Was Paul ‘converted’?
A few days ago, a friend linked me to an interview with a US pastor about Revelation and the finish times. I spend a few minutes browsing some of this person'southward other preaching, and in one give-and-take he asserted very definitely: 'That'due south why Paul converted from Judaism to Christianity'.
It is not an uncommon supposition, and the language of Paul's 'conversion' is embedded in next week'south Banquet day (25th January) which is identified in the lectionary as 'The Conversion of St Paul'. But the idea that Paul 'converted from Judaism to Christianity' has 2 major problems with it. The get-go is that information technology is historically anachronous; there was no such thing equally 'Christianity' for Paul to convert to, and even now I take some reservations most where there really is a thing called 'Christianity'. More seriously, this linguistic communication sounds strongly supersessionist, suggesting that Paul ceased to be a Jew, and that 'Christianity' is a separate religion that demands Jews terminate to exist Jews to bring together. Apart from being a bizarre reading of the New Attestation, this is inherently anti-Jewish.
Concerns with this language led the tardily New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado to question the language of 'conversion' in an short article published this time last year.
In the ecclesiastical agenda, 25 January (this Friday) marks the "Conversion of St. Paul." Over the last several decades, even so, scholars have differed over whether "conversion" is the right term to depict Paul's change from fierce opponent of the young Jesus-motility to one of the most well-known advocates.
In general usage, a "conversion" marks a change from one faith to another, or a shift from an irreligious to religious profession/stance. At the fourth dimension of Paul's experience (a scant couple of years after Jesus' crucifixion), the Jesus-movement wasn't what nosotros know and think of as a self-continuing "organized religion." Information technology was more a rather sectional new sect or move within the larger Jewish tradition. (And it must be emphasized that Paul'south "persecution" of Jesus-followers was not directed at "Christians" only solely at young man Jews whom he must have regarded as having seriously problematic in their beliefs and practices.)
More significantly, Paul refers to that experience that prompted his shift in direction as a "revelation" (apokalypsis) and a "calling" (kaleo) as in Galatians 1:xi-17. On the other paw, Paul can refer to those Gentiles who accepted his gospel message equally having "converted" or "turned" (epistrepho) to God and having turned away from their bequeathed gods ("idols"), every bit in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10. So, in Paul'south thinking Gentiles/pagans "convert" from their polytheistic exercise to worship and serve "a true and living God." But Jews such as he instead come to correct understanding of what their ancestral deity requires of them.
Paul's references to his own experience seem to marshal it more with that of the classical prophets, who received revelations and divine callings. And then, many scholars would insist that we should refer to Paul'south "calling," non his "conversion." To be certain, the reorientation must have been unsettling; hence his reference in the Galatians passage to going off to Arabia for some fourth dimension, probably to sort through the pregnant of what had happened!
The late Alan Segal, recognizing the problem, nevertheless argued that nosotros could refer to Paul as converted, in the sociological sense of shifting from a staunch stance confronting the Jesus-motility to embracing it. It wasn't a shift from one organized religion to some other really, simply Segal proposed, a bit more like moving from one Christian denomination to another, as when a Catholic person becomes a Baptist.
In her contempo book on Paul, however, (Paul: The Pagans' Campaigner) Paula Fredriksen insists that "conversion" isn't appropriate. Her accent is that Paul didn't change deities, and also connected to encounter himself and role as a Jew. His willingness to undergo several synagogue floggings attests this, for the penalization was given only to Jews, and only if they submitted to it. Paul came speedily to run across that his previous attitude toward Jesus and the Jesus-movement was wrong, and that the God of his ancestors in fact affirmed both.
Hurtado's article makes the of import points about continuity in belief for Paul, and addresses the question of anachronism. I call back I would as well immediately add an important qualifier: in turning from paganism to exist followers of Jesus, Gentiles didn't go from beingness 'irreligious' to 'religious', simply rather the contrary, at least by the standards of their day; it is hundred-to-one that faith in Jesus even counted as a religio. But at that place still remains the question of whether we should use the linguistic communication of 'conversion' for Paul'south Damascus Road experience (which, after all, has itself passed into the English language to denote some kind of 'conversion').
Commencement, we need to ask where the language of 'conversion' comes from in the first identify. Pause for a moment: can you think of a biblical text which uses this language? You won't be able to unless you are very familiar with the Authorised Version. I discovered it when listening to LPs of Billy Graham sermons with an elderly parishioner many years ago. 'Except ye be converted' bellowed Graham, 'ye shall not enter the kingdom of sky'. He was quoting from Matt 18.3, which in mod translations is rendered: 'Unless yous alter and become like little children, y'all will never enter the kingdom of sky' (TNIV). It is the only identify where the AV uses this language of 'converted' in connection with inbound the kingdom.
The Greek give-and-take translated 'converted' or 'modify' isstrepho, closely related to the give-and-takeepistrepho that Hurtado notes Paul uses for the 'conversion' of pagans to faith in the living God. In fact,strepho and its compounds occur 124 times in the New Testament, and information technology is well-nigh always used in the literal sense of someone turning or turning around. And so nosotros are to 'turn' the other cheek (Matt five.39) and not 'plough' away from one in demand (Matt 5.42); Jesus 'turns' to the woman with an event of blood (Matt 9.22) to pronounce her healing; a demon might 'return' to the firm it has left (Matt 12.44); and Jesus 'turns' to Peter to rebuke him (Matt sixteen.23); and and so on. 1 Thess one.9 is almost the merely identify where the term is used metaphorically, signifying repentance, religion and conversion to being believers in and followers of Jesus.
Almost—but not quite the but place. Another, most interestingly, comes in the citation in Matt 13.15, Marking 4.12, John 12.40 and Acts 28.27 of Isaiah half dozen.9–ten:
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and plow, and I would heal them. (Matt thirteen.15)
Here, [epi]strephotranslates the Hebrew termshuv, which has both a literal and a metaphorical sense of 'turn', and is more normally translated by the Greek verbmetanoeo, which is ordinarily translated 'repent'. And, of course, this phone call to repentance is attested by the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) every bit being at the eye of Jesus' preaching.
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1.fourteen–15)
We might then say that 'conversion' in some sense is at the heart of Jesus ministry. In his preaching and his ministry building, he calls his young man Jews to 'repent', to turn, to exist converted, but non from Judaism to something else. And he uses the term translated 'converted' quite clearly to his disciples. The bulletin of the kingdom calls for a radical modify and re-orientation, even though that is for Jews who will remain Jews afterwards their conversion. Peter continues this tradition of preaching at Pentecost and across; in speaking to the Jews in Jerusalem most his healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate, he uses bothmetanoeo andepistrepho to signal the response that the news about Jesus calls for:
Now, brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. Merely this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer.Apologize [metanoeo], then, and turn [epistrepho] to God, then that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord (Acts three.17–19).
And then, for both Jesus and Peter, repentance and 'conversion' are appropriate responses to the news of the coming of the promised kingdom in the life, expiry and resurrection of Jesus.
Hurtado is right to note the difference in language that Paul uses for Jews like himself who come to recognise the claims of Jesus and the kingdom, compared with the language he uses of pagans who come to worship the God of Israel through Jesus. Just aslope that, we demand to also note thesimilarityof language which reflects Paul's continuity with Jesus and Peter. When Paul is preaching at the Areopagus in Athens, he talks well-nigh God's patience with past ignorance in dissimilarity to the nowadays call to apologize:
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to apologize (Acts 17.30)
This is almost identical to Peter'south summary in Acts 3 (noting past ignorance, present knowledge, and the call to answer) and Paul is clear that the God calls 'all people everywhere' to repent, Jew and Gentile alike, with the advent of the kingdom in Jesus. His argument in Romans 1–three follows the aforementioned kind of lines; first, he uses Jewish arguments again infidel idolatry, demonstrated in the rejection of God'southward creation including the rejection of homo sexed bodily forms, to show their need of repentance; so he uses the Jewish scriptures to highlight the problem of Jewish sin; and then that he can conclude that 'all accept sinned' in Rom 3.23, meaning 'both Jew and Gentile', so that all, both Jew and Gentile, need to apologize and receive forgiveness through the grace of God offered in Jesus.
Possibly about striking is the style that Paul uses the instance of his own experience, in 1 Timothy, as a template demonstrating the nature of God's grace and the required response to it.
Hither is a trustworthy proverb that deserves total acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the globe to salvage sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. (ane Tim ane.15–16)
There are three interesting things to note in Paul's exposition of grace hither. The first is that the 'trustworthy saying' about Jesus saving sinners is very close to summaries in the gospels and on the lips of Jesus. We just heard in the nascency stories that Jesus would be given this name 'because he will relieve his people from their sins' (Matt 1.21), and after meeting Zacchaeus, Jesus says that 'the Son of Human being came to seek and to salvage what was lost' (Luke xix.10). Secondly, Paul here makes no distinction between Jewish sinners and Gentiles sinners, post-obit his summary in Rom three.23. Thirdly, Paul the sinful Jew in need of God'south grace actually becomes a model forboth Jewand Gentile in repenting, believing and 'being converted'.
What, then, is Paul beingness converted from and to? He expresses rather eloquently in Ephesians 2 that the coming of Jesus has really inverse the earth. We once lived in an era where in that location were Jews (who were shut to God, with the souvenir of the law, the covenants and the prophets) and Gentiles (who were far from God and had none of these blessings). Merely with the coming of Jesus all that has changed:
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far abroad have been brought near by the blood of Christ…He came and preached peace to you who were far abroad and peace to those who were about. For through him we both have access to the Begetter by 1 Spirit. (Eph ii.xiii, 17–18).
Paul has been 'converted' from failing to see God at work in Jesus, to now understanding what he has done and what information technology means. But in doing so he has not ceased to be a Jew, merely every bit I, in my plow, have non ceased to exist a Gentile.
And then perhaps we tin can continue to utilize the language of 'the conversion of St Paul'—just equally long every bit we are articulate what he was converted from and to, and not misusing that language.
(This featured image at the top of the article is a close-up of Caravaggio's 'Conversion on the Way to Damascus', ane of two paintings Caravaggio completed of St Paul'south experience on the Damascus Road. In this one, the focus is only on Paul, who appears to be in a land of ecstasy as he reaches upwards to encompass the vision of Jesus, whilst the equus caballus looks around in puzzlement.)
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