Acts 23:3 God will strike you

[Josh]

Acts 23:3

Then Paul said to him, "God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!"


Question: was this outburst by Paul righteous indignation or a momentary lapse in Christ-like gentleness? 


Also, it strikes me (ha, get it?) that this passage, because of it's embarrassment factor, especially if, as I suspect, Acts is written in Paul's defense before Nero, must rank high for historical authenticity.  It must have happened because it would never have been made up.

[Josh]

Since no one took the bait, I'll answer my own question. My gut says that Paul did have a lapse in Gospel-like behavior, but he genuinely didn't know who he was speaking to (possibly because of poor eyesight, which we have some other evidence he might have struggled with)

If this is the case, it's one of very few examples we have in the NT of Paul behaving in way less than ideal. And one of the biggest strengths of the Bible, to me, is it's "the good, the bad, and the ugly" approach to it's heroes.