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Many people would argue that Paul does refer to Jesus. For example, in Galatians 1:19, he talks about meeting James the brother of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 9:5, Paul says something to the effect of, "I don't have a wife but I'm entitled to one just like the brothers of the Lord are." And in 1 Corinthians 7:10, when he's discussing divorce, he essentially passes on Jesus's command that people should not seek divorces—he actually specifies that it is "not I, but the Lord" saying this. So he's making a clear distinction between the teaching he's received through the historical oral tradition—

Flemming at work on his documentary

Flemming: Wait, wait, let me stop you there. Teaching he's received, I agree. I agree that Paul received all sorts of information, and he received it directly from the Lord according to Paul, which of course doesn't quite make sense because he wasn't supposed to have met Jesus even according to a historical view of Jesus. But he definitely received information directly from the Lord, but it was by revelation, and so I believe that all those things that you just mentioned could be Paul getting … his information about Christianity from a heavenly source, and that was through visions. It would actually be more inconsistent if Paul claimed those particular bits of information came directly from the historical Jesus, because what does that mean about all the other stuff that he got, via visions or inspiration or revelation from the Lord?

Well, Paul also talks in Galatians 1:18-19 about spending two weeks with Peter and James and it's been said that he would have spent that time obsessively downloading as much information from them as he could about the Jesus that they knew, precisely because Paul did not know Jesus personally. You're not buying that theory, I guess.

Flemming: No, I'm not buying the theory that James is necessarily the brother of Jesus or that the Peter that Paul refers to is the Peter who was later declared, not by Paul of course, the Rock of the Church. I would say that that's doing some real acrobatics to get around a far simpler explanation. Basically, if the theory that Jesus didn't exist has these four points where, "Wait a second, there's this other passage that could be interpreted—if we wanted to—as meaning that Jesus existed, and we can create complicated explanations for it," well, why isn't Jesus everywhere else where we would expect him to be? I will admit that it is not a matter of absolute certainty that Jesus didn't exist. I just think it's overwhelmingly probable, when examining the evidence, that Jesus didn't exist.

You mentioned that some figures become more legendary as time goes on, but somewhat the opposite trajectory seems to have taken place here, if your theory is correct. Why would the Gospels attach specific historical names to the Jesus story, like Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas—people that we know really existed—if there was not some kernel of historical truth to the story?

Flemming: Well there is a kernel of historical truth to the story. Pontius Pilate did exist, we have confirmation of that. He didn't have the title that Tacitus says he had, but we do know many of the general details that are the same as a historical novelist might use if they were writing a Western today. Somebody writing a historical novel today might mention Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War and all sorts of real people who really existed back then, but that doesn't mean the novel itself is true. Putting a fictional story in a historical setting is not at all unusual. I don't really think the burden is on anyone to explain why would somebody put a fictional story in a historical setting. That's been done for a long, long time.

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