Zealot - The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

the season that the Father has put down in his power [to accomplish
     such things]” (Acts 1:7).
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: AM I NOT AN APOSTLE?
    Of the letters in the New Testament that are attributed to Paul, only seven can be
     confidently traced to him: 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans,
     Philippians, and Philemon. Letters attributed to Paul but probably not written by
     him include Colossians, Ephesians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus.
    There is some debate over the date of Paul’s conversion. The confusion rests with
     Paul’s statement in Galatians 2:1 that he went to the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem
     “after fourteen years.” Assuming that the council was held around the year 50 C.E ., that would place Paul’s conversion around 36 or 37 C.E . This is the date favored by James Tabor,
Paul and Jesus
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012). However, some scholars believe that by “after
     fourteen years,” Paul means fourteen years after his
initial
appearance before the Apostles, which he claimstook place three years after his conversion. That would place his conversion closer
     to 33 C.E. , a date favored by Martin Hengel,
Between Jesus and Paul
, 31. Adolf Harnack, in
The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries
(New York: Harper and Row, 1972), calculates that Paul was converted eighteen months
     after Jesus’s death, but I think that is far too early a date for Paul’s conversion.
     I agree with Tabor and others that Paul’s conversion was more likely sometime around
     36 or 37 C.E ., fourteen years before the Apostolic Council.
    That these lines of Paul in the letter to the Galatians regarding the “so-called pillars
     of the church” were directed specifically toward the Jerusalem-based Apostles and
     not some unnamed Jewish Christians with whom he disagreed is definitely proven by
     Gerd Ludemann in his indispensable works
Paul: The Founder of Christianity
(New York: Prometheus Books, 2002), especially page 69 and 120; and, with M. Eugene
     Boring,
Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989). See also Tabor,
Paul and Jesus
, 19; and J.D.G. Dunn, “Echoes of the Intra-Jewish Polemic in Paul’s Letter to the
     Galatians,”
Journal of Biblical Literature
112/3 (1993): 459–77.
    There has been a fierce debate recently about the role of Paul in creating what we
     now consider Christianity, with a number of contemporary scholars coming to Paul’s
     defense and painting him as a devout Jew who remained loyal to his Jewish heritage
     and faithful to the laws and customs of Moses but who just happened to view his mission
     as adapting messianic Judaism to a gentile audience. The traditional view of Paul
     among scholars of Christianity could perhaps best be summed up by Rudolf Bultmann,
Faith and Understanding
(London: SCM Press, 1969), who famously described Paul’s doctrine of Christ as “basically
     a wholly new religion, in contrast to the original Palestinian Christianity.” Scholars
     who more or less agree with Bultmann include Adolf Harnak,
What Is Christianity?
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1902); H. J. Schoeps,
Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish History
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961); and Gerd Ludemann,
Paul: The Founder of Christianity
. Among the recent scholars who see Paul as a loyal Jew who merely tried to translate
     Judaism for a gentile audience are L. Michael White,
From Jesus to Christianity
, and my former professor Marie-Éloise Rosenblatt,
Paul the Accused
(Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1995).
    Ultimately, there is some truth in both views. Those who believe that Paul was the
     creator of Christianity as we know it, or that it was he who utterly divorced the
     new faith from Judaism, often do not adequately take into consideration the eclecticism
     of Diaspora Judaism or the influence of the Greek-speaking Hellenists, from whom Paul,
     himself a Greek-speaking Hellenist, likely first heard about Jesus of Nazareth. But
     to be clear, the Hellenists may have deemphasized the Law of Moses in their preaching,
     but they did not demonize it; theymay have abandoned circumcision as a requirement for conversion, but they did not
     relegate it to dogs and evildoers and suggest those who disagree should be castrated,
     as Paul does (Galatians 5:12). Regardless of whether Paul adopted his unusual doctrine
     from the Hellenists or invented it himself,