Paul of Tarsus
- James Collazo
- Jun 6, 2019
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 12
Introduction
Paul of Tarsus (Hebrew: Shaul ha-Tarsi / Greek: Paulos tou Tarsou) was born around AD 5–10 in the Roman province of Cilicia. In his letter to the church in Philippi, he described his background: "[I was] circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless" (Phil. 3:5–6). In short, Paul was Jewish by birth and identity in every way—ethnically, nationally, religiously, and socially. He embodied both the ethnic and religious dimensions of Jewish identity.
Paul's diverse background helps explain this self-description. He was Jewish, but he also came from Tarsus, a well-known center of Greek philosophy, rhetoric, and higher learning. Paul was born a Roman citizen, apparently by inheritance from his family, although the circumstances remain uncertain. His family appears to have been part of the Hellenistic Jewish community. Paul grew up in Tarsus, but later studied in Jerusalem under the respected rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), who, according to later Jewish tradition, was the grandson of the rabbi Hillel. As a Pharisee, Paul studied the Written Torah and the Oral Torah (later compiled in the Mishnah around AD 200 and subsequently expanded in the Jerusalem Talmud around AD 400 and the Babylonian Talmud around AD 500), practiced rhetorical debate, gained wisdom, and learned the ascetic life.
Road to Damascus
Many Christians assume that God changed the apostle's name from "Saul" to "Paul" when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Such name changes appear in Scripture—Jacob became Israel in the Old Testament, and Simon became Peter in the New Testament. However, Jesus still called him "Saul" when asking about his persecution of the church (Acts 9:4). Even after his conversion, other Jewish Christians continued to call him Saul (Acts 9:17; 13:2, 7).
Luke, who wrote Acts of the Apostles as a sequel to his namesake gospel, clarified: "Saul, who was also called Paul" (Acts 13:9). Paul had both a Roman and a Jewish name. In Tarsus and Jerusalem, his family and fellow rabbis used Saul (Hebrew: Shaul, H7586). When he traveled across the Mediterranean, he used his Roman name, Paul (Latin: Paulus / Greek: Paulos, G3972). Some scholars have suggested that Paul preferred his Latin name because the Greek form Saulos (G4569) may have carried unfavorable slang associations with prostitutes, although this proposal remains debated.
Paul's encounter with the risen Jesus did not mean he abandoned Judaism for Christianity. God redirected Paul's zeal and corrected his understanding of Israel's Messiah. During his three years in Arabia, Paul reflected upon the implications of Jesus' resurrection and calling (Gal. 1:17–18). Even after his conversion, Paul never stopped being a Jew, and he often worried about the spiritual condition of his people (Rom. 2:29, 11; 1 Cor. 9:20). Paul is traditionally credited with writing thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, all of which were letters to congregations across the Mediterranean. Yet the Paul known to Christian Gentiles sharply contrasted with Saul, who once terrified Jewish Christians.
As a Pharisee, Paul prided himself on his education under Gamaliel, which gave him opportunities for advancement. He likely believed God favored him over other Jewish scholars. His pride drove him to defend the faith aggressively, even using force if necessary. By today's standards, commentators might describe him as a zealous Pharisee committed to suppressing what he regarded as dangerous heresy. Yet God's grace redirected Paul's zeal, transforming him from a persecutor who applauded Stephen's execution (Acts 6–7) into Christ's chosen messenger to the Gentiles, Israel, and Roman officials (Acts 9:15).
Paul: A Missionary for the Mediterranean
Much of the Acts of the Apostles reads like a dramatic Greco-Roman travel story, and Paul's journey fits that style perfectly. His odyssey began on the road to Damascus, where he met the risen Jesus and lost his sight. After his baptism and the restoration of his vision, Paul spent time in Arabia before returning to Damascus, a period that many scholars understand as one of reflection and preparation for his ministry. He later attended the Council of Jerusalem around AD 50, where he participated in discussions concerning the inclusion of Gentile believers (Acts 15:1–21; Gal. 2:1–10).
Paul endured five lashings, three beatings with rods, a stoning, three shipwrecks, imprisonments, and even a venomous snakebite (Acts 28:3–6; 2 Cor. 11:23–25). Rather than portraying Paul as a conquering Greco-Roman hero, Luke presents him as a faithful servant whose suffering advances the gospel. Jesus chose Paul to establish churches across the "inhabited world" (Greek: oikoumenē, G3625) of the Mediterranean. Through Paul's ministry, the gospel reached members of the emperor's household (Phil. 4:22), from which the Jesus movement continued to spread throughout the Roman world.
Luke organizes Paul's ministry around three major missionary journeys. After Paul finished his third tour in AD 57, he returned to Jerusalem, where he stayed for two years before traveling to Rome. He went back to Jerusalem to deliver a monetary offering he had collected in Macedonia, knowing that many believers in Jerusalem were experiencing poverty (Rom. 15:26). Paul briefly stayed with Philip in Caesarea Maritima, where the prophet Agabus warned him, "The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and hand him over to the Gentiles'" (Acts 21:10–11). Later, the Romans would detain Paul in this same city, Caesarea Maritima, until his trial.
Within seven days of returning to Jerusalem, Paul angered some Jews from the Roman province of Asia. They accused him of defiling the temple by allowing his Gentile companions to enter areas reserved only for Jews. James, the leader of the Jerusalem church, and other elders warned Paul that he already had a reputation for disregarding the Law of Moses. Paul followed James' advice and completed the Jewish rite of purification, immersing himself in the temple's ritual bath (Hebrew: mikveh, H4723) and shaving his head. Despite this, certain Jews from the province of Asia organized a mob to attack him. They seized Paul and dragged him from the temple, after which the gates were shut. Roman soldiers intervened, stopped the attack, and arrested Paul in chains. They brought him to the Antonia Fortress, a Roman military barracks overlooking the Second Temple, for processing, and then sent him to Caesarea Maritima, the principal seaport out of Judea (Acts 21).
All Roads Lead to Rome
From the moment Jesus confronted him near Damascus, he intended Paul to take the gospel to Rome (Acts 9:15–16). Paul probably did not realize that invoking his Roman citizenship and appealing to the emperor would set his death in motion. Roman citizenship was relatively uncommon among Jews in Judea, making Paul's legal status unusual. Both Festus, the procurator of Judea, and Herod Agrippa II wanted to release Paul, but neither could overrule his appeal to the emperor (Acts 25:10–12; 26:32).
After the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, the emperor Nero blamed Christians for the disaster and launched what many historians regard as the first major imperial persecution of the church. The Roman historian Tacitus records that Nero punished Christians to divert suspicion from himself after the fire (Ann. 15.44). The early Christian writer Clement of Rome wrote the earliest account of Paul's martyrdom:
But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to the most recent spiritual heroes. Let us take the noble examples furnished in our own generation. Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. . . . Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained an illustrious reputation for his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects. Thus was he removed from the world, and went into the holy place, having proved himself a striking example of patience (1 Clem. 5).
Coincidentally, some scholars identify this Clement with the one Paul mentioned in his letter to the Philippians (Phil. 4:3). Whether Nero himself was responsible for the Great Fire remains debated. Nevertheless, Paul was likely executed in Rome during Nero's persecution, probably by beheading because he was a Roman citizen. When Paul sailed for Jerusalem for the last time, he originally planned to continue to Rome and eventually Spain (Rom. 15:24, 28). The Acts of the Apostles concludes with Paul preaching freely in Rome rather than recording his death. Instead, Luke emphasized the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria and ultimately to the heart of the Roman Empire (Acts 1:8).
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Clement of Rome. The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1885.
Tacitus. The Annals of Imperial Rome. Translated by Michael Grant. London: Penguin, 1956.
Commentaries
Bruce, F. F. The Book of the Acts. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Revised ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988.
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Monographs
Bailey, Kenneth E. Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.
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Champlin, Edward. Nero. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
deSilva, David A. Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.
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Hurtado, Larry W. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.
Longenecker, Richard N. Paul, Apostle of Liberty. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015.
McDowell, Sean. The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus. New York: Routledge, 2016.
Sanders, E. P. Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977.
Witherington, Ben, III. The Paul Quest: The Renewed Search for the Jew of Tarsus. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1998.
Wright, N. T. Interpreting Paul: Essays on the Apostle and His Letters. Vol. 3 of Collected Essays of N. T. Wright. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2020.
Wright, N. T. Paul: A Biography. New York: HarperCollins, 2018.
Wright, N. T. Paul: In Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009.
Wright, N. T. Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Vol. 4 of Christian Origins and the Question of God. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013.
Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the Question of God. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003.
Wright, N. T., and Michael F. Bird. The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2019.
Young, Brad H. Paul the Jewish Theologian: A Pharisee Among Christians, Jews, and Gentiles. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1997.
Edited Volumes
Bird, Michael F., ed. Four Views on the Apostle Paul. Counterpoints. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012.
Nanos, Mark D., and Magnus Zetterholm, eds. Paul Within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015.
Reference Works
Keener, Craig S., and John H. Walton, eds. NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016.
Schlechter, Solomon, and Wilhelm Bacher. "Hillel."↗ Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906.
Journal Articles
Everts, Jane Meyer. "The Apostle Paul and His Times."↗ Christian History 47 (1995).
Hemer, Colin J. "The Name of Paul."↗ Tyndale Bulletin 36, no. 1 (1985): 179–83.
Leary, T. J. "Paul's Improper Name."↗ New Testament Studies 38, no. 3 (1992): 467–69.