Toto

The natural reading of Acts 13 is that Saul's name was Paul all along. There was no name changing ceremony, no adoption, no explanation of why a new name was chosen. And if you do chose a new name, it is usually meaningful, while Paul is translated variously as "the Runt" or "the Short." But for some reason, there is this idea that Saul changed his name on conversion because people often get a new name at conversion (I remember this from Sunday School.) This is based on pure speculation and creative readings of the text.

This has the feel of someone sewing two pieces of text together and leaving the seam visible. Before this, we had a story about Saul, after this we have a story about Paul.

andrewcriddle

Paul claims in his letters to be of the tribe of Benjamin. Saul was a King of the tribe of Benjamin.

There may well be some connection. The most trivial connection would be that Saul was a popular name among 1st century Benjaminites.

Andrew Criddle

Chili

In "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cilinder" Adam More becomes Atam Orr. I like that change because it is so telling.

Ecrasez L'infame

There seems to be a number of possibilities:

1) Paul and Saul two different people; Luke maybe knew Paul personally, Acts is about him from about where the we-document kicks in onwards, and the Cypriot visit is just bad continuity. Trouble with this is that there's a bit of stuff that Luke tells us about "Saul" that agrees with what Paul says about himself in the letters. Also, it's needlessly multiplying characters.

2) Saul is Paul from birth or youth. Maybe "Paul" is the easiest latinized form of "Saul" (as Sherwin-White suggests). Maybe Saul, growing up in Greek-speaking Tarsus, changes his name as a teenager to avoid being taunted as "one who minces" or "one who walks with a prostitute's gait" (but then why change it to something that means "small" or "runtish"?). Maybe "Paul" was his nickname, because he was actually short (a la Acts of Paul & Thecla). Maybe, maybe. The trouble with all these is: why does Acts only use "Saul" before the Cypriot visit, and only use "Paul" after? An eight-year old could see that the natural reading was that he was not Paul before that point, and was not Saul after.

3) Saul changed his name to Paul upon conversion. As Toto says, this is contrary to the text, and seems to be a church tradition imposed on the text to explain the mystery.

4) Saul changed his name to Paul DURING the Cypriot visit. This seems to me to agree with the text, be logical and simple, and has the advantage of the connection with Sergius Paulus. The problem then is, why did he change his name? Answering "because that's when he bought Roman citizenship" agrees with what we know about citizenship at the time, and with Luke only mentioning Paul's citizenship from Acts 16 and not before. It needs only assume that Paul is lying, or that Luke is lying or mistaken, or that a latter interpolator was misguided and blundering, when Paul says in Acts 22 he was born a Roman citizen; a safe assumption, IMO.

Regards

Robert

Ecrasez L'infame

Well, here's A N Sherwin-White 1963 - "Roman society and Roman Law in the New Testament" p153 (I have transliterated the Greek in the normal way):

SW is arguing against Mommsen, whose case is that Paul's whole family became enfranchised after Paul was born; according to Mommsen, this is consistent with "But I was born a citizen" in 22:28. Also, M argues that ho kai Paulos or qui et Paulus is a common formula for when people become citizens. SW is saying, not necessarily - perhaps Luke just used this formula to differentiate the two Pauls.

Hmm... perhaps.

Tigers!

Why is it necessarily curious that Paul never mentioned an earlier name? If he had no reason to mention it then he would not need to do so.
The letters were (usually) written with the aim of answering questions asked, resolve disputes etc: As far as we know no one asked Paul if his name used to be Saul or anything else. The more personal epistles were based upon current events not his previous life.

Ecrasez L'infame

A couple of additional thoughts.

1) IF it was fairly unusual for a provincial like Paul's father to have Roman citizenship at the time of Paul's birth circa the turn of the era - I've read conflicting opinions about this, but the consensus seems to be that enfranchisement only opened out much later - THEN that implies Paul's family was quite important. The extreme of this is Eisenman's Paul-as-Herodian model; which, IMO, has a fair whack going for it.

2) On the other hand, the flavour of Acts (for what that's worth) is that "Saul" was very much a Palestinian. IIUC, the Romans didn't really have the concept of dual nationality until later in the first century - if you were a Roman, you carried Roman law with you wherever you went, and couldn't be subject to local law. But Saul acts like a local goon, not a Roman trouble-shooter - would the righteous mob that stoned Stephen have trusted their coats to someone who wasn't even subject to Jewish Law?

3)

... and also there's a Silas who gets beaten with Paul in Acts 16. This shadowy figure is also a Roman citizen, and, strangely or not, first appears in Acts shortly after "Saul" disappears.

But that way lies madness.

Regards

Robert