Jesus used Paul to usher in the Age of Grace we now have through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:1-2), by revelation of the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory. "[21], There is no evidence to suggest that Paul arrived on the road to Damascus already with a single, solid, coherent scheme that could form the framework of his mature theology. Says Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians: "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. According to both sources, Paul was not a follower of Jesus and did not know him before his crucifixion. In about 37 AD, Jesus Christ speaks to Saul (Paul) on the road to Damascus. Chronology is the study of the sequence of events in an historical text, and the comparison of those events with other known events from other sources. [5] Ananias is initially reluctant, having heard about Saul's persecution, but obeys the divine command: Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. The native geographers usually reckon that stony district, of which Petra was the capital, as belonging to Egypt, and that wide desert towards the Euphrates, where the Bedouins of all ages have lived in tents, as belonging to Syria, and have limited the name to the Peninsula between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, where Jemen, or "Araby the Blest" is secluded on the south. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. The Renaissance Italian master Caravaggio painted two works depicting the event: The Conversion of Saint Paul and Conversion on the Way to Damascus. ", "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. Invasion of Britain by Aulus Plautius. The Interval between the selection of a profession or calling, and the entrance on its active duties. For example, Australian politician Tony Abbott was described as having been "on his own road to Damascus" after pledging increased mental health funding,[29] and a New Zealand drug dealer turned police officer was likewise described as taking "the first step on the road to Damascus. This was when Paul was converted, and became a Christian. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. [15][16] New Testament scholar Daniel B. Wallace and F.F. In 37 AD King Aretas took control of Damascus when Emperor Tiberius Caesar died. The conversion of Paul is the main term of argument of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's oratorio Paulus (St. Paul), MWV A 14 / Op. (Acts 9:19b) "After many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him." The speech is clearly tailored for its Jewish audience, with stress being placed in Acts 22:12 on Ananias's good reputation among Jews in Damascus, rather than on his Christianity. "Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus." One of the more tantalizing aspects of Paul’s early ministry is his “three years in Arabia.” In Galatians 1:17, Paul claims he did not go to Jerusalem immediately, but rather he went to Arabia for a period of time before returning to Damascus. I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 22/02/2021 by by 1. 14:2 for example. The speech here is again tailored for its audience, emphasizing what a Roman ruler would understand: the need to obey a heavenly vision,[Acts 26:19] and reassuring Agrippa that Christians were not a secret society. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. Paul's vision, in the city of Damascus is much more likely as venue than on the road to Damascus. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Paul's conversion occurred after Jesus's crucifixion. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. In the opening verses of Luke’s treatise on the activities of the apostles after Jesus’ resurrection, Luke records the Savior’s charge to take the gospel from Jerusalem to all the world. He certainly continued to speak in the Damascus' synagogues during this period of reflection because Acts9v22 informs us that Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. [32][33][34] (Acts 22:9). Ga 1:15-17 2. Paul's Road to Damascus Conversion Story Summary The story of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus is told in Acts 9:1-19 and retold by Paul in Acts 22:6-21 and Acts 26:12-18 . (Acts 22:9), Now the men who were traveling with him stood there speechless, because they heard the voice but saw no one. There was something of humiliation in this mode of escape, and this, perhaps, is the reason why, in a letter written fourteen years afterwards, he specifies the details, "glorying in his infirmities," when he is about to speak of "his visions and revelations of the Lord.". Acts 9:1 says that Paul was "breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples." From the conversion of Paul, we get the metaphorical reference to the "Road to Damascus" that has come to refer to a sudden or radical conversion of thought or a change of heart or mind even in matters outside of a Christian context. The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle is a feast celebrated during the liturgical year on January 25, recounting the conversion. In the Pauline epistles, the description of the conversion experience is brief. The Jews knew what Paul had been at Jerusalem and knew why he had come to Damascus. And now they saw him contradicting the whole previous course of his life. The City Itself: RESIDENCE OF PAUL IN ARABIA. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. When God called Paul on the Damascus road, he was commissioned to preach the Gospel of Christ. In verse 1 the NIV translation mentions "revelations from the Lord," but other translations, including the NRSV translate that phrase, "revelations of the Lord." [35]. However, others have translated it differently. From the time when the word "Arabia" was first used by any of the writers of Greece or Rome, it has always been a term of vague and uncertain import. [13], The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 36] (1833–36). Paul's conversion is the subject of the medieval play The Digby Conversion of Saint Paul. Judea and Samaria given to Herod Agrippa I. The period of the first teachings of Paul, at Damascus, does not seem to have lasted long before he had to quickly leave for Arabia. They would soon have received a new commissioner from Jerusalem armed with full powers to supersede and punish one whom they must have regarded as the most faithless of apostates. Saul was blinded. If the "then" in Galatians 1:18 references Saul's return to Damascus, then he spent those three years in Damascus. [Acts 22:6–21] Paul addresses the crowd and tells them of his conversion, with a description essentially the same as that in Acts 9, but with slight differences. The fury of the Jews, when they had recovered from their first surprise, must have been excited to the utmost pitch. (Galatians 1:13–14), NIV. Assuming this chronology is accurate thus far, Jonathan would have replaced Caiaphas during the Passover season of 36 CE, and Paul would have sought letters from him to go to Damascus not long afterward (Acts 9:1-2). Paul says that it was in Damascus that he barely escaped death. The Damascus Road event has been depicted by many artists over the centuries and a large number of these works show Saul falling from a white, or sometimes a piebald or grey horse. Death of Caligula; accession of CLAUDIUS. If he went into the first, we need not suppose him to have traveled far from Damascus. Paul hurriedly but quietly left Damascus, but not to immediately return to Jerusalem. The Nabataean kingdom was situated east of Syria and south of Palestine, a long walk from Damascus but possible for one so determined as Paul. How long he stayed is uncertain, though it is thought to have been the greater part of three years - cf. 'When you're a youngun, you Saul, but let life whup your head a bit and you starts to trying to be Paul – though you still Sauls around on the side.'". A second Ananias in the Bible played a part in the conversion story of the apostle Paul. 11:32] Paul also says that he then went first to Arabia, and then came back to Damascus. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.". 1:18-19 No doubt Paul thought it necessary to visit with the Apostles, therefore he made a trip to Jerusalem and visited with Peter for fifteen days. Sometimes it includes Damascus, sometimes it ranges over the Lebanon itself, and extends even to the borders of Cilicia. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. [24], The Acts of the Apostles says that Paul's conversion experience was an encounter with the resurrected Christ. [14] More commonly, it is asserted that the genitive is used when a person is heard, the accusative for a thing, which goes in the same direction but yields a far weaker argument. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. [23], Based on Paul's testimony in Galatians 1 and the accounts in Acts (Acts 9, 22, 26), where it is specifically mentioned that Paul was tasked to be a witness to the Gentiles, it could be interpreted that what happened on the road to Damascus was not just a conversion from first-century Judaism to a faith centred on Jesus Christ, but also a commissioning of Paul as an Apostle to the Gentiles—although in Paul's mind they both amounted to the same thing. The first question relates to the meaning of the word. Before his conversion, Paul, also known as Saul, was "a Pharisee of Pharisees", who "intensely persecuted" the followers of Jesus. After his conversion, Paul went to Damascus, where Acts 9 states he was healed of his blindness and baptized by Ananias of Damascus. Paul may have stopped in the countryside outside Damascus but travelled into the synagogue for the Sabbath. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Acts 22:9), It was pointed out that in Acts 9:7, ἀκούω appears in a participle construction with a genitive (ἀκούοντες μὲν τῆς φωνῆς), and in Acts 22:9 as a finite verb with an accusative object (φωνὴν οὐκ ἤκουσαν). how old was apostle paul when he converted to christianity. The account continues with a description of Ananias of Damascus receiving a divine revelation instructing him to visit Saul at the house of Judas on the Street Called Straight and there lay hands on him to restore his sight (the house of Judas is traditionally believed to have been near the west end of the street). Yet it was evident that his conduct was not the result of a wayward and irregular impulse. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers." The noun φωνῆ (phōnē - the source of the English word "telephone") means "voice, utterance, report, faculty of speech", but can also be translated "sound" when referring to an inanimate object. [Acts 26:14] Additionally, Paul's blindness remitted in sudden fashion, rather than the gradual resolution typical of post-ictal states, and no mention is made of epileptic convulsions; indeed such convulsions may, in Paul's time, have been interpreted as a sign of demonic influence, unlikely in someone accepted as a religious leader. It is also the focus of an eight part mixed choir a cappella piece (The Conversion of Saul) composed by Z. Randall Stroope. But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. The conversion of Paul has been depicted by many artists, including Albrecht Dürer, Francisco Camilo, Giovanni Bellini, Fra Angelico, Fra Bartolomeo, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, William Blake, Luca Giordano, Sante Peranda, and Juan Antonio de Frías y Escalante. Exactly how long Paul’s stay in Arabia lasted is not clear, but combined with his return visit to Damascus was a period of three years. This feast is at the conclusion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an international Christian ecumenical observance that began in 1908, which is an octave (an eight-day observance) spanning from January 18 (observed in Anglican and Lutheran tradition as the Confession of Peter, and in the pre-1961 Roman Catholic Church as the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter at Rome) to January 25. Instead, the conversion, and the associated understanding of the significance of the resurrection of the crucified Jesus, caused him to rethink from the ground up everything he had ever believed in, from his own identity to his understanding of Second Temple Judaism and who God really was. Traditional readings and modern biblical scholarship both see a discrepancy between these passages, but some modern Conservative Evangelical commentators argue that the contradiction can be explained. Damascus, almost defenseless from a military point of view, is the natural mart and factory of inland Syria. In Episode 3, Season 4 of Downton Abbey, Lady Grantham referred to Lord Grantham’s change of heart towards his daughter Edith’s boyfriend as a Damascene Conversion. Doing the research for The Cats of Rekem was a long and fascinating process. Acts 9 tells the story as a third-person narrative: As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee in Jerusalem after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ , swore to wipe out the new Christian church, called The Way. Herbert Weir Smyth and Gordon M. Messing, D. Landsborough, "St. Paul and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy,", J.R. Brorson and K. Brewer, "Matters arising: St Paul and temporal lobe epilepsy,", Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles: Introduction and commentary on Acts XV-XXVIII, Reading Acts: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, The Acts of the Apostles: A socio-rhetorical commentary, Interpretation of the Acts of the Apostles 1–14, Volume 1, A Discussion of Bible Translations and Biblical Scholarship, Grammatical Insights Into the New Testament, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary, "Resolving a Bible Difficulty: What Happened at Paul's Conversion? Acts' second telling of Paul's conversion occurs in a speech Paul gives when he is arrested in Jerusalem. Also asked, who gave Saul permission to Damascus? (Acts 9:23) Note that Paul's ministry in Damascus is measured in days, not months. Rather, he retired into Arabia for a time and not until three years later did he go to Jerusalem. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians also describes Paul's experience of revelation. When events in the Bible line up with known dates confirmed outside the Bible, is suggests a high level of reliability in the biblical text. Perhaps another way to confirm the date of Stephen’s stoning is in Galatians. R. Burns says there is no historical evidence that this is the spot where Saul escaped, but it is as likely a site as any. Paul did not stay in Damascus long after his conversion - cf. The Book of Acts says that Paul was on his way from Jerusalem to Syrian Damascus with a mandate issued by the High Priest to seek out and arrest followers of Jesus, with the intention of returning them to Jerusalem as prisoners for questioning and possible execution.