Hello Jeremy, thanks for taking the time to respond.

You said:

“I think you're right that Paul was familiar with Jesus' teachings. I wrote about it here
https://medium.com/historical-christianity/did-the-apostle-paul-even-know-what-jesus-taught-
b3fcad54c963”

I’ll take a look!

It’s a good place to begin from to begin from agreement. We both agree Paul was familiar with Jesus’ teaching.

The only question is to what degree. Oral transmission? Written records? Eye witnesses?

You said:

“I think there's no way that the 4 gospels pre-date Paul.”

I know it seems radical to claim this today, but the surprising bit is that is fits all our evidence.

In general, there is only one piece of evidence scholars use to try to push the Gospels late: the Temple destruction in 70 AD. Jesus’ prophecy of its destruction in Matthew 24 is so accurate that scholars who reject the supernatural cannot accept that it was written beforehand.

If this did not exist, there would be no major reason to think the Gospels came late.

This is because all of our historical and archaeological evidence points to the gospels being written early — and I do mean all.

All of the ancient historians who write about the origins of the gospel testify that Matthew wrote first. He wrote in Jerusalem, before the church was dispersed through persecution.

Mark wrote second, but he was not trying to write a gospel. Rather, Peter was lecturing on Jesus in Rome, and the audience urged Mark to record. The speech is down. After Peter was martyred, Mark allowed those notes to be disseminated widely.

Given that the historians record Mark’s composition while Peter and Paul were ministering, and that Matthew came even earlier than that, we can see just how early the gospels truly are.

I’ve written articles on each of the Gospels, quoting the historians and demonstrating the evidence of history for how early the Gospels truly are.

And if the ancient historians are correct, then Paul absolutely had access to them while he was writing.

Luke is well-known as the traveling companion of Paul, and all the internal evidence from Luke-Acts indicates he published both volumes before Paul was martyred. Given that the first volume (Luke) would be published first, and that both were published before Paul’s death, it’s entirely possible Paul had a copy of the Gospel of Luke.

Paul refers to and quotes from all three Synoptics, clearly calling them “Scripture” — which means something written.

You said:

“I'm not sure if there's a single NT scholar alive, Christian or otherwise that believes that...”

There are indeed, my friend.

For starters, read “Why Four Gospels?” by Dr. David Alan Black. Dr. Doug Bookman is also a great resource on this topic.

You said:

“I think if Paul had 4 written sources in front of him, we would see much more direct quotation of Jesus. We see allusions to Jesus' teachings which are proof he knew of them, but only directly quotes Jesus once. Perhaps he shared many of the oral traditions that came to be finalized in the gospel.”

The allusions demonstrate more than Paul’s familiarity with them. They demonstrate that he also expects his audience to be familiar with them, and to be familiar with them in the same format. Thus, he can obliquely reference material found only in the Gospel of John, and fully expect that Timothy knows exactly what he’s talking about , so much that he doesn’t have to clarify or specify any of it.

In other words, if the Gospels were not already extant, we should expect to see Paul quoting them all the time, because he would need to teach the content to his audience.

But if the gospels are already extant, and Paul knows that his audience is already familiar with the record of Jesus teaching, then Paul can simply allude to it or reference it, and know that his audience has a full copy of what he’s talking about.

The way Paul writes is entirely consistent with what we would expect if he knew that his audience already had a reliable copy of what Jesus said and did.

Remember: paper was expensive. The ancient world always used an economy of writing, to use as little space as necessary, given how expensive paper was. They wouldn’t throw in a bunch of extra quotations if they knew their audience already had access to them.

You said:

“If you are going to convince people of all different backgrounds what to believe historically, I think you have to follow evidence where it leads. 1 Timothy is controversial in scholarly crowds for its date and authorship. I would go with the undisputed letters of Paul to make your case.”

My friend, modern scholars will dispute anything.

The historical and manuscript evidence demonstrates no controversy whatsoever with any of Paul’s letters. Every single one is fully accepted as genuinely Pauline.

The case for 1 Timothy not being Pauline is incredibly weak. Any difference in vocabulary can be explained away because Paul is writing a personal letter to a close friend, rather than a circular to the general church. People doubt that Paul could be writing about such a well formed ecclesiology so early, but they forget that Christianity and emerged from Judaism, which already had a fully established ecclesiology.

And yet, as you say, even if we limit ourselves to the letters that no one disputes today, we can still make our case that Paul knew the Gospels.

You said:

“At best from a traditional case, you could argue 1 Timothy was written by a student of Paul or had a connection to Paul's teaching. I just wouldn't build a whole case on dating the NT books from 1 Timothy, where there is a lot of contrary evidence that gospels were written after Paul. Perhaps parts of Mark or the sayings from Matthew were around in written form but not finalized? Maybe.”

Again, the entirety of our historical evidence points to Matthew and Mark being fully extant during Paul’s lifetime, and Luke in all likelihood, as well.

The case for assigning 1 Timothy to a student of Paul’s is incredibly weak, as well. Most notably, for the fact that people would notice. If the collection of Paul’s letters was circulating for decades already, and suddenly new letters pop up, do you really think no one would be suspicious? Do you really think nobody would notice, or question it?

Further, the church in Ephesus, where Timothy was pastoring when Paul wrote, was one of the primary churches of the early Christian world. If the letter was fake, they would know. A fake letter claiming to be written to their pastor would never gain traction in their church, or anywhere their influence extended.

When you gather and analyze all of our historical information, it all points unanimously to all of Paul’s letters always being accepted as genuine. There isn’t the slightest hint that any came decades later.