After Jesus, Paul was the most influential figure in the history of Christianity. While all the NT writers work on the implications of Jesus for particular communities of believers, Paul, in his many letters, does so on the broadest scale of all. This scope, along with the depth of his thinking and the passion of his commitment, means that since his letters became part of the NT, no Christian has remained unmoved by what he wrote. Whether they are familiar with Paul's works or not, through what they have been taught in doctrine and piety, all Christians have become children of Paul in faith.

1. The Life of Paul

   There are two sources for his life: the biographical details in his own letters and the accounts of his career in Acts (from 7:58). There are three views on how to relate these sources,

   1. An almost total reliance on Acts. Paul's traditional lives are strongly guided by Acts, adjusting and adapting the information in the letters within the framework of Acts

   2. Great mistrust of Acts. In reaction and as part of a skepticism about the historical value of Acts, what this book reports about Paul has been questioned. Indeed, some scholars have constructed Paul's career by omitting all or much of the information in Acts, or by radically correcting it by emphasizing the differences between Acts and the letters to make them contradictions.

   3. A medial position uses Paul's letters as a primary source and cautiously supplements Acts, without rushing to declare apparent differences contradictory.

   There is no doubt that Acts offered a theological interpretation of Paul, adapting his role to fit a global vision of the spread of Christianity "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Moreover, the author may have had only a cursory view of parts of Paul's career, so that he has telescoped and compacted complex events. Nevertheless, there is simply too much correspondence between Acts and the autobiographical remarks in Paul's epistles to discount the information in Acts: the author knew a great many facts about Paul. Let us review what can be reconstructed of Paul's life from a critical use of both sources.

   1. Birth And Upbringing

      Paul was probably born around 5-10 AD, during the reign of the emperor Augustus. He is described in Acts 7:58 as a young man at the stoning of Stephen, and in Philem 9 (written after 55) as an "old man. The Jews of this period, especially those in the diaspora (i.e. outside Palestine), often had two names, one Greek or Roman, the other Semitic. "Paul" (Paulus) was a well-known Roman surname. Since the apostle describes himself as being from the tribe of Benjamin (Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5), there is no reason to doubt that Acts said his Jewish name was "Saul" (after the first king of Israel, a Benjaminite).

      Paul never tells us where he was born, but the information in Acts that he was a citizen of Tarsus, the prosperous capital of Cilicia (22:3; 21:39: "an important city"), is perfectly plausible. Tarsus had a considerable Jewish colony and, according to his own testimony, from his earliest years of Christian life Paul hurried to Cilicia (Gal 1:21). According to Acts 16:37-38 and 22:25-29, Paul was a Roman citizen by birth. Some have suggested that the people of Tarsus received this privilege, but citizenship may have come to Paul through his family rather than through the status of the Jews of Tarsus.

      Most scholars probably maintain that Paul was raised and educated in Tarsus. He wrote Greek well, had basic Hellenistic rhetorical skills, quoted the Scriptures in Greek, and knew the Deuterocanonical books composed or preserved in Greek. Tarsus had a reputation for culture and excellent schools; and although these structures were pagan, essential training in writing, rhetoric, and dialectics may have been available to Jewish boys to enable them to function competitively. It may also have been here that Paul learned a trade that Acts 18:3 defines as tentmaker. Supporting himself by working, even if it was a burden taken on for the sake of the gospel, was a point of pride for Paul on his later missionary journeys, for it meant that he did not have to beg for money from those he was evangelizing (1 Thess 2:9; 1 Cor 9:14-15; 2 Cor 11:9). As a merchant, he would have been in the lower social classes, but he was a little higher than the one who had become a citizen by being freed from slavery.

      Table of Paul's Activities In The Letters And Acts

      Pauline Letters	Acts
      Conversion near Damascus (implied in Gal 1:17c)	Damascus (9:1-22)
      To Arabia (Gal 1:17b)
      Return to Damascus (1:17c): 3 yrs.
      Flight from Damascus (2 Cor 11:32-33)	Flight from Damascus (9:23-25)
      To Jerusalem (Gal 1: 18-20)	To Jerusalem (9:26-29)
      "The regions of Syria and Cilicia" (Gal 1:21-22)	Caesarea and Tarsus (9:30)
      	Antioch (11:26a)
      	(Jerusalem [11:29-30; 12:25])
      	Mission 1: Antioch (13:1-4a)
      	Seleucia, Salamis, Cyprus (13:4b-12)
      Churches evangelized before Macedonian Philippi (Phil 4:15)	South Galatia (13:13-14:25)
      	Antioch (14:26-28)
      "Once again during 14 years I went up to Jerusalem" (for "Council," Gal 2:1)	Jerusalem (15:1-12)
      Antioch Incident (Gal 2:11-14)	Antioch (15:35); Mission 2
      	Syria and Cilicia (15:41)
      	South Galatia (16:1-5)
      Galatia (1 Cor 16:1) evangelized for the first time (Gal 4:13)	Phrygia and North Galatia (16:6)
      	Mysia and Troas (16, 7-10)
      Philippi (1 Thess 2:2 [=Macedonia, 2 Cor 11:9])	Philippi (16:11-40)
      Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:2; cf. 3:6; Phil 4:15-16)	Amphipolis, Apollonia, Thessalonica (17:1-9)
      	Beroea (17:10-14)
      Athens (I Thess 3:1; cf. 2:17-18)	Athens (17:15-34)
      Corinth evangelized (cf. 1 Cor 1:19; 11:7-9)	Corinth for 18 months (18:1-18a)
      Timothy arrives in Corinth (1 Thess 3:6), probably accompanied by Silvanus (1 Thess 1:1)	Silas and Timothy come form Macedonia (18:5)
      	Paul leaves from Cenchreae (18:18b)
      	Leaves Priscilla and Aquila at Ephesus (18:19-21)
      Apollos (in Ephesus) urged by Paul to go to Corinth (1 Cor 16:12)	Apollos dispatched to Achaia by Priscilla and Aquila (18:17)
      	Paul to Caesarea Maritima (18:22a)
      	Paul to Jerusalem (18:22b)
      	In Antioch for a certain amount of time (18:22c)
      Northern Galatia, second visit (Gal 4:13)	Mission 3: North Galatia and Phrygia (18:23)
      Ephesus (1 Cor 16:1-8)	Ephesus for 3 yrs. Or 2 yrs., 3 mos. (19:1-20:1; cf. 20:31)
      Visit of Chloe, Stephanas, et al. to Paul in Ephesus (1 Cor 1:11; 16:17), bringing letter (7:1)
      Paul imprisoned (? Cf. 1 Cor 15:32; 2 Cor 1:8)
      Timothy sent to Corinth (1 Co 4:17; 16:10)
      Paul's 2nd "painful" visit to Corrinth (2 Cor 13:2); return to Ephesus
      Titus sent to Corinth with letter "written in tears" (2 Cor 2:13)
      (Paul's plan to visit Macedonia, Corinth, and Jerusalem / Judea, 1 Cor 16:3-8; cf. 2 Cor 1:15-16	(Paul's plans to visit Macedonia, Achaia, Jerusalem, Rome, 19:21)
      Ministry in Troas (2 Cor 2:12)
      To Macedonia (2 Cor 2:13; 7:5; 9:2b-4); arrival of Titus (2 Cor 7:6)	Macedonia (20:1b)
      Titus sent on ahead to Corinth (2 Cor 7:16-17), with part of 2 Cor
      Illyricum (Rom 15:19)?
      Achaia (Rom 15:26; 16:1); Paul's third visit to Corinth (2 Cor 13:1)	3 mos. In Greece (Achaia) (20:2-3)
      	Paul starts to return to Syria (20:3), but goes via Macedonia and Philippi (20:3b-6a)
      	Troas (20:6b-12)
      	Miletus (20:15c-38)
      	Tyre, Ptolemais, Caesarea (21:7-14)
      (Plans to visit Jerusalem, Rome, Spain [Rom 15:22-27])	Jerusalem (21:15 - 23:30)
      	Caesarea (23:31 - 26:32)
      	Journey to Rome (27:1 - 28:14)
      	Rome (28:15-31)

      To what extent did education in the diaspora (the pockets of Jewish life outside Palestine) influence Paul, in addition to his obvious linguistic and rhetorical abilities? Jewish acculturation in language and education led to varying degrees of accommodation and even assimilation, so no universal judgment can be made. He must have known something of the religion of the pagans among whom he lived, for example, having some awareness, probably prejudiced and unsympathetic, of pagan myths and Greco-Roman civic religious festivals. It is likely that Paul's education included a cursory knowledge of the moral or ethical positions of the Stoics, Cynics and Epicureans. At a simpler level, Paul would have known how ordinary pagans lived and worked, so that later in life he would not have appeared among them as a stranger to their concerns, aspirations, family problems, etc. As we can see from his letters, Paul understood very well the major role of the home in the Greco-Roman culture in which his recipients lived.

      However, Paul's education had another aspect, for his extensive knowledge of Judaism and the Jewish Scriptures needs to be explained. The statement in Acts 22:3 that Paul was raised in Jerusalem and educated by Gamaliel I the Elder, who flourished in Jerusalem around the years 20-50, probably needs to be qualified. The letters do not suggest that Paul saw Jesus during his public ministry or at the crucifixion, and thus implicitly cast doubt on Paul's continued presence in Jerusalem in the years 26-30. Yet he describes himself as a Hebrew and a Pharisee (Phil 3:5; 2 Cor 11:22). This is consistent with Acts 23:6, which describes Paul as a son of Pharisees, and 26:4-5, which suggests that Paul was a Pharisee from his youth. Paul says that he was zealous for the traditions of his ancestors and that he was more advanced in Judaism than many people of his age (Gal 1:14). Pharisaic teachers outside Palestine must not have been very numerous. It is also very likely that Paul knew Hebrew (or Aramaic or both - Acts 21:40; 22:2; 26:14). Combining all this information, it is possible that in the early 30s (before Stephen's death), Paul, who was then in his early twenties and had already received a solid Jewish education in Tarsus, came to Jerusalem to study the Law - which Acts 22:3 may simplify, romanticize and exaggerate. In any case, he is a man very familiar with two worlds who, at a defining moment in his life, became "a servant/slave of Christ Jesus.

   2. Belief In Jesus And Immediate Aftermath

      Paul says that he violently persecuted the Church of God and tried to destroy it (Gal 1:13; 1 Cor 15:9; Phil 3:6). This can be understood as participation in the persecution of the Christians in and around Jerusalem, as stated in Acts 8:3; 9:1-2; 22:3-5, 19; 26:9-11 - see 1 Thess 2:14, which indicates that the churches of God in Judea had been persecuted. By linking the clauses of Phil 3:5-6, "according to the Law a Pharisee, according to zeal a persecutor of the church, according to righteousness based on the blameless Law," others suspect that Paul saw Jesus' followers proclaiming a message contrary to the Pharisaic interpretation of the Law. More to the point, was Paul's hostility toward these people related to the fact that they were confessing as God-approved Messiah the one who had been condemned by the Jewish authorities as a blasphemer? Acts 26:9 records that before his conversion Paul had done many things to oppose "the name of Jesus of Nazareth." Did Paul perceive the followers of Jesus as blaspheming against Moses by changing the customs decreed by the Law and advocating the destruction of the Temple sanctuary (i.e., the charges against Stephen: Acts 6:11-14 - 8:1)?

      After a period of persecution, according to Gal 1:13-17 and Acts 9:1-9, Paul received a divine revelation in which he met Jesus and after which he remained in Damascus. This account leaves many questions unanswered. In I Cor 9:1, Paul says he saw Jesus (also 15:8); but this is not said in any of the three accounts in Acts (yet cf 9:27), even though he sees light. Did Luke place this appearance from heaven at a lower level than the appearances of the risen Lord on earth to the Twelve? For Paul, the appearance of the risen Lord was a major factor in his status as an apostle, but some have doubted that he is an apostle by Luke's standards.

      Theologically, the encounter with the risen Lord revealed to Paul that the scandal of the cross was not the end of Jesus' story. In Acts 26:17, Jesus says that he is sending Paul to the Gentiles, and in Galatians 1:16, Paul says that God was pleased "to reveal his Son in me so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles." Does this mean that, from the first moment of his conversion, Paul was aware of his mission to the Gentiles? Or, in a later reflection, having found that the Gentiles were very receptive to his gospel (which did not insist that they deserved the invitation of Christians by being circumcised and doing the works of the law), did Paul connect his call to them with his own undeserved call by Christ when he persecuted the Church? The latter hypothesis fits better with the data in Acts (13:46-47; 17:4; 18:6).

      Pauline Chronology according to two approches' types

      Note: The traditional chronology with its main dates is presented in bold type; the revisionist chronology is presented in italics. Some cities are underlined to indicate a long stay of Paul. Parentheses refer to Paul's letters with their abbreviated titles and probable dates. A question mark follows a title to indicate a possible but less plausible alternative dating.

      Traditional	Event	Revisionist
      36	Conversion to Christ	30/34
      39	Visit to Jerusalem after Damascus	33/37
      40-44 44-45	In Cilicia At Antioch	after 37
      46-49	[First] Missionary Journey, beginning in Antioch, to Cyprus and soouthern Asia Minor, returning in Antioch	after 37
      see below	[Second] Missionary Journey, beginning in Antioch, through suthern Asia Minor to N. Galatia, Macedonia, Corinth (1 Thess), return to Jerusalem and Antioch	39-41/43 (41-43)
      49	Jerusalem conference	47/51
      50-52 (50-52)	[Second] Missionary Journey, beginning in Antioch, through suthern Asia Minor to N. Galatia, Macedonia, Corinth (1 Thess), return to Jerusalem and Antioch.	see above
      54-58	[Third] Missionary Journey, beginning from Antioch through N. Galatia to Ephesus ;	indistinct from second
      (54-57)	three-year stay there - imprisoned? (Gal, Phil, Philem, 1 Cor)	(48/55)
      (summer 57)	Paul goes through Macedonia toward Corinth (2 Cor, Gal?), winters at Corinth	(after 54)
      (57/58)	(Rom), returns to Jerusalem.
      58-60	Arrested in Jerusalem; imprisoned two years in Caesarea (Phil?)	52-55 ou 56-58
      60-61	Sent to Rome; long sea jurney
      61-63	Prisoner in Rome for two years (Phil? Philem?)
      after summer 64	Death in Rome under Nero

      One chronology is called "traditional" because it is followed by the majority of biblical scholars; the other, called "revisionist," has a smaller but well-defined group of adherents. In the following discussion, we will follow the traditional chronology both because it is the one that readers will encounter most often and because it seems the most reasonable.

      When did Paul's conversion take place? Acts 7:58; 8:1; 9:1 associate Paul's persecution activity with the aftermath of Stephen's martyrdom. Galatians 1:17-18 seems to indicate a three-year interlude between Paul's conversion and his departure for Jerusalem (i.e., the interval during which he was in Arabia, i.e., the Nabataean region south of Palestine and of which Petra is the center, and Damascus); 2 Corinthians 11:32-33 records that Paul escaped from Damascus while King Aretas was trying to seize him. The Nabataean king Aretas was given control of Damascus by the emperor Caligula (37-41); thus, many date Paul's conversion to the Christian faith to about 36, his escape from Damascus and his departure for Jerusalem to about 39.

      According to Galatians 1:18-19, in Jerusalem Paul visited and talked with Peter and saw James the Lord's brother (but none of the other apostles). In his letters, Paul sometimes mentions what he received from the tradition about Jesus (1 Cor 11:23; 15:3), and it has been suggested that it was at this time that he learned all or part of this tradition. The stay in Jerusalem was brief (Gal 1:18; Acts 22:18), then Paul went to Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 9:30). It is not known how long Paul stayed there, but it may have been several years.

      Finally, Antioch in Syria (the third largest city in the Roman Empire, after Rome and Alexandria) became important in Paul's life. In Acts 11:25-26, Barnabas goes to Tarsus and brings Paul to Antioch because of the opportunities opened by the spread of Christianity among the Gentiles. Paul is supposed to have spent a year there before being sent to Jerusalem to help the victims of the famine (11:26-30). There was a famine in that part of the eastern Mediterranean during the reign of Emperor Claudius, probably around 45 AD, but this visit to Jerusalem is very difficult to reconcile with Paul's statement that in the course of his Christian career (up to 50 AD) he went to Jerusalem for the second time fourteen years later (Gal 2:1: after his first visit or, more likely, after his conversion? ) In any case, Antioch, not Jerusalem, was to be the starting point of Paul's missionary activity. The Orontes River gave Antioch access to a port on the Mediterranean, and it was by this sea that Paul would begin to proclaim Jesus more widely.

   3. First Missionary Journey; The Jerusalem Meeting; The Antioch Aftermath

      One of the main objections to using Acts as a guide to Paul's life is that, in his letters, Paul shows no awareness of numbered missionary journeys (three). It is strongly argued that if you had asked the Paul of the letters, "What missionary journey are you on now?" he would not have known what you were talking about. But to some extent, the same could be said of the Paul of Acts, who never explicitly mentions three missionary journeys. Indeed, Acts indicates that for a year and a half Paul was in Corinth and for three years in Ephesus, so he was not traveling in the ordinary sense. The three journeys are only a convenient classification developed by students of Acts, and they will be used in this sense. According to Acts 13:3 - 14:28, a missionary journey from Antioch in Syria took Barnabas, Paul and John Mark by sea to Cyprus, then to the Asia Minor cities of Perga (and, after John Mark's departure), Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, before Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch in Syria (around 49 AD). Having encountered opposition in the synagogues, Paul addressed the Gentiles, among whom the gospel was well received. In his undisputed letters, Paul gives us no information about such a journey. Yet in Galatians 2:1-3 he remembers preaching to the Gentiles before the Jerusalem meeting in 49, and in 2 Corinthians 11:25 he mentions being stoned (as he was in Lystra in Acts 14:19).

      According to Acts 10:44-48; 11:20-21, others before Paul made conversions among Gentiles (apparently without insisting on circumcision), but perhaps in situations where these Gentiles could be absorbed into communities of Jewish Christians. Apparently, Paul's innovation was to form entire communities of Gentile Christians with little or no attachment to Judaism. What did this portend for the future of Christianity? After Paul (and Barnabas) returned to Antioch, a meeting was held in Jerusalem around 49 AD to answer this question (Acts 15:1-29 and Galatians 2:1-10). Although there are differences between the two accounts, they agree that Paul, James (the Lord's brother) and Peter (Cephas) were involved, and that there was a group opposed to Paul who insisted that the Gentiles be circumcised. Through speeches, Acts highlights the reasons offered by Peter and James for agreeing with Paul that circumcision could not be required. Galatians 2:9 records that these others recognized the grace and apostleship bestowed on Paul and extended to him the right hand of fellowship.

      The decision to accept Gentiles without circumcision did not solve all the problems. Were the Gentiles bound by other parts of the Law of Moses, especially the purity laws regarding food? What was the relationship between Jewish Christians who observed these laws and Gentile Christians who did not? Acts 15:30 and Galatians 2:11-13 agree that after the Jerusalem meeting, Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch. There, according to Gal 2:12-14, a major conflict occurred: Peter, who had been eating with the Gentiles, backed down when men from James objected. For Paul, this attempt to force the Gentiles to live like Jews violated the truth of the Gospel! The Acts of the Apostles tells us nothing of such a dispute, but in a confused way it does report a letter sent (as James wished in Acts 15:20) from Jerusalem to Antioch, commanding that in Syria and Cilicia the Gentiles should observe the Jewish laws of purity, especially with regard to food. Galatians 2:13 reports that in Antioch Barnabas also sided with the men of James, and Acts 15:36-40 indicates that Paul and Barnabas had an unhappy separation, so that Paul left Antioch with Silas immediately afterwards. Apparently, Paul lost the battle of the dietary laws in Antioch, and this may explain why Antioch no longer figures prominently as the base of Paul's missionary activity. In his travels, he is now much more alone.

   4. Second And Third Missionary Journeys

      The missionary activity described in Acts 15:40 - 21:15 can be seen as a whole as Luke's illustration of Paul's vast undertaking after Jerusalem's decision to open the Gentile world to belief in Jesus without circumcision (50-58).

      In the first part of the activity (years 50-52; the "second journey": 15:40 - 18:22), Acts records that Paul returned to the sites in Southeast Asia Minor that he had evangelized on the first journey. Then, heading north (for the first time) to Galatia and Phrygia, he passed from Troas to Macedonia (Europe), obviously under divine direction. There, his travels took him to Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens and Corinth. In three of these five cities, letters bearing Paul's name were to be sent. Indeed, the first preserved Pauline letter, 1 Thessalonians, was written from Corinth as Paul expressed concern for a church he had recently evangelized (50-51). Paul's eighteen-month stay in Corinth was the longest he had ever stayed in a church he had founded; ironically, he was to leave behind a community that would be troubled by more problems than any other he wrote to. Aquila and Priscilla (Prisca), whom he met in Corinth and who accompanied him to Ephesus, became lifelong friends and collaborators both in Ephesus and in Rome. The fact that in Corinth Paul was dragged before Gallion, proconsul of Achaia (Acts 18:12) has been used as a pivotal point in Pauline chronology, for an inscription places Gallion as proconsul in Corinth in the twelfth year of Claudius (41-54), which began on January 25, 52. Gallio appears to have left Corinth in late 52. These perimeters suggest dating Paul's stay in Corinth from 50/51 to 52. In Acts 18:18b-22, Paul leaves from Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, touches down in Ephesus and Caesarea (on the Palestinian coast), then goes up to greet the church (in Jerusalem).

      In the second part of Paul's extensive missionary activity (53/54 to 58; the "third journey": Acts 18:23 - 21:15), after spending "some time" at Antioch in Syria, he again travels through Galatia and Phrygia to Ephesus, the most important city in the Roman province of Asia, where he remains for three years (from 54 to the spring of 57: Acts 20:31; cf. 19:8.10; 1 Cor 16:8). Among the events recorded in Acts 19:1-20:1 are Paul's struggle with the seven sons of a Jewish high priest who were exorcists, and the riot against Paul by the goldsmiths devoted to "Artemis/Diane of the Ephesians" which led to his departure. In his letters, Paul never speaks explicitly of these events in Ephesus, but he may refer to them implicitly in the list of trials in 2 Corinthians 11:23-26, in "the affliction that befell us in Asia" (2 Corinthians 1:8), or in "I fought in Ephesus with beasts" (1 Corinthians 15:32; also 16:8-9: "There are many adversaries"). In particular, these allusions to Paul's trials allow for the possibility that the apostle was imprisoned in Ephesus, even though Acts does not describe such an imprisonment. This is important because many suggest that Paul wrote the letters to the Philippians and Philemon from Ephesus, both of which were written while Paul was in prison. It is generally agreed that it was in Ephesus that he wrote to the Galatians, expressing his concern about what had happened there in the four or five years following his evangelistic efforts in northern Galatia around the year 50. Toward the end of Paul's stay in Ephesus, the problems of the Corinthian church were brought to his attention; some of the Corinthian correspondence was written at this time (1 Corinthians [16:8]; and a tearful letter [2 Cor 2:3-4: lost?]), interspersed with a painful visit (2 Cor 2:1). The Acts of the Apostles is completely silent on Paul's difficult relationship with Corinth.

      Some time after Pentecost (late spring), in AD 57, Paul left Ephesus for Troas, further north on the Asian shore of the Aegean Sea; but not finding Titus, whom he had sent to straighten out the situation in Corinth, he crossed into Europe and went to Macedonia (Philippi? 2 Corinthians 2:12-13), where he met Titus, who brought the good news of reconciliation. Paul then wrote (perhaps in two stages) what is now 2 Corinthians. Finally, he went to Achaia and Corinth where he spent three winter months (57/58). There, Paul gathered the proceeds of a collection for the Christians in Jerusalem, taken in various churches he had evangelized; he intended to bring these funds to Jerusalem on his planned trip. In Corinth, Paul also composed the epistle to the Romans, warning the domestic churches in the capital of the Empire that he intended to go there on his way to Spain, once he had taken the collection to Jerusalem (15:24-26). In this letter he tries to make himself look good, as if the Romans had heard exaggerated reports about him.

      According to Acts 20:2-17 (Spring 58), Paul left Corinth for Jerusalem via Macedonia and spent the Passover in Philippi. He then went to Troas, then down the Asian coast to Miletus where he gave a farewell speech to the presbyters of Ephesus who had come to see him (20: 17-38). In Miletus, then in Tyre and Caesarea, as he reached the Palestinian coast, Paul had a premonition that he would be imprisoned and die at the end of his journey. We find some confirmation of this in Rom 15:30-31, where Paul asks for prayers for his next visit to Jerusalem, so that he may "escape from the unbelievers in Judea".

   5. Paul Arrested In Jerusalem; Imprisoned In Caesarea; Taken To Rome; Death
      Most of the last half-dozen years of Paul's life (c. 58-64) are recorded in Acts 21:15 - 28:31; they were marked by suffering, four of them by imprisonment. It is only in passing that Acts 24:17 confirms that Paul brought the money for the gifts to Jerusalem. A meeting, rather tense under the surface politeness, took place between Paul and James (the Lord's brother and the leader of the Christians in Jerusalem), during which Paul was told to behave like a devout and practicing Jew during his stay in Jerusalem (21:17-25). However, his presence in the Temple court caused a riot, so that a Roman tribune had to intervene to save him, and he had to give a long speech in self-defense in Hebrew (Aramaic? 21:26 - 22:30). Finally, Paul was brought before a session of the Sanhedrin and succeeded in creating a dispute between the Sadducee and Pharisee judges, which led the tribune to take him to Caesarea to be tried by the Roman governor Felix, before whom he defended himself again (23:1 - 24:21). But Felix, looking for a bribe, postpones the trial and leaves Paul in prison for two years (24: 22-27). Only with the advent of Festus, the next procurator, and the continued accusations of the Jewish leaders, was Paul's case taken up again (25:1 - 26:32). At a trial before Festus, Paul argued that he had committed no crime against Jewish law or against Caesar. The procurator invited King Herod Agrippa II to hear the case; and although neither ruler found Paul guilty, he was sent to Rome as a prisoner because he had appealed to Caesar.

      Paul's perilous sea voyage (late 60s, early 61s) is described with great verve in Acts 27:1 - 28:14. Storms, shipwrecks and a winter spent in Malta culminate in "And so we came to Rome." Paul would have stayed there for two years under a kind of house arrest that allowed him to preach to those who came to him. Paul's sentiment with which Acts 28:26-28 closes the account (circa 63), i.e., the Jews will never believe while the Gentiles will believe, is hardly the same as that expressed by Paul in Romans 11:25-26 (perhaps the last of Paul's undisputed letters), namely, that when the Gentiles have entered, all Israel will be saved. Neither the letters nor Acts tell us about his death, but tradition holds that he was martyred under Nero (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 2.25.4-8), either at about the same time as Peter (AD 64) or a little later (AD 67). Tradition has it that Paul is buried on the Via Ostiensis, a place commemorated by the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls.

      Remaining Issues

      If Acts is correct about the length of Paul's house arrest in Rome (two years), did he make any other trips between the year 63 and the time of his death (64 to 67)? Did he follow through on his intention to go to Spain? Did Luke remember this when, in Acts 1:8, Jesus asks to extend the testimony to "the ends of the earth"? Within thirty years of Paul's death, 1 Clement 5:7 records that Paul "traveled to the far west," "before bearing witness to the ruling authorities and dying." In discussing Acts, the Fragment of Muratori (ca. 180?) refers to an account of Paul's departure from Rome to Spain.

      Even more urgently, what are we to think of the geographical information contained in the Pastoral Letters, according to which Paul, before his death, would again go to Ephesus, to Macedonia (from where he writes 1 Tim [1:5] addressed to Ephesus) and to Greece (with the intention of wintering in Nicopolis [Titus 3:12])? 2 Tim 3:13 suggests an unprepared departure from Troas (because he was arrested?), and 1:8.16-17 makes Paul a prisoner in Rome. If the Pastorals were written by Paul, this information about a "second career" after the one described in Acts should be considered historical. If they were written by a disciple of Paul, they may be historical (based on an authentic Pauline itinerary) or they may be an imaginary setting for the letters (but a setting written in ignorance of Acts).

2. The Theology of Paul
   1. Was Paul Consistent?

      To answer this question, caution is required. If we isolate Paul's authentic letters (1 Thess, 1-2 Cor, Gal, Rom, Phil, Philem), they certainly do not give us the whole of Paul's theology. Therefore, when we come across a new idea, for example the detailed structure of the Church advocated in the Pastorals, it is not so easy to say at first sight that it cannot come from Paul. It would have to be shown that this new idea cannot be reconciled with Pauline thought. But this criterion presupposes that Paul could not or would not change his mind (for theological reasons, not just out of personal stubbornness). Indeed, he says in Galatians 1:8: "Even if we ourselves or an angel from heaven should preach to you (another gospel than the one we preached to you), let him be anathema." Now this constancy concerns Paul's basic principle of God's gracious gift of salvation in Christ, independent of the works of the Law. To what extent is such immutability applicable to the elaboration of the ramifications of the Christian life? One might be encouraged to recognize the inconsistency with 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, where Paul emphasizes that he is all things to all people: "For the Jews I became a Jew to win the Jews...for those who are strangers to the Law I became a stranger to the Law to win the strangers to the Law."

      Here are some examples of the problem. Can we recognize a difference that goes beyond rhetoric between Gal 5:2, "If you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you," and Rom 3:1-2, "What advantage is there in being circumcised? Much in all respects"? Is Paul rethinking the role of circumcision with more subtlety, without, of course, changing his gospel that salvation is possible without it? Such a change could be the result of the bad reactions in Jerusalem to Paul's caustic criticism of the men who were the pillars of the Jerusalem church (Gal 2:6-9) communicated by Paul's opponents in Galatia. In Romans 15:30-31, Paul asks the Christians in the capital to join him in his efforts to be accepted in Jerusalem; could this be a recognition that in the polemical atmosphere of Galatia he had overstated the case? On another note, is Paul, in Cor 10:28-33 (not to eat food consecrated to idols for fear of scandalizing weaker Christians), showing tolerance for what Peter may have done in Antioch when he stopped eating meals with pagans because it scandalized the men of James - an action Paul challenged on behalf of the Gospel (Gal 2:11-14)? Recognizing that, from letter to letter, Paul's statements are not rigidly consistent does not mean that his thinking is inconsistent or conforming. On the contrary, this recognition that Paul was far from being an ideologue underscores the importance of understanding the circumstances Paul addresses in each letter and what he is defending or fighting against. Paul's consistency in the midst of diversity stems in part from his pastoral perception of what he thought people needed to hear, whether they liked it or not. There is a big difference between being all things to all people in order to please all people, and being all things to all people in order to save as many people as possible (1 Cor 9:22).

   2. What Was Paul's Attitude toward Judaism?

      With the exception of the letter to the Romans, Paul's undisputed letters were addressed to audiences that he himself had evangelized; and since he considered himself responsible for bringing the Gospel to the uncircumcised, he wrote primarily to Gentiles. Many commentators assume that what Paul was saying to them was universal in scope and could be said to the Jews as well. This seems plausible in terms of his basic gospel of salvation through Christ, but are we sure how he would apply this gospel to the Jews? Let's take the example of circumcision. Suppose Paul had married a Jewish woman who became a Christian and they had a son: would he have refused to have the child circumcised? Of course, he certainly would not have thought that circumcision was necessary for salvation since the child would grow up and believe in Christ. But wouldn't Paul have wanted the child to have the privileges of being an "Israelite" eloquently described in Romans 9:4-5? The Paul of Acts 24:14 states that "I serve the God of our fathers according to the Way which they call a sect; I believe all that is written in the Law and the Prophets."

   3. How Unique Was Paul?

      Related to the previous question is the question of how new, unique or even idiosyncratic Paul's thinking was, not only in relation to Judaism but also to his fellow Christians. Clearly, the revelation of the Son of God radically changed Paul's perspective; but in his Christian approach to the issues, how different was he from other prominent or leading Christians? Several factors prompted a maximalist response. Paul's emphasis on the differences with Cephas (Peter) and the men of James in Galatians 2:11-14 and his criticism of super-apostles in 2 Corinthians 11:5 have shaped the image of a lonely Paul. Throughout Christian history, the study of Paul has prompted important theologians to issue radical challenges to mainstream or popular thought (Marcion, Augustine [against Pelagius], Luther, Barth), and this has been projected into the image of Paul. However, such a projection carries the danger of being anachronistic. Indeed, in Galatians 2:9, James, Cephas (Peter) and John give Paul their right hands, and in 1 Corinthians 15:3-11, Paul joins Cephas, the Twelve, James and all the apostles in the same preaching and belief. One wonders, then, whether in seeing a certain harmony between Peter and Paul (Acts, 1 Clement 5:2-5) and in expressing Peter's problems with Paul in a benevolent way (2 Pet 3:15-16), the later works simply domesticated Paul or rightly retained the idea that he was not hostilely isolated.

   4. Was Paul the Creator of High Christology?

      For some liberal thinkers, Jesus was just a reform-minded Jewish peasant who criticized hypocrisy and some of the entrenched religious attitudes and institutions of his day. Paul, it is said, Hellenized the memory, making Jesus the Son of God; and in this sense, Paul is truly the founder of the Christian religion. Few would express the contrast so starkly today, but the tendency to make Paul the architect of a high-level Christology persists. This tendency is challenged, for the most part, by the realization that Paul hardly created titles for Jesus such as Son of God or Lord (in the absolute sense), since they had their roots in Palestinian (and even Semitic) Christianity. Indeed, there is a tendency in centrist critical scholarship to see considerable continuity between the Christology of Jesus' lifetime and the Christology of Paul.

   5. What Is the Theological Center of Paul's Theology?

      Although they largely agree that the organizing principles of later theology should not be imposed on Paul, scholars are far from in agreement on the key issue of Paul's thought. Here are their various positions:

      • The emphasis would be on justification by faith
      • There would be an antithesis between the human flesh and the divine Spirit
      • There would be an antithesis between the human being before the revelation of faith and the human being under faith
      • A concept of salvation history would be central
      • In an apocalyptic context, the Christ event would be the consummation and end of history
      • The context would rather be that of a Christocentric soteriology: Christ crucified and risen for our sanctification.

      All of these statements have some truth to them, provided we realize that they are analytical judgments and that Paul probably never thought of a "center of his theology. He did, however, speak about his "gospel," and Christocentrism is the closest thing to it (see Romans 1:3-4; 4:24-25).

   6. Is There a Central Pauline Narrative?

      Instead of a central theological theme, some scholars have thought of a narrative. Just as Judaism had a basic story describing how God had chosen and called Israel through Moses (a story shared by Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and nationalist extremists), so, some logically assume, did Christians have a basic story that recounted God's choice of Israel by recalling how God had renewed the call through the ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. Paul had certainly preached the story of Jesus when he arrived at a preaching site. As a result, we cannot judge Paul's gospel from his letters, for the letters assume the "story" of Jesus that he told on his first visit to the community in question, a story that is difficult to reconstruct from what underlies the letters. In many ways, this "common sense" approach to Paul is more compelling than any presentation that he was abstractly systematic in his thinking.

   7. What Does Paul Mean by "Righteousness" and "Justification"?

      Since the time of the Reformation, "justice" has been a major issue in Pauline studies. Some would make it the center of Pauline theology, even though this theme is conspicuously absent from an early letter like 1 Thess. With the help of the Qumran evidence, it is now widely recognized that this phraseology echoes a Jewish apocalyptic description of the covenantal benevolence of God in the context of judgment. For Paul, it describes the powerful saving act of God through faith in Jesus Christ. The other side of the coin is the effect of the Christ event: the "justification" or relationship of human beings to God that results from God's gracious and unmerited action in Christ: they now stand before God, acquitted or innocent. The Reformation debate over whether God merely declares people to be upright (usually identified as the Protestant position) or whether he actually makes them upright by transforming them (the Catholic position) perhaps requires a clarification that goes beyond Paul's explicit thought.

   8. How Do the DeuteroPauline Writings Fit into the Pauline Picture?

      Six letters are involved: 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus. If, in fact, they were not written by Paul, were they all written by followers of Paul, so that they represent a true continuity? Can the change of circumstances explain the differences in emphasis from Paul's undisputed letters? Over-enthusiasm for the end times may explain the emphasis on correction in 2 Thess, while Col and even Eph may be seen as a development of Paul's view of the body of Christ in light of a broader view of the church toward the end of the age. Some will find the emphasis on church structure in the Pastorals so foreign to Paul's interests that these letters must be considered a foreign implant. However, the structure of the established communities that would allow them to survive was certainly a more important issue after Paul's life than during it, and so how decisive is the fact that the historical Paul is not interested in it? Prima facie, the author of the Pastorals thought his ideas so close to those of Paul that he used the apostle's name. Do we have sufficient evidence to contradict his judgment? We will come back to this.