Hello Graham,
Thanks for taking the time to respond.
My friend, you build a massive house of cards on a few unproven assumptions.
Let's grant for the sake of the argument that "received from the Lord" necessitates a vision, even though that's pressing the words beyond their meaning.
First, you assume that if Paul did see a vision, that this would be different than what actually occurred.
You have no way of proving such a thing. Further, the evidence seems to argue against it.
Matthew and Mark don't quote Luke/Paul verbatim. They don't seem to be using Luke/Paul as their script. It reads as a separate account of the same situation -- clearly the same event, but not described in the same words and phrases.
This would corroborate the event -- two independent accounts of the same situation.
Even further, in order for your hypothetical situation to be correct, it would have to be the case that no account of the Thursday night survive -- no apostles living, none of their students remembering what the apostles said happened that night, nothing whatsoever, such that Paul could invent an entirely novel situation and drop it into the story, and no one contests it.
Such a thing is highly, highly unlikely, especially given how early most scholars believe 1 Corinthians to be. Many of the apostles were still alive at this time. If Paul was inventing a scenario involving them that didn't actually happen, they wouldn't codify it into church tradition! They'd call him out as a liar.
You said: "The only reasonable conclusion is that Luke is copying Paul’s text, not putting on paper any words he believes the historical Jesus to have said."
This is highly unlikely, for two reasons.
First, because Paul doesn't explain the story. He doesn't give any background. He only quotes the highlights, trusting that his audience already knows the story.
That makes it highly unlikely Luke would be quoting Paul as the original source. Paul isn't even treating himself as the original source!
Second, Luke emphasizes how rigorous his own research was in compiling his Gospel. He knew he wasn't an eye-witness, so he consulted diligently among those who were.
He wouldn't use another non-eyewitness as his source, when he emphasizes his need to consult the eye-witnesses.
You said, "Since the words at the Last Supper instituted a new religion..."
They didn't.
They don't institute anything new.
They hearken back to the sacrificial system and the holiness of God as revealed in Leviticus.
Leviticus 17:11 states that the life of the flesh is in the blood, and the blood is given to make atonement. The Old Testament is very familiar with the phrase "the blood of the covenant." The Old Testament is likewise very familiar with bodies being sacrificed for others for atonement.
There's nothing new in what Jesus did on the Last Supper. It's predicated on a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament sacrificial system.
After all, there's a reason the vast majority of early Christians were Jews: they saw Christianity fitting well within their Jewish background. They didn't perceive it as a new religion.
This is also why books like Matthew, Romans, and Hebrews are so full of callbacks to the Old Testament. They aren't charting a new course. They're saying "Do you see how God was speaking of these things long in advance?"
Finally, the phrase "the Lord's supper" isn't pagan. It isn't really anything.
"Supper" is generic. It's just the normal, boring word for the evening meal.
"The Lord's" is repeatedly used throughout the New Testament and Septuagint to refer to Yahweh and the things that belong to Him.
Attaching "the Lord's" to a generic word is not a pagan phrase. It happens constantly all throughout the Scriptures to indicate the things that are Yahweh's.
I have no doubt that mystery religions began borrowing the phrase after Christianity instituted it, because they wanted a secret supper ritual, as well.
But the phrase itself isn't anything unusual. It's exactly how we would expect the Scriptures to speak of a particular meal that had special significance to the Lord.
