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  • From: "Stevan Davies" <miser17 AT epix.net>
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: RE: Paul the Persecutor
  • Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 21:04:09 -0500



> I would like to know what activities were included in this term. What did
> Paul *do* exactly when he "persecuted" Christians???
> Liz

As always our knowledge depends on the trust we have in our
sources. If we trust Acts 22:4-5 then Paul persecuted to the death
(which probably speaks of capital punishment, less likely, of Paul's
level of intensity) and arrested both men and women and threw them
into prison. Also went to Damascus to deport prisoners to Jerusalem
for punishment (26:11). Word in Acts 22:4 and 26:11 is the same as Paul
uses of his own activities in Gal 1:13 and 1 Cor 15:9 and so Acts
tells us more than just what Luke thought Paul did, it also tells us
what Luke thought that word means. When Paul says he tried to destroy
the church of god through persecution, we can reasonably think he was
at the minimum doing more than fussing about it and arguing publicly
against various of its tenets. His appeal to his zealousness for the
traditions of Judaism indicates that his persecution was not some
idiosyncratic whim of his own, but an activity in accord with
Judaism as he then understood it. So, all in all, it seems Paul acted
as an agent of Jewish legal authority to arrest and imprison
Christians.

Steve Davies
College Misericordia




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