Juststeve

Was Paul persecuting Christians before his conversion?

Steve

Toto

Paul doesn't mention persecuting "Christians" -

Galatians 1:13 For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.

Acts is pretty useless as a historical source. Galatians would not stand up in a court of law, given the problems in the text - you can't be sure that this is not an interpolation by a later editor.

So - maybe he did, maybe he didn't.

Juststeve

Toto:

When the post conversion Paul writes of the "church of God" you think he's talking about a church of God other than his own church? That's a strange thing to think.

As to Galatians standing up in court, of course it wouldn't, it would be excluded as hearsay. So would all other documents from the same time. So what? Court room standards of proof are not applicable to questions of ancient history. They can't be.

Steve

Transient

No-one living today can truthfully answer that question.
It would be better to ask how likely it is that Paul was persecuting the Christians before his conversion.
It is not possible to ever really know with much certainty what really happened back then because of the unreliability of the "keepers" of "God's Word". They were not a very nice group of people to say the least and to trust their motives and practices would be unwise.

stephan huller

The Marcionites denied the authority of Acts. There is no reason to suggest that they maintained the bit about him being a Jewish bounty hunter. The problem is that outside of the Catholic New Testament canon we have very little idea who the Apostle was. That was probably intentional.

Chili

Yes, Paul was a persecuter of the church because 'Christ came for the lost sheep' and not the self righteous so called Christians. We can also say that Paul was running away from God and was at the end of his world when he was knocked off his 'high horse.' The same is true with Joseph when he went to 'give an account of himself' right back to the state of mind he was at birth . . . and this was Beth-le-hem because he was was at the end of his world and there received 'bread from heaven,' if you like, by way of rebirth.

There is no argument here unless one thinks he was going around on a high horse poking Christians and/or Jews with a gaff.

Toto

What was that church? Was it Christian? proto-Christian? Jewish messianic? What did they believe?

Ancient documents may not meet the standards of a modern court proceding, but there should be some indication of reliability in the document. We don't know who Paul was, when he wrote, who edited his letters, or any significant fact.

What conclusion would you like to draw?

Andykiwi

It makes sense from a "human nature" perspective that if you are attacking someone and then come to believe they may have been right after all you will feel great shame for what you have done against them. The story rings true (although they do seem to have over-dramatized it with the "blinding flash" bit).

spin

I think it is a serious matter that non-believers accept the translation of "church" for ekklhsia, especially in Paul. Nobody would dream of doing so with the LXX, from which it is usually translated "congregation" or more recently "assembly". At the time Paul was writing he didn't have a church, either building or institution. He had meetings in private houses.

As to "church of god", would one translate the same Greek phrase that way in Nehemiah 13:1?

In ekklhsia Paul is using a traditional Jewish notion. One has to wait for the movement away from its Jewish roots before christianity can claim some special use of the term. Paul's use probably developed away from the traditional Jewish notion to his exclusivist new religion via the messianic movements of the time, such as that of John the Baptist. He gave his messianic predecessors a had time before succumbing to the same bug, which bit him quite uniquely (Gal 1:11-12). The report of this change of heart seems to have edified his erstwhile enemies (Gal 1:23), until they found out what his messianism actually meant (all the anti-law stuff in Galatians).


spin

spamandham

Possibly. But to the extent he persecuted anyone I don't think such persecution was because they were Christians, but because they were Jews who scoffed at the law.

For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.