All we know of St. Paul is contained in the thirteen letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament, the Acts of Apostles and the Church tradition. Seven letters are believed to be authentic: 1. Tess., 1. Cor., 2. Cor., Gal., Phil., Philem., Rom. The remaining six letters do not contain new biographic information of Paul. The seven authentic letters can be considered more reliable than Acts in case there is a conflict.
The first conflict is where and when Paul started preaching the gospel. According to Acts 9:20 he started it in Damascus after he converted, but Rom. 15:19 declares that Paul started in Jerusalem and its surroundings after having met Peter and James the Just three years after his conversion. According to Acts 7:58 and 8:3 Saul was present when St. Stephen was stoned and persecuted Christians in Jerusalem after that event, and then went to Damascus to persecute Christians, but Gal. 1:22 explains that Paul was unknown to congregations in Judea before he came to meet Peter and Paul. Thus, he was not in Jerusalem when Stephen was stoned and did not persecute Christians in Jerusalem. Paul’s persecution of God’s congregation (Gal. 1:13) happened most probably close to Damascus. Church tradition tells that Paul and his parents lived in Damascus.
Acts claims that Paul was born in Tarso in Cilicia, but the reason for this seems to be that Luke, the author of Acts, wants to give an explanation why Paul had a Roman citizenship from birth. By a special degree of a free city, inhabitants of Tarso did have Roman citizenship, but otherwise it was rare for Hebrews to possess it. There is no reason to doubt that Paul did have a Roman citizenship, as he successfully applied to a trial by Caesar. If Paul’s city of birth was Damascus, then there must be some other reason why he had a Roman citizenship from birth. Eisenman’s proposal, that Paul was a Herodian, is very natural. Herodians were friends of Rome and they did have the citizenship of Rome. In Rom. 16:10-11 Paul sends greetings to the family of Aristobulus, a typical Hasmonean name, Herodion, his kinsman, and Narcissus, who may be a freed slave of Nero. In Phil. 4:22 Christians of Caesar’s household send greetings. In Acts 13:1 Paul is mentioned among Manaen, who grew up with Herod (apparently Herod Antipas).
Acts has two description of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:1-19 and Acts 22:3-16). In both of these accounts Paul sees a bright light. Paul’s letters mention his conversion twice, but without any details: Gal. 1:16 “to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles” and 1. Cor. 15:8 “and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born”. No supernatural light is necessarily implied in Acts: bright light can be understood as wisdom, which Paul did not understand and became blind, while Ananius, who opened Paul’s eyes, explained this wisdom.
In Acts 28:8-9 Paul heals the ill of Malta. None of the letters of Paul, which are considered original, say that Paul made any miracles or healed anybody, nor that such miracles would have happened in Pauline congregations. Paul tells of miracles in the Old Testament, but the only miracle in his own time that he mentions is the resurrection of Jesus and his post-resurrection appearances.
There are some references to healings and miracles in original Pauline letters. In Rom. 15:19 signs and miracles are mentioned, but Paul probably means the Old Testament stories of signs and miracles, not something Paul did or witnessed. Some are told to make powerful deeds and heal in 1. Cor 12:29-30, and Paul refers to Jesus’ word that faith can move a mountain in 1. Cor. 13:2. 1. Cor 12:9-10 mentions healing and powerful deeds as God’s gifts, but as in this congregation there are many ill and weak people (1. Cor 11:30) if does not seem that anybody was healed in that congregation. Apparently the only gifts in the Corinthians has were talking in unintelligible languages and prophesying, as 1. Cor 1:22 says that Jews ask for signs, Greeks for wisdom, but Christian apostles, like Paul, preach the crucified Jesus, i.e., give neither wisdom for Greeks, not signs for Jews.
It seems that Paul and other apostles did not make signs, miracles of healings. Instead, in 1. Cor. 14:18, Paul tells that he spoke in languages more than anybody in the congregation. Talking in languages, prophesying, telling Old Testament stories of miracles, and telling of Jesus’ resurrection must then be the signs of an apostle that Paul made in the Corinthian congregation, spoken of in 2. Cor. 12:12. In Gal. 3:5 is mentioned that God makes powerful deeds among the Galatians, but this does not need to mean healing or miracles. In any case, Paul could not heal Epaphrodius in Phil. 2:26. There are no mentions of healing and miracles in the authentic letters 1. Tess., Gal., Phil. and Philemon.
In the six Pauline letters, which are not considered authentic, there are no references to healing or miracles in Eph., Col., 1. Tim., and Titus. Indeed, Paul advices Timothy not to be eager to lay hands on anybody in order not to share in sin (1. Tim. 5:22), suggesting that charlatans did lay hands on people. This contrasts with (2. Tim. 1:6) where Paul says that he has given Timothy a gift by laying hands on him. Neither letter is authentic Pauline. In 2. Tess. 2:9 there is a reference to miracles, but those miracles will be made by the Antichrist in the future. Thus, none of authentic or non-authentic Pauline letters witness of any healing or miracles, but show that there were such rumors.
None of these letters know of other person (like Lazarus in John) than Jesus having been raised form death before Jesus: Jesus was the first raised from the death (1. Cor. 15:20).
The canonical letters of Peter, Jacob, Judas and John make very few mentions of miracle healing or other miracles. James 5:14-15 tells of prayer as a way of healing the ill, but of miracles refers to the story of Eliyah. 2. Peter 1:18 tells of Peter hearing a voice from heaven, so witnessing a miracle, but this letter is pseudo-epigraphic and quite late. Other miracles told in 2. Peter derive from the Old Testament. 1. John 5:14-15 does say that we get all we ask for, provided that we ask according to God’s will, but this will probably does not include asking for miracles.
Paul also did not believe in virgin birth of Jesus. He states that by flesh Jesus was of Davidic lineage, thus a son of Joseph, and he became Son of God by being raised from death (Rom. 1:3). The only miracle he knows of is the resurrection, but it seems also symbolic: Paul sometimes means baptism by dying and being resurrected. In 1. Cor 15:35-58 he tries to explain what resurrection is: rising from death is not in this same body. He may mean resurrection of the soul, appearances of the soul of Jesus in another body.
If apostles of Jesus not do miracles or healing, then what is the meaning of miracle and healing stories in Gospels and Acts? It can be symbolic miracles and healings by wisdom.
1. John 5:20 talks of understanding. James in (3:13) talks of wisdom and understanding. Paul’s letter to Ephesians talks of wisdom and understanding (Eph.. 1:8). This must be the correct understanding of healing and miracles: the message of Jesus is from Jewish wisdom literature. Hearing words of wisdom heals the ill, feeds the hungry and makes the dead alive. In Gospels Jesus makes miracles, but they are to be understood as spiritual. They are not explained as spiritual so that those, who are not called, would not understand them and correct their ways.
Paul writes in Rom. 3:7 he writes about doing bad so that the outcome is good. Paul also adds in Rom 3:7 that God’s truth becomes clearer through Paul’s lie. But then he rejects the idea that Christians should do evil because it would increase God’s mercy.
This idea does occasionally appear in Judaism, mainly in Cabbalism. According to Talmud, the Messiah can only come if all are evil or all are good, and if all are bad, the Messiah will come riding a donkey. According to Jesus, all Jews of his generation were evil, and he rode a donkey to Jerusalem. Some Cabbalists did adopt the idea that believers should do bad (violate the law) in order to hasten the coming of the Messiah.
Did Paul do so? Probably he did not. Paul did violate the Jewish law and he directly opposed James the Just with his claims that “all is allowed, but not all is of use” (1. Cor. 10:23) and one can “eat any meat” (1. Cor. 10:25), but he had no need to hasten the Messianic time since Paul expected that very soon there will be the Day of the Lord and after that Jews will rule the world and enslave all nations, as told by prophets.
There is another intriguing text in 1. Cor. 13:3. Paul lists good deeds that a Christian could do up to giving all his property to the poor, but the final deed is to give his body to be burned. Did some Christians give their bodies to be burned, apparently as sacrifices? Judging from this text, the answer is yes. At least Church father Ignatios welcomed martyr’s death. Such death wish may have been quite common in certain Christian communities, and even more so in among Gnostics.
Christian teaching in Paul’s letters follows Jewish wisdom literature: you should not drink too much, use prostitutes, lie, cheat, murder and so on. It does not fit well to the rainbow movement of today, as Paul condemns homosexuality (Rom. 1:26-27), gives women a subordinate position, and for sure also he opposed also single mothers, other religions, and infanticide (abortion of that time). Early Christianity was intolerant, and despite commanding to turn the other cheek, it was not pacifistic deep down as Christians hoped for God to very soon kill or enslave the enemies of faith. Paul also favored staying single and virgin, which today leads to falling birth rates. Especially women were vulnerable to this message by Christian apostles, some of whom (called the false apostles, antichrists) only wanted to gain on them. Paul apparently worked for his food, though he may not have been a tent maker as Acts say. But the true meaning of the Christian doctrine and its relevance to us today is not my main interest in this article.
Let us instead look at some dates. Dates are figures and more interesting than religious truths.
Jesus was crucifies in 33 AD. Though many researchers prefer the year 30 AD, the traditional date is more probable. That date fills two conditions: seventy year weeks (490 years) from the time from the order to rebuild Jerusalem (458 BC) gives 33 AD, and thousand years from Josephus’ date when the construction of Solomon’s temple was started (968 BC) gives also 33 AD. As Paul says, Jesus dies in the correct time.
The Jerusalem Council was around the year 50 AD. It was 14 years before Paul first met Peter and Jacob. Jews calculated also partial yeas as full, so the year Paul met Peter and James the Just probably was 39 AD. This is the year Tiberius died and Caligula became emperor. Caligula made Herod Agrippa king of Philip’s land, and in 39 AD added to Herod’s kingdom Galilee, which had been ruled by Herod Antipas.
Herod Antipas had married Herodias, sister of Herod Agrippa, and angered King Aretas IV, the father of Herod Antipas’ former wife. A war followed, the best date is 36 AD. Paul in 2. Cor. 11:32 tells what actually happened in Damascus when he escaped in a basket. It was not Jews, who persecuted Paul. It was Aretas. Paul was not yet preaching the Gospel, as he started in 39 after meeting Peter and James. Aretas did not persecute him because of religious reasons. The probable reason is that Paul was indeed Herodian and Aretas had a war with Herod Antipas. The marriage of Herod Antipas and Herodian must have been just some years earlier. The likely date is 34 AD, when Philip the Tetrarch died and Herod Agrippa was to get his lands. Herod Agrippa was made king of Philip’s land in 39 AD, but he probably had a good claim already in 34 AD. Then his sister married Herod Antipas, and soon Herod Antipas lost his lands to Herod Agrippa.
John the Baptist died before Jesus was crucified, so he did not have time to criticize the marriage, but he could have commented some other Herod’s immoral practices and got beheaded. Jesus called Herod Antipas fox, from the Song of Solomon, foxes who ruin the vineyard. John the Baptist would have thought the same. There was a major earthquake, centered in the Jordan valley, in 31 AD. Assuming that John the Baptist had just been beheaded, people would have interpreted the earthquake as God’s sign. If some stones from graves were pushed away by the earthquake and people explained it by Jesus having risen Lazarus from dead, Herod Antipas had a good reason to think that this new prophet, Jesus, was resurrected John the Baptist. Then Paul, a Herodian, started persecuting Christians. That might mean that Paul was in Herod Antipas’ service at that time. In 39 AD Herod Antipas was expulsed (with Herodias) to Spain and Herod Agrippa got his lands. Thus, Paul was now under Herod Agrippa. At that year Paul went to visit Peter and James in Jerusalem, and started preaching. Paul probably had sincerely converted to Christianity, but Herod Agrippa had his own Messianic schemes. These schemes may well have been behind the priests’ decision to crucify Jesus in 33 AD.
To be continued.