SAUL THE ZEALOT

THE GOSPEL?

GALATIANS 1:13-14
13 For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism,
how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
14 And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation,
being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.
ACTS 9.1-3
1 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and....

It would be correct to say the most important thing by far, in Paul’s (or Saul’s) own eyes--even more important than his Tarsian birthplace or his Roman citizenship–was his Jewish heritage.
Saul’s name was important to him as to any Jew. In the Bible, names meant something–the name identified something about the person. Saul was the name of Israel’s first king– a member of the the tribe of Benjamin (as Paul). Luke in the book of Acts doesn’t change Saul’s name to Paul for 16 years after Saul’s conversion (Acts 13:9). Paul was on his first missionary trip with Barnabus.
Tarsus, Saul's home, was one of the three great university cities, and raised in such a city would have put Saul in contact with well educated Greeks and Greek Philosophy. Paul was well educated, but as he himself writes, “educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers”
In Philippians 3:6, Paul runs down the things he had taken pride: “circumcised the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to law a Pharisee....” In Romans 11:1, he repeats the claim of belonging to the tribe of Benjamin–a tribe which had remained faithful to just previous to the Babylonian Exile, after that. The “children of Benjamin” was a distinct people (Nehemiah 11:7-9, 31-36), and, no doubt, Paul’s family proudly traced their descent from these people. So raised in Jewish tradition, committed to his beliefs Saul set out to destroy this new movement, chasing down members of this cult even in foreign cities–like Damascus.
Something that really nailed down how false Christianity was Jesus dying on the cross. That would have meant quite a lot to a Jew like Saul. That had to mean the Messiah was cursed of God! He died on a cross? How could the Messiah be cursed of God? He mentions later in the Galatian Letter:”cursed is the man that hangs on a tree....”Deuteronomy 21:21.
Paul as a Pharisee held this new cult in Judaism, tht is Christianity, posed a deadly threat to all he had learned to hold dear.

KOINONIKOS