aa5874

Acts of the Apostles appears to have been composed BEFORE the Pauline letters and the character called Saul also appears to have been LATER changed to Paul.

1. If Acts was written AFTER the Pauline letters then it is chronologically problematic that the author of Acts used the name Saul instead of Paul from Acts 7 to Acts 12.

2. If Acts was written AFTER the Pauline letters then it is chronologically problematic that the author did NOT acknowledge the Pauline letters but claimed he Travelled "all over" the Roman Empire with Paul.

3. If Acts of the Apostles was written AFTER the Pauline letters then it is chronologically problematic that the author made certain statements about Saul which were ALREADY addressed by Paul. The Pauline writer Already claimed he was NOT Lying about his activities and travels to and from Damascus and Jerusalem after he was called to preach.

So, it can clearly be seen that the author of Acts was NOT aware of the Pauline letters, the name of Paul or the activities of Paul as claimed in Galatians up to at least the 13th chapter of Acts.

One obvious solution is that the name Paul was a LATE Addition to Acts of the Apostles.

After the name change from Saul to Paul the Epistle called Galatians was composed to EXPLAIN away the Discrepancies.

And further, No recovered Texts show that the Acts of the Apostles could NOT have been composed before Galatians.

Textual variant analysis of Greek New Testaments show that there are more textual variants in Acts than Galatians.

Early New Testament Texts tend to show MORE Textual variants that later Texts.

For example, less THAN 50 of the verses in the earliest gospel, gMark, are FREE of textual variants.

The Epistles to Timothy considered to be late have more than 80% of its verses FREE of Textual variants

Galatians is extremely close to the Epistles to Timothy with 76.5% of its verses FREE of Textual variants but Acts of the Apostles has more textual variants with 67% Free of variants.


See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novum_T..._New_Testament

Galatians and ALL the Pauline letters were composed AFTER Acts of the Apostles.

Duvduv

Which would just beg the question as to why the author of Galatians did not sneak in a quick mention of the name Saul to take care of that discrepancy as well, just a simple few (just four) words like:

“For you have heard of my former life in Judaism [when I was called Saul], how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.”

Toto

The orthodox story was that Paul's name was Saul. He would still be known as Saul.

DCHindley

Toto,

I located my copy of Maccoby's book and it looks as though he thinks Paul was originally named Paul, a pagan resident in Tarsus, who converted to Judaism and hoped to advance as a student of the Judahite way of life, adopting the name "Saul." (The Mythmaker, pg 95ff)

Finding himself unable to break into Pharisaic circles, he ends up working as a police officer for the Sadduccean High Priest.

Later, while attempting to serve warrants for followers of Jesus (a revolutionary) to the Jewish ethnarch in Damascus, he has a transforming experience and invents the idea of Jesus as divine redeemer, and begins efforts to make a name for himself as a teacher.

I think it would be after his transforming experience, which obviously severed his relationship to the High Priest, that he would have reverted to his original name.

Hyam and I have had e-mail exchanges (while he was alive, of course), which convinced me that he truly believed these things, although I think he was really "explaining away" the origins of Christianity more than her was solving the questions.

DCH

stephan huller

I think Saul was picked by the author of Acts because it is simply sounds like Paul. There was a pre-existent tradition that the apostle had another name or that Paul wasn't his real name. Saul was convenient explanation. There is no evidence to suggest the Marcionites accepted the tradition that Paul was originally called Saul.

stephan huller

If Paul means 'little' then the figure of the 'little horn' (= another 'little one') in Daniel 7:8 is probably the origin of this title. The Peshitta typically translates the various gospel references to 'the least' 'little one' as some variation of ze'erah

Duvduv

If this one verse in Galatians 1:13 would intend what AA had in mind, referring back to Acts, then it would be assumed that the readers knew about the story of Saul in Acts:

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.

One would rhetorically ask, of course, how the anonymous ephemeral readers of Galatia heard all about his former life from someone other than himself.

Unless the author is simply trying to supplement what is in Acts (which the church would expect the readers in Galatia and everywhere else already had handy notwithstanding the claims to the contrary of John Chrysostom) along the lines of what AA was suggesting.

aa5874

There are many many problems when it is attempted to date the Pauline letters Before Acts of the Apostles.

There is just no credible corroboration at all for Paul.

Apologetic sources even in the NT do NOT show that the Pauline letters were composed before Acts of the Apostles was actually written.

It is a fact that in Acts of the Apostles that the name Saul is mentioned in 6 chapters about 18 times BEFORE the name was changed to Paul.

The name Paul is AFTER Saul in Acts itself. Paul is a Late adddition in Acts.

Remarkably, the Ascended Jesus of Acts supposedly knew Saul NOT Paul.

Acts 9:4 KJVActs 22:7 KJV Acts 26:14 KJV Even Paul in Acts claimed the Ascended Jesus called him SAUL.

It makes no sense that the author of Acts ALREADY would have known he was going to call the character Paul but then wrote Saul for 6 chapters only to change back to Paul.

If we remove Acts of the Apostles from the Canon and from All Apologetic sources it would NOT be known that Paul was known as Saul.

If we go through all of Acts, SAUL did NOT write any letters to Churches.

It would appear that Acts of the Apostles was originally a story about Saul the evangelist who preached, ONLY preached, to Gentiles "all over" the Roman Empire under the Authority of the Jerusalem Church and that the Authorisation was documented in letters FROM the Jerusalem Church . See Acts 15.

The Pauline writings were composed later with the new claim that Paul got his Authorisation to Preach the Gospel from the Resurrected Jesus with little or no input any input from the other Apostles.

In Galatians, the Pauline writer attempted to resolve the discrepancies by asserting that is he who was NOT Lying.

Galatians 1:20 KJV This implies that other things were already written about the Pauline writer which were supposedly NOT true and needed to be addressed by the writer.

It is hardly likely that a new convert like Paul would have Ignored the supposed Actual Apostles of Jesus for years while he preached the very gospels.

Duvduv

The way Acts introduces Saul, goes back to other issues including Peter, then comes back to Saul who then becomes Paul seems to suggest the possibility of two different stories about two different people morphed into one.
But even if any of the epistles were written after Acts the question remains as to why the epistles didn't integrate things from Acts UNLESS Acts went through more than one draft, so that it was changed after the epistles were written.

But even if that were the case, it wouldn't make sense that so much happened in the name of Saul and that name isn't mentioned even once in the epistles, including Galatians EVEN if the reader of Galatians was supposed to rely on having "heard" about his life as Saul elsewhere from some unmentioned source.

It is also interesting that the THIRD reference to the vision of Jesus states that Jesus spoke to him in HEBREW, which is never mentioned anywhere else. What difference would it make to a gentile reader what language Jesus and Saul spoke in?

Toto

Sense is in the mind of the beholder.

Acts is an anti-Marcionite document. Marcion was not the anti-Semite that some try to make him, but he rejected the Jewish basis of Christianity. To refute Marcion, Acts goes out of its way to emphasize Jewish aspects to Paul. This includes giving him a Jewish name, putting him in synagogues preaching to Jews, fulfilling a Nazirite vow, and circumcising Timothy himself. None of this is consistent with the epistles.