The Story of the Jewish Paul

Have you heard, “Saul the Jew converted to become Paul the Christian”? This is a common narrative of Paul’s life in Jewish and Christian communities alike.

However, does this characterization of Paul stand up to scrutiny when we read the earliest and best sources by Paul and about Paul? What if Paul always remained Jewish?

Paul’s Life Before Yeshua

Paul, who was also known as Saul (or Sha’ul in his native Hebrew) was born in Tarsus, a city in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), to a wealthy Jewish family who had Roman citizenship (Acts 13:9; 9:11; 16:37). When he got older, he left for Jerusalem to study under the great Rabban Gamliel I (Acts 22:3), where he learned the “strictest” understanding of the Torah and “advanced in Judaism” (Acts 22:3; Gal 1:14).

During Paul’s time in Jerusalem, Yeshua (Jesus) was travelling around Judea, sharing the message of the kingdom of God. Around 30 CE, in Jerusalem, Yeshua was charged with blasphemy by the high priest. Afterward, he was convicted by Pontius Pilate, was crucified, and buried.

Surely, Paul heard the rumors that Yeshua’s tomb was found empty three days later. He would have heard the speculations firsthand. Yet Paul completely rejected the claim that Yeshua rose from the dead. We get our first mention of Paul in the Book of Acts, which says he approved of the persecution of Yeshua’s followers (Acts 7:58; 8:1).

Yeshua’s followers called themselves “The Way,” insisting that Yeshua rose from the dead, thereby proving that he was the Messiah of Israel. Paul was so zealous to stand against this new movement that he actively threw Jewish followers of Yeshua into prison. Later, he sought approval from the high priest to go to synagogues in Damascus to bring followers of “The Way” to Jerusalem for imprisonment (Acts 8:1–3; 9:1–2).

Paul’s Encounter with Yeshua

However, on his way to Damascus, he had a transformative experience. Like Ezekiel before him (Ezek 1:28), Paul fell to the ground as a great light shone all around him, and a voice from heaven called to him saying, “‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Yeshua, whom you are persecuting.’” After this, Paul was blind for three days, and he did not eat or drink (Acts 9:4–8).

In the meantime, a Jewish follower of Yeshua named Ananias was led by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to find Saul. God said to Ananias about Paul,

Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. (Acts 9:15–16)

Ananias found Paul and said to him,

Brother Saul, the Lord Yeshua who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Ruach HaKodesh. (Acts 9:17)

Luke then notes,

Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; and taking food, he was strengthened. (Acts 9:18–19)

Thus, Saul, the persecutor of The Way, became a follower of The Way.

Paul’s Life as a Yeshua-Follower

From this point forward, we see Saul as a committed emissary of Yeshua the Messiah, sharing the good news about the death and resurrection of Yeshua in the synagogues and elsewhere, to Jewish and Gentile people alike. According to the common narrative, we would expect to see that Saul the Jew is renamed to Paul to symbolize his conversion to Christianity and abandonment of Jewish identity and way of life. However, we don’t see any sign of this.

Luke notes that Saul “is also called Paul” (Acts 13:9). In other words, he went by multiple names because he was in a multilingual culture. Just as today, where many Jewish people have a Hebrew name and an English name, so too Paul went by his Hebrew and Greek names.

Did Paul convert to another religion? No. Like Jeremiah, Paul says that he was set apart in his mother’s womb, called through grace, and called to bring the message of God to the Gentile nations (Jer. 1:5; cf. Gal 1:15–16). This was no conversion; God called him to travel the known world bringing all he spoke to into covenant with the God of Israel. Like the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel before him, this did not constitute a conversion to a new religion or an abandonment of his Jewish way of life, but a call to accomplish a specific task God set before him.

Luke shares that after recognizing Yeshua as the Messiah, Paul continued to go to synagogue on Shabbat because it was “his custom” (Acts 17:2). He affirmed God’s covenant with Israel and the authority of the Torah (Rom 9:3–5). He was well-versed in the whole Tanakh. He even took a Nazirite vow, which marked an even higher commitment to observing Torah than was expected of Jewish people (Acts 18:18). He arranged his travel schedule around the Jewish holidays (Acts 20:7; 20:16; 21:19). He said he “follows the customs of our fathers” (Acts 28:17). He always considered the Jewish people to be his people (Rom. 9:3; 11:1).

Resolving the Confusion Over Paul

Early on, a rumor spread around Jerusalem that Paul taught Jews in the diaspora to not circumcise their sons and follow the customs of Moses. Tens of thousands of Jewish people who believed in Yeshua and were “zealous for the Law” heard about this rumor. In the late 50s CE, Paul arrived in Jerusalem. Upon arrival, the leaders of “the Way” in Jerusalem warned him of this growing discontent that has spread around the city because of him (Acts 21:17–22).

They gave Paul careful instructions:

Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow; take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law. (Acts 21:23–24)

These leaders knew Paul and the way he lived and what he taught. According to Luke, Paul himself “live[d] in observance of the law” and that “there [was] nothing” to the rumor that had spread about him.

The reason this false rumor spread was because Paul taught Gentiles around the Roman empire to not circumcise and take on the whole Torah for themselves. He taught that circumcision and obedience of the whole Torah are responsibilities and callings for Israel alone (Acts 15; Gal 5:3; 1 Cor 7:17–19).

Orthodox Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide puts it this way,

“Whoever looks at all of Paul’s work through Jewish eyes…[and] wants to understand him as a Jew…knows that Paul did not become a Christian, since there were no Christians in those times. Instead Paul remained a Jewish romantic throughout his life; a Jew who believed that by his messianic faith he was deepening and fulfilling his birthright as a Jew” (Paul: Rabbi and Apostle, 47).

Paul himself put it simply, “I am a Jew” (Acts 21:39, 22:3). His belief in Jesus did not change that one bit.