The parting with Barnabas, and open conflict with Peter

Acts relates that Barnabas wanted to bring John, called Mark, with them. Paul disagreed, because Mark had left them in Pamphylia.¹

The quarrel drove them to part and go their separate ways.² Acts records:

39ἐγένετο δὲ παροξυσμὸς ὥστε ἀποχωρισθῆναι αὐτοὺς ἀπʼ ἀλλήλων, τόν τε Βαρναβᾶν παραλαβόντα τὸν Μᾶρκον ἐκπλεῦσαι εἰς Κύπρον, 40Παῦλος δὲ ἐπιλεξάμενος Σιλᾶν ἐξῆλθεν παραδοθεὶς τῇ χάριτι τοῦ κυρίου ὑπὸ τῶν ἀδελφῶν,

39And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus; 40And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God.³

The quarrel between Barnabas and Paul reflects a basic difference in their approach to the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam. Barnabas held to the original message of tawḥīd and the law, as preserved by the Urgemeinde, the original community of the followers of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam in Islamicjerusalem, led by James and supported by Peter.

Paul leaned ever further toward adapting the teaching to pagan culture to attract Gentile followers. That change was a theological deviation, and it ended in a great split in the body of the early church.

Peter, regarded as the chief leader of the disciples, stressed obedience to the Jewish law. Acts records his preaching:

40ἑτέροις τε λόγοις πλείοσιν διεμαρτύρατο, καὶ παρεκάλει αὐτοὺς λέγων· Σώθητε ἀπὸ τῆς γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς ταύτης.

40And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.⁴

That approach differs from Paul’s looser attitude to the obligations of Jewish law.⁵

Open conflict with Peter

At the same time Paul was in open dispute with Cephas (Peter), as his letter to the Galatians records:

11Ὅτε δὲ ἦλθεν Κηφᾶς εἰς Ἀντιόχειαν, κατὰ πρόσωπον αὐτῷ ἀντέστην, ὅτι κατεγνωσμένος ἦν· 12πρὸ τοῦ γὰρ ἐλθεῖν τινας ἀπὸ Ἰακώβου μετὰ τῶν ἐθνῶν συνήσθιεν· ὅτε δὲ ἦλθον, ὑπέστελλεν καὶ ἀφώριζεν ἑαυτόν, φοβούμενος τοὺς ἐκ περιτομῆς. 13καὶ συνυπεκρίθησαν αὐτῷ καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ Ἰουδαῖοι, ὥστε καὶ Βαρναβᾶς συναπήχθη αὐτῶν τῇ ὑποκρίσει. 14ἀλλʼ ὅτε εἶδον ὅτι οὐκ ὀρθοποδοῦσιν πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, εἶπον τῷ Κηφᾷ ἔμπροσθεν πάντων· Εἰ σὺ Ἰουδαῖος ὑπάρχων ἐθνικῶς καὶ οὐκ Ἰουδαϊκῶς ζῇς, πῶς τὰ ἔθνη ἀναγκάζεις Ἰουδαΐζειν;

11But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. 12For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. 13And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. 14But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?⁶

The passage reflects the basic tension between Paul’s teaching, which leaned toward the Gentiles, and the teaching of the disciples, who held to the law of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, including obedience to the Torah. The disciples rejected Paul’s theological adaptation because it undermined the foundation of tawḥīd and the authenticity of the message of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.

Paul tells the scene as a rebuke he delivered, and he leaves unsaid who carried the day. By his own account the other Jewish believers followed Peter, and even Barnabas “was carried away with their dissimulation.”⁷

Michael Goulder draws the plain conclusion: the church at Antioch sided with Peter against Paul, and “the Peter party, the Petrines, had won the round.”⁸ The first recorded dispute between Paul and the disciples, reported by Paul himself, ended in his defeat.

The letters and Acts also disagree on where Paul carried his message. Paul calls himself the apostle to the Gentiles and records a division of labour agreed with the pillars in Jerusalem: he and Barnabas to the Gentiles, they to the circumcised.⁹ E. P. Sanders judges it plainly: Paul and the Jerusalem apostles “made a political bargain not to interfere in each other’s spheres”.¹⁰

Acts sends him to the synagogue first in city after city, and turns him to the Gentiles only when the Jews refuse him.¹¹ The church at Thessalonica shows which account is history. Paul’s letter to it addresses converts who “turned to God from idols,” a congregation of former pagans in which no Jewish believer appears; Acts gives the same church Jewish converts, won in three sabbaths of argument in the synagogue.¹²

Martin’s verdict on the account in Acts was blunt: “It is fiction.”¹³

At first Paul’s call found no welcome among Gentiles, because of their hatred of the Jews. For that reason Paul began to distance himself from Barnabas and set his mind on spreading the teaching of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam to the Gentiles on his own terms.

1. Acts 15:37–39. ↩
2. Acts 15:35–41. ↩
3. Acts 15:39–40 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
4. Acts 2:40 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
5. Galatians 2:16. ↩
6. Galatians 2:11–14 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
7. Galatians 2:13. ↩
8. Michael Goulder, St. Paul versus St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 3. Goulder presents the Two Missions thesis as his own reading, “not an amalgam of standard opinions,” and as a revival of the proposal Ferdinand Baur made in 1831 (p. 194). ↩
9. Galatians 1:16; 2:7–9. ↩
10. E. P. Sanders, “St. Paul the Apostle,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Paul-the-Apostle (accessed 2 October 2026). ↩
11. Acts 13:5, 14, 46; 14:1; 17:1–4, 10, 17; 18:4–6; 19:8–9. ↩
12. 1 Thessalonians 1:9; Acts 17:1–4. ↩
13. 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 “Paul’s Missionary Practices,” published on this site with his permission: “Luke” versus Paul: the notes of Dale B. Martin. ↩