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It is reasonable to surmise that he was born within a decade of Jesus' birth. He died, probably as a martyr in Rome, in the mid- to late a.d. 60s. Paul's birthplace was not the land Christ walked but the Hellenistic city of Tarsus, chief city of the Roman province of Cilicia.
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St. Paul is often considered to be the most important person after Jesus in the history of Christianity. His epistles (letters) have had enormous influence on Christian theology, especially on the relationship between God the Father and Jesus, and on the mystical human relationship with the divine. In addition to his extensive theological contributions, St. Paul played a crucial role in the development of Christianity away from its Jewish parent. Although he held that Jews and Gentiles alike were called to be transformed into one new humanity in Christ, his missions were largely focused on the conversion of Gentiles, and Christianity would eventually become a largely Gentile religion.
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Of the 27 books in the New Testament, 13 are attributed to Paul, and approximately half of another, Acts of the Apostles, deals with Paul’s life and works. Thus, about half of the New Testament stems from Paul and the people whom he influenced. Only 7 of the 13 letters, however, can be accepted as being entirely authentic (dictated by Paul himself)...
Paul was a Greek-speaking Jew from Asia Minor. His birthplace, Tarsus, was a major city in eastern Cilicia, a region that had been made part of the Roman province of Syria by the time of Paul’s adulthood. Two of the main cities of Syria, Damascus and Antioch, played a prominent part in his life and letters. Although the exact date of his birth is unknown, he was active as a missionary in the 40s and 50s of the 1st century ce. From this it may be inferred that he was born about the same time as Jesus (c. 4 bce) or a little later. He was converted to faith in Jesus Christ about 33 ce, and he died, probably in Rome, circa 62–64 ce.
In his childhood and youth, Paul learned how to “work with [his] own hands” (1 Corinthians 4:12). His trade, tent making, which he continued to practice after his conversion to Christianity, helps to explain important aspects of his apostleship. He could travel with a few leather-working tools and set up shop anywhere. It is doubtful that his family was wealthy or aristocratic, but, since he found it noteworthy that he sometimes worked with his own hands, it may be assumed that he was not a common labourer. His letters are written in Koine, or “common” Greek, rather than in the elegant literary Greek of his wealthy contemporary the Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, and this too argues against the view that Paul was an aristocrat. Moreover, he knew how to dictate, and he could write with his own hand in large letters (Galatians 6:11), though not in the small, neat letters of the professional scribe.
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Until about the midpoint of his life, Paul was a member of the Pharisees, a religious party that emerged during the later Second Temple period. What little is known about Paul the Pharisee reflects the character of the Pharisaic movement. Pharisees believed in life after death, which was one of Paul’s deepest convictions. They accepted nonbiblical “traditions” as being about as important as the written Bible; Paul refers to his expertise in “traditions” (Galatians 1:14). Pharisees were very careful students of the Hebrew Bible, and Paul was able to quote extensively from the Greek translation. (It was fairly easy for a bright, ambitious young boy to memorize the Bible, and it would have been very difficult and expensive for Paul as an adult to carry around dozens of bulky scrolls.) By his own account, Paul was the best Jew and the best Pharisee of his generation (Philippians 3:4–6; Galatians 1:13–14), though he claimed to be the least apostle of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:22–3; 1 Corinthians 15:9–10) and attributed his successes to the grace of God.
Paul spent much of the first half of his life persecuting the nascent Christian movement, an activity to which he refers several times. Paul’s motivations are unknown, but they seem not to have been connected to his Pharisaism. The chief persecutors of the Christian movement in Jerusalem were the high priest and his associates, who were Sadducees (if they belonged to one of the parties), and Acts depicts the leading Pharisee, Gamaliel, as defending the Christians (Acts 5:34). It is possible that Paul believed that Jewish converts to the new movement were not sufficiently observant of the Jewish law, that Jewish converts mingled too freely with Gentile (non-Jewish) converts, thus associating themselves with idolatrous practices, or that the notion of a crucified messiah was objectionable. The young Paul certainly would have rejected the view that Jesus had been raised after his death—not because he doubted resurrection as such but because he would not have believed that God chose to favour Jesus by raising him before the time of the Judgment of the world.
The main source of information on Paul's life and works is the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. Approximately half of its content documents his travels, preaching and miracles. Paul was not one of the Twelve Apostles, and did not know Jesus during his lifetime.
Dec 8, 2016 · It is somewhat impossible to know for sure how old St Paul was at the time of his conversion and death. The Apostle Paul according to Wikipedia was born between the years of 5 BC and 5 AD. Most websites place his birth between the years 3-5 AD.
Paul was also a Benjaminite (Philippians 3:4-5), and his given name was Saul, the same name as the king of old. The name "Paul" comes from the Latin for "little" (the root of our English words "pauper" and "paucity").
Oct 19, 2020 · Paul the Apostle, commonly known as Saint Paul, was an eventual follower of Jesus (though not one of the Twelve Apostles) who professed the gospel of Christ to the first-century world. Paul is commonly regarded as one of the most influential figures of the Apostolic Age.
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Jewish law prescribed that a boy begin the study of the Scriptures at five years of age and the study of the legal traditions at ten (Pirke Aboth 5:21).
