Bulletin for Biblical Research 24.

1 (2014 ) 45-55

Perspectives on Paul the Sinner

PATRICK GRAY
RHODES COLLEGE

Am ong other aspects ٠/ his ■writings, the N ew Perspective reexamines Paul's

moral self-evaluation in light ٠/ his Jewish background and his faith in Jesus
as Messiah. M an y scholars follow Krister Stendahl's lead in fin din g a "robust"
conscience in Paul and take this as one more element distinguishing the undis-
puted letters from the disputed letters. This article reconsiders the key texts in
this construal ofPaul's spiritual career and explores the broader implications for
understanding his thought.
Key Words: Paul, N ew Perspective on Paul, Pastoral Epistles, conscience, conver-
sion, Titus 3 :3 -7 ,1 Timothy 1:12-16

The New Perspective on Paul reexamines several different aspects ot the

apostle's theological context, the development ot his thought, and the later
reception ot his writings: his views on the Jewish law, the rhetorical strat-
egies by which he articulates these views, the nature of justification, the
relationship between faith and works, and Jewish attitudes toward Gen-
tiles in the Second Temple period, among others. Two special features of
this perspective are closely related in that they focus on Paul's own view
of his past and present self. Namely, it is claimed that (1) he was not a
"convert" in the proper sense and that (2) he experiences no angst over
past sinfulness and evinces little frustration in meeting the moral demands
of Torah. Augustine and Luther typically receive the credit (or, the blame)
for establishing the "Old Perspective" portrait of Paul as the paradigmatic
Christian convert formerly wracked with guilt over his inability to merit
God's grace. A more precise chronology for the emergence of this paradigm
has proven to be more elusive. Does it spring fully formed from the mind
of Augustine? Or does it appear in any form during the three centuries
separating the author of Romans and the author of the Confessions ?
Put this way, the question is rarely addressed. But the New Perspec-
tive's ch^acterization of the Old Perspective portrait of Paul the sinner
appears to rest on a particular way of reading the Acts of foe Apostles
and the Pastoral Epistles that is by no means peculiar to the New Perspec-
tive. The New Perspective duly notes Paul's clear conscience. It correctly
delineates, furthermore, the way in which Paul's self-regard in this respect
46 Bulletinfor Biblical Research 24.1

problematizes the Old Perspective's characterization of Paul's view of the

Jewish law. But it is very difficult to find significant differences between the
undisputed Pauline letters on the one hand and the disputed letters and
Acts on the other when it comes to their portrayals of Paul as a repentant
sinner. If the disputed letters furnish more material for painting Paul as
a convert, it is not because they present Paul as having been plagued by
moral guilt of a sort that by implication denigrates Judaism as legalistic. If
later writers have constructed a Paul as the ideal sinner-turned-saint, as
this essay will argue, they have done so with very little help from Acts or
from the disputed letters.

T h e N e w P e r s p e c t iv e o n t h e O l d P e r s p e c t iv e o n t h e
C h r i s t i a n P a u l o n t h e Je w i s h P a u l

It is important to note at the outset that the N ew Perspective is not a single,

monolithic school of thought. ‫ إ‬There is nevertheless a broadly acknowl-
edged set of questions and concerns. Half a century ago, Krister Sten-
dahl provided what is generally regarded as the decisive impulse for the
promulgation of the N ew Perspective in his essay on "The Apostle Paul
and the Introspective Conscience of the West."2 Citing text after text, he
argues that Paul possesses a robust conscience when he reflects on his life
in Judaism before and after coming to faith in Jesus as the Messiah (e.g.,
1 Cor 4:4; 2 Cor 1:12; 5:10-11; Phil 3:6). Indeed, "the conspicuous absence
of references to an actual consciousness of being a sinner is surprising,"
especially to readers who approach Paul from a vantage point informed
by Lutheran presuppositions.^ Luther himself, according to Stendahl, mis-
reads Paul because he reads him through the lens of his own troubled
psyche in the context of late medieval piety. For the N ew Perspective, then,
the Old Perspective errs when it understands Paul to be looking back on
his "pre-Christian" religious experience as one attended by an unrelent-
ing sense of inadequacy provoked by the Jewish law. Stendahl extends his
analysis in a separate but related essay, arguing that it is inappropriate to
think of Paul as a convert from one religion to another.4 The language of
conversion implies a defect in the religion one leaves that is remedied in
the new religion one embraces. In this interpretation, if Paul is unpertubed
by feelings of guilt, then nothing about Judaism is "broken" in Paul's eyes
and thus nothing needs to be "fixed."
It is in the writings of Augustine that Stendahl finds a parallel to Lu-
ther's projection of his spiritual struggles onto the letters of Paul. Augus-

1. D. A. Carson notes that it is better seen as "a bundie ‫ ﺀه‬interpretive approaches to

Paul, some of which are mere differences in emphasis, and others of which compete rather
antagonistically" ("Introduction," in Justification and Variegated Notnism [ed. D. A. Carson, p. T
O'Brien, and M. A. Seifrid; 2 vols.; WUNT 2/140; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001] 1:1).
2. Stendahl's essay was first published in Swedish in I960 and in English three years
later. References here are to the m ost widely available version of the essay, as it appears in Paul
among Jems and Gentiles, and Other Essays (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976) 78-96.
3. Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles, 90.
4 .‫س‬, 7-23 .
 G r a y : Perspectives on Paul the Sinner 47

tine, he muses, "may well have been one 0 ‫ ؛‬the first to express the dilemma
of the introspective conscience," but he makes no attempt to trace this
reading of Paul back to any earlier sources.^ Subsequent scholars have at-
tempted to supply the missing link. Alan F. Segal finds it within the pages
of the NT, in Acts and the Pastoral Epistles. ‫ﺀ‬By means of Luke's narrative
of the encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, accord-
ing to Segal, Paul becomes the model for Gentile converts to Christianity,
though "in ways that are foreign to his own experience." 7 Paul would never
have countenanced the characterization of his whatever it in-
volved and whenever it occurred-as a moral crisis. The Pastoral Epistles
represent a slightly later stage in a concerted effort to make Paul into a
paradigm for Gentile conversion experiences, in keeping with the emphasis
on repentance from a sinful life to be found in early Christian missionary
preaching. "Paul the sinner and emotional convert," writes Segal, "was
a more relevant portrait for a burgeoning Gentile church than Paul the
metamorphosized Pharisee."^
Pamela M. Eisenbaum concurs: "If Christian tradition were solely de-
pendent on the undisputed Pauline letters, it is difficult to imagine how the
image of Paul the convert could have been constructed in the first place."‫؟‬
She believes it is inappropriate to regard Paul as a convert but agrees that
Augustine is responsible for corrupting his thought and that this corrup-
tion has its genesis in Acts and the Pastoral Epistles. The biographical por-
trait of Paul drawn by these post-Pauline documents "came to dominate
the collective consciousness of Christianity" and provided an interpretive
framework for reading the authentic letters. ‫ص‬This framework is shared
by the New Perspective even as it goes unacknowledged. As it is by many
other NT scholars, it is simply taken for granted rather than exegetically
demonstrated.
The paucity of sources cited to buttress this position, however, is con-
spicuous. Paul's speeches in Acts (chaps. 9, 22, and 26) and the thanksgiv-
ing in 1 Tim 1:12-17 are the only texts typically cited to support it. These
passages will be examined in the following sections that consider Acts and

5. Ibid., 83. Others who have influenced ٥٢ adopted the New Perspective follow Sten-
dahl on this point; cf. E. p. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977)
436-37; Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading ٠/ Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1994) 1-4, 258-60; John G. Ga§er, Reinventing Paul (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 2000) 45-46. Stowers remarks that this A ugustinlan "Paul of traditional
theological scholarship seems to have dropped directly out of heaven" (p. 6).
6. A. F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy 0/S a u l the Pharisee (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1990), esp. pp. 18-19. Unlike m any New Perspective scholars, Segal
nonetheless finds it appropriate to see Paul as a c o n v ert-alb e it not a convert from Judaism
to a non-Jewish religion.
7. Segal, Paul the C onvert , 273.
8. Ibid., 269; cf 18-19. Segal also m entions Colossians and Ephesians in passing as serv-
ing the same function (p. 118).
9. P. M. Eisenbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood
Apostle (San Francisco: H arperOne, 2009) 42. Eisenbaum identifies herself w ith w hat she calls
the "radical new perspective on Paul" (pp. 250-51)·
10. Ibid., 39.
48 Bulletin/or Biblical Research 24.1

the Deutero-Pauline corpus wifo respect to their image ‫ ﺀه‬Paul the sinner.
While emphasis on the differences from the undisputed Pauline letters on
this score is neither unique to nor absolutely essential to the persuasive-
ness of the New Perspective, it is nevertheless integral to the portrait of the
apostle found in Augustine and Luther and criticized by the New Perspec-
tive as a distortion of the historical Paul.

The D isputed Letters and the A cts of the Apostles

Scattered throughout the undisputed letters are various references to Paul's

former life, many indicative of a robust conscience but a few others that
could be construed as a negative self-evalu ation (Pom 7:15-24; 1 Cor 15:9-
1‫ ; ه‬Gal 2:13). The N ew Perspective effectively accounts for the latter in
a variety of ways. That Acts and the disputed letters present a similarly
mixed bag usually goes unnoticed. On this score, to be sure, the New Per-
spective is hardly unique.
The eschatological concerns of 2 Thessalonians offer little opportu-
nity for the auth or-b e it Paul or someone else‫ ־‬to reflect on his past life.
When he commends them for their steadfastness in the face of persecution
(1:‫ ه‬1‫ر ه‬, one could perhaps imagine the author making reference to his
own career as a persecutor or to his desert of the same punishments he calls
down on their tormentors for his own past sins against the church, but he
does not do so. It is true that he twice holds himself up as a model to emu-
late (2:7, 9). But they are to imitate him in avoiding idleness and in volun-
tarily forgoing any "rights" they may have to accept payment for services
rendered. Paul is not presented as the ideal penitent in 2 Thessalonians.
Colossians offers little more along these lines. The audience, but not the
author, was formerly "estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds" and
"dead in trespasses" (1:21; 2:13). Paul provides a positive example through
his willingness to contend for the faith but not as an example of repen-
tance (1:22:1 ;2 5 ,29 ‫) ه‬. They "have put off the old man with his practices,"
including wrath, malice, slander, immorality, impurity, and other sins (3:7,
9). "In these you once walked," he reminds them, adding that they have
received the Lord's forgiveness (3:7, 13). Paul may be a saved sinner, but
certainly he is no more so than the Colossians themselves.
As one might expect given their other parallels, Ephesians presents
a similar picture to that of Colossians. The author has ample opportunity
to express regret for past sinfulness as he exhorts them, "Put off your old
nature which belongs to your former manner of life" (4:22). They—not
"w e"-w ere once in darkness but now walk in light (5:8; cf. 2:1). The list
of sins to avoid is a long one (5:3-18). Any regret for Paul's role in perse-
cuting the church is absent from his condemnation of bitterness, wrath,
anger, slander, and malice (4:31). To be sure, he uses first-person pronouns
in Eph 2:3-5: 'All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh,
following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children
of wrath, like everyone else." Three factors militate against hearing this as
an autobiographical cri de coeur fabricated to idealize Paul in the eyes of
 G r a y : Perspectives on Paul the Sinner 49

converts. First, the pronoun is plural ("we"), not singular ("I"). Second, in
context it is clear that the author is speaking in terms ‫ ﺀ ه‬groups; Jews and
Gentiles alike are guilty of sinning, and Jews and Gentiles will now become
part of "one new humanity in place of the two" so that Christ "might rec-
oncile both groups to God in one body" (2:15-16). Third, the addition of the
phrase "like everyone else" detracts from any impression that Paul is any
more or less worthy of emulation than other individuals. Against Richard
1. Pervo, there is little warrant for seeing the author's humble claim that he
is "the very least of all the saints" in Eph 3:8 as tantamount to a confession
that he has "a past so sinful that he could scarcely dare raise his head but for
the grace of God" unless one allows for the same possibility in 1 Cor 15:9,
where Paul is "the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle."
Even the Pastoral Epistles, when read for details contributing to a por-
trait of Paul as the ideal converted sinner, furnish very meager support.
Proponents of the N ew Perspective are by no means alone in viewing Paul
in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus as an exemplary figure.^ It is the par-
ticular nature of the Pauline exemplar that has been misunderstood in the
New Perspective. Paul embodies the traits that churches should look for in
a leader. Nowhere is it implied that a leader is more qualified to serve the
community if he has, so to speak, walked a mile in the shoes of converts,
whether Gentile or Jewish. In 2 Timothy, for instance, Paul's comport-
ment is explicitly held up as a model for Timothy to follow (3:10-12). One
searches in vain, however, for any allusion to past moral failings. Quite to
the contrary, in the opening verse the author thanks God whom he wor-
ships "with a clear conscience" (1:3). Perhaps, one could argue, Paul can
say only that he has a clear conscience in the present, that is, in the implied
setting of 2 Timothy at the end of a productive life of preaching the gospel
of Jesus Christ through good times and bad (cf. 4:7-8). But this objection
rims aground on the phrase that follows. The author says he worships God
with a clear conscience "as my ancestors did." If the author of 2 Timothy
is attempting to construct an image of the apostle as a convert who sees
his past life as a moral wreck in which, moreover, Judaism is inherently
complicit, he goes about it in a peculiar way. Paul here is presented as
faithful to his Jewish inheritance, as he is in the undisputed letters (e.g.,
Rom 9:1-5; 2 Cor 11:22), even if the true audience envisioned for 2 Timothy
consists of Gentiles.
One passage in Titus presents relevant evidence (3:3-7). Before the
appearance of the savior, according to the author, "we ourselves were
once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and plea-
sures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one

11. R. 1. Pervo, The Making of Paul: Constructions of the Apostle in Early Christianity (Mir،-
neapolis: Portress, 2010) 76.
12. E.g., M artin Dibeiius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles (trans. p. Buttoiph
and A. Yarbro; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Portress, 1072) 7-8; Benjamin Piore, The Function ٠/
Personal Example in the Socratic and Pastoral Epistles (AnBib 105; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Insti-
tute, 1986) 98-116; Pervo, The Making ofPaul, 15-16,19, 87-88.
50 Bulletinfor Biblical Research 24.1

another." God "saved us" and "poured out the spirit on us richly" so that
"we might become heirs." This appears more consistent with the portrait
o£ Paul that the New Perspective seeks to correct. Closer inspection reveals
a number of elements that undermine this ^terpretation: (1) The author
speaks in the plural ("we/' not "I"), making it unwise to take this as a
staightforwardly autobiographical comment. In the undisputed letters,
Paul sometimes uses the inclusive "we" in describing states of affairs that
may not strictly or exclusively apply to himself (e.g., Gal 4:3-6).13 Of special
note is the way Paul includes himself among those whose sins are wiped
away by the death of lesus (e.g., 1 Cor 15:3; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 1:4; 1 Thess
5:10; cf. Pom 5:8: "But God demonstrates his love for us in that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us"). (2) Much of the language in Titus
3:3-7 may not be the author's. Some scholars treat this unit as a hymn bor-
rowed by the author.14 Others hesitate to label it a hymn but nevertheless
recognize it as traditional material common in early Christian preaching.*3
(3) The description in V. 3, which some commentators omit from the pos-
sibly hymnic material comprising the passage, is likely not intended as a
detailed psycho-spiritual portrait of the pre-Christian Paul inasmuch as it
closely resembles a typical vice list. Seven vices are listed, corresponding to
the seven virtues mentioned in Titus 3:1-2 .* ‫ج‬This parallelism suggests that
the primary function of V. 3 is rhetorical rather than descriptive.
Most frequently cited by scholars positing a sharp distinction between
the disputed and the undisputed letters on this point is 1 Tim 1:12-16.17
The author gives thanks to Christ Jesus for allowing him to preach the
gospel, even though, he says, "1 formerly blasphemed and persecuted and
insulted him." He continues:
[B]ut 1 received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief,
and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love
that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full accep-
tance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And 1 am

13. A. T. Hanson, The Pastoral Epistles (NCBC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982) 190; cf.
]. D. G. Dunn, The Epistle ‫؛‬٥ the Galatians (BNTC; ?eabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993) 212-17, on
the ambiguity o£ the "١٧^" in Gai 4:3-6. W ithin the same passage it can apparently include Jews
only, Gentiles only, and all Christians.
14. Hanson Pastoral Epistles, 44; Raymond F. Collins, / and II Timothy and Titus (NTL;
Louisville: W estminster John Knox, 2002) 3 5 0 ‫ ﻫﻮ‬. NA27 prints ٧٧. 4-7 in verse form.
15. Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 147; Collins, 1 and II Timothy and Titus,
358; and 1. H. Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC; London: T. & T. Clark, 1999) 306-7, who
adds that assimilation to the first-person form at of Titus 3:4-7 m ay account for the "we" in
V. 3. William D. Mounce sees it as creedal language, noting that distinctions between hymns,
creeds, and liturgical fragm ents make very little exegetical difference (Pastoral £‫؛ ة';م‬/‫[ ةﺀ‬WBC
46; Dallas: Word, 2000] 440).
16. Norbert Brox, Die Pastoralbriefe (RNT 7; Regensburg: Pustet, 1963) 306; Ceslaus Spicq,
Saint Paul: Les Épîtres Pastorales (4th ed.; Etudes bibliques 10; Paris: Gabalda, 1969) 649; Jerome
D. Quinn, The Letter ‫؛‬٠ Titus (AB 35; New York: Doubleday, 1990) 200-201.
17. E.g., Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 28; Jürgen Roloff, Der Erste Brief an
Timotheus (EKKNT 15; Zürich: Benziger, 1988) 85-88; Segal, Paul ‫؛‬/‫ ةأ‬Convert , 18-19,118; Pran-
ces Young, The Theology 0{ the Pastoral Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)
23-24; Eisenbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian, 4243; Pervo, The Making ofPaul, 88.
 G r a y : Perspectives on Paul the dinner 51

the foremost of sinners; but I received mercy for this reason, that in
me, as the foremost, lesus Christ might display his perfect patience
for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
(v v . 13-16 RSV)

?aul undeniably serves an exemplary function in this text. The precise na-
ture of the "example" in V. 16, however, is not self-evident. Is ?aul ( ‫ر ه‬an
example o/the redeemed sinner, that is, an illustration of the way in which
divine grace works in the lives of all believers, even those who might seem
beyond all hope of saving? ‫ و آ‬Or is Paul ( ‫ر ط‬an example for would-be re-
deemed sinners to follow, that is, a model to imitate hr such a way that his
experience becomes the quasi-official standard for Christian inversion? ‫و آ‬
The emphasis is on God or Jesus in the former while it is on Paul in the
latter. A strong case can be made for either option, though it is perhaps
more difficult to envision how the Pauline example might have operated in
a concrete context. Would Paul be held up for the sake of non-Christians
contemplating conversion? Is the author of 1 Timothy deliberately trying
to create this sort of "Paul," or has that process already occurred by this
time? Is it likely that non-Christians would be reading 1 Timothy? Or, if the
aim is to inspire neophyte Christians, it is uncertain that this particular text
would present a Paul with whom a large portion of the Gentile population
would closely identify. To wit, one imagines that relatively few Gentile con-
verts would have been the sort of active persecutor of the church that the
author describes in 1 Tim 1:13. Moreover, on the hypothesis that the author
is trying to present or construct a Paul with whom Gentiles can identify, it
is surprising to see the author replicate the Jewish stereotype of Gentiles as
reprobate heathens when the very Gentiles to whom the author is trying
to appeal would be able to recognize it as an unrepresentative caricature.
Of more immediate importance for this essay is the nature of the past
life being described. Paul is "the foremost of sinners" who "blasphemed
and persecuted and insulted" Christ. He is not a generalized picture of
moral depravity. (Indeed, compared to "the lawless and disobedient" sod-
omites, fornicators, and slave traders described in 1 Tim 1:9-10, he is a veri-
table paragon of virtue!) The only behaviors mentioned are associated with
his past as a persecutor. That Paul "acted ignorantly in unbelief" reinforces

18. Luke T. Johnson, The First and Second Fetters ‫؛‬٠ Timothy (AB 35A; New ¥ork: Double-
day, 2001) 181-83; cf. Marshall, Pastoral Epistles, 4034: "W hat Paul's experience seems to ex-
emplify more than anything else is the m agnitude of Christ's patience in choosing to save one
who had opposed God so vehemently." Origen (Cels. 1.63) interprets it in the same manner.
19. Lewis R. Donelson, Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument (٢١the Pastoral Epistles (HUT 22;
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986) 100, 102: "Paul's life, including both his problems and his re-
sponses, produces paradigm s which contain the first principles of the Christian life .. . . [He] is
more than a model which ought to be imitated; his life creates the pattern of orthodoxy for all
Christians and prefigures the lives of those who follow him." This interpretation would find
later parallels in the requisite conversion stories told by 17th-century Calvinists and 20th-cen-
tury "born-again" evangelical Christians; cf. Patricia Caldwell, The Puritan Conversion Narrative:
The Beginnings of American Expression (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) 48-49;
Gordon T Smith, Beginning Well: Christian Conversion and Authentic Transformation (Downers
Grove, 1L: In^rVarsity79-106 (2001 ‫׳‬.
52 Bulletinfor Biblical Research 24.1

this reading, it makes little sense t© regard ignorance as exculpatory (l:i3:

"I received mercy") it sins such as lust or avarice or lying are in view, ig-
norance is no excuse because ev ery o n e^‫؛‬ven the Gentiles—is fully aware
ot the shafulness of behaviors ot this sort.
Only in the context ot his past as an enemy of Christ and the church
does his ignorance become relevant. On this cardinal point, there is little or
no difference from the undisputed letters, where Paul's protestations of un-
worthiness are tied directly to his role in persecuting the church (1 Cor 15:9;
Phil 3:6-8). The author's point in 1 Timothy is that he was ignorant of Jesus'
true identity as the messiah and of the role he plays in the divine plan, a
fact that was only disclosed "at the proper time" (2:6: καιροΐς Ιδίοις; cf. Gal
4:4; Titus 1:3). Here, too, the train of thought is familiar, as Paul stresses the
revelatory character of his experience of Christ that brought his days as a
persecutor to a close (1 Cor 15:8-9; Gal 1:12-16). Even though the violence
he previously displayed toward followers of Jesus is something he surely
regrets, the ignorance underlying it is understandable. His ignorance on
the crucial point of Christ's significance would thus appear to make him
no different from most of his fellow Jews (Pom 10:2-4).
For these reasons, it is puzzling to find commentators stating categori-
cally that it is "inconceivable" to hear the words of 1 Tim 1:12-16 on the
lips of the historical Paul.21 ¥es, Paul speaks of the robust conscience he
enjoyed when he opposed the church in Phil 3:5-6 and elsewhere. But
it is critical to distinguish between Paul's prior attitude or mindset and
what he sees as his prior "objective" situation when he looks back on it.
Paul no doubt had a clear conscience as a persecutor because he thought
he was doing no wrong. To the contrary, he thought he was rendering an
important service to the God of Israel by opposing those he regarded as
blasphemers. He likely experienced no more inner conflict than did the
Jewish author of the Tosefta Sanhédrin (13.4-5) or the Birkat ha-minim de-
nouncing hem fics-including, possibly, Christians 22- i n the first century.
Only in retrospect would he (or anyone, for that matter) describe himself
as having blasphemed the one he now glorifies.^ It may be impossible to
discern the details of Paul's activities and attitudes as a persecutor from

20. In Romans, Paul does not explain the cause of this failure to recognize Jesus' signifi-
cance. A similar inability is found in 2 Cor 3:14-16, w here it is attributed to the "hardening"
of their minds, a "veil [that] lies over their m inds . . . to this very day" that is only taken away
έν χριστώ.
21. E.g., Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 28; for similar assessments, see
Hanson, Pastoral Epistles, 60; L. Oberlinner, Die Pastoralbriefe (2 vols.; H erders theologischer
Kommentar zum N euen Testament 11/2; Freiburg: Herder, 1994) 1:38-42; Pervo, The Making
o /P a u l, 1 1 5 ‫ ه‬.
22. Most recently, however, see David Flusser's challenge to the consensus that the Birkat
ha-minim was directed at Christians in the first century ("4QMMT and the Benediction Against
the Minim," in Judaism of the Second Temple Period, vol. 1: Qumran and Apocalypticism [trans.
A. Yadin; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007] 70-118).
23. In the same way, Acts has Paul say that Ms harassm ent of Christians aimed at "forcing
them to by "renouncing the name of Jesus" (26:9, 11). At that time, of course, he
would not have regarded renouncing Jesus as an act of blasphemy but, rather, the only proper
 G r a y : Perspectives on Paul the Sinner 53

the references in the undisputed letters, but it is hardly difficult to imagine

that, looking back, he might deem some his earlier beliefs and attitudes as
badly misguided (namely, those pertaining to Jesus), even if he does not
see fit to dwell at length on any feelings of remorse. John M. Espy puts
it more pointedly, commenting that Stendahl "argues largely from Paul's
silence."^ At the very least, one may note that it is not self-evident where
the burden of proof lies when it comes to the condition of Paul's conscience.
Narrative traditions such as the Acts of the Apostles have perhaps
exerted the largest influence on the way in which Paul is remembered. The
account of the Christophany on the road to Damascus in Acts 9 is easily
the most famous of these traditions. It is preceded by a cameo appearance
at the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58-8:4) and followed by two retellings
of the Damascus story (22:1-21; 26:4-23). These texts depict Paul as a for-
mer persecutor of the church who becomes the most ardent advocate for
the inclusion of Gentiles. He is a reformed sinner, to be sure, but as in
the epistolary literature, his only sins in Acts are those connected to his
persecution of Christians. Expressions of guilt or remorse are nowhere to
be found, as are references to angst experienced prior to his conversion. ‫ﺀ ﺀ‬
Paul says that he was "zealous for God" as a persecutor and declares to
the Sanhédrin that "up to this day" he has lived "with a clear conscience
before God" (22:3; 23:1).
Disagreement about the historical accuracy of Acts persists. The letters
contain nothing like the detailed account of the journey to Damascus in
Acts 9. Whatever doubts may arise concerning the reliability of the nar-
rative on this score, the motif of blindness (9:8-9, 17-18; 22:11-13; 26:18)
makes explicit an element that is only implicit but nonetheless present in
the undisputed letters. Paul's letters give little indication that he came to
recognize Jesus as messiah by a slow, deliberate process of searching the
Scriptures, even if he consistently articulates his Christological convictions
from within a thoroughly biblical frame of reference. Rather, his volte-face
from persecutor of the faith to proclaimer (Gal 1:23) was in his telling
the unexpected culmination of a process in which God took the initiative.
The phenomenological dimensions of this process are naturally inacces-
sible, but Paul's own testimony suggests some sort of mystical or ecstatic
experience (e.g., 2 Cor 12:1-9; Gal 1 :1 5 - 1 6 ).Before this process unfolded.

thing for a pious ]ew to do. On the linkage of persecution w ith blasphemy, see fohnson. The
First and Second Fetters ‫؛‬٠ Timothy, 178, commenting on 2 Macc 9:28; 10:36.
24. John M. Espy, "Paul's 'Robust Conscience' Re-examfoed," NTS 31 (1985) 165.
25. The same is true in the extracanonical literature. Of the texts featuring Paul (Epistula
Apostolorum, Acts of Barnabas, Acts of Titus, Visio Pauli, the Pseudo-Clementines), only the 2nd-
century Acts ofPeter supplies data imm ediately relevant to the question at hand. Paul describes
his past life as part of a prayer offered on behalf of Christians who have gathered to bid him
farewell, saying, "Once 1 was a blasphemer, now 1 am blasphemed; once I was a persecutor,
now do 1 suffer persecution of others; once 1 was the enem y of Christ, now 1 pray that 1 may
be his friend" (Acts ofPeter 2, trans. M. R. James). The emphasis here falls on the same note as
it does in foe canonical texts.
26. Segal, Paul the Convert, 34-71.
54 Buïletinfor Biblical Research 24.1

Paul was like the vast majerity of Jews and Gentiles who failed to perceive
anything especially messianic about Jesus. Given the imperfect fit between
the form of Jesus' life and death and the various species of first-century
messianic expectation, this should come as no surprise. Once the process
was well under w a y -P a u l would likely not say "complete"-he could only
marvel at the unforeseeable transformation. For this reason, the scales fall-
ing from his eyes (Acts 9:18) represent, if nothing else, a particularly apt
symbol for the experience of the author of the undisputed letters. Once he
was blind; now he sees.

Co n c l u s io n s a n d C a v e a t s

Four provisional conclusions may be drawn from the foregoing survey.

(1) The degree to which the disputed letters and Acts differ from the un-
disputed letters on the matter of Paul's conscience has been greatly exag-
gerated. When one recognizes that his "guilt" in the disputed letters is
expressed almost entirely in terms of seeing his earlier opposition to Jesus
as misguided, then the supposed conflict between the disputed and the
undisputed letters disappears. The New Perspective also frequently over-
looks or downplays texts that indicate admissions of sinfulness by Paul
(e.g., Rom 5:8, 10; Gal 4:3). Even if one stipulates that a "guilty" Paul is
found in foe disputed letters and Acts so as to serve as a model for converts,
furthermore, it is important to note that Paul himself is not by any means
averse to setting himself up as an example for his followers.27
(2) There may be many valid reasons for questioning the authenticity of
the Pastoral Epistles and the other disputed letters, but the purported dif-
ferences in Paul's self-estimation of his former life is not one of them. Stated
differently, conceding that the differences in Paul's (sel^)characterization
in the NT have been exaggerated by scholars is not the same as calling for a
wholesale reassessment of the arguments for the pseudonymity of the dis-
puted letters, which involves many more variables than the psychological
portrait of the apostle they may project. 2 ‫ة‬Only with respect to his history
as a persecutor would the implied author cry out, "Mea maxima culpal"
Persecuting believers may qualify as a grave sin from a Christian point
of view, but it belongs in a different category from sins the confession of
which are thought to be inconsistent with the robust conscience the New
Perspective imputes to Paul.

27. E.g., 1 Cor 4:16; 11:1; Phil 3:17; 4:9; 1 Thess 1:6. See also Beverly Roberts Gaventa,
"Galatians 1 and 2: Autobiography as Paradigm," N o o T 2b (1986) 309-26, esp. pp. 319-22. From
a different perspective, Elizabeth A. Castelli focuses exclusively on the undisputed letters
and indicts Paul for his use of rhetoric "to rationalize and shore up a particular set of social
relations or power relations w ithin the early Christian movement" in a way that "reinscribes
Paul's privileged position as 'natural.'" It is not, she claims, "simply toe benign call to em ulate
a laudable ethical m odel" (Imitating Paul: A Discourse 0/ Power [Literary Currents in Biblical
Interpretation; Louisville: W estminster John Knox, 1991] 16,116-17).
28. Dibellus and Conzelmann, for example, view the Pastoral Epistles as pseudonym ous
b u t observe, "N either in the genuine Pauline epistles nor in the Pastorals is there any Interest
in a psychological process" (Pastoral Epistles, 27).
 G r a y : Perspectives on Paul the dinner 55

(3) Reluctance to acknowledge the similarities between the disputed

and undisputed letters in their chamcterization of Paul's spiritual career
frequently correlates with a resistance to the label "convert" as inappli-
cable.29 Conversion language, many scholars contend, implies a negative
evaluation of Judaism when it is applied to Paul inasmuch as it denotes
a change from one to another religion deemed superior in the eyes of the
convert. Biblical scholars are not alone in their heightened sensitivity to
negative assessments of Judaism over the last half-century or so.30 The is-
sues involved-nam ely, Paul's appraisal of his past life, the propriety of the
label "convert," and the implied status of Judaism -are closely related yet
technically separate, and it is important not to blur the distinctions. Were
they not attached to the controversial figure of Paul and his frequently
perplexing writings, for instance, one could easily imagine an observant
Jew in the Second Temple period deeply regretting past behavior without
necessariJy finding fault with the religious convictions in some measure
responsible for any pangs of guilt. Arthur Darby Nock's oft-cited défini-
tion of conversion as "a turning which implies a consciousness that a great
change is involved, that the old was wrong and the new is right" fits Paul
up to a point, though it remains a matter of considerable debate precisely
which aspects of "the old" and "the new" were right and wrong, and in
what s e n s e . 3 * It m a y be that, as Beverly Roberts Gaventa suggests, "trans-
formation" is a preferable term in that it "does not require a rejection or
negation of the past or of previously held values" but instead "involves a
new perception, a re-cognition, of the past."32 Whether this transformation
is so sweeping that it effectively amounts to a separate religion is a question
to which various participants in the debate give different answers.
(4) Neglect of the disputed letters represents a missed opportunity for
the New Perspective. Dissenters from the prevailing consensus concern-
ing their authorship would naturally argue that it necessarily distorts our
understanding of Paul if we reject this evidence out of hand. But those
who side with the critical majority on this question may also benefit from
renewed attention to these letters. Regardless of how one answers the au-
thorship question, it would facilitate a thicker, more-nuanced description
of the context out of which Augustine's reading of Paul emerges (or does
not emerge, if Augustine's reading of Paul is as original as many scholars
believe).

29. See, e.g., Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles, 7-23; j. D. G. Dunn, The Theology ٠/
Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 179; Gager, Reinventing Paul, 22-27, 53-54;
Eisenbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian, 134.
30. Stuwers, A Rereading of Romans, 23-29; Eisenbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian, 41-42.
"The central feature" ‫ ؛ه‬this traditional image of Eaul, according to Gager, "is Christian anti-
Judaism" (Reinventing Paul, 37).
31. A. D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great ‫؛‬٠
Augustine of Hippo (Oxford: Clarendon, 1933) 7. Nock here has very little to say about Paul
(cf. 190-91).
32. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, From Darkness ‫؛‬٥ Light: Aspects ofConversion in the New Tes‫؛‬،?-
ment (OBT 20; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 10-11; cf. pp. 37-40.
 ‫آلﻣﺂورلم؛‬

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