Paul and Jesus

Acts’ claim that Paul grew up in Jerusalem and was a student of the famous rabbi Gamaliel is also highly suspect. The book of Acts has an earlier scene, when the apostles Peter and John are arrested by the Jewish authorities, who are threatening to have them killed, in which Gamaliel stands up in the Sanhedrin court and speaks in their behalf, recommending their release (Acts 5:33–39). The story is surely fictitious and is part of the author’s attempt to indicate to his Roman audience that reasonable-minded Jews, like noble Roman officials, did not condemn the Christians. It is likely that the author of Acts, in making Paul an honored student of Gamaliel, the most revered Pharisee of the day, wants to further advance this perspective. Throughout his account he constantly characterizes the Jewish enemies of Paul as irrational and rabid, in contrast to those “good” Jews who are calm, reasonable, and respond favorably to Paul (Acts 13:45; 18:12; 23:12).

Whether Paul even lived in Jerusalem before his visionary encounter with Christ can be questioned. In Acts it is a given, but Paul never indicates in any of his letters that Jerusalem was his home as a young man. He does mention twice a connection with Damascus, the capital of the Roman province of Syria (2 Corinthians 11:32; Galatians 1:17). Whether he was in Damascus, which is a hundred and fifty miles northeast of Jerusalem, in pursuit of Jesus’ followers or for other reasons, we have no sure way of knowing. The account in Acts of Paul’s conversion, repeated three times, that has Paul sent as an authorized delegate of the high priest in Jerusalem to arrest Christians in Damascus has so colored our assumptions about Paul that it is hard to focus on what we find in his letters.

Paul’s connection to Jerusalem, or the lack thereof, has much to do with the oft-discussed question of whether Paul would have ever seen or heard Jesus, or could have been a witness to Jesus’ crucifixion in A.D. 30. Since he never mentions seeing Jesus in any of his letters, and one would expect that had he been an eyewitness to the events of that Passover week he surely would have drawn upon such a vivid experience, it seems unlikely that he was a Jerusalem resident at that time.

Likewise, Paul’s high-placed connections to the Jewish priestly class in Jerusalem can neither be confirmed nor denied. All he tells us is that he zealously persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it (Galatians 1:12). Some translations have used the English word violently, but this is misleading and serves to reinforce the account in Acts that Paul was delivering people over to execution. The Greek word Paul uses (huperbole) means “excessively” or “zealously.” We take Paul’s word that he identified himself as a Pharisee, but there is nothing in his letters to indicate the kind of prominent connections that the author of Acts gives him.

OUTSIDE THE NEW TESTAMENT

Our earliest physical description of Paul comes from a late-second-century Christian writing The Acts of Paul and Thecla. It is a wildly embellished and legendary account of Paul’s travels, his wondrously miraculous feats, and his formidable influence in persuading others to believe in Christ. The story centers on the beautiful and wealthy virgin Thecla, a girl so thoroughly mesmerized by Paul’s preaching that she broke off her engagement to follow Paul and experienced many adventures. As Paul is first introduced, one of his disciples sees him coming down the road:

And he saw Paul coming, a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel.¹⁵

We have no reason to believe this account is based on any historical recollection since The Acts of Paul and Thecla as a whole shows no trace of earlier sources or historical reference points. The somewhat unflattering portrait most likely stemmed from allusions in Paul’s letters to his “bodily presence” being unimpressive and the subject of scorn, whereas his followers received him as an angel (2 Corinthians 10:10; Galatians 4:13–14).