Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, Paul. A Critical Life.
Chapter 3: A Pharisee in Jerusalem, p. 52-70

(Detailed summary)

According to Strabo, it was customary for young men from Tarsus to leave the city to study abroad. Was this the case for Paul? It is quite possible. For the rhetorical exercises were extremely superficial and suited only those ambitious enough to carve out a place for themselves in public life. And for a Jew like Paul, opportunities were limited. The alternative was to immerse himself in the study of his own tradition. But where? Despite the prestige of Babylon and Alexandria, no city could rival Jerusalem, the cradle of Judaism. Also, since the study of rhetoric lasted no more than four years, we can imagine that Paul must have left Tarsus for Jerusalem around the age of twenty, that is, in the year 15 (Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was 21 when he went to study in Jerusalem). It has already been established that his conversion took place in the year 33, which means he would have spent 15 years in Jerusalem before becoming a Christian. This period, spanning from the age of 20 to 35, is the time in a man’s life when ambitions and personality solidify and reach maturity.

1. A Student in Jerusalem?

   We owe our knowledge of this period of Paul’s life to Luke, who writes that Paul was educated in Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 8:1; 9:1–2; 22:3). Given Luke’s theology, in which the church’s history begins in Jerusalem, it is legitimate to wonder whether he invented this detail or simply emphasized it.

   1. Paul opposed to Luke?

      Since Luke is not always reliable in the historical information he provides, and since Paul never mentions in his letters having studied in Jerusalem, some biblical scholars have questioned whether Paul could have stayed in Jerusalem to pursue his studies. Three arguments have been put forward.

      1. When Paul had to defend the orthodoxy of his Judaism, he never cited Gamaliel as his teacher. To this one might respond that Paul was aware that having an excellent academic education did not preclude one from being a traitor or a sinner; he preferred to use the argument of his zeal for the law (Phil 3:6).

      2. It has also been argued that if Paul had truly stayed in Jerusalem for his studies, he would have used the expression “return to Jerusalem” in Gal 1:18, rather than the expression “I went up to Jerusalem.” To this one might reply that Luke himself, who nevertheless made Jerusalem the site of Paul’s training, does not use the expression “return to Jerusalem” (except in Acts 22:17), but rather “go up to Jerusalem,” which is the standard expression for any stay in Jerusalem.

      3. Finally, the passage in Galatians 1:22 (“But my face was unknown to the churches of Christ in Judea”) is cited to assert that Paul’s persecutions did not take place in Judea, and therefore that Paul did not live in Jerusalem. This overlooks the fact that, on the one hand, the persecutions could have taken place in the countryside around Jerusalem, and, on the other hand, Paul himself writes that during his visit to Jerusalem after his conversion, he saw only Cephas and James, and no one else. Thus, Galatians 1:22 provides only an introduction to what the churches in Judea had heard from their converted persecutor. And knowing Paul, he did not spend much time apologizing for what he had done.

   2. A Pharisee

      In Philippians 3:5, Paul describes himself as “as for the law, a Pharisee.” So who were the Pharisees? Where could they be found?

      Let’s start with the first question. It is not easy to answer, since we have only two sources: the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who tells us he was a Pharisee, and first-century traditions that were incorporated into a rabbinic collection.

      Josephus mentions the Pharisees in three of his works: The Jewish War (published in 75–79 CE), The Antiquities of the Jews (published in 93–94 CE), and The Life of Josephus (published in 95 CE). It is sometimes difficult to reconcile elements that appear contradictory. However, a careful analysis reveals that the Pharisees constituted a political interest group deeply involved in the conflicts of the Hasmonean period, and whose participation in public life continued into the first century CE, though to a lesser extent.

      If we refer to rabbinic traditions, it is difficult to extract information dating back to before the destruction of the Temple in the year 70. The Pharisees constituted, above all, a society in which sharing a meal was the pinnacle of their communal life. This conclusion stems from the fact that approximately 67% of the legal passages deal with dietary laws: the ritual purity of meals and the agricultural rules governing the suitability of food for Pharisaic consumption. Observance of the Sabbath and festivals comes far behind. It would appear that Hillel the Elder played a major role around 37–34 BCE in steering this group away from political action. An important figure in the group was Gamaliel I, Hillel’s successor, whose activity spanned the years 20–50 CE. Gamaliel’s focus was on the temple: he was a teacher who played a major role in deliberations concerning the administration of the temple. This is also the portrait Luke paints of him in Acts 5:34: “There was a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law, held in high esteem by all the people.” His reputation was very high, as he appears in a 3rd-century list of great rabbis.

      One point from Gamaliel’s teaching is worth noting. One day, he was asked, “How many Torahs were given to Israel?” Gamaliel replied, “Two: one written and the other transmitted orally.” Thus, not only was the written Law binding upon the Pharisees, but so were its traditional interpretation and its expansion. This is the only point on which rabbinic traditions and Flavius Josephus agree. The latter states: “The Pharisees imposed upon the people many laws derived from the tradition of the fathers, not written in the Law of Moses.” Here we find confirmation of Paul’s claim that he was a Pharisee. “I was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers” (Gal 1:14): this is precisely the kind of language a Pharisee would have used.

   3. Where could Pharisee be found?

      If our only sources were Flavius Josephus and the Gospel of John, the answer would be simple: both place the Pharisees exclusively in Jerusalem. But the Gospel of Mark has complicated matters by presenting accounts in which the Pharisees are in Galilee. However, upon closer examination, we see that with the exception of Mark 12:13 and 10:2, not a single account in Mark featuring the Pharisees contains any element that would allow us to identify the location. The evangelist’s compositional method, which groups the stories based on criteria other than their location, does not imply a transposition of the original context (most likely Jerusalem), and it is highly unlikely that the Gospel’s intended audience understood it that way. For readers in the Diaspora, this would have been irrelevant, and educated Palestinians would have unconsciously made the necessary corrections. In their parallels with the examples mentioned, neither Matthew nor Luke can be considered to have had access to independent historical information. Furthermore, both exhibit a tendency to multiply references to the Pharisees, presented as stereotypical adversaries of Jesus.

      Luke 13:31 is an exception to the rule: “At that moment some Pharisees came up to him and said, ‘Get away from here, leave this place, for Herod wants to kill you.’” The reference is clearly to Herod Antipas, king of Galilee, who had authority over Jesus. This single instance, however, does not demonstrate a permanent Pharisaic presence in Galilee. On the contrary, the Pharisees’ knowledge of the king’s intentions would rather suggest that they were on a mission to the court from Jerusalem.

      In short, it is possible that some Pharisees traveled sporadically to Galilee to inspect the crops they intended to purchase, but there is no evidence of a Pharisaic movement, even a remote one, in Galilee. This makes a permanent and significant Pharisaic presence in the Diaspora all the more unlikely. Their ambition to live the Law as perfectly as possible would have been thwarted by a non-Jewish environment. Thus, there is no reliable evidence of the presence of Pharisees permanently settled outside Jerusalem. Luke’s statement that Paul was “a son of Pharisees” (Acts 23:6) must be dismissed as a figure of speech with no historical value. If Paul joined a Pharisaic group—and there is no reason to doubt his word (Phil 3:5)—it was necessarily a personal decision made after his arrival in Jerusalem. Furthermore, if Paul arrived in Jerusalem around the year 15, his stay in the city would have coincided with that of Gamaliel I, and it is extremely unlikely that Paul or any other Pharisee would have escaped his influence.

2. Pharisaic Studies

   The rabbinic tradition of devoting oneself to study appears to be one of the fundamental characteristics of the Pharisees. Hillel, though of a moderate bent, is said to have remarked, “Whoever does not study [the Law] deserves death,” while Shammai, of a stricter bent, simply advised: “Make [the study of] the Law a constant habit,” and Gamaliel I offered the practical advice: “Find yourself a teacher and stay away from doubt” (see Mishnah, Aboth, 1:13–16). Since the Pharisees prided themselves on their meticulous observance of the Law, a detailed knowledge of the commandments as formulated in the written and oral Torah was indispensable.

   This study took place in groups. For those concerned with the ritual purity of food, it was simpler for people sharing the same beliefs to eat together; as they trusted that each respected the other’s standards. The consensus on interpretation regarding the requirements this entailed required joint study and discussion. One can imagine the heated atmosphere in this environment of young men poring over the texts, which led to this warning from Hillel:

   Do not isolate yourself from the community. Do not trust yourself until the day you die. Do not judge your neighbor until you have been in his place. Do not say of something incomprehensible that it will be understood in the end. And do not say, “When I have free time, I will study!” Perhaps you will never have any (Mishnah, Aboth 2:5)

   All of this helps us imagine the context in which Paul pursued his studies in Jerusalem. In Galatians 1:14 he writes: “I was making progress in Judaism, surpassing most of my contemporaries and my own people in my overflowing zeal for the traditions of my fathers.” His desire to surpass his peers can likely be explained by the fact that he began his studies of Jewish traditions late: he came from the Diaspora, lagging behind his peers in Jerusalem who had been fortunate enough to have teachers from an early age. What did Paul retain from this period in Jerusalem? It would seem that certain details in his letters reflect the training he received under Gamaliel.

   Let us conclude with the question: if Paul received training in Jerusalem during the period from AD 15 to 33, how can we explain that he never mentions having met Jesus, who must have made pilgrimages to Jerusalem and was crucified there in AD 30? First, there is a tendency to overestimate Jesus’ reputation, as the Gospels suggest that Jesus enjoyed widespread support among the people, at least in Galilee. But even in Galilee, someone like Herod, who seems uninterested in the figure (Luke 23:8–12), regarded him as harmless and sent him to Pilate—an attitude very different from the one he reserved for John the Baptist, whom he had imprisoned and killed. If Jesus’ impact in Galilee was minimal, it was even less so in Jerusalem. His execution likely took place without fanfare, amid the indifference of a city preoccupied with Passover preparations. Second, even if the crucifixion has been the great event of the spring of the year 30—which is doubtful—there is no guarantee that it would have captured the attention of a Paul passionately devoted to the study of the Law. Despite the ubiquity of radio, television, and rumors, Hasidic students in Jerusalem today manage to uphold their principle of remaining ignorant of secular events.

3. A Married Man

   When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, he was unmarried. But the wording regarding his unmarried status is ambiguous: “I say, then, to the unmarried and to the widows that it is good for them to remain as I am” (1 Cor 7:8). Does this sentence mean that Paul never married or that he was a widower? Older biblical scholars believe it refers to the latter, while younger scholars opt for the former.

   Of course, we cannot rule out a priori that Paul never married. The prophet Jeremiah refused to marry as a symbolic gesture (Jer 16:1). Simeon ben Azzai (c. 110 CE) justified his celibacy with these words: “My soul is in love with the Torah. Others may follow the ways of humanity.”

   Jews placed great value on marriage, to the point of instituting the law of levirate marriage, which required that men from the family of a husband who died childless marry the woman to provide her with an heir (Deut 25:5–10). It was therefore expected that a man would marry between the ages of 18 and 20. There were, of course, exceptions. Josephus married at the age of 30, Levi at 28, and Issa at 30 or 35 according to The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and Philo of Alexandria recommended marrying at 40.

   When Paul experienced his conversion, he was about 40 years old. Even if it is possible that he delayed his marriage or gave it up entirely, we cannot assume that this is the meaning of 1 Cor 7:8. Only a minority did so, and they were considered abnormal by their contemporaries. Such a decision required a high degree of self-confidence based on past achievements and the understanding of sympathetic friends. We cannot assume this situation for a Diaspora immigrant like Paul. The proudly competitive tone of Galatians 1:14 (“surpassing most of my contemporaries and my own people in my overflowing zeal…”), on the contrary, betrays the foreigner who ardently sought to integrate into Jewish Jerusalem by blindly conforming to the norm. It is therefore far more likely that Paul joyfully submitted to the expectation that young men would marry in their early twenties.

   If Paul was married, why is his wife never mentioned? It is possible that he divorced and subsequently remained single, but it is more likely that he was a widower, and a widowhood that may have occurred under dramatic circumstances. To understand this, we must first consider Paul the persecutor of Christians. We too often take this phase of Paul’s life for granted without asking the question: why? We often attribute this aggressiveness to his Pharisaic side. But one would search in vain for evidence showing the Pharisees in open conflict with other groups. In the New Testament, the attack against the early Christians is the work of the Sadducees; they executed James (Acts 12:2).

   Such a direct attack on the Christians would therefore not have been an initiative of the Pharisees, but a personal one. Why? The following hypothesis is possible. Let us recall that Jerusalem is located in an earthquake zone. It is not impossible that his wife and children perished in such a disaster or during a plague epidemic. As a Pharisee, Paul believed in Providence and in God’s hand in the events of life. Consequently, we can imagine a man torn: one part of his theology would logically have led him to blame God, but another part of his religious perspective, which prescribed total submission to the divine will, forbade him from doing so. If his pain and anger could not be directed against God, they had to find another target. He had to rationalize an outlet for his repressed desire for vengeance. The rise of the Christian sect may have been the perfect scapegoat, as it threatened Jewish unity while Rome could intervene at any moment. It would therefore be a painful past that lies at the root of Paul’s silence regarding his wife.

4. Persecutor of the Church

   Luke provides us with several details about Paul’s persecution of Christians.

   Then they dragged Stephen out of the city and began to stone him, and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul (Acts 7:58)

   And Saul approved of their killing him (Acts 8:1)

   But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison (Acts 8:3)

   Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem (Acts 9:1-2)

   And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority received from the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death. By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme, and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities (Acts 26:10-11)

   Luke’s account raises a number of issues. First, neither the high priest nor the Sanhedrin had judicial authority outside the eleven districts of Judea proper. Their moral authority might have been binding, but they could not authorize Paul to make arrests, particularly within the territory of a Roman province. Second, Luke’s mention that Paul cast his vote to put Christians to death presupposes that Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin. Even while acknowledging that Pharisees were certainly members of the Sanhedrin in the first century, and admitting that Paul may have been a member, it is surprising that Paul never mentioned this in his letters, particularly in Phil 3:5 and 2 Cor 11:22, where Paul boasts of being a true Jew and defends his attachment to his roots.

   Since the most striking passages concerning Paul’s pre-Christian activities always appear as an introduction to the accounts of his conversion, it becomes evident that Luke, for artistic effect, sought to exaggerate certain negative traits of Paul the persecutor in order to further highlight the miracle of his conversion and the success of his apostolate. The transformation of the quintessential persecutor into the ideal apostle reinforced the dramatic impact of his book.

   Where Luke and Paul are in perfect agreement is regarding Paul’s role as a persecutor: “in terms of zeal, a persecutor of the Church” (Phil 3:6); “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor 15:9); “For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism: with excess (kath’ hyperbolēn) I persecuted the church of God and sought to destroy it” (Gal 1:13); “simply, they had heard it said: ‘The one who formerly persecuted us is now proclaiming the faith he once destroyed’ ” (Gal 1:23). The expression “with great zeal” (Gal 1:13) conveys the intensity of Paul’s commitment, and his reference to the faith he was destroying (Gal 1:23) confirms his awareness of having caused real harm. But in all this, nothing presents him as acting as an official representative of judicial authority. Rather, he seems to have acted on his own initiative.

   When Paul admits that he persecuted the Church, what does he mean to express concretely? In a number of passages, he alludes to the fact that he himself was persecuted: “When we are reviled, we bless; we are persecuted, we endure” (1 Cor 4:12); “hunted, but not caught; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:9); “Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and distresses for Christ!” (2 Cor 12:10); “As for me, brothers, if I still preach circumcision, why am I then persecuted?” (Gal 5:11). Thus, Paul mentions having been reviled, slandered, and insulted, in addition to unspecified trials and calamities. But his action against the Christians could not have consisted of acts such as flogging, which only the competent authorities could administer and which did not fall within the scope of an individual’s initiative. One imagines rather an action such as denunciation. There were in Jerusalem a number of different synagogues where Jews gathered, particularly to study the Law. He would therefore have entered these synagogues, and to use Luke’s words in Acts 26:11, he intensified his persecution of Jewish Christians to force them to blaspheme—that is, to swear an oath to a formula denying Jesus’ faithfulness to God and declaring that the Messiah had not yet come. It is possible that excommunication from the synagogue followed, with all its social consequences.

   From this perspective, in which Paul appears as a zealot taking personal initiative. Thus, the idea that he might have been commissioned to go to Damascus, as Luke asserts, seems unlikely. Unless we admit that we do not know why Paul went to Damascus, we must assume a private journey with an unknown purpose.