To translate this into a modern day situation, it would be like saying Osama Bin Laden, a man who had a personal passion to kill Christians to protect his religion, converted to Christianity. His plan would have been to become one of it's most influential leaders and biggest proponents in the hope that he could then push his own agenda. How many of us would think that a logic argument? I am guessing none! Why then do people make the same logical argument against Paul?
Below is an excerpt from, "The life and work of St. Paul, Volume 1" by Frederic William Farrar. I hope it will help shine further light on the ridiculous nature of the above mentioned claim. Paul was the man he was because of a personal encounter with the risen Jesus Christ and nothing else! Who he was, what he did and what he said must not be ignored because of the illogical above mentioned argument attacking his credibility. To ignorantly dismiss his claim of the resurrected Christ (1 Cor 15:3-8) is to play with eternal fire and project an arrogance without measure. No matter how committed someone may think they are against the Christian faith, I doubt they would ever come close to Paul before his conversion.
“And here let me pause to say that it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of St. Paul’s conversion as one of the evidences of Christianity. That he should have passed, by one flash of conviction, not only from darkness to light, but from one direction of life to the very opposite, is not only characteristic of the man, but evidential of the power and significance of Christianity. That the same man who, just before, was persecuting Christianity with the most violent hatred, should come all at once to believe in Him whose followers he had been seeking to destroy, and that in this faith he should become a “new creature”.
And to what does he testify respecting Jesus? To almost every single primarily important fact respecting His Incarnation, Life, Sufferings, Betrayal, Last Supper, Trial, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Heavenly Exaltation.
He was not separated from the events, as we are, by centuries of time. He was not liable to be blinded, as we are, by the dazzling glamour of a victorious Christendom. He had mingled daily with men who had watched from Bethlehem to Golgotha the life of the Crucified,—not only with His simple-hearted followers, but with His learned and powerful enemies. He had talked with the priests who had consigned Him to the cross; he had put to death the followers who had wept beside His tomb. He had to face the unutterable horror which, to any orthodox Jew, was involved in the thought of a Messiah who “had hung upon a tree.”
He had heard again and again the proofs which satisfied an Annas and a Gamaliel that Jesus was a deceiver of the people. The events on which the Apostles relied, in proof of His divinity, had taken place in the full blaze of contemporary knowledge. He had not to deal with uncertainties of criticism or assaults on authenticity. He could question, not ancient documents, but living men; he could analyse, not fragmentary records, but existing evidence. He had thousands of means close at hand whereby to test the reality or unreality of the Resurrection in which, unto this time, he had so passionately and contemptuously disbelieved. In accepting this half-crushed and wholly execrated faith he had everything in the world to lose—he had nothing conceivable to gain; and yet, in spite of all—overwhelmed by a conviction which he felt to be irresistible—Saul, the Pharisee, became a witness of the Resurrection, a preacher of the Cross.”
The life and work of St. Paul, Volume 1, By Frederic William Farrar pp 114-115
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