Was Saul a Jewish priest before excepting Christianity?

Answer 1

Saul was actually a Pharisee and had studied under Gamaliel. He believed that the early Christians were blasphemous (ex. Stephen) and were preaching against God. He thought that throwing the christians in jail and having them extradited was right. His trade in terms of employment was that of a tentmaker.

Answer 2

Saul was a leader in the Jewish faith. Thinking that he was serving God by doing so, he persecuted the Christians in the early church, until the Lord Jesus Christ met him on the road to Damascus. Acts 9:1-20 tells the story of his conversion. Philippians3:4-6 tells of his previous heritage, which he put behind him.

Answer 3

Before Paul believed the Jesus Christ was the Son of God, his name was Saul which means large one. (What's cool is Paul means small one. Humbling right?) Saul persecuted Christians because he believed they were blaspheming God. He was also considered a Roman Citizen even though he was a Jew by blood.

Answer 4

Paul himself says nothing about his earlier life, and never even suggests that he was actually once called Saul. Acts of the Apostles tells us that he was called Saul until the time of his first Missionary Journey, of which Paul himself makes no mention, and that he was educated in Jerusalem by Gamaliel the Elder. Acts says that Saul, as a boy or young man stood and held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen, a submissive role that on the one hand shows him as a willing participant, but also as a cowardly bystander. Acts also says that Paul was a Roman citizen, a rare honour for a Jew.

Caution should be exercised in relying on the information in Acts of the Apostles. The epistles do not suggest that Paul had seen Jesus during the public ministry or at the crucifixion, and so implicitly cast doubt on Paul's continuous presence in Jerusalem in the years 26-30/33. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that we can never verify even the existence and martyrdom of Stephen, which seems too cleverly designed to parallel the death of Jesus, conflated with the stoning of James. Robert Eisenman (The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians) points out that Josephus (Antiquities) talked of a riot in Jerusalem, led by a 'Saulus', after the stoning of James. And there are many hints that the author of Acts was drawing a parallel between Saulus and the apostles Paul, by giving him the name 'Saul' and having him involved in similar events to Saulus.

One plausible hypothesis is that Paul was a member of the Herodian family. This would explain the claim in Acts that Paul was a Roman citizen, but in the manner of a circular argument also relies in part on this claim. At this stage, it can not be assumed that Paul was a descendant of King Herod.

Answer 5

Saul (Paul) was a Jewish Pharisee.