The story of the Damascus road has some weak spots that do not exclude the existance of Christ.

I started reading my Bible last summer and was struck by some things about the Damascus road experience of Paul who became the top dog of the early Christian church.

He lived for two years in a house that he rented from the Romans and preached.

After seeing the vision of Jesus in the "ball of light" he had two pals carry him to a soothsayer and tell him that the guy really did see something. The soothsayer assured him he saw the Messiah and must be the guy he wants to take charge of the Christian revolts. Christ wanted at that time a persecuter of Christians and Jews to start his Church?

Religious people who must believe God does everything just as he would like are insistent that every word of the Bible is true or God would have kept it out. God would never have allowed what I believe Saul did. I think he was a con artist who infiltrated the Christians who were overwhelming the Romans and subverted the Gospels to include a lot of paganistic ideas and to advance himself and other subversive Romans into the guise of Holy Romans. Paul's trip down the river with the Romans reads like a con job to me.