Was Paul an apostle? He called himself one, and the church accepted the claim. His apostleship rests on a vision that he alone reported, and he was neither one of the Twelve whom ʿĪsā ibn Maryam ʿalayhi al-salām, peace be upon him chose nor a disciple in his lifetime. This article follows how the claim was made.
Immediately after the event of his repentance, Saul began to claim that he had received “guidance” directly from Jesus Christ. He then sought out the disciples to declare his repentance for what he had done to them.1
The New Testament states that all the followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam at first kept away from Saul, until Barnabas came forward to believe him and give him protection. Acts records it:
26Παραγενόμενος δὲ εἰς Ἰερουσαλὴμ ἐπείραζεν κολλᾶσθαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς· καὶ πάντες ἐφοβοῦντο αὐτόν, μὴ πιστεύοντες ὅτι ἐστὶν μαθητής. 27Βαρναβᾶς δὲ ἐπιλαβόμενος αὐτὸν ἤγαγεν πρὸς τοὺς ἀποστόλους, καὶ διηγήσατο αὐτοῖς πῶς ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ εἶδεν τὸν κύριον καὶ ὅτι ἐλάλησεν αὐτῷ καὶ πῶς ἐν Δαμασκῷ ἐπαρρησιάσατο ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Ἰησοῦ.
26And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. 27But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.2
Through Barnabas, Saul was accepted by the other followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam and became known as Paul. On the strength of his repentance, Paul declared himself one of the disciples of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.
Paul’s own account of the same years does not agree with Luke’s. He tells the Galatians that after Damascus he went up to none of the apostles, went instead into Arabia and back to Damascus, and reached Jerusalem only after three years, where he stayed fifteen days with Peter and saw no other apostle except James:
17οὐδὲ ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα πρὸς τοὺς πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἀποστόλους, ἀλλὰ ἀπῆλθον εἰς Ἀραβίαν, καὶ πάλιν ὑπέστρεψα εἰς Δαμασκόν. 18Ἔπειτα μετὰ ἔτη τρία ἀνῆλθον εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα ἱστορῆσαι Κηφᾶν, καὶ ἐπέμεινα πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡμέρας δεκαπέντε· 19ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον, εἰ μὴ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου.
17Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus. 18Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. 19But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord’s brother.3
Acts has Barnabas bring him “to the apostles” as a new and doubted convert; Paul, who adds “before God, I lie not,” says he met two of them, and only after three years of preaching on his own authority. The two accounts cannot both stand.
Historians who set them side by side generally prefer Paul’s letter to Luke’s narrative, as the earlier source and the one written by Paul himself.4 Either way, the apostleship Paul claimed was established without the apostles.
The disagreement begins earlier, with where Paul was known at all. In Acts, Saul makes havoc of the church in Jerusalem, entering every house and dragging men and women to prison, before he sets out for Damascus.5 In his own letter, Paul says that when he first went up to Jerusalem, three years after his call, he was still “unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea.”6
A persecutor who had raided the houses of the Jerusalem believers could hardly have been a stranger to their faces. Dale B. Martin, setting the two accounts side by side, judged that they cannot responsibly be harmonised: if Paul is telling the truth, the account in Acts cannot be historical.7
Was Paul one of the twelve?
No. The Twelve were the men ʿĪsā ibn Maryam chose in his lifetime, and when Judas was gone Acts says the eleven filled his place before Paul appears in the story. Peter set the test: the new apostle had to be one of those who had been with them from the baptism of John to the day ʿĪsā ibn Maryam was taken up.
21δεῖ οὖν τῶν συνελθόντων ἡμῖν ἀνδρῶν ἐν παντὶ χρόνῳ ᾧ εἰσῆλθεν καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς, 22ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ τοῦ βαπτίσματος Ἰωάννου ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἧς ἀνελήμφθη ἀφʼ ἡμῶν, μάρτυρα τῆς ἀναστάσεως αὐτοῦ σὺν ἡμῖν γενέσθαι ἕνα τούτων.
21Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.8
They chose Matthias: “and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles”.9 Paul could not meet Peter’s test, and he never claimed a place among the Twelve. He keeps them apart from himself in his own list of witnesses: the risen Christ “was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve”, and “last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time”.10
Was Paul a disciple, then? Not of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam in his lifetime. When Saul first came to Jerusalem, Acts says, the disciples “were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple”.11 The title Paul used was apostle, “one sent”, and the one who sent him, on his own account, was the Christ of his vision. The title he took for his mission is examined in The apostle to the Gentiles: who gave Paul the title?.
The claim to apostleship
Paul often, and without embarrassment, claimed to belong among the apostles, as in these words:
1Παῦλος κλητὸς ἀπόστολος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ διὰ θελήματος θεοῦ καὶ Σωσθένης ὁ ἀδελφὸς
1Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,12
5λογίζομαι γὰρ μηδὲν ὑστερηκέναι τῶν ὑπερλίαν ἀποστόλων·
5For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.13
Paul’s proclamation of himself as an apostle drew no attention from the Jewish community, and the followers of the mission of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam did not believe him at all. How could they? Paul had been the chief enemy of the followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.
Not long before, he had been the one arresting, punishing and killing their brethren for their faith. The New Testament itself records that the main supporters of the mission of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam before Paul’s appearance were Barnabas and Peter.
By his own admission, Paul never studied under ʿĪsā ibn Maryam and never heard any teaching from him. Yet because he claimed to belong among the apostles, the teaching he devised was crowned “the revelation of God.”
The title was self-conferred, and the authority that rests on it is, ipso facto, self-conferred too. Paul explains it himself:
11Γνωρίζω γὰρ ὑμῖν, ἀδελφοί, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν ὑπʼ ἐμοῦ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον· 12οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐγὼ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου παρέλαβον αὐτό, οὔτε ἐδιδάχθην, ἀλλὰ διʼ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
11But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. 12For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.14
Paul admits that his gospel differed from the teaching of the other apostles, such as Peter and Barnabas. He goes on:
6Θαυμάζω ὅτι οὕτως ταχέως μετατίθεσθε ἀπὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος ὑμᾶς ἐν χάριτι Χριστοῦ εἰς ἕτερον εὐαγγέλιον, 7ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο· εἰ μή τινές εἰσιν οἱ ταράσσοντες ὑμᾶς καὶ θέλοντες μεταστρέψαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ. 8ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐὰν ἡμεῖς ἢ ἄγγελος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ εὐαγγελίζηται ὑμῖν παρʼ ὃ εὐηγγελισάμεθα ὑμῖν, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω. 9ὡς προειρήκαμεν, καὶ ἄρτι πάλιν λέγω, εἴ τις ὑμᾶς εὐαγγελίζεται παρʼ ὃ παρελάβετε, ἀνάθεμα ἔστω.
6I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: 7Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. 9As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.15
- cf. Acts, chapters 9 to 13. ↩
- Acts 9:26–27 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
- Galatians 1:17–19 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
- Galatians 1:20. On the comparison and its verdict, see Dale B. Martin, “The New Testament as History” and “Paul as Missionary,” Lectures 5 and 14, RLST 152: Introduction to New Testament History and Literature, Open Yale Courses, Yale University, Spring 2009, https://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152. ↩
- Acts 8:3; 9:1–2. ↩
- Galatians 1:22. ↩
- Dale B. Martin, “‘Luke’ versus Paul,” unpublished notes toward a book, written 18 March 2019 and revised 31 May and 5 June 2019, sent to the author in early 2023, section “The Chronology and Geography of Paul’s “Conversion” and Early Ministry,” published on this site with his permission: “Luke” versus Paul: the notes of Dale B. Martin. ↩
- Acts 1:21–22 (KJV; Greek from the SBLGNT). ↩
- Acts 1:26 (KJV). ↩
- 1 Corinthians 15:5, 8 (KJV). ↩
- Acts 9:26 (KJV). ↩
- 1 Corinthians 1:1 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
- 2 Corinthians 11:5 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
- Galatians 1:11–12 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
- Galatians 1:6–9 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
