Was Paul the most prominent apostle in Acts of the Apostles?

Answer 1

A:No, according to Acts of the Apostles, Peter was. Acts 5:15 even says people brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.

In fact, an important, well disguised theme of Acts is the primacy of St Peter over St Paul, drawing them together in a number of subtle comparisons, even when those comparisons are in widely separated chapters. If a previously unknown miracle was attributed to Paul, then quite comparable miracles were also associated with Peter, and the miracles associated with Paul were always less impressive those associated with Peter.

• According to Acts, Paul's first miraculous cure was improbably similar to Peter's first cure. In both cases, a man who had been lame since birth was immediately cured by being commanded to stand and walk. Peter's first miracle cure was performed in the name of Jesus, at the Temple, where the faithful saw the healed beggar praising God, and was the opportunity for some outstanding proselytising. Paul's first cure was clumsy and without apparent purpose, given that Paul did not tell the man about Jesus and he was even mistaken for a pagan god.
• In an even more difficult challenge, Peter resurrected Tabitha, a good woman and a disciple, who was certainly dead and her body had already been washed. This miracle became known throughout Joppa and, as a result, many were converted. Paul also resuscitated a young man who foolishly fell asleep in an upper storey window and fell to the ground. There is some uncertainty as to whether the young man was really dead when Paul intervened to revive him, and the miracle did not present an opportunity to convert unbelievers.
• Peter and Paul were also capable of malevolent miracles. In an apparent miracle, Paul blinded Elymas (Bar-jesus) the sorcerer, for trying to frustrate his attempts to convert Sergius Paulus. But Peter was to be feared more than Paul. A certain man named Ananias sold a possession and gave only some of the proceeds to Peter, who believed that the church was entitled to all the money. Peter realised the deceit immediately and Ananias fell dead. Later, Peter told Ananias' wife she would also die, because she repeated the deceit. The two slayings were carried out with almost no effort on Peter's part, whereas Paul could only blind Elymas for a season, and to do this had to wave his hand across his victim's face.
• According to Acts, Peter was released from prison twice by angels, who in one case accompanied Peter from the prison. There was no doubt about the extent of divine assistance Peter received in his escapes. Paul was released from prison by a timely earthquake that arguably need not have been of divine origin, and furthermore he did not make good his escape.

It may be that by the time Acts was written, Paul was venerated above all other apostles, but the author of Acts seems to have sought to reduce his prominence in the Church by elevating Peter over him.

Answer 2

A:

Paul as portrayed in the Acts of the Apostles is certainly supposed to be the historical Paul who helped spread Christianity through Asia Minor and Greece, and who wrote a number of epistles that now form part of the New Testament. The portrayal of Paul may be very much at odds with the Paul of the epistles, but there is no doubt the Paul portrayed here is intended to be the same person.

The Book of Acts says that Paul's birth name was Saul, a fact of which Paul himself, in his epistles, seems to have been unaware. It has been pointed out that the author of Acts likes to attribute Aramaic names to Christians with Greek names.