Richard Carrier says that it is authentic.3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters[a] at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to THE EKTROMA, he appeared also to me.
William Bemjamin Smith, the Mythicist author of Ecce Deus (in my view, the best Mythicist of the past) claims that the use of Ektroma by Paul is clearly Gnostic in meaning, because to think otherwise requires by part of Paul more comment about the his description of himself as THE abort (and the absence of a such comment is strongly expected if the Corinthian reader knows already what Paul means by the construct '''THE Ektroma'': i.e. the matter without form and order as created by the Demiurge or by the Sophia).
Why was Paul so negative against himself, by comparing himself to THE Ektroma ?
The answer is surely only one: Paul was THE Ektroma (the negative matter created by the demiurge) insofar he saw the risen Christ ''last of all''. Therefore the negative is referred to his kind of vision, in comparison with the visions of the risen Christ received by who was apostle before him.
Comparing the vision of any apostle with the next emanation (or aeon) from the original Deity, the vision received by Paul would be the last emanation and therefore the more degrading one: THE Ektroma, not worthy even of being called an aeon. Therefore to be a true apostle, in this context, is equivalent to be a perfect (as opposed to ''not degrading'') aeon or emanation.
Therefore Paul is exalting the apostles Peter, James, the 12 and the 500 brothers, as having a more true and perfect vision of the Risen Christ.
Here we have the same Paul who claims that his predecessors ''saw'' the risen Jesus not only before in time, but in a way far better than the one by which Paul himself ''saw'' Jesus.
This says us that the hallucinations of the Pillars were not only similar to these received by Paul, but these were even more strongly visionary in nature.
This interpretation goes against the traditional historicist view according to which the Pillars were not so hallucinated people as Paul was, but had a more realistic (and therefore potentially, in pauline terms, a more ''degrading'') knowledge of the historical Jesus.
No. The Pillars saw the celestial Jesus during hallucinations so extremely powerful that even Paul had to recognize their superior quality of vision.