Paul the Apostle

Life. Paul's exact date of birth is unknown. It is reasonable to surmise that he was born within a decade of Jesus' birth. He died, probably as a martyr in Rome, in the mid- to late a.d. 60s.

Paul's birthplace was not the land Christ walked but the Hellenistic city of Tarsus, chief city of the Roman province of Cilicia. Tarsus, modern-day Tersous in southeastern Turkey, has never been systematically excavated to first-century levels, so extensive archaeological data are lacking. Literary sources confirm that Paul's native city was a hotbed of Roman imperial activity and Hellenistic culture. Yet his writings show no conscious imitation, and scarcely any significant influence, of the pagan leading lights of the era. Instead, as Paul himself suggests, he was a Jew in terms of his circumcision, Benjaminite lineage, Hebrew ancestry, and Pharisaic training ( Php 3:5 ).

Paul, in the New Testament known by his Hebrew name Saul until Acts 13:9, was apparently educated from boyhood in Jerusalem, not Tarsus ( Acts 22:3 ). It is not clear whether his family moved to Jerusalem (where both Greek and Jewish schooling was offered) while he was young, or whether Paul was simply sent there for his education. He studied under the ranking rabbi of the era, Gamaliel. His exegesis of the Old Testament bears testimony to his rabbinic training. Paul was at least trilingual. His letters attest to an excellent command of Greek, while life and studies in Palestine presuppose knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic. Facility in Latin cannot be ruled out. His writings show intimate knowledge of the Greek Old Testament, though there is no reason to suppose that he was ignorant of or unskilled in Hebrew.

Some (e.g., William Ramsey, Adolf Schlatter) insist that Paul had personal knowledge of Jesus during his earthly ministry. Hengel goes so far as to assert that it is almost probable that the young Saul even witnessed Jesus' death. In any case, only a couple of years after Jesus' crucifixion (ca. a.d. 30), Paul's hostile attitude toward the latest and most virulent messianic movement of the time underwent radical change. As he traveled the 150 miles from Jerusalem to Damascus armed with legal authority to hunt down Jewish Christians ( Acts 9:1-2 ), bright light and a heavenly voice stopped him dead in his tracks. It was Jesusto Paul's chagrin not a dead troublemaker but the risen Lord. Paul's conversion was never the focal point of his preachinghe preached Christ, not his personal experience ( 2 Cor 4:5 )but it does not fail to influence him in later years ( Acts 22:2-12 ; 26:2-18 ).

We can only sketch the rough outlines of Paul's life from his conversion to his first missionary journey in the late a.d. 40s. He spent various lengths of time in Arabia, Damascus, and Jerusalem, eventually spending a lengthier stint far to the north in Syria and his native Cilicia ( Gal 1:15-21 ). From there Barnabas enlisted his services for teaching duties in the church at Syrian Antioch ( Acts 11:25 ). Ironically, this multiracial church had been founded by Christians driven out of Palestine by persecutions instigated by Saul of Tarsus ( Acts 11:19-21 ). It is from this period that our sources permit us to speak in some detail about the biblical theology of the apostle Paul.

Missionary Journeys. Paul's writings all arise from the crucible of missionary activity and the theological effort required to educate and sustain those who found Christ through his preaching. Galatians was probably written following Paul and Barnabas's tour of the Roman province of Asia around a.d. 47-49. This is the so-called first missionary journey (Acts 13-14). A second foray, this time with Silas and Timothy, lasted almost three years (ca. a.d. 50-53) and resulted in churches founded in Philippi, Berea, Thessalonica, and Corinth. The Thessalonian letters were written during this period.

Paul's third missionary journey (Acts 18-21) lasted from about a.d. 53 to 57 and centered on a long stay in Ephesus, from where he wrote 1 Corinthians. During a sweep through Macedonia he wrote 2 Corinthians. At the end of this time, awaiting departure for Jerusalem, he wrote Romans from Corinth (ca. a.d. 57).

Paul's arrival in Jerusalem was followed quickly by arrest and a two-year imprisonment in Caesarea Maritima. Thereafter he was shipped to Rome on appeal to the imperial court of Nero. There (see Acts 28 ) he apparently wrote his so-called prison letters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. From this point reconstructions of Paul's movements are tentative. Assuming release from imprisonment Paul may have managed a fourth journey, perhaps as far west as Spain and then back into the Aegean area. One or more of the Pastoral Epistles may date from this period. Second Timothy concludes with Paul once more in chains. Reports of uncertain reliability place Paul's death at about a.d. 67 under the deranged oversight of Nero.