but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.

Jesus’ healing of blindness then becomes a metaphor for seeing the light, as Peter does in the subsequent story when he finally recognises him, like the cult has done, as the Messiah.

Fifth, Jesus spits on or in the man’s eyes: a very clumsy metaphor for the streams of living water that emanate from God himself in Jeremiah 2:13. Perhaps too there’s a reference to the baptism ritual beloved of the early cult. (Christian bloggers themselves have trouble explaining this gross detail that Mark sees fit to include in his story.)

Sixth, in order to give sight to the blind man, Jesus (or rather the cult) first removes him – the initiate – from the village, from those who don’t even know they are blind. Next, Jesus/the cult shows him how those who are spiritually blind are no better than trees wandering around aimlessly (yes, Mark really does mix his metaphors). Jesus/the cult then opens the initiate’s eyes to the Truth so that finally he sees ‘everything clearly.’ He can now never return to his former state; his ‘home’ is with the cult, not with the spiritually blind outside it.

The story is evidently metaphorical. That Jesus spits in the man’s face is not, as some Christians claim, evidence that it really happened. It is weighed down by so much symbolism and clunky metaphor, and at the same time strategically placed between two other ‘seeing the light’ stories that its literary origins are apparent. Mark and his fellow cultists knew what they were doing when they dressed their beliefs up in stories like these. As they themselves insist, you need only open your eyes to see it.

The Feeding of the 4000

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Mark 8:1-15 has the credibility-defying story of Jesus feeding 4000 people. The story is in fact one of numbers, all of which have symbolic significance. Numbers, bread and fish.

At first reading the account seems to be little more than a retelling of the earlier feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6:30-44. However its numerology is different and Mark has Jesus explicitly compare the two stories in verses 8-21. Both are intentional inclusions in his gospel, not an editorial oversight.

The events almost certainly didn’t happen in reality; significant numbers of people, 5000 and 4000 respectively, following an itinerant preacher around for – magic number alert! – three days would not have escaped the attention of the Romans. Nor would the men (Matthew 13:58 insists 4000 was the number of men) have been able leave their livelihoods for this length of time to follow Jesus around the distant countryside.

Then there’s the repetition of the bread and fish motif. In both stories the entire crowd fails to bring a single thing to eat. On both occasions, the disciples somehow, from nowhere at all, come up with a few loaves and some fish. Symbolic food for symbolic crowds.

Bread, while a staple food of the first century always has spiritual significance in the bible. From manna from heaven in Exodus 16:17 to the Body of Christ in Paul’s teaching. Fish likewise: Mark has it that several of the disciples were fishermen and makes Jesus declare they’re ‘fishers of men’ (Mark 1:17). John will later take bread and fish symbolism to extremes.

The bread in the feeding of 4000 is spiritual manna. Jesus is not feeding a real crowd with real bread. He is ‘feeding’ those who follow him, the early cult, with himself: ‘Jesus took bread… and said this is my body which is for you’ as Paul has him say in 1 Corinthians 11:23-24. So satisfying is this heavenly Bread that there is a great abundance left even after his followers have taken their fill.

There’s more: the numerology signifies that the crowd following Jesus in the story aren’t any old rag tag collection. They are specifically Gentile. Mark alludes to this when he mentions they have come ‘a long distance’ (8:3) and again when he has Jesus explain, in typically obtuse fashion, the meaning of the miracle (8-21):

Jesus asked (the disciples): “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”

“Twelve,” they replied.

“And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”

They answered, “Seven.”

He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

Seven loaves with seven baskets left over, seven being the number of the Gentile nations. In the earlier feeding of the 5000 the twelve leftover baskets represent the twelve tribes of Israel.

And still the dumb old Jewish disciples don’t understand. The story is about how the early Jesus cult was open to anyone, Gentiles as well as Jews, who recognised and accepted Jesus as the Bread of Heaven, the Saviour. As Mark was aware, Paul had already expressed this universality:

…when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. (1 Corinthians 10:18).

For his next miracle, the healing of a blind man in Mark 8:22-26, Jesus/the cult/Mark go on to hammer home the point still further.

Scripture Explained

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In truth, when the Lord said, ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,’ he meant by taking his gospel to them and speaking the truth unto them in love. This, after all, is the highest form of love: sharing the Good News of Jesus. For surely there is no way we can really love someone who opposes us. Therefore this cannot be what the saviour meant when he commanded us to love our enemies. Evidently, he made use of hyperbole to encourage us in our daily journey with him by making salvation known to those whose sin will only lead them unto Hell. There comes a point nonetheless when we must recognise that there are many enemies who will not accept the Word. These we must oppose, denigrate and condemn as the Holy Spirit directs. Does not scripture itself expect as much?   

When the saviour declared that we can’t serve God and money, he again spoke metaphorically. He did not mean the wealthy cannot enter the Kingdom of God. No, what he refers to is priorities. It is perfectly possible to be wealthy and a follower of Jesus so long as we put Jesus first. Where in the world would we be if we had to give away our money and possessions?

When the saviour commanded us to sell all we have to provide for the poor, he did not mean in this world which stands already condemned. Rather, he speaks in metaphor and refers to the emptying of our very selves to better follow him.

When the saviour said we must take up our crosses to follow him even unto death, he likewise spake metaphorically. He loves each according to that which he is able to bear and seeks to bless those who loves him. He speaks here therefore of our dedication to him. He encourages us to ‘die’ to our selves so that we might allow him to transform us into new creations worthy of himself.

When the Scriptures says we become new creations, it does not mean literally nor that it will happen in the twinkling of an eye. No, rather it refers to our being a ‘work in progress’. The Lord of miracle and all creation does not wish to impose on our free will by transforming us instantly. Instead, he seeks to test and purify us in a long almost imperceptible process. Only in heaven will we attain perfection.

When the saviour promised that the End of the Age was nigh for those who stood before him, he did not mean it was nigh for those who stood before him. No, for this was a secret message, a mystery, for those who would worship him in what would be, for those who stood before him, the distant future. What he meant was that when the time was right, when diverse conditions had been met – some of which would only be made known after our Lord’s time on Earth – the Son of Man would descend from the heavens to inaugurate the final judgement and the Kingdom of God.

When the scriptures declare that the Kingdom of God is intended for here on Earth, it speaks only metaphorically, for God promises those who have been saved by the power of Jesus’s blood that they will live forever with him in Heaven itself. This is a mystery known only to those who exegete the Bible correctly and ignore the plain and literal meaning of what it says.

So this, brethren, is how to deal with scripture. You need only apply one simple rule as you read it: if it appears to make demands of you, it is not actually doing so. It is either metaphor, hyperbole or both and must not be taken literally. On the other hand, when scripture is not making demands of you, everything, however unlikely it seems, is real, true and factual.

He who has ears, let him hear.

Ramifications

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I started writing this blog as a way of working out just what it was I’d believed prior to my realisation there was no God. While this ‘revelation’ caused the whole Christian edifice to collapse, I still had a lot of conditioning to deal with. I had been taught over the years that, like every other human being, I was worthless without God/Jesus. I needed first to regain some self-worth.

I had hang-ups too about how I spent my time and money. The cult had assured me that God was obsessively interested in how I used both. Did my use of my time and money further his kingdom? Was I using my time wisely? Tithing? Giving my money to alleviate suffering? I knew buying CDs and comic books didn’t really fit the bill, but I sinfully persisted in spending my hard-earned cash on them, when I had any to spare after taking care of my family and giving to the church and charity. Then the guilt! How could I be so thoughtless, so selfish? I had let God down badly (specially if I’d bought some of the devil’s music.)

The guilt was self-induced of course. I think I have a personality type that is prone to feeling guilty – it’s been the predominant emotion of my life – but the Christianity I encountered exacerbated it. I still struggle with guilt, not over any great ‘sin’ but in terms of how much I help others and whether my use of my money is self-indulgent and wasteful.

Despite now having no truck with the idea of sin (which is a worthless religious concept) I do sometimes catch myself worrying that I’ll be made to suffer in the next life (which doesn’t exist either) for who I am and my ‘lifestyle’ in this world. Completely irrational, I know, but the conditioning runs deep. It hasn’t been fully rooted out yet.

On the plus side, I can now see the Bible for what it is: a collection of stories, those in the so-called New Testament designed, as they declare quite openly, to promote the beliefs of the ancient Jesus-cult.

I realised that in an ocean of myth, legend and invention I had been taught to regard the gospels as an island of historical fact. Yet two of them are prefaced with patent fantasy – the incompatible nativity stories – and conclude with equally incompatible resurrection and ascension narratives. Yet I was expected to trust that everything in between these make-believe beginnings and endings – the miracles, the visions, the speeches, the fulfilled prophecy, the false promises and unlikely new prophecies – were all somehow factual and true.

No longer gullible, I came to see this as a preposterous expectation. Sandwiched between fantasy and illusion the gospels are all myth and legend. It’s pointless to argue, as apologists do – and quite a few sceptical scholars too – that we can discern the real Jesus among the invention:

that we can make something worth considering out of the discrepant resurrection appearances;

that because one or two historical figures are written into the story it must therefore be historical throughout;

that we can sift the factual wheat from the metaphorical chaff;

that there is a kernel to the tales that can be teased out from the fantastical accretions;

that contradictions can be explained (away) and by sleight of hand made compatible;

that somehow believing all of this fantasy material can ensure eternal life.

None of these things can be done, any more than they can with the legendary tales of Romulus, Buddha and King Arthur. Legends, are legends are legends. Stories are stories are stories.

Would I have been happier never to have been a Christian, never to have committed my life to Jesus? Almost certainly. But we are all where we are. Christianity and I have a history. It’s probably left me scarred, and perhaps you too. At least I escaped it to live my life as I needed to, even if I am still working my way through its legacy.

God and the Domino Effect

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Once free of belief in God, everything that follows collapses.

No God means –

   No divinely inspired scripture, no sin, no salvation, no need of salvation, no repentance or divine forgiveness (and no need of these things either), no grace.

   No supernatural, no heaven or hell, no Satan, angels or demons, no Holy Spirit, no effective prayer, no miracles, no judgement, no eternal life.

  No Son of God, no God Incarnate, no prophecy, no atonement, and, most significantly, no resurrection. 

According to the Bible, God resurrected Jesus (Romans 6:4; Galatians 1:1; Acts 2:22 etc). Therefore, no God = no resurrection.

So, where did all these ideas that, once God ceases to exist, fall like dominoes? Answer: the only place ideas ever come from: the human mind. Everything ever associated with gods, and with YHWH (Old and New versions) is entirely human invention. This is the only logical, rational conclusion.

  Paul’s vision of what he took to be the Risen Christ and his consequent theology: the product of a tortured imagination.

  The resurrection appearances supposedly experienced by Cephas and others: within their own heads (grief-induced hallucinations, dreams, trances, emotional agitation). Or: an emotional response to some natural phenomenon such as bright lights.

  The stories of Jesus that these visions inspired: invented by creative writers imaginatively applying ‘prophecy’ imagined by earlier writers.

  If he existed, Jesus’ Messiah complex: worked up entirely within his own religion-soaked brain.

  His conclusion that the end of the age was nigh and that he would be king of the new order (assuming he really did think this): the result of wishful thinking, all in his imagination.

Subsequent additions to the Christian experience: the Trinity, guesswork about the Messiah’s delayed return, the panoply of saints, heresy, blasphemy, ‘God’s standards’, the inerrancy of scripture, apologetics and, coming full circle, conversion experiences. All creations of the human imagination and emotions.

With no actual God, this is the only viable explanation of the phenomenon that is religion. Human beings did it.

 

Conversion

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I’d be interested to know, of those of you who are no longer Christians, what led you to become one in the first place.

It seems to me there are thousands of websites, books that argue philosophically for the validity of Christianity, present their evidence for the resurrection and generally take an intellectual approach to promoting the faith.

I’d be very surprised if this ‘evidence’, which is poor at best, and Christians’ philosophical arguments lead anyone to Jesus/God/faith.

My own experience is that conversion is an emotional experience. As a teen I listened to speaker after speaker at the YMCA I attended tell me how their sins had been forgiven and how getting to knew Jesus had given them a great sense of peace and purpose. I originally went along to the YM, as we called it, to meet friends, play table–tennis and drink coffee while listening to the juke-box. I had no idea I was a sinner nor that I needed forgiven but I liked the enthusiasm – they said it was ‘joy’ – that the speakers conveyed. I thought too I could maybe do with a sense of purpose though I was, as a fifteen year old, quite happy drifting along relatively aimlessly.

The persistent drip feed of what Jesus could do for me (and others) was persuasive. It sowed the seed, as the Christian cliché has it. It took a lively young American evangelist from Arthur Blessitt ministries to convict me. Jesus had turned his life around and he was on his way to heaven. Denying Jesus, he said, was to crucify him all over again. So I prayed the sinner’s prayer and gave my life to Jesus too.

Nowhere in any of this was there anything philosophical, no ’proof’ of the resurrection, no explanation of how the Bible was the Word of God. All the talks were appeals to emotion – how I could feel forgiven, how I could know love, joy and peace, how I could live forever after I died, up there with God in heaven.

All the rationalisation came later, like it always does. Psychologists tell us that the intuitive part of the brain makes decisions ahead of the rational part, which seeks to catch up afterwards, supply the reasons why the decision we’ve made is a good one. We’ve all done it when we’ve bought that item we don’t really need and have justified it all the way home. Religious conversion follows this pattern.

The thinking mind only becomes involved afterwards, hence ‘post hoc rationalisation’. We then become complicit in our own indoctrination: Bible study (both group and individual), listening to sermons, learning from more mature Christians, worship (all those song and hymn lyrics reinforcing the mumbo jumbo), reading Christian books, immersing ourselves in the complexities of the religion. This is how it’s always been. As Paul puts in 1 Corinthians 3:2, we move from milk to meat as we delve further into ‘the mysteries of Christ’. Or, more accurately, we become more deeply indoctrinated.

But all of this comes later. The emotional experience is first, as it was for Paul, C S. Lewis (who described it as being ‘surprised by joy’), George W. Bush and millions of other converts. In my Christian days, I personally ‘led people to the Lord’, by ‘sharing my testimony’ (I’ve still got the jargon!) and can assure you, those involved felt the Holy Spirit with a profound intensely. Only kidding. They became pretty emotional.

I know of no-one who became a Christian by assessing the evidence for the resurrection, reading Paul’s theobabble or analysing the central claims of Christianity. I suppose there might be some who, like Lee Strobel, insist they ‘came to faith’ this way. But faith and rational analysis are incompatible. When the writer of Hebrews (11:1) says: ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,’ he is oblivious to the fact that there isn’t any ‘evidence’ of unseen spiritual ‘things’. There are only our own feelings and emotional confirmation bias.

So that’s how it was it for me. How was it for you?

Next time I’ll take a look at the deconversion process.

Gullibility

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On the left, oily evangelical preacher the reverend canon Mike Pilavachi (yes, really. No irony at all in those self-aggrandizing titles.) Pilavachi used his spiritual authority to abuse young men, compelling them to take part in homoerotic wrestling matches and providing them, for his own kinky gratification, with full body massages. Because, you know, it’s what Jesus would’ve wanted. He also bullied and manipulated others in his church and ‘across the world’ in his ‘ministry.’ So far so much par for the course.

What I find incredible is the reaction of one of Pilavachi’s victims, Matt Redman (right), musical partner in Pilavachi’s Soul Survivor church festivals.

Redman had this to say recently:

I think Jesus is an expert at bringing things into the light, and I think that’s what’s happening in this whole process. I think Jesus is doing this. I think Jesus is cleaning up his church and bringing something into the light that needed to be in the light.

What lunacy! Jesus will bring the sordid goings ‘into the light’, which raises more questions than it answers :

Was it Jesus who brought these doings into the open or was it victims who found the courage to speak out? If it really was Jesus, why didn’t he reveal matters much sooner to prevent more young men from falling foul of the deplorable Pilavachi’s abuse? Why, indeed, did Jesus not prevent the abuse in the first place, saving everyone the pain and psychological damage Pilavachi’s actions caused? Why did Jesus not make Pilavachi into a brand new creation, as promised in 2 Corinthians 5:17, when first he imbued him with his Spirit, a creation that lacked the desire to manipulate and abuse others?

I think we know the answer to all these questions.

Believing in Jesus is to believe in a fiction that has no more concern for your well-being than Casper the Friendly Ghost (to whom he is closely related). As much as I empathise with the vulnerable Matt Redman, he needs to be less forgiving of Pilavachi, reassess his reliance on a shadow and face reality. If anything, his belief in Jesus led him into the clutches of a psychopath who used him for his own gratification.

Mike Pilavachi has yet to be questioned by police. I guess Jesus really does look after his friends.

Respect

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Even before the events in Israel and Gaza, there were numerous recent examples of the term Islamophobia being used to suppress freedom of expression or shield wrongdoing.

A recent report by an all party group of UK MPs.

I’ve been told before that I should respect people’s religious beliefs. We all should apparently.

I can’t, I confess, summon respect for patent nonsense, nor for those who subscribe to it. I’m not even going to try.

There have, I admit, been a few believers I’ve met in life for whom I have had respect and even admiration, but this has been for the kind of person they were, not because of their religious beliefs per se. And no; their religion is not what made them admirable people. They were admirable irrespective of, or even despite, their irrational beliefs. I still hold to the theory of my own making, that religious conviction is like alcohol: both accentuate the existing characteristics of the individual, making them more of the person they already were, for better or for worse.

Equally, I’ve met many non-believers (I hate it that we have to describe ourselves as what we are not), LGBT people (for many religionists, the antithesis of admirable) and individuals whose views and outlook on life I haven’t necessarily agreed with, for whom I have also had respect and admiration.

It comes down to the old cliche, a truism nonetheless, that respect has to be earned. Just because someone believes in the supernatural or that Jesus died for our sins or that their deity or prophet trumps all others doesn’t mean I have to respect such views, or indeed those who hold them.

But this is where we’re headed, it seems. We’re expected to respect any old make-believe so long as it comes under the banner of religion and still more that doesn’t. It’s becoming ‘hateful’ to criticise religious belief and those who practise it. Because their views are sincerely held, the thinking goes, they merit protected status.

I commented some time ago on a Christian site (something I rarely do except when incensed) that was insisting ‘sodomites’ would burn in hell, because… the Bible. I countered that gay people were not going to hell because, in fact, no-one was. As well as the subsequent ‘loving’ comments from Christians, I was taken to task by a gay person telling me I was disrespecting the original poster’s Christian convictions.

Likewise when I suggest that we should be more wary of Muslim beliefs I’m told I’m being profoundly unfair, racist and Islamophobic, towards a minority – as a minority of one myself – and I should show more respect for an ancient and sacred tradition as well as those who subscribe to it.

I can’t do it. I can’t respect religious belief. It is no more worthy of respect than astrology, palm reading and spiritualism. It flies in the face of rationality. Not only is it insupportable, it is dangerous, a threat to hard-earned freedoms and rights.

Who Decides What A Culture’s Values Are?

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Did you decide? Would you prefer to live in culture based on Christian, Islamic or Marxist values? According to some Internet Christians, these are the only choices available. Of course anyone with an ounce of sense and a modicum of honesty knows they’re not.

I choose to live in a society that is not dominated by cherry-picked Christian values, or indeed ‘values’ derived from any religion. I reject the claims of them all, including their demonstrably false notion that I and my fellow citizens cannot behave ourselves unless controlled by a morality imposed by an imaginary deity. Likewise, I don’t care to live in a culture determined by an extreme political ideology that serves only one part of society: usually the elites who devise the ideology in question.

Instead I choose, or rather was fortunate enough to be born into, a relatively liberal democracy, capable of determining its own values. These are largely secular and humanistic and include, amongst others, the rule of law, tolerance, and freedom of speech and movement. Of course the UK has never fully realised these aspirations but there has always been a sense, since the 1960s, that we were moving towards them. Perhaps I’m naive to think this, given the turbulence of the Thatcher years and President Blair’s mania for regulation, but overall it used to feel that we were moving gradually towards a fairer, more reasonable society.

It doesn’t now. The elites have embraced a wokeness that benefits a limited few and have redefined terms – ‘woman’, ‘crime’, ‘offence’, ‘hatred’ and ‘phobia’ among them – which has impacted negatively on personal rights and freedoms. They have reinterpreted the law so that it benefits vocal minorities while side-lining the majority. They have repeatedly reneged on promises and over-reacted to the crises of recent years – Covid in particular – by granting themselves greater powers to manage their own over-reaction; powers which, once each crisis has passed, they have declined to relinquish. The values of Britain today, as imposed by the governing classes, are overly woke and authoritarian. In my 68 years, I have never felt as micro-managed in my personal life as I do today.

So, I do understand why there are those who call for the return to what they perceive as Christian values or a cultural Christianity of church bells and hymn singing. I understand too the fear of some that the waning of Christian influence will see extreme Islamic values fill the vacuum. This seems to me to be a real possibility and one that would prove seriously detrimental and damaging to British society. However, attempting to resurrect nebulous ‘Christian values’ in order to prevent more intolerant ones from being imposed is no solution.

We need to be clear about our values and assert those we aspire to: tolerance, liberalism, democracy, freedom of speech, rights for all, equality under the law and, I would add, truthfulness, honesty, fairness, consideration and reasonableness. For a time, this may very well involve being intolerant of intolerance, whether derived from Christianity, Islam, wokeism or political ideology. In particular, we need to stop conceding ground to Islam and resisting the demands of Muslim activists when they conflict with the values and aspirations of the majority.

Perhaps none of this will matter to me, given I’m not going to be around for many more decades (if that). But I would like the Britain my grandchildren grow up in to be one that reflects humane, secular values. I fear for them that it might instead operate on the basis of oppressive, intolerant religious ones.

 

 

free speech

The Great Resurrection Scam

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Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.  For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 (circa AD 49-51)

Paul said that because Jesus died and rose from the dead others would too. How does this follow?

He also claimed that all a person had to do to be sure of a spiritual resurrection was to believe that Jesus had already risen (1 Corinthians 15:20, AD 53-54), How did he know this? Almost certainly it came to him in one of his visions and his subsequent ‘revelations’ (‘the Lord’s word’ as he puts it in the letter to the Thessalonian sect).

Possibly, though less likely, he learnt it from the Christians he persecuted prior to his conversion. If so, where did they get the idea from? That the cult members in Thessalonica had to ask Paul what would happen to those who had passed away suggests this wasn’t a significant concern prior to this point. Paul and other early believers thought the Messiah/Son of Man was going to appear within their lifetimes (‘we who are still alive’ etc). It was only when cultists started dying off in noticeable numbers, and the Lord remained a no-show, that it started to become an issue. Paul had to make something up. And make it up he did.