Is there any record of Saul of Tarsus outside the Bible?

Answer 1

Saul of Tarsus is never mentioned outside Acts of the Apostles. Even Paul, in his own epistles, never suggests that he was once known by another name than Paul.

The Jewish historian, Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews) talked of a riot in Jerusalem led by a 'Saulus', after the stoning of James. This parallels the story in Acts of Saul at the stoning of Stephen. Josephus says that Saulus went to see Nero in 66 CE, to inform him of the situation in Palestine, which some see a parallel to the story in Acts, where Paul was sent to Nero in 60 CE.

It appears that the Saulus mentioned by Josephus was an intermediary between the Chief Priests and the Pharisees, the Herodian king and the Romans. He slipped out of Jerusalem and led the delegation to Agrippa II that wished to invite the Romans into the city to suppress an uprising in the 60s. Thus he would have been known to the Jews of the late first century as disreputable and untrustworthy. This may have been the perception that the author of Acts of the Apostles intended for 'Saul'.