But that Jesus of Nazareth could be the expected Messiah, as His disciples maintained, was out of the question. It is unlikely that the status, career and teaching of Jesus conformed in any way with Paul’s conception of the status, career and teaching of the Messiah – but that was not the conclusive argument in Paul’s (pre-converted) mind. The conclusive argument was simply this: Jesus had been crucified. A crucified Messiah was a contradiction of terms.