[A. Patriot]

To be an Apostle, you had to have met Jesus Christ in person. According to Acts 1:21 and on Acts was written by St. Luke, gospel writer. St. Luke did not meet Jesus in person.

I'm not a Biblical scholar, but if you read the above passage in context, they were discussing who would replace Judas, who was one of the original 12 Apostles.

[cyncooper]

Thanks, but I had read and understood that part. I was addressing the first generalization and it has already been pointed out by others that Paul, too, did not know Jesus in person.

[cyncooper]

BTW, the apostle who replaced Judas was Matthias.

There are many sites that discuss this, but this one came up early in my search and seems to spell it out pretty plainly:

In the Bible, apostle is a title conferred on one sent with a message. The term is applied primarily to the original Twelve called by Jesus to accompany him during his ministry (Matt. 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:13-16). In the Gospels, other followers are called disciples. The title was gradually extended to others such as Paul and Barnabas (Acts 14:14; Rom. 9:1, 11:13); when this occurred, the Twelve were distinguished from all the apostles, as in 1 Corinthians 15:5-7.

~snip~

Judas was replaced by Matthias (Acts 1), but after that no effort was made to select men to succeed those who were taken by death (Acts 12:2).

~snip~

The reason I mentioned Luke not knowing Jesus is because RaceBannon was arguing that Paul knew him (most would dispute this assertion) and that to be an apostle one had to know Jesus "in person". Since he cited Acts in particular I made my observation about St. Luke.